Alienology – Tales From The Void

Well, my first book review outside of Midnight Showing. Head over to Sonar4 Landing Dock Reviews and check out my review of Alienology. It’s a pretty good book with aliens, gore and other assorted sickness.  :)

Cinema Sewer - Vol. 2

If you’ve read Cinema Sewer before, or have Volume One (which I reviewed right here) then you’ll know what to expect in Volume Two. As it says on the cover: ‘the adults only guide to history’s sickest and sexist movies‘.

The book begins with an article on Colleen Brennan (porn star) and flows effortlessly to some disturbing info on Leonard Schrader. After a couple of entertaining ‘toons we get an article on ‘bong babes’. Hint: it involves bongs, babes, and asses. An interview with Lee Caroll is followed by a brief article on sick comics. Always a good thing.

In fact, looking back on it, there’s a lot of porn in Volume Two. Not that I’m complaining. Although Mr. Bougie does come a cropper after watching one of the Kit Kat Experiment movies.  :D

The article on roller derby took me back to my childhood when I used to watch it on Saturday night on cable here in the UK, man it was funny. This was pre-WWF days remember.

I’ve tittered many times over the (many!) farting preacher videos, but never realised who he was until now. Sometimes referred to as pastor gas we learn that he was more of a schister than anything.

Also liked the interview regarding the possibility of Thriller 2 (a sequel to ‘They Call Her One Eye‘, aka: Thriller). Although, the review of the Fleshlight wasn’t good for my imagination. You can imagine yourself how Robin *ahem* ‘tested’ out the *ahem* ‘unit’.

Robin’s ’25 Best Movies Adapted From Comic Books’ may cause some controversy (Akira should have been higher on the list methinks), but they’re all solid entries.

At 186 pages (not including the awesome index) this is a wealth of sleazy information. Get it! These volumes combined make it a veritable encyclopaedia of filth. Hoorah!

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Volume Three (as I write) is up for pre-order, so go get your copy today!

Cinema Sewer Vol. 3

Woohoo! Cinema Sewer Vol. 3 is almost upon us  folks. From Mr. Bougie himself:

The Cinema Sewer book 3 preorder HAPPENS NOW! Get in the queue early and get your book with the free 1-hour pervy drawing in it quicker!

Order here: http://cinemasewer.ecrater.com/p/11590544/cinema-sewer-book-3-presale-this

Cinema Sewer - Vol.1

Cinema Sewer is a fanzine written, and self-published, by writer and comic book artist Robin Bougie (who also had a hand in the Retard-o-tron mixtape that I reviewed right HERE). Volume One takes all the best bits from the first twelve issues and tosses in some previously unpublished rants, reviews and what-not.

The book begins with an intro from Mr. Bougie explaining the background of Cinema Sewer (the magazine) in his own inimitable style.

Did I mention that Mr. Bougie hand-writes Cinema Sewer? As in with pen on paper. No desktop publishing software here, no Sir! It gives CS a very amateur, homemade, feel and it’s littered with many rude, crude and funny comic strips and drawings. Basically, I love it.

The action starts with a couple of 1960′s porn reviews, Mr. Bougie is a pr0n afficionado. Then it’s a review of Kekko Kamen (the female, naked, super-hero). Then he treats us mere mortals to reviews of adult movies such as Flying Sex Man, and Tampon Tango. Then it’s reviews of the …Death videos (Faces of Death, Traces of Death etc.) then several pages of Robin gushing over good ol’ 8mm film. He has (or had?) an actual projector! I knew I wanted to check eBay for something, dammit!

After a brief interview with Ralph Bakshi (Wizards rules!) we get a quick run down on the life and times of Long Jeanne Silver, the one legged porn star who used to pump people with her leggy stump! No, seriously, I’m not making it up, it’s on page 28! After another eight or ten pages of porn reviews and discussions we get an article on Lolo Ferarri. After some rants we get an article on Bumfights, remember that folks? Several pages on Thing (aka: worst film ever made, not to be confused with The Thing), The Stamp Show is one of several Japanese TV shows mentioned, all of which inspired me to write my article on Japanese game shows. Following a few sleazy movie reviews we get the inevitable article on snuff movies (are they, aren’t they) an article on the life of Linda Lovelace (aka: Deep Throat) and an article on people who killed themselves live on TV. The article written by a fellow who dabbled in porn, and still does, is quite interesting – as is the article on ‘is porn abuse?’.

Although it sounds like it’s just chock full of schoolboy smut and silly articles, it’s not. Some of the articles are seriously written, some have many a nugget of information, and some are thought provoking articles that certainly made me get up off my fat ass and do my own research (aka: Google searches.) It’s an awesome book that ANYONE reading this site MUST own.

Buy it! BUY IT NOW!

Rating: 5 out of 5 stars

Info:
Paperback, 192 black & white pages (heavily illustrated).
Published: May 2009 (Second Edition is reviewed above)
Price: UK £11.99, US $19.95

Shock Xpress Vol.1 - Edited by Stefan Jaworzyn

Shock Xpress Vol.1 is the first of three books, each book being a compilation of sleaze/exploitation articles/interviews. What is Shock Xpress? I’m glad you asked.

Shock Xpress was, initially, a fanzine, started in the mid-80′s covering sleaze, exploitation and gore. In the words of editor Jaworzyn:

“The idea was to write about the weird, obscure movies we were seeing and that nobody else seemed to be covering. There were only a couple of books dealing with them and a couple of US fanzines which were really hard to find. So we wanted to do a similar kind of thing but maybe get the magazine across to more people. The first two issues were a fairly shitty black and white thing [which apprently Jaworzyn had no hand in, so really shouldn't bad mouth - Ronnie] then it slowly improved from there until it ended up as a book.”

Vol.1 has quite the gamut of articles. Starting off with an article written by James Ferman who was head of the most hated British Board of Film Classification (read: censors) then follows with an interview of Ferman, conducted by Julian Petley, which discusses several infamous films and cuts. Several pages are then devoted to Phillipino eploitation movies, some of which I’ll have to hunt down, then comes an interview with John Waters. The next article is about freaks in cinema and, of course, mentions Tod Brownings ‘Freaks‘ (reviewed by yours truly, on this page). Next up is an interview with Clive Barker, back when he was starting to write that fantasy rubbish. Shame that, his Books of Blood are amazing. Then an article on censorship in Germany, followed by a David Cronenberg interview discussing, mainly, The Naked Lunch. That lot make up, roughly, the first half of the book. I shant list every article as, not only would it spoil it, but I’m too lazy to go through them all and write them down.

Other than six or so pages in the middle, the entire book is in black and white, keep in mind; this was released in 1991. The last twenty pages give short reviews of movies such as; The Beast Of Yucca Flats, Brain Dead, Deranged and many others. The book ends with a comprehensive index of all the movies mentioned in the book, and there’s a lot! At just short of 200 pages the book is highly informative, humorously written and, being filled with articles, is easy to pick up, read an article, and come back for more later. Comes highly recommended… if you can find it!

Science Fiction And Horror Movie Posters In Full Color

The title’s a bit of a mouthful, but anything with Raquel Welch on the cover deserves a leer look.

With dimensions of 10in W x 14in H, it’s a big book, so no postcard sized posters here. All in glorious technicolor, the posters are printed on nice glossy pages, with lots of colour, no tatty posters here. There’s a good range of movies too, everything from The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms, through to War of the Worlds (a personal favourite) to Godzilla (even Mothra!) are all here.

The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms

Posters are well reproduced considering that this is an old book from 1977. You can see some posters have fold marks on them but hey, they didn’t have Photoshop in 1977. The first several pages give a brief paragraph about each poster/film so it’s not all pictures.

My only complaint is that it is a tad thin. At only 48 pages, there are only 44 posters. But I suppose it’s better to have 44 large posters than 88 postcard sized ones.

Rating: 4 out of 5 stars

Godzilla! - Rawr!

Sleazoid Express by Bill Landis & Michelle Clifford

With a sub-title like: A Mind Twisting Tour Through The Grindhouse Cinema Of Times Square!, how could I resist?

The book begins way back in the 60s where it goes in to great detail about the atmosphere in grindhouse cinemas and the danger that lurked in some of these hell holes. Initially this chapter seemed completely pointless, but reading on – you realise that you needed that chapter to give you the background of which cinema was where, who owned it and it’s reputation within the legendary 42nd Street.

Sleazoid Express moves chronologically through the exploitation movies being peddled. Filled with crackheads, thiefs and prostitutes/pimps 42nd Street certainly sounds sleazy! Beginning with the Olga series of movies (a pre-cursor to the Ilsa movies) it often gives a brief review (sometimes a lengthy review, if the film was decent) of the movie plot and, most times, even giving away the ending, so if you don’t want your plots spoiled, beware! But lets face it, how many exploitation movies have an in depth plot or twist ending?

The chapters are genre points within the exploitation time line, chapter titles such as: The Anco Does A Gendertwist and Blood Horror: Chopping ‘Em Up At The Rialto hint at the subjects (the Anco and Rialto being cinemas with Times Square). Many different types of film are spoken about in the book, everything from the early gore classics (Blood Feast) through to the zombie flicks, cannibal movies and even the influx of gorey westerns and wacky oriental fung-fu movies (Flying Guillotine).

Just shy of 300 pages the book also lists exploitation video companies who still sell many of the gems mentioned in the book. The index is excellent as lists actors, directors and film titles, so it’s easy to dive in to the book to find a fact. This is THE exploitation book to own, Nightmare USA is also excellent, but spends too much time reviewing, Sleazoid Express gives history, and life, to the home of exploitation cinema. If you want to know how it all started, this is the book you want.

Favourite fact gleaned from the book? The fact that Dyanne Thorne (Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS) is now an ordained minister!

SEE ALSO: Nightmare USA – The Untold Story of the Exploitation Independents.

A big beast of a book!

This is indeed a beast of a book! With dimensions of 10″ x 12″ x 1.5″ you could nail four poles under it and use it as a coffee table.

Nightmare USA is divided in to sections. Section I is an explanation of the genre from the 1970′s to the mid-80′s which is literally a who’s-who of sleaze/gore/splatter but without the (now) big names (such as The Texas Chainsaw Massacre etc.). Section II is a group of essays on various films and the people involved, such as The Films of Frederick Friedel, Douglas McKeown on The Deadly Spawn, Joseph Ellison on Don’t Go In The House, and so on. Section III is over 100 movie reviews (from 1970 – 1985), and Section IV is appendices and the index. Weighing in at over 500 pages, it’s informative to say the least!

The majority of the book is in black and white but there are colour sections which, like the B&W sections, display rare video covers, one sheets and on-set photo’s which complement Throwers writings.

The Untold Story of the Exploitation Independents is it’s sub-title. ‘Exploitation Independents’ is a term coined, in the book, by the author (Stephen Thrower) to more precisely define exploitation movies as not exploiting people, but exploiting genres of the time. Not only does it define the term well, it defines the genre as a whole in a highly informative way. At the end of the book Thrower teases that there will be a volume two. It can’t come fast enough!

If you don’t want to pay the £40 (£25 on Amazon.co.uk with free postage) then you could always wait until 2nd Oct which is when the paperback is released at £20.

A cracking book. Buy it! Buy it NOW!