Monday 30 September 2013

Lords of Salem review

Just finished watching it and had a few things I wanted to get out before I sleep on the rest of it.

First impressions....The Shining meets Lair of the White Worm. It had the feel of a lot of the creepy 1970's horror films which had cults and devil worship with the promise of the devil coming back in human form ( Blood on Satan's Claw, Rosemary's Baby, Hungry Wives,The Pyx,Carrie,Audrey Rose,etc. The surreal and what the fuck of The Wicker Man). Funny how life would be influenced by art, that would play out later in the big whipped up fears of devil cults and heavy metal music of the 1980's (PMRC-Tipper Gore, now her husband tries to scare us about Carbon). The fears of right wing evangelical America .The following song features in the film and is pretty fucking creepy.

A very different movie from Rob Zombie's "Devil's Rejects", which seemed to be just a shocker for the sake of it. I was expecting that watching this but was pleased to see it was not just a bunch of shock and gore for the hell of it. Actually it was pretty artsy and had a bit more depth to it than many of his previous films. I hope it's the start of Rob Zombie coming into his own as a more serious director.

Post sleep- after thoughts

Had some more time to dwell on it after a strange dream about musical scoring and sheet music, lol.

There was quite a bit this film had to offer and some great background,etc but it kind of felt disjointed which I wonder if that was almost deliberate. I figured that maybe getting the low down from the man himself might help. So here's Rob Zombie in an interview about Lords of Salem.
This film was certainly a departure from his previous shock films and was more of a thinking kind of movie with horror as the vehicle for it. Over all it was an enjoyable movie and think that Rob Zombie has branched out trying out a new approach. The critics bashed it into the ground but to hell with em, this ain't no happy ending feel good film. Also might as well enjoy it as Rob Z claims that this is his last horror movie for at least 10 years. Now something comes to mind like "you take the boy out of the blah blah but not the blah blah out of the bogy. Stay tuned, I give him 3 years tops.
 -Evil von Scarry


Harbinger Down. A return to animitronics, fx make up.

Harbinger Down. A Practical Creature FX Film.

This creature feature will be a return to animitronics and actual fx make up art. Lance Henriksen is helping back this up as well as some other heavy hitters via Kickstarter (they already reached their goal, but hey more money is always better). Sultan Saeed Al Darmaki of Dark Dunes Productions (teaming up with Studio ADI) has also come on board after the Kickstarter campaign to team up and get this movie out there. After seeing the video I gotta say I can't freakin wait for this one. Give us back our animitronics and real f/x, someone else can have CGI!


The Story (from the site)

"A group of grad students have booked passage on the fishing trawler Harbinger to study the effects of global warming on a pod of Orcas in the Bering Sea. When the ship's crew dredges up a recently thawed piece of old Soviet space wreckage, things get downright deadly. It seems that the Russians experimented with tardigrades, tiny resilient animals able to withstand the extremes of space radiation. The creatures survived, but not without mutation.
Now the crew is exposed to aggressively mutating organisms. And after being locked in ice for 3 decades, the creatures aren't about to give up the warmth of human companionship. "

I going to go out on a limb and say that Frankenstein's Army woke up allot of people in the industry and fandom to realize what we were all missing in the CGI movie world.

Not unlike the difference musically between analog sound and digital. Sure digital (like CGI) is convenient but it's just missing that certain quality. And luckily I'm not the only one who shares this belief.

Alec Gillis (of Amalgamated Dynamics Inc.) is leading the project some of you may know him from such awesome creature features as Aliens and The Thing (2011 version), Starship Troopers and more.

"In 1985 he met Creature Legend Stan Winston and worked on Invaders From Mars, Aliens, Predator, Leviathan, and Monster Squad, among others. In 1988, along with Tom Woodruff, Jr. Alec formed Amalgamated Dynamics, Inc. Their first feature film was Tremors, followed by Alien 3 (Oscar nomination), Death Becomes Her (Oscar win), Mortal Kombat, Jumanji, Starship Troopers (Oscar nomination) , The Santa Clause franchise, the Spider-Man franchise, the Alien vs. Predator franchise, Wolverine: Origins, X-Men: First Class, The Thing (2011)."- from Kickstarter profile.

Harbinger Down Website

Again we can't wait for this one and are looking forward to seeing what this crew will bring back to creature features!!! -Evil von Scarry. Thanks for tuning in.