HALLOWEEN and some horror movies

Halloween is probably the most flamboyant of all officially listed special occassions. If there ever was one strangely contrived system of logic that people liked to follow which qualifies as awesome, it’s trick-or-treating. Despite those facts, this year my apathy overrides my ability to partake in any of this fun. HOWEVER, I’m still going to have some on this day, it’ll just be in the confines of my cozy suburban home.

My approach this year will be essentially the same as last year. When kids come to the door, I’m not going to answer it. It’s not that I don’t have any candy, I just plan on eating the stuff personally in full public view near the window. Call me the terrifying horror of isolated suburban decadence. The walking part of trick-or-treating drains the energy of my fat arse, thus maybe I’ll spend three bucks on a box midget candies instead. The only advantage to going door to door is the vague illusion of electicism, you always get a variety of shit and often you find dodgy looking stuff that you’ve never seen in stores. To get access to those quarky candies in stores, you gotta buy ‘em in bulk, but after a free Halloween session you have a whole lovely bunch of junk food. Unfortunately, I hate moving, so that wont happen.

Anyway, here’s a few horror movies which are actually good. None of that horror-remake and franchise sequel malarky, this is the good shit! These are just some picks that I recommend you check out.

1960 – Peeping Tom

This movie destroyed director Michael Powell’s career because of it’s liberal use of violence, shock and general edge-pushingness. By today’s standards, it’s PG-13. The reason that this movie holds up so well isn’t the then-unacceptable violence, which is actually completely necessary to the plot. This movie is held in high regard today (unlike 1960, when it was banned everywhere) is because it’s one of the most disturbing and authentically twisted movies ever made. Honestly, I find this much scarier than almost every new horror movie I see. The scare tactics rely purely on psychological immersement, in which case the movie doesn’t suffer from dated production value. The story is simply about a man who films his vistims while he kills them, although the commentary is much deeper. It’s really a dark,dark,dark study of how we are all ‘peeping toms’. This is one of the few movies to genuinely scare me, and I’m not talking about jump moments or bullshit. This is a genuinely horrifying trip into the perverted parts of our mind, it is for that reason an absolute classic.

1986 – Henry:Portrait of a Serial Killer

A terrific example of a low-budget ‘grindhouse’ movie that’s actually worth your time. Filmed in less than a month and without much money, Henry can whoop the ass of any Hollywood horror movie any day. Michael Rooker’s performance as the title role is among the best in all of horror history, the film is worth seeing for him alone. It is essentially the opposite of the popular slasher movies that were going on at the time, this movie featuring no cleavage bimbos, wise talking cops or angsty teenagers. It’s as gritty a movie as you’ll ever find, doing away with the high production values and general poppyness of your average 80′s horror flick. The only setback is the soundtrack, which reeks of crude basement synthesizers and almost becomes as horrifying as the film’s protagonist. Quite simply, it’s just about a few weeks in the life of Henry, a serial killer. It’s exactly what you’d expect from the title, just done so bloody well that it can’t be ignored. No hollywood sass, just an effective movie.

 

 1985 – Return of the Living Dead

It sounds like a cheap Romero-ripoff, but it’s more a hybrid satire and serious zombie film, sort of like how Hot Fuzz is both a parody of action movies and a serious action movie at the same time. Return definately functions well as both a comedy and a horror movie, not to mention it has some of the coolest special effects I’ve ever seen (just look at the ‘tar man’ depicted in the picture). The zombies in this movie just chant “braains” (and have a similar diet), that fact alone should excite the inner zombie fan in anybody. The gore is absurd and creative, the movie also sets up a surprisingly good zombie premise without it aping other horror franchises too much. It’s a nonstop array of colorful zombie fun.

1975 – Deep Red

If you’re the kind of person who likes idiosyncratic direction and intricate camera work, you should definately see some stuff by Italian horror legend Dario Argento. That’s the only way I can describe his movies. Italian horrors from this era had this real artyness to them which is on one level, sort of a dated 1970′s LSD trip. It’s about a jazz pianist (so already I like it) who becomes increasingly involved with a serious of murders…blah blah blah the plots less important than the general atmosphere, which is trippy and distrubing. It’s not as colorful as Argento’s Suspiria but this movie just feels like nothing else I’ve seen, which is where Argento’s idiosyncratic direction pops in. Whoever photographed this movie made everything shot look like a gothic painting, which is the real appeal. Even the explicit gore scenes are filmed so well that become more stylish than brutal. Some useless horror trivia: the moving doll in the movie was the inspiration for the one in the Saw series.P.S. I’ve seen this movie three times now and the acting is still just as corny as ever.

1980 – Cannibal Holocaust

Possessing quite possibly the greatest title in all of movie history, you can probably already tell if you like this or not. It’s a digusting movie through and through, it’s a possible contender for the most apalling movie ever. Nonetheless, it’s a completely original film, let me explain why. While The Blair Witch Project was the movie to popularize the whole phoney-balony documentary horror schtick, it was this very movie which really invented the whole idea. The ‘story’ is that some documentary film makers who apparently went to some scary foriegn country to get footage of the indigenous cannibals, the cannibals of course decide to make a meal out of our poor film makers who happened to leave the camera on while doing so.  The fake aspects are done really well (as well as the special effects, which will make you close your eyes) and the ‘footage’ of native cannibals is very convincing. There’s also a little arty subtext, but it’s ruined when one character thinks out loud saying “who are the real cannibals?”. The writers who have no idea of how to create subtext exposition, that’s who! Regardless of how disgusting it is (the gore is so convincing that the film makers had to appear in court because people actually thought they murdered one actress, the actress had to appear in person to confirm her not being eaten!), it’s still an original piece of horror cinema.

ANYWAY this shit’s tedious. Piss off. Here’s the trailer for Deep Red. yay.

early albums by Stevie Wonder

Stevie Wonder has got to be…possibly the greatest person to ever record music. Listen the album Innervisions and tell me, with a straight face, that it isn’t the greatest R&B album ever created. Yup, 5 out of 5 for that one. But wait, would you believe that Stevie had an ‘early period’ (before breaking mainstream) that consisted of almost 15 full length albums? It should also be noted that he was just over 20 when he got popular, meaning several of his albums were released before he had hair growing near his willy! Allow me to now review a few of the albums he released before the age of 20.

1962 – The Jazz Soul of Little Stevie

Oh yeah, before all those R&B albums, he was indeed a jazzman! Unfortunately, Stevie’s actual involvement in the album is pretty minimal; out of nine songs he co-composed only two. He still performs the hell out every song, sounding like a true-and-true grown up jazz artist. I kind of like this album, if only for the whole novelty aspect of it all. As an actual jazz LP, it doesn’t fair very well, with most songs clocking in at under three minutes. It’s a short and shallow jazz record, with each song being extremely catchy but lacking any aesthetic significance within the realm of jazz. This isn’t vocal jazz-pop either, this is the semi-improvisional fast paced stuff which I typically eat up, or perhaps a gentle parody of such. I still dig this album nonetheless, it’s completely listenable from start to finish and Fingertips is undeniably good. Recommended for…I dunno. Fans of jazz? Fans of Stevie Wonder? Whatever, it’s alright, even if it does seem like a soundtrack to a bad cop movie at times. Score = 6.5 out of 10

1962 – Tribute To Uncle Ray

I assume he’s referring to Ray Charles, or perhaps this album exists for the purpose of worshipping some Hindu diety of shallow pop music. Gone is the whole big-band impro-jazz thing, now ‘Little Stevie’ has moved onto making accessible radio vocal-jazz-soul tunes. It all borders into that really creepy territory where pre-pubescent artists write about love. The music is ridiculously catchy, but also painfully cute. I really wish I was a child molester, I would just looooove this album. Sounds like Stevie’s balls haven’t quite dropped yet, but to be fair he has a terrific pitch-perfect voice. I did some research about the whole ‘Ray’ thing, turns out he composed every song! Unfortunatley, he didn’t pen any lyrics, meaning they were probably written by business men with music degrees without any originality or depth. The lyrics bring new meaning to the terms stock and kitsch, at one point the album amazed me with a twelve year old singing “all night long!”. Musicianship is solid, otherwise there isn’t much value. Score = 5.5 out of 10

1963 – With a Song in My Heart

…and an infection in my ear! This somehow has even less appeal than the previous two albums. This is the album where they dropped ‘little’ from Stevie’s name, so I assume this is the time he went through puberty or something. Unfortunately Stevie’s voice still has that creepy high-pitched pre-pubescent kiddie-diddlers-dream sound to it, so I guess not. As far as the sound of the album goes, it’s yet another step forward into the ‘early/predictable’ R&B part of Mr.Wonders discography, this time a lot slower and heavier on the string section. The violins up the cheese factor by about 8000 times. As far as this kind of slow/jazzy motown music goes, I’ve heard it done very well. Unfortunately for Big Stevie, the lyrical content (in actual music made by adults) is always about love making, a topic I think producers would get arrested for making a 13 year old sing about. It’s sort of like when JoJo told her boyfriend(s) to leave (I can’t believe I’m making that reference). Score: 5 out of 10

1964 – Stevie at the Beach

 Only thirteen years old, already his musical career is washed up! Luckily my ‘complete’ discography does not include this, so I don’t have to sit through it. I can only imagine the horrors of listening to 13 year Stevie sing beach songs. Let me give you an idea of how obscure this is: on rateyourmusic (a site I’d die for) Innvervisions has 2,729 ratings, this has 6.

 

 

1966 – Up-Tight Everything’s Alright

This is the point where I will stop reviewing the early albums of Stevie Wonder, for two reasons: I can’t think of any more jokes AND this is where the music actually gets good. Yup, you got it, this is his first release to qualify as actual music, as opposed to a radio-friendly parody of such. The sound is classic motown and the whole creepy kid aspect is mostly gone, there’s even a Bob Dylan cover thrown in there to add to the new found maturity. Stevie was only about a week from reaching sixteen years of age when this album was released, so I figure puberty must have occured at some point before it’s recording. My only complaint is that the lyrics are still a bit shallow (save for the Dylan cover), but what can ya do? This is shallow pop music at it’s finest, the musicians sound as if they’re actually trying! Apparently this was Stevie’s first success both financially and artistically (his involvement with the writing is much larger than before), I (surprisingly) recommend this. Score: 8 out of 10

There’s many other albums between Uptight and Music of My Mind (his absolute breakthrough) but I think you get the point. Off the top o’ my head, I can’t think of any other artist who had such a weird and prolonged entry into the history of music. Now piss off and go listen to Innervisions.

Dragonforce

The biggest name in the sub-genre ‘power metal’ today is the band Dragonforce. If you’re not a fan, power metal is that stuff with the over-the-top solos, high pitched opera style vocalists, lyrics about fantasy-type stuff, you get the picture. That’s an oversimplification, to be sure, but I think you understand.

Anyway, the most popular of the power metal bands in our lame contemporary mainstream scene is the band which this post is dedicated to, Dragonforce! 2009 marks their 10 year anniversary as a hybrid band/redundant sound dispenser. I first heard of them when a friend o’ mine emailed me a file of their song ‘Fury of the Storm’. I think I used to dig it when I was 15, until upon further examination I began to despise the band. Allow me to now bring up some irrelevant and silly arguments as to why I think Dragonforce is the anti-thesis of passionate music.

The big gimmick behind Dragonforce’s music is that their guitar playing is lightning fast. This is completely true, as the band plays at three speeds: rather fast, ludicrous speed and that point in which your speakers are destroyed because the band broke the physical sound/speed laws. The band also packs a million notes into each song, making them shred-fest extrrrrrrravaganzas. I used to listen to Dragonschwartz and think to myself “this is soo amazing!” for the technicality and speed alone. The guitar work was so ridiculously technical and fast that I couldn’t help but be impressed.

Dragonsores gained mainstream fame when their songs began getting featured in guitar hero. They are THE band in which kids attempt to ‘five-star’ songs on the harder difficulties and then post videos on youtube showcasing their feats of strength. It sooo funny to actually watch someone play a song when the television isn’t very loud. While their attention is completely devoted to the matching of colorful things on the screen, the person beside them hears the excellent acoustics of it all, something I like to call the ‘spastic-plastic’ effect. clickclickclickclickclickclickclick. Anyway, I’m trying to make a point here. The only appeal I think that Dragonforeskin has is the sheer quasi-virtuoso ‘shred’ thingy that you find on their albums.

What am I trying to say here? While speed and technicality are pleasing in a hedonistic sense, I find that Dragonforce’s music is completely emotionless and empty. I hate to sound cheesy, but where is the soul of the music? I once heard a Dragon-sympathizer on youtube respond the all similar criticisms that the band seems to get, “well you’re just jealous of the ability they have!” which I think validates my point: all speed and no heart. I like my music to either: bring out an emotion, or be extremely creative. I’ve established that Dragonforce is as soulless as the shoes of 36 Vietnamese hookers after a transcontinental marathon, but can their music be interpreted as ‘creative’?

Naaaaaah. Dragonforce sounds like an extremely generic power metal band, just sped-up beyond infinity. If you want good power metal, check out some bands from Germany, which is essentially the power metal capital of the world. Also, what about Dragonforce’s songwriting/lyrical abilities? HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA, I’d critisize them if they were even trying. I would advise you to NEVER look at any Dragon-lyrics, which are about as redundant and embarrassing as word-play can get. Somebody should count the number of times they say words like ‘victory, darkness, battlefield, sword, bloody cave’ in their entire discography.

ANYWAY lets get some things straight before I get angry emails from fans (maybe one of my three readers likes this band). Dragonforces first two albums are good, they didn’t really suffer from redundancy. They are still emotionally retarded albums, but they at least qualify as music. That’s only half their LP’s though, so I advise you to stay away from anything newer than their first two. For what it’s worth, here’s some numeric ratings for their albums, which I’ve sat through, and often sound like one song on repeat: 2003: Valley of the Damned = 3 out of 5, 2004: Sonic Firestorm =3.5 out of 5, 2006: Inhuman Rampage: 2.5 out of 5, 2008: Ultra Beatdown= 2 out of 5.

On a personal note, their 2008 album Ultra Beatdown (lol @ lame title) was released on my friggin BIRTHDAY, along with the 2008 Slipknot album! Why did the two ‘least-anticipated of the year for me’ be released on that day? I curse the day I was born!

Here’s a song that sucks:

2009 Albums by Artists that start with A

I don’t feel like reviewing an arseload of albums, so here’s all the stuff I’ve listened to (of 2009) with ‘A’ artists.

Alexisonfire – Old Crows/Young Cardinals

The worst (errr…least good) album in the history of this Canadian post-hardcore band. The ‘old crows’ thing always struck me as soooooooo ironic (perhaps an intentional move by the band?), especially the chorus in one song which proclaims “we are not the kids we used to be!”. In a technical sense, The Bird Album is much more simplistic than other Alexisonfire releases, it appears that less effort has been put into creative song structure and the melodies have much less notes. The band also doesn’t sound as emotional/passionate as they did on other albums, another factor which contributes to the funny irony concerning the title. Are they more mature, or just lazy? Anyhow, it’s not bad. Just a little dissapointing. Score: 3 out of 5

Alice in Chains – Black Gives Way To Blue

The first A.I.C. album in 14 years, with a new frontman! My expectations were at rock bottom, as I just assumed it would be recycled shit, being that the band was considered ‘dead’ by most people. That conclusion couldn’t have been further from reality, a this album holds up really well in the Alice timeline. No rational person expects it to live up to the masterwork of 1992′s Dirt, so let’s compare it to other albums. It’s about as good as any Alice album expect Dirt and the new frontman also sounds almost identical to the old one, it thus qualifies as a legitimately good addition to the bands discogrpahy. Plenty of variation and each track is a mountain within itself. Score: 4 out of 5

Animal Collective – Merriweather Post Pavilion

My first exposure to the legendary band. I really dig it also, despite not being able to compare it to anything else they’ve released. I wonder if there is an entire genre of neo-psychedelic stoner-pop which this band leads. Within the music community, this album is so bloody huge that I couldn’t help but give the band a chance, I do not regret this one bit. Terrific songwriting, minimalistic musicianship, general artyness, I can’t say no. Score: 4 out of 5

Maybe I’ll add in a review of the lastest album by Anthony and the Johnsons once I’ve listened to it. Till then, I’ll leave y’all with a dumb situation I was involved with at school.

Miss Polumbo sent me down to the library because a DVD she borrowed still had a lock on it. I get to the library, the person behind the desk removes the lock, I return upstairs. Unfortunately, Miss Polumbo claims that there is no DVD in the case! This is confusing, as I honestly saw one in the case. Maybe the librarian took it out of the case or something, so Polumby sends me to the library again. There is no sign of that disc. I return to the classroom, where the DVD is playing on the television. “It’s okay now” she says. What the hell happened there? Did she take out the disc and then say there was no disc? THIS MAKES GUY MADDD. HULKK SMASH