The Signal (2014)

When I reviewed William Eubank's Love, I wrote: "A must watch film for those bored by the CGI, inane dialogue and weak characterisation and plots of modern science fiction movies". Why did you ignore me, William? WHY!

Letterboxd Review

47 Ronin (2013)

I'm only 8 minutes in and I feel I've seen enough to be able to rate the film. If it gets any better than half a star, I'll eat my dog.

Letterboxd Review

The Diabolical (2015)

diabolical adjective
2) BRITISH informal
disgracefully bad or unpleasant.

Letterboxd Review

Coherence (2013)

I'm sure there's a decent Twilight Zone episode hiding behind the cast of deeply irritating, self-absorbed fuckwits. People like this are the reason I don't do dinner parties. The problem was that I disliked them so much I didn't pay much attention to the plot until their twatishness receded and by then it was too late. I have a feeling I'll have to watch it again :(

Letterbox Review

Nurse 3-D (2013)

I don't think I've ever frowned quite as much during a film.

Letterbox Review

So Deadly, So Perverse: 50 Years of Italian Giallo Films, Volume 1, 1963 to 1973 (2015)

Author: Troy Howarth
Year: 2015
Publisher: Midnight Marquee Press Inc.
Format: Soft-cover (28cm x 22cm)
Pages: 233

What Troy Howarth has attempted with So Deadly, So Perverse is pretty amazing; a two volume history of the Gialli which includes all of the major releases in the genre as well as a large number of the lesser known examples. Given that the definition of a Giallo film twists and turns like the plot in one of the films, it's not surprising that you may find a favourite missing due to it not hitting Troy's definition of a Giallo.

Starting with a series of articles on the roots of the Giallo, including a piece but the legendary screenwriter Ernesto Gasdaldi, an article on the Italian pulp books that inspired the genre and an explanation of the term Giallo and what films in the book have been included, what has not been left out and why. The book then moves on to a year-by-year analysis of over one hundred films.

Each film's entry starts with some basic details including title (and alternative titles), cast and crew and home video availability (please note that, as in most reference guides, the DVD/Blu-ray release information is now out of date and many of the films now have higher quality releases available). This is followed by a spoiler-less synopsis of the plot, Troy's opinion of the film and then some brief background details of notable members of the cast and crew. Some films take only half a page whilst other, more important works are allowed several pages including full colour photos and poster reproductions.

A terrific encyclopaedia of Giallo with an impressive number of titles, many of which I've never heard of. Troy's opinion, whilst personal, is never overbearing and always tries to find the positive points in even the most derivative of films.

If there is a fault it is that there is no index that lists which page a particular film appears on (only the year it was made). Add to this is the fact that the year is only printed at the start of each chapter and not the top of each page and you have an amazing resource that hides the film, for which you are looking, deep within labyrinthine list of other suspects. Much like a Giallo then :)

Highly recommended and essential for fans of the Giallo.

Thaco (2008)

Four friends nerd-out over AD&D, GURPS, life and pizza.

Possibly incomprehensible to non-role-players (if you cannot figure out why the title "Thaco" is spelled incorrectly, this may not be the film for you), short, cheaply made, full of hammy acting and in-jokes but good fun for those of us of a lawful-evil disposition.

-- Bolus Gutbucket: Lvl 9 Lawful-Evil Dwarven Warrior (weapon of choice: a cursed, senile Bastard sword)

Letterboxd Review

The Ego Death - Rough Cut 4 (2016)

A short film by Ludvig Gür that, in this rough cut, lasts 11:42.

The film opens with a man (Jonas) staring intensely into the camera/mirror, which is then followed by the text "7 Days Till The World Ends". We then follow Jonas over the next several days while he is groomed by and cult and waiting for his world to end.

Superficially, it seems that The Ego Death is about how cults and religions can control a person by preying on their weaknesses - in this case Jonas' mental state after his girlfriend leaves him. Looking a little deeper and, as the title describes, it's about the ego and what happens to us if that much needed layer that controls our behaviour is removed? What if the id is all that is left - our base instincts and primitive urges? Does the cult even exist or is this Jonas' method of dealing with his mental collapse?

The B&W photography is stark and the shots are very nicely framed with a good feel for space. There is minimal dialogue, which is good as Gordon Woodward's (Jonas) delivery is a little stilted and this is highlighted by the strong performance given by Robert Prowse as Evan, the cult leader. The soundtrack provides a continual feeling of tension and reminded me a little of Pauline Oliveros' Deep Listening Band with their long, circular drones.

Overall, a well-shot and interesting film. If there is a problem it would be that it's a little "on-the-nose", a little too obvious. A simple solution would be to retitle the film - this way you're not leading the viewer from the outset.

Letterboxd Review

The Werewolf and the Yeti (1975)

As there is still no legal release of The Werewolf and the Yeti, I watched a very good quality bootleg DVD with a dubbed English soundtrack.

On a trip to the Himalayas to search for the yeti, Waldemar is separated from his party and turned into a werewolf by a pair of half-naked, vampire-witches! Will Waldemar find the yeti? Will the characters realise that hiking the tallest mountain range in the world in nothing but ski jackets and slacks is not a good idea? Will Wandesa's (a Vapirella clone) dress fall off?

Okay, onto the werewolf design. Yes, it is just a man with a hairy face and fangs but at least it was better than the yeti, which reminded me of a partially-balding, meowing, teddy-bear. It wasn't even white! Paul Naschy's transformation into the werewolf was old school, stop-motion, which was fine. There is still the problem of a werewolf wearing clothes, although I can see why they did this: the costume is cheaper and there's no need to re-clothe a naked man after every transformation, which would be an issue in the Himalayas where shops, washing lines full of clothes and small children with a handy collection of balloons are pretty rare. No matter how poor the yeti was, I'd still like to have seen more of it and the final fight between werewolf and yeti was pretty funny - it looked more like two Care Bears cuddling than a pair of ravenous beasts tearing each other apart.

The Werewolf and the Yeti was nowhere near as bad as I was expecting. The photography was good with some nice lighting. Performances were fine, if a little hammy, with Naschy doing his usual hirsute man type of werewolf. The dialogue was okay (favourite line: "You're not an ordinary woman, you've got personality!"). The score was discordant and threatening when required although it was a little loud. There is a reasonable amount of gore including an impaling (a la Cannibal Holocaust), a flaying and some slashed throats - nothing too nasty. The film is pretty well paced with regular action sequences and at 80-odd minutes it never really outstayed its welcome.

As I mentioned at the start, I was watching a bootleg DVD and the quality really surprised me. The picture was clear and bright and the sound was excellent with a little background crackle and hiss. This was obviously not a VHS rip and if there's such a good source available then why doesn't someone do a proper release?

A decent, low-budget werewolf film that's worth an hour and a half of your time.

Letterboxd review

Giallo Buying Guide (Part 2)

There is now a Giallo Buying Guide (Part 2). This list contains all the films from Troy Howarth's So Deadly, So Perverse: 1963 to 1973 that are not already in Part 1 of the Giallo Buyer's Guide.

At some point I will buy volume two of So Deadly, So Perverse and add further pages.

You'll find a link to the Buying Guides in the "Pages" section in the right-hand column and I've also included a link in this post that goes directly to the Giallo 2 list.

I hope you find it useful and if you spot any errors or know of better releases, please let me know.

Vampyros Lesbos (1971)

This review is for the Severin Blu-Ray (UK edition) with German soundtrack and English subtitles in the film's native ration of 1.66:1, which leaves narrow black bars at the sides of the picture.

Vampyros Lesbos starts with a sexy, trippy striptease with the beautiful Soledad Miranda (playing Countess Nadine Carody) writhing away to an organ (fnarr, fnarr), whilst Linda (Ewa Strömberg) and her boyfriend Omar (Andrés Monales complete with "Just for Men" styled hair) ogle from a table. With her hallucinatory dance act the Countess places Linda under a spell and, in the following days, haunts her dreams. Sexy, vampyric shenanigans ensue.

The bones of the Dracula story are tucked away under layers of sex and psychedelia. Linda meets with the Countess to discuss a property left to her in a will rather than the purchase of a house in the novel. She hires a boat to get to the Countess' island instead of a coach to the castle. Then we have the haunting of dreams, the locals warning Linda not to visit the island, a Renfield type character, Linda Westinghouse instead of Lucy Westenra and Doctor Seward (who is a bit of a dick). You get the idea. I think Franco must have been reading the, admittedly pretty dry, book and thought "hey, it's the 1970! Let's sex this up! Nicole, bring me my mescaline".

The relationship between Linda and the Countess is not based on any form of hypnosis but is the result of Linda's frustrated love-life and the Countess' need for more than just blind obedience. Watch the first bedroom encounter between the pair and note that Linda's expression is not of someone under control but that of someone who is nervous and excited. The scene is very similar to a famous scene in the uncut Hammer Dracula (1958). in fact the control in this film tends to come from the male characters, although there are the  Countess' previous victims to consider, who are reduced to dolls in the strip scenes. The Countess later admits her love for Linda when she says "But then I met Linda. Now I'm under her spell". If it wasn't for the gratuitous tits-and-ass I'd never call Vampyros Lesbos an exploitation film and most definitely not a horror film. This is as much a love story as Lady Chatterley's Lover!

The photography is beautiful with deep landscape shots cutting to macro shots of insects. Sure we get loads of zoom shots, but would it be a Jess Franco film without them? The colours are vivid; full of bright reds, deep blues and burnt oranges. They really give the film a Mediterranean feel. Where most vampire films use black as the predominate colour and red as a highlight, Franco reverses this and black is used sparingly, but when used it stands out wonderfully. There are a few shots that are really out of focus but these are few and far between and seem to be the fault of the focus-puller during Franco's frequent zooms.

The soundtrack? It's like distant conversations picked up by a ham radio enthusiast, looped, distorted and played back alongside some R&B/jazz Hammond organ and trippy sitar. Not just one of the classic exploitation soundtracks but one of the greatest film soundtracks of the 1970s.

The performances are, on the whole, excellent and above Franco usual standard. Miranda is great; at times fragile and then cold and aloof, whilst Carody (as Linda) is suitably naive and insecure at the start but slowly develops into a strong assertive woman. Michael Berling is excellent as the patriarchal and controlling Seward.

For gorehounds there is very little blood in Vampyros Lesbos and for those wanting tits-and-ass, there's frequent boobs and bush, one sub-softcore moment and a couple of very nice stripteases - the second being quite brilliant as the Countess slowly removes her clothes and dresses her living doll in them. Just don't watch the film expecting a Jess Franco sex frenzy.

The quality of the picture is very good with strong colours that pop off the screen without being over-saturated. The sound is clear and without noticeable hiss and the subtitles seem accurate.

A story of control versus love and sexual liberation. Seductive, sexy, beautiful and quite brilliant.

"The Queen of the Night will bear you up on her black wings"

Letterboxd Review

Things (1989)

This review is for the Intervision DVD.

"WARNING! HORROR and BRUTAL VIOLENCE in FULL COLOR"

Remember the old days when Plan 9 from Outer Space was considered the worst film ever made? These days it seems that milestone is being passed on an almost daily basis. We've had Manos: The Hands of Fate, Troll 2, The Room and more recently, the nil-budget, monster-movie exploitation of Birdemic: Shock and Terror. The appetite for shit is apparently still very healthy in an age of masturbatory, Spandex and cape-wearing explodavision.

I wasn't sure how to review Things, so I thought I'd try a method I had already used for Demons in My Head and pretty much list everything that happens in a low-rent, stream-of-consciousness type way. This seems to work well with these "what the fuck is happening" type films and to be honest I wasn't too bothered with plot spoilers in a film as notoriously disjointed as Things. So, let's get started...

Picture the following with 8-bit midi-synth and some nasty Casio-style backbeat playing in the background... well, when I say playing, it's more like start, stop, start, louder, rewind, stop, ff, stop, quieter, start. You get the idea.

A nuclear bomb goes off and we get the title screen. A man, Doug, asks a devil-masked woman to have his baby... but wait, the baby has already been born and bites his hand! Doug then wakes up... it was all a dream! He gets up and moves into the kitchen for some pills for his girlfriend. A door closes on its own. The title screen is displayed again along with the some disjointed credits...wait...freeze-frame...Amber Lynn is in this? Then she appears in all her hair-lacquered-within-an-inch-of-its-life, shoulder-padded glory as a newsreader with the name Amber Lynn! This is like some weird parallel universe where instead of being a world famous porn star she became a Fox News anchor with no idea of what her dialogue is, let along the camera! Two men (we'll call them Beardy and Mullet) knock at at Doug's door and get no answer. They let themselves in and pull a book and tape deck from the freezer... yes, the freezer. Beardy then describes the plot of the Evil Dead whilst they play the tape. Mullet then takes off his jacket and puts it in the freezer, because... well, just because. Doug appears, shouts, turns the tape off and disappears again. Beardy searches the kitchen cupboards, turns some taps on and off, and then flicks a plastic fish for no reason whatsoever. Amber Lynn is back! Then a shot of a man and a woman poking another man's decomposing hand. Then it just gets weird.

That's the first ten minutes or so and at this point I have to give up with my "stream-of-conciousness" idea as I'm spending to much time typing and not enough watching. So back to the standard review format.

There's a Robert Heinlein story called "And He Built a Crooked House" about a house built in an unfolded tesseract configuration which then collapses in on itself, becoming a weird quantum-mechanical, architectural conundrum. A house where you can climb the stairs only to find yourself at the bottom again and where you can walk into the kitchen and end up in the bedroom. Things is a little like that - you have entered a very strange dimension where even Rod Serling would fear to tread.

So we have some fun practical effects (I've seen much worse - I'm looking at you Cannibal Terror). The sound is all over the place with variable levels (just wait until you hear the paper-towels!), muffling, background hiss and some of the worst ADR outside of Hong Kong. The editing, and I use the word extremely loosely, is insane and completely incoherent. There is no shot composition at all and the picture quality is really, really bad - fuzzy, out of focus, blurry, pick an adjective. Then we come to the lighting! We have lighting, then no lighting, then red lighting, then yellow, then none, all within a single scene. Plot wise, so many things happen which have absolutely no bearing on the plot, character development or anything at all - they just happen! I'm sure there must be a plot in there somewhere, but I'm buggered if I can find it. The performances are bad but not the worst I've seen. In fact the doctor is up there with Torgo from Manos as one of my most favourite ever characters.

If there's one phrase that sums up Things it's "shit happens". It's almost like the director took the title a little too literally and took a big bucket full of "Things", threw them against a wall and filmed what stuck... and also what fell off into a gloopy mess on the floor.

I know all this makes the film sound terrible - and it is, it really is - but you can tell the film-makers really love horror and Things has a lot of heart. One to watch with friends and a large quantity of beer.

A masterpiece of incompetence.

Amber Lynn... why?

Letterboxd Review

Harvest Lake (2016)

"All this plant life is full of acid, even the grass" -- Star Trek, The Way to Eden (1969)

Four friends getting back to nature, fall down an acid drenched rabbit hole and in the process lose their inhibitions in a frenzy of fungi-fucking.

As in music, a sophomore film is always going to be tough. Viewer expectations will always want to reference the first film and this is generally how directors end up in a rut; churning out rehashes of what the audience liked about their first successful film. Director Scott Schirmer firmly kicks these expectations into touch and then stomps all over them. Harvest Lake is not Found.

I don't think I've ever seen a film quite like Harvest Lake. Although the basic premise is very simple, calling it high-concept is most inappropriate. This is horror as art and I guess the closest film in feel and tone would be Jonathan Glazer's Under the Skin. The feelings engendered by the film are so subtle that we could ask ourselves, is this really horror? While the film does explore certain fears; nature, loss of control, sex, gender, it is, like all good horror films, only horrific based on what we bring to the film. It gently strokes our anxieties rather than sticking a knife in our guts. As the friends start to lose control, merging with nature, they revert to what we all are underneath the artifice that society cloaks us in - animals fucking in a forest, and to some that's pretty scary.

The stunning rural location and atmospheric sound design give a naturalistic feel; tranquillity during one moment, unease in the next. Light and shade. The fungi themselves are well designed and subtly remind us of sexual organs: an oozing penis, lactating breasts, some gently throbbing labia. The forest creature itself feels like it's always been there, since the dawn of time. An ancient being, waiting to bring us home, to be the creatures that we once were. These are effective and elegant effects that enhance without overpowering the film's simplicity.

The static camera-work with macro, wide-shots and slow pans are perfectly suited to the tone and environment. It was a real pleasure to watch a low-budget film without any damned "shaky-cam". It must have been tempting to throw a shit load of filters onto the camera during the trippy sequences but cinematographer Brian Williams avoids this cliché and instead lets the landscape and the camera do the talking.

The performances are wonderfully uninhibited. Personal and sexual boundaries are set in the first 15 minutes and then gradually discarded throughout the rest of the film. While, for me, Ellie Church, Tristan Risk and Jason Crowe were the stand-outs, the whole cast work really well together and look like they had a real blast filming. These aren't your average, young American teens that you want to see killed at the first opportunity - I like these characters! The film is well scripted with naturalistic dialogue and some light touches of humour.

Although the influence of Glazer, Cronenberg, Invasion of the Bodysnatchers and even a little Brothers Grimm can be seen, Harvest Lake is very much its own film and high praise should go to the cast and crew for creating a unique and beautiful experience.

Harvest Lake is an unnerving and quietly scary sexual-fairytale. Support independent film-makers and order a copy. At the moment the initial limited edition run of 250 Blu-Rays (I'm in the credits!) has sold out but a non-limited edition will be available for pre-order on March 11th 2016 (ships March 15th).


Letterboxd Review

The Devil Rides Out (1968)

A simple tale of witchcraft, faith and the triumph of good over evil.

This review is for the new Studio Canal Blu-Ray; a restoration taken from new a 4K scan of the original negative (note that the actual release is a 2K downscale). The original aspect ratio of 1.66:1 is kept and the film is very slightly pillar-boxed with narrow black bands at the side of the screen. The picture itself is wonderful and I can't imagine there being a better release of this late-sixties, Hammer classic. So far so good, but what about the controversial digital enhancements to the original optical effects? Well, I'll leave you in suspense until the end of the review.

The Devil Rides Out is possibly the first horror film I ever saw as a child, although due to the haze of time this honour may go to an equally loved film, Jacques Tourneur's Night of the Demon (1957). At the time that the film conjured an almost palpable sense of dread and terror that made quite the impression on a young boy, aged still in single figures. As a result I've owned The Devil Rides Out in various formats over the years from dodgy "recorded from TV" bootleg tapes, to legit VHS and DVD and now a Blu-Ray. Is it still as good? Well, after seeing the original cinema 'X' certification ident at the beginning of the film, I was hoping so.

The film follows Duc de Richleau (Christopher Lee), aristocrat and occultist and his friends Rex Van Ryn (Leon Greene) and Richard Eaton (Paul Eddington) as they try to save the lives and very souls of son-of-a-friend Simon (Patrick Mower) and mystical conduit Tanith (Niké Arrighi) from the dastardly cult leader Mocata (Charles Gray).

The story could come off as risible and overblown, but is treated with with absolutely seriousness and gravitas by all concerned. By all accounts Christopher Lee really did believe that witchcraft was a dangerous subject that could imperil your sanity and soul. The film latches onto the late sixties fascination with the occult and mysticism and goes to great lengths to portray magic with an accuracy that cannot but aid believability and sustains suspension-of-disbelief throughout the film.

The Devil Rides Out relies, in equal parts, in both the horror of the imagination and some more physical manifestations of evil. Along the path to salvation our heroes must face a djinn, a giant spider, Baphomet, and even the Angel of Death itself.

That the film does not rely on blood and gore (of which there is none) but instead  builds a totally believable world filled with a real sense of dread and impending doom is a testament to the care and attention of the cast and crew. Set in the late twenties the setting could come over as a little old fashioned and privileged with every speaking part (apart from two butlers) being either stinking rich or members of the aristocracy but at least it sticks to its guns and rarely makes a mistake in set or dressing - one notable error is the 1960s haircut and rather repulsive and flammable dresses belonging to Richard Eaton's wife. There is none of the farcical, tongue-in-cheek campness that infected British horror of the period.

Directed by Terence Fisher (The Curse of Frankenstein, Dracula) with his usual colourful gothic style, The Devil Rides Out oozes the "good versus evil" duality in his Christian background and, during one scene, even goes so far as to have Mocata equate Satanism with science. The compositions are quite beautiful and the use of colour even more so.

The screenplay by horror legend Richard Matheson (I Am Legend, The Twilight Zone) roars along like Lee's 1927 Bentley barely pausing for breath; there is always something on screen to hold your attention.

Lee plays de Richleau perfectly, perhaps calling on his own aristocratic roots. He is authoritative, commanding and strong, used to people doing his will. What Mocata obtains through mesmerism and cunning, Lee achieves with will and a belief in the social hierarchy present in Britain at the time. A favourite 'Lee' scene of mine is when, towards the beginning of the film, Tanith mentions "Surely we're not meant to be more than 13"; the sharp look that Lee gives her is wonderful!

Charles Gray plays the mesmeric, seductive and quietly menacing Mocata. A villain very much in the mould of Karswell from Tourneur's Night of the Demon but without the childlike petulance. Sort of like a cross between an insurance salesman and Derren Brown.

I know he gets a lot of stick but I think Leon Greene (with Patrick Allen's voice!) is great as de Richleau's friend Rex and the film's resident blundering oaf; forever sticking his foot in his mouth and creating danger wherever he goes. His disbelief in magic is as much to do with stupidity and lack of imagination as it is rationalism.Sure he can be as wooden as a post but I sort of like his blank faced charm. He plays us, the audience, the doubters who need persuading that dark forces really do exist.

Joining Lee and Greene in our triumvirate of heroes is Paul Eddington (The Good Life; Yes Minister) as Richard "Nice but Dim" Eaton the husband of her of the hideous dresses.

A young Patrick Mower (Cry of the Banshee, Callan) is suitably wet-behind-the-ears as the naive Satanist neophyte Simon and is joined by Niké Arrighi as a beautiful and slightly odd and unhinged Tanith. Together they make a great pair of damsels-in-distress, needing constant vigilance to make sure they don't go wondering off back to Mocata or strangling someone in their sleep.

Finally, I must mention a brief appearance by Gwen Ffrangcon Davies as a Countess with the weirdest, most fucked up eyes ever to grace the screen.

While it has its faults (the back-projection during the car scenes is a little ropey and the black baptism orgy could have been a little raunchier), The Devil Rides Out is a master-class in creating a tense horror film from one of Britain's finest genre directors and featuring a top-notch cast. A beautiful restoration of a classic film.

Now, on to the effects enhancements. During the making of The Devil Rides Out the budget given to effects wizard Michael Staiver-Hutchins was cut, ensuring that the majority of the major set-piece effects were unfinished or reduced in scale. Having watched this film well over ten times in the past few decades I can state that I never really cared that much as the atmosphere carried me past all the shonky genies and wobbly observatories. Having said that, I was really impressed with the lightness of touch used in updating the old optical effects. This wasn't a case of George Lucas stomping all over Star Wars in his size 12 "Industrial Light & Magic" boots. These, apart from a replaced lightening strike, are subtle enhancements that complement rather than obscure. Well done Cineimage!

Extras:

I have not listened to the commentary as yet.

The "making of" short documentary was extremely interesting and explained how having Black Magic rituals in the film was important as at the time the UK censors regularly cut them from films (i.e. Masque of the Red Death) and the country still had blasphemy laws (and, unbelievably, still do). Also featured is mention of the late 1960s occult revival and an interview with a very old and infirm Richard Matheson. A couple of interesting facts: Patrick Mower, who plays Simon, is 6' tall but looks short because the rest of the male cast were even taller. The horse playing the Angel of Death's mount was wheezy and only had one lung!

The restoration featurette features the daughters of special effects supervisor along with people from the restoration company, Cineimage. As mentioned above, the original effects were relatively poor, even for the time, due to budgetary restraints. I think the restoration/enhancements to the old optical effects were very sympathetically done and this doc explains how they were created. Anyway, his daughters said he'd be happy with the enhancements and that's good enough for me.

The short Dennis Wheatley featurette contains various talking-heads discussing Wheatley's reaction to Hammer's three adaptations.

Finally, for some strange reason the "World of Hammer" extra has something wrong with its audio (at least for me). Oliver Reed's voice-over pretty much disappeared apart from a deep rumble. This makes me think that they'd stuck it on the wrong channel - the subwoofer! In an attempt to fix this I turned off my 5.1 system and just used the TV sound. Oliver Reed was back, although still very, very badly mixed and almost lost against any of the clip soundtracks. I gave up.

"Don't look at the eyes Rex!"

"The Goat of Mendes, the Devil himself!"

"I shall not be back... but something will"

Letterboxd Review

Weng's Chop: Issue 0 (2012)

I grew up with zines. I remember the old punk zines, I was a Hawkfan and had some of the Hawkwind zines, then the hardcore punk zines - back when I ran a punk distro I even had an advert in some of them. In other words I love them. For some reason though, film zines just passed me by. Sure I read Fangoria, Darkside and even Samhain, but all those handmade, handwritten horror manifestos went straight under my radar. Then I noticed some of my Amazon recommendations were books with names like Cinema Sewer and Weng's Chop and that they had volume and issue numbers! It seems that zines are alive and well in the age of the internet and, as I'd just received a Christmas bonus, I thought I'd check them out and ordered the full back catalogue of both Cinema Sewer and Weng's Chop.

The first issue of Weng's Chop is a wee zine. It's a 52 page, small format book filled with B&W print and illustrations, and comes wrapped in a full colour, perfect bound, soft cover. The zine covers exploitation, horror, adult, gonzo, trash and the weird side of film. For those worried about illegible handwritten text and cut and paste layout, do not fear. Although the print is small it's cleanly layed-out and completely readable. Sure it has the occasional spelling and grammatical error but so fucking what. It's full of the same passion and energy of the zines of yore.

The reviews are informative, funny and not snobby or elitist in the least. The authors really know their stuff and each has their own area of expertise. The frequent cast, crew and film references will give you hours of fun searching on IMDb and Amazon, although your bank balance may regret it.

Weng's Chop is from people that understand grindhouse, exploitation and underground films and get that it's not the end of the world if an acting performance doesn't hit the mark in some low budget indie gore-fest. They get that. That's not to say that it's full of fanboy gushing as they're not afraid to lay into any fuckups, but, as they say, it's all about the context.

The standouts are:

• The editorial - a lovely and funny intro.
• The 'Bohachi Bushido' review - the sheer passion really made me want to see this film.
• The House by the Cemetery (Christian version) - I had no idea this monstrosity existed!
• The article on Indian horror. If I can get past those bloody song and dance numbers I may just have to get some of these.

Totally recommended.