Foreign Television

Doraemon is a Japanese cartoon about a robot cat from the future who comes back in time to help the ancestor of his future owner or something. He does this by using various inventions that he keeps in his pocket. Apparently his ears where bitten off by rats or something, its rather odd by western standards. Someone actually bothered to translate his theme tune into English:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G8OBAfjTidM








This is a two part TV film from Russia called Kin-Dza-Dza. I suppose it's a bit like Hitchikers Guide to the Galaxy but a bit more subtle, more of a satire than a farce. I think its really funny and clever.






















Here is another Japanese children's cartoon called Dr Slump, it's pretty funny.

Invisible Rape, Spanish Horror, The Cinema Store, Antichrist, Pro Wrestling

I've discovered an amazing film called The Entity, it's about a woman who becomes terrorized by an invisible force that repeatedly rapes her. It's by Sydney J. Furie who also directed The Ipcress File and ..Superman IV.















Recently my friend Raul showed me The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue, a quite original zombie film set in the British countryside. The director is Spanish. It's also known as Don't Open the Window and Let Sleeping Corpses Lie.

My friend also told me about this Spanish horror film called Who Can Kill a Child?, it's about an English couple who visit a small Spanish town and discover that the children have murdered everyone, a bit like a Village of the Damned or Children of the Corn type thing. The cinematography is amazing.




These film's aren't available here so I had to order them. I usually go to The Cinema Store in Covent Garden to find rare film's and foreign edition's. I don't really download. Up until now I thought Spain's contribution to horror cinema consisted of the Blind Dead series and a few Jess Franco film's. I really love Jess Franco, he made this film called Sexo Canibal where the monster is just basically a naked black man.






I watched Antichrist a few weeks ago but couldn't be bothered to write about it, obviously it has a lot of wince inducing violence and also some quite amusingly bad dialogue. It's nicely photographed though. I enjoyed it anyway.






Kinnikuman is a Japanese cartoon about pro wrestling. One of the characters is a Nazi.

Umberto Lenzi, Joshua Miller, Rivers Edge, Susan George in The Sorcerers

Hi there.


I've been getting into Umberto Lenzi recently, he made Nightmare City and a quite good cannibal film called Eaten Alive.










Been wondering what happened to this guy Joshua Miller.
He was this really good child actor who was in a few movies in the 80's, namely: Class of 1999, Teen Witch and he was the kid in Near Dark. The best thing I've seen him in is River's Edge. You can watch the entire film on Youtube, Crispin Glover is also incredible in it:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0qvdvMDtaJM






Crispin Glover dancing:










I've also recently been looking for this really great 60's horror film called The Sorcerers, directed by Michael Reeves (Witchfinder General) and starring Boris Karloff. It doesn't seem to be available anywhere. You can also watch it on Youtube though:

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=RoIGSdHNxVg


Look out for a very young Susan George a couple of years before Straw Dogs.






Wowzer.

Horror Trailers and Clips

Coffin Joe says hi.





Look at this incredible sequence:








Here's some classic Lucio Fulci:











"What the devil's the matter honey?"


The woman in the above clip is in all his films and always dies in one of the first scenes. Here is the trailer for Fulci's masterpiece, The House By The Cemetery:

"You shouldn't have come Bob, you shouldn't have"







Troll 2:







Probably the greatest ever horror franchise has to be the Phantasm films.


"Errm... oh shit"

Spaghetti-Westerns, Franco Nero, Antichrist, The Room

Kill Them All and Come Back Alone. It's the name of a film. I want to try and make this blog just about films, we'll see. Here is the trailer to prove I'm not lying:



This film was directed by Enzo G. Castellari who made Inglorious Bastards and the truly amazing spaghetti western film: Keoma. I'd say Keoma is probably the greatest italo-western I've ever seen so check it out if you can. I would describe it as A Fistfull of Dollars meets The Bible meets Mad Max.

Franco Nero is also famous for being the original Django in the iconic italo-western of the same name. If you were wondering what Jimmy Cliff is watching in the cinema sequence of The Harder They Come, well: it's Django. The film was made around the same time as FistfullofDollars but is a bit more violent and surreal. Apparently it set a trend in spaghetti westerns for featuring a machine gun and a coffin or box filled with gold as a major element of the plot. These became re-ocuring motifs in most italo-westerns including the hundreds of Django sequels. It was directed by Sergio Corbucci, who I gather was a close friend of Sergio Leone (who made Fistfull.. etc), and I'd say his films are made with a similar style. Corbucci also made a film called Navajo Joe starring Burt Reynolds which I haven't seen, and The Mercenary also starring Franco Nero. Needless to say Nero was pretty huge in europe in the seventies and eighties. I guess no one really knows who he is in Britain and North America.


By the way most of these 'facts' are off the top of my head and probably wrong.

Another incredible italo/spaghetti western that I've recently discovered is Django Kill a.k.a. If You Live, Shoot. I think it was marketed as a Django 'sequel' in the hope of making more money, but it has nothing to do with the former film. I'd say it's even more violent and disturbing than its namesake and infinately more entertaining/funny. The plot revolves around an unnamed "half breed" played by the amazing Tomas Milian, who seeks revenge on the outlaw gang that betrayed him and left him for dead. After he is revived by two indians (played by two clearly italian character actors) they give him some golden bullets and tell him they will help him take his revenge if he leads them to "happy hunting ground". They track his former accomplace's to a town the indians call The Unhappy Place, and from there the rather complexed and violent story unfolds, featuring another gang of basically gay mexican outlaws called Los Muchachos. This film is totally hilarious and beautifully directed (although the guys name escapes me), and you can buy it in HMV.


My other favourite spaghetti western is Blind Man featuring Ringo Starr. The Italian trailer has been on my facebook page for ages. Here is an American version:



I can't wait to watch Antichrist even though it's directed by Lars von Trier who made such unwatchable dross as The Idiots and the even worse by far Dogville starring Nicole Kidman who is the worst actress in the world probably. Antichrist actually looks really good though! Apparently it features a talking fox and Charlotte Gainsbourg castrating herself, nice. I guess you've probably seen the trailer but here it is anyway:


I also kind of want to watch The Room.