XTRO (1983)

OVERLOOKED HORROR FILMS PART 1

This is going to be the first in a series of short reviews of horror films which I think have been overlooked for the most part, either by critics or the general public. The first entry in this series is XTRO.

Directed by Harry Bromley Davenport in 1983, this is a pretty bizarre film but great fun indeed. One of those movies which people immediately write off, yet the images and atmosphere seem to stick with you for years. I remember the first time I watched it when I was about 13 or 14. I saw the cover at our local video store and knew it was something I just had to check out. Back then, the local rental shop was just a convenience store up the street with a selection of maybe 300 titles. How XTRO ever made it into that tiny little bumfuck convenience store in Bath NB, I'll never know. My guess is that the distributing company probably couldn't sell it so they gave it to as many stores as they could just to get rid of it's foul stench.

Anyway, here's the fuckin plot all laid out, which isn't much. Tony's father Sam, was abducted by aliens three years earlier, returns to earth (through a pretty disgusting re-birth scene) and seeks out his wife and son, but Rachel has since been slappin bellies with another guy so the reunion is not the best timing and the feeling when he comes back is obviously pretty tense and uncomfortable. Joe doesn't like or trust Sam, and Rachel's feelings for her two men are pretty confused. Sam is not the same as when he left, and he begins "affecting" Tony in frightening ways. One day, Tony catches his dad eating snake eggs and gets upset. Dad explains to Tony where he's been and that he's "changed".

Tony begins to notice that he has power to bring things to life. Action figures come to life and kill the nosy neighbor, the toy clown in Tony's room comes to life and starts putting alien eggs in the bathtub, shit just starts getting fucky from here on in. There's a scene with a black dog that serves no purpose to the film whatsoever, but it still creeps the shit out me every time I see it. The overall atmosphere of the film is pretty disturbing and dark.

There's no shortage of good gore scenes. The birth scene is truly gut-wrenching and pretty realistic looking. For the small budget the director had to work with, I think the special effects are pretty good. There's no CGI in the movie, this was made before it was the "in" thing to do.

If you want a truly entertaining horror movie, don't pass this up. The story is pretty inconsistent and scattered, but that's not so important as the atmosphere and mood. You'll be pleasantly surprised I think. Just don't have any expectations like this is going to be ALIEN or anything, cause it's not.

WONDER SHOWZEN

A friend of mine turned me on to this bizarre "kids" show recently. It has to be one most original ideas on TV to come around in awhile.

On the surface, it looks like a lids show, modeled after Sesame Street with puppets interacting with real human beings, plus animated spots. But this ain't no kids show. And even though I say that, I think kids SHOULD watch it for that reason. This show tackles some very deep social issues in a very entertaining and funny way. This may be the perfect way for kids to learn about issues like racism, freedom of speech, how the US treats war veterans, alcoholism, drug addiction, etc... Schools and most parents these days seem to just want to hide their kids from the harsh realities of life by not telling them anything. I don't think age makes any fucking difference.

Anyway, every episode that I've seen so far is full of goodies. The SPACE episode where the blue puppet "CLARENCE" interviews people about things like Freedom of Speech. He just keeps cutting them off as soon as they start to say something, then he gives the constitution to a black guy in the park, who proceeds to burn it.

Another thing Clarence does to piss people off is to walk up to people talking on their cell phones and get right in their face constantly telling them it's rude. Another show, he decides to take a trip to Harlem to interview people to find out "what makes people angry?"

The songs are hilarious, especially "SLAVES" showing kids happily jumping around shouting the chorus:
SLAVES!
Build the Pyramids
SLAVES!
Build the Parthenon
SLAVES!
Build America
SLAVES!
This is your song, thank you

If you have any sort of sick twisted sense of humor like me, then do yourself a favor and watch this stuff. You'll piss yourself laughing. Season 2 is still running on TV, so it's not out on DVD yet.

NB/East Coast Slang Part 6

ain't-she-wha \'ain[t]-shee-'wah\ interj - Basically a simple question tag literally meaning "isn't she, what?" and equivalent in meaning to "isn't it, though?" or "don't you think so?" or the unmistakably Canadian "eh?" Usually used as an emphasizer.

EX.1 "Jesus, she's pretty hot, ain't-she-wha?"
EX.2 "She's a looker ain't-she-wha?"

The picture above is from RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK, where Indy says to Brody "Them's good potatoes they got there in New Brunswick, don't-they-wha?"

CCBE at MySpace

Ben Wilson, the other retarded cohort from our duo, Cream Corn Barf Extravaganza, has set up a MySpace site if anyone is interested. The link is on the sidebar or just click HERE. Not many people has looked at it or added anything, and we don't expect many people will. It has some song samples that are not on the Flux site, so go and get retarded fuckers.

George Lucas sucks balls

I'm sure you have all heard by now that George Lucas, being the greedy self-centered prick that he is, refuses to release a good anamorphic version of the original Star Wars trilogy. His idea of fulfilling the purist fans' wishes is to transfer them from Laserdisc to DVD with no clean-up.

Now, don't get me wrong. I'm glad they are finally being released and I am optimistic in thinking that we will get a new transfer from the best possible film source materials Lucasfilm has. No digital cleanup, no recomposited special effects, no remastered audio. Just a nice transfer from fairly clean elements with all the original flaws intact. That's fine with me, because to be honest, I don't like the "clean up" job on the 2004 trilogy box set. the black levels are off, and the colors are too "enhanced" for my liking.

It's the fact that George Lucas is so adament about protecting his artisitc integrity and vision that his attitude is to just ignore his purist fans, which he owes his career to. We, the fans, made him the rich bastard that he is today. To snub them off is very rude, in my opinion. It would have really easy to do it right the first time around by putting out a proper boxset with either 2-sided DVD's, the original untouched movie on one side, the "enhanced" version on the other. But he made his fans BEG just to get him to put them out at all. Even a petition site was created that many people signed before he gave fans their wish. That's prettty low. Yeah, they are HIS movies, but without his fans, he'd be nothing.

In the new "enhanced" versions, none of the new additions are necessary or crucial to helping the story, and some of the changes are just downright stupid, especially at the end of Return of the Jedi where they replace the ghost of Anakin Skywalker with Hayden Christenson. What the fuck?

All the movies in the second trilogy suck balls. Jar Jar Binks sucks balls. Hayden Christenson sucks balls. And most of all, George Lucas REALLY sucks balls. Piss off and retire already, ya Kurosawa rip-off...

SANTANA LOTUS

If you're a SANTANA fan, you should definitely obtain a copy of the new Japanese re-issue of LOTUS in the mini LP-style paper sleeve. I'm a big fan of these little paper sleeve versions of CD's and I have quite a few. I even bought paper sleeve versions of CD's I already own, that's how much I like them. I know it's crazy, but I guess it's the collector in me.

Anyway, this is a combination of 2 live shows that were done in Osaka in 1973, part of Japan tour in support of the Caravanserai album. If you are familiar with the original LP pressing of this which only came out in Japan, you'll know that it has some pretty eye-popping artwork and packaging, one of the most elaborate record sleeves ever.

Of course the scaled down version is every bit true to the original, right down to photocopied flyers that came with it at the time. It's an 11-part sleeve, that was designed by Yokoo Tadanori, and is expected to enter the Guinness Book of World Records this month as the biggest record packaging ever. It was also really fucking expensive to produce, with Japan at the time suffering from high paper prices resulting from the "oil shock". This legendary package has 22 sides and folds out like a lotus blossom. When you put the different fold-outs together, it's supposed to form some kind of trippy-dippy "dimension" cube.

Awesome package, but let's not forget the music! This album captured Santana in their peak and is considered one of the best live albums ever recorded. I'd have to agree. Santana is on fucking FIRE here!!! His best guitar playing ever, sometimes bordering on chaos. My favorite track the 16 minute masterpeice "Incident at Neshabur", my favorite Santana song of all time. If you listen to the full 2 hour set with no breaks, you'll be satisfyingly exhausted.

Anyway, I'll say no more. Listen to it for yourself. Also check out CARLOS SANTANA/BUDDY MILES (another equally great live album), C. SANTANA/JOHN McLAUGHLIN -LOVE DEVOTION SURRENDER, MOONFLOWER, SANTANA 3, WELCOME! and CARAVANSERAI, all great albums. Stay away from his newer shit like SUPERNATURAL and ALL THAT I AM because that's what it is. SHIT. Looks like he's lost the fire...

JEFF WALKER does "CUNTRY"??

What the fuck??!!! I couldn't belive my eyes when I saw this at TOWER yesterday. Former CARCASS member Jeff Walker has made a fucking country album. It's called "JEFF WALKER UND DIE FLUFFERS - Welcome To Carcass Cuntry" on Cargo records which includes notables like Ville Vallo on bass/vocals from H.I.M., Hellacopters' Nicke Andersson, former Carcass bandmates Bill Steer and Ken Owen, Nick Holmes from Paradise Lost and Billy Gould,, Faith no More's ex-bassist.

I haven't heard it yet and I don't know if I will buy it or not. I'll probably just download it first to see what it's like. After I'll add a review to this post. I DO know one thing. This is probably the WORST album cover I've ever seen. It would've been cooler to see Jeff Walker all dressed up in cowboy attire on a horse roping in some cattle or something. This cover is just rotten.

Anyway, go HERE for a review of it.

Nikon Coolpix S6 first impressions.

Finally got a new digital camera. I went out yesterday to experiment with it. All in all it's a pretty decent camera that takes good pictures and it's really easy to use. Nice design which which is really light and thin, very comfortable to hold. I like the blur warning and the one touch brighten button. If your pictures are underexposed, you can brighten them in playback mode with one touch without erasing the original.

Things I'm not so happy with are the flash, which is a bit on the bright side and the zoom. If you zoom in too close, even in the daytime, pictures can be a bit blurry or grainy. Maybe I just have to keep experimenting with different settings. It's only the first day using it after all. Another small but annoying thing is the on/off button, which is too small, so someone with big hands may have a hard time turning it on.

I took around 2 shots with it, and most of them turned out pretty well, very crisp image quality at 6.0 Megapixels. Colors range from from pretty good to very good, but not excellent. Anyway, I usually tweak the colors in Photoshop to my liking anyway. This is a pretty good camera for the money and a good choice for graphic designers I think. The only big difference with this one and the lower priced Coolpix S5 Camera is that the S6 has a slightly wider image area and wireless download capability, which is worth the extra dough.

Read more specs about it HERE... Cheers!

Seven Samurai remake!?

Oh No. Someone told me this and I thought they were lying until I researched it myself. This is just terrible terrible news. KUROSAWA will be rolling over in his grave. Get this. They even changed the title to "SAMURAI 7", how original. George Clooney's gonna be in it? F'kin c'mon. . ... this remake shit has got to stop.

Also being remade is THE GREAT ESCAPE and THE POSEIDON ADVENTURE. What's next? Jesus, why don't they just remake BACK TO THE FUTURE while they're at it? It's not too soon is it? Kevin Spacey can play Marty. How about Indiana Jones? Cast Leonardo diCRAPIO as Indy. How bout a STAR WARS remake? Tom Cruise can play Luke and Reese Witherspoon can play Princess Leia. Celine Dion should be hired to do the soundtrack.

I wish these overly ambitious, shitty producers and "directors" (if you can call them that) would fuck off and stop flooding the market with pointless remakes. Get some new ideas for chrissake.

Read more about 7 Samurai HERE:

Celtic Frost is BACK!!!

I gotta say that when I heard about CELTIC FROST getting back together and this new album coming out, I had mixed reactions. Considering that their last few albums sucked before disbanding in the early nineties (especially VANITY/NEMESIS and COLD LAKE), I wasn't expecting the new album to be a revelation or anything. Boy, was i DEAD wrong! From the opening chords of the first track, I knew this was a true comeback of a legendary band that I have sorely missed for a long time. It's really awesome to see the old logo being used again too.

Don't expect MORBID TALES or TO MEGA THERION, but MONOTHEIST is definitely Celtic Frost returning to form and THE BEST metal album of the year so far. They've never sounded better. The producer on this one, Peter Tägtgren helped the boys get a great sound, everything raw but not too polished. This is as heavy as anything they've ever done in my opinion. Tom G still has the rough-edged voice, the guitars still have that classic Frost sound. There's really some fresh ideas here and even though it's unmistakably Frost, they sound like a new band. This album is more doomy and dark than anything they've ever done before but it's still got an accessibility to it that will interest new metal fans as well as pleasing the old die-hards like myself.

The first 2 tracks PROGENY and GROUND are pretty fat and brutal before we get into the sludgier, darker territory starting with track 3 DYING GOD COMING INTO HUMAN FLESH which is one of my favorite tracks, reminding me a bit of "Dethroned Emporer" from MORBID TALES. The next track DROWN IN ASHES opens up with some beautiful guest vocals, courtesy of Lisa Middlehauve from Xandria. Tom does some pretty creepy vocals on this track too. Very mysterious reminding me of the more experimental CF like INTO THE PANDEMONIUM and TRAGIC SERENADES. The next track OS ABYSMI VEL DAATH is a very heavy fucker indeed, with an interesting dark ambient part around the 4-minute mark, returning back to the chorus then bleeding into the bonus track "Temple of Depression". Really effective. Believe me, buying the digipack version just for this track is worth it.

OBSCURED is probably the most commercial on the album with a definite gothic feel, especially because of the female harmonies. Catchy chorus. Not my favorite, but still a good track nonetheless. DOMAIN OF DECAY is another heavy bastard full of good riffs and wicked vocals. This is another one of my faves. AIN ELOHIM is one of the faster tracks on the album, with some pretty creepy vocals near the end and a short freak out noise guitar part.

TOTENGOTT is one of the more ambient tracks with a lot of programmed stuff, synths and some truly chilling and sick vocals by Martin Ain. Kind of reminds me of Skinny Puppy's CHORALONE off RABIES. The fifteen minute SYNAGOGA SATANAE is the epic doom track of the album full of orchestral and choir arrangements which mix perfectly with the heavy parts. Martin does a spoken word part in German that is pretty alien, to say the least.

The last aptly-titled track, WINTER is a perfect closer, a classical arranged piece which sounds like a mix of real strings and electric keyboards.

I'm predicting this will be on a lot of "top metal albums" lists this year. Try to get the limited digipack version if you can, it's got a different cover (which is better than the jewel case version), a poster and an extra track TEMPLE OF DEPRESSION which is absolutely worth having.

It's glad to see CELTIC FROST are back. Let's hope they're going to be around for a while to come.