Saturday, August 20, 2016

WENG'S CHOP #9 OUT NOW

Looking over some of my contributions to the latest issue of Weng's Chop (#9), which arrived in the post today. Apart from my own pieces (including some blaxploitation reviews and an article on 70s disaster movies, accompanied by an interview with Marneen Fields regarding her acting and stuntwork on several big disaster flicks), there is a stack of great-looking stuff in this massive 234 page issue.
Nice to see a strong Australian presence within its pages, with a continuation of Andrew Leavold's examination of Filipino action/exploitation filmmaker Bobby Suarez, and an interview with Mark Savage regarding his latest (excellent) feature film, Stressed to Kill.
Canadian writer/artist/publisher/adult film historian Robin Bougie (Cinema Sewer) is also interviewed in this issue, Dawn Dabell examines the 1970 British-West German film Deep End, and I'm especially looking forward to reading Stephen Bissette's article on vintage adult paperbacks that revolved around a horror theme.
There's a less expensive B&W edition of Weng's Chop available, but I strongly recommend forking out the extra bucks for the full color edition if you can. It looks stunning and the pages just pop out at you. A great job by designer Tim Paxton and the rest of the WC team (Tony Strauss, Brian Harris, et al).













Thursday, August 18, 2016

HELLHOLE REVIEW

Have just completed a review of the 1985 grindhouse film Hellhole, which has just made its official Blu-ray and DVD debut on the Scream Factory label, and in which Marneen Fields has a prominent co-starring role as Curry, the poor young religious insanity victim who is dragged off to the Hellhole (an illegal experimental facility located at a women's sanatorium) to face unspeakable horrors. Marneen gained great recognition and notices for her performance in this film, and the clip of her scene on the gurney in the Hellhole has racked up over half a million views on You Tube. It's great to see Hellhole finally available in an uncut hi-def transfer, after having to sit through grainy VHS tapes and fuzzy bootleg DVDs for years.

The review can be found at the following link:





Sunday, August 14, 2016

MONSTER! DOUBLE

Received my contributor's copy of Monster! 28/29 in the post today, a huge 220 paged double issue beast. My contributions to this issue include an article on the short-lived 1960s monster mag Shriek! and a look at the Filipino horror flicks Blood of the Vampires and The Twilight People, but there is so much more within the pages of this issue to digest. Another mighty effort from Tim Paxton, Brian Harris, Steve Fenton and crew. Daniel Best continues to dig up obscure and fascinating information in the second part of his article on the 1929 Australian stage production of Dracula, Troy Howarth takes a look at a trio of unique Jess Franco monster mashes, and Stephen Bissette provides an in-depth look at made-for-TV horror.
















































Saturday, August 13, 2016

RINGTAILS ARE COMING!

When my lovely American wife Marneen is here in Melbourne with me she is forever worried about leaving a window wide open in case one of our little local possums should make a leap through from one of the surrounding trees or fences and cause all sorts of untold horror. It has inspired me to write a horror fiction story about a plague of infected possums who terrorize the St. Kilda area of 1975, picking off derelicts, streetwalkers, pushers and the odd Luna Park employee.
I'm going to call it Ringtails and write it in homage to those great lurid eco-horror paperbacks pulps from the 1970/early-80s, authored by the likes of Guy N. Smith, James Herbert and Shaun Hutson.
Here's the opening paragraph:
"When they first came out of the darkness en masse, they were already rabid, ravenous, and completely out of control. No one was really sure how or why the problem first started, but it was clear that it had been festering for some time. With a random shrug of her fickle shoulders, Mother Nature had decided to mutate and descend a new horror down upon us, and used as its testing grounds the unsuspecting populace of the Melbourne bayside suburb of St. Kilda."


NEW BLU-RAY BOOKLET ESSAYS COMING!

Earlier this year I was lucky enough to get the job writing the booklet essays for local Blu-ray releases from Glass Doll Films of Thirst (1979) and Dead Kids (1982). I am happy to announce that I have been asked back to compose the essays for two more of the company's upcoming releases from the vaults of the legendary Australian exploitation producer Antony I. Ginnane.
The movies I will be writing about this time around are Snapshot (1979), a Simon Wincer-directed thriller starring a young Sigrid Thornton as a fashion model stalked by a psycho driving a Mr. Whippy ice cream van. This was the film that was released in the USA under the completely misleading title of The Day After Halloween. It was also released as One More Minute.
The other release I will be working on is The Survivor (1981), a big-budget (for Australian cinema at the time) adaptation of James Herbert's 1976 supernatural horror novel of the same name, directed by actor David Hemmings and featuring Joseph Cotten in his final role.
Am looking forward to diving in and and re-evaluating these two films. Have dug out my paperback tie-in of Snapshot and Signet printing of The Survivor to re-read, and digging up some exotic poster art, such as these two samples from Thailand (Snapshot) and Turkey (The Survivor).
The first of these two films should see release from Glass Doll towards the end of the year (which suddenly doesn't seem that far off).