bang that head that doesn't bang!

METALHEADS
the good, the bad and the evil
D: Bill Zebub 2008

Written, directed, produced, edited, starring and probably catered by as well, Bill Zebub comes on like a yankee metal slightly nuts version of comedian Bill Bailey at times but damn he’s good at it.
This film is a slice of the life of a couple of metal head schmucks who do nothing much at all but get wasted, dream about making money, look at girls, take trips, drink, look at girls, get wasted… in short, this is pretty much what most of us are doing.
Our main men, Bill and Rich are a coupla losers who need to grow up but don’t seem in any hurry to do that. Bill’s girlfriend Elaine is constantly giving him shit cos he’s got a little dick, no car and no future. In fact she’s even thinking that maybe she should “date outside of metal.” That’s how desperate she is! Rich, well he’s just there for the ride, that dependable mate with a car and some sort of common sense or at least more sense than Bill anyway. You know the guy, he’s at the bar now buying you a beer cos you’re short of cash and he’ll drop you off home later and he’s always around to get drunk with you and play some air guitar… that guy. So we’ve got Bill and Rich and Elaine. Bill keeps finding money laying around, things just don’t go anywhere but you’ll recognise every sentence and every person and then when Elaine kisses Rich cos she thinks that maybe he’s not a bad guy, well then things go a bit haywire but you sort of knew it would happen cos it did just Saturday at the bar didn’t it and you still aren’t sure what you’re going to say to your mate when you see him next. Bill ends up tangled with a mad metal head, who tells him he’s been “living with the volume turned down.” and now it’s time to get things rolling. It’s party time now, with naked girls, light bondage, stealing, drinking, revenge and Bill looking well out of his depth.
Meanwhile Elaine is fantasizing about a muscle bound, well groomed metal head with a car and a job but though her hand is getting right into it her heart belongs to that idiot Bill. Billy boy soon realizes that he doesn’t need the volume turned up that loud and goes back to his friends but it just ain’t gonna be a happy ending. There’s a real nasty, misogynistic sting in the tail of this movie that at first sort of disturbed me but I realized that it had to be there. If we’re honest, the whole metal scene is in general, bloketown. It is misogynistic, it is sexist, it is dumber than a box of politicians – that’s why we like it. We want naked women and beer, loud music, perennial adolescence and a shit hot guitar solo. Bill recognizes that but he’s not afraid to just make us just a touch uncomfortable about it too. There’s some great laughs in this film, there’s those moments where you go, shit, that’s me! There’s a lot of very recognizable people and ideas and actions and you’ll be sitting there shaking your head thinking “what a goose!” before you then realise that you’ve done exactly the same thing, or your mate has or the guy who plays in that band that you see every weekend has… For a low budget, labour of love, one man band this is pretty damn good. No one’s a great actor but there’s a certain natural feel to the whole flick and I get the feeling there was a lot of improvising as well. The girls are hot looking, the boys are dweebs, the soundtrack rocks… this is metal, this is the real world as lame as that world may be at times. No super heroes, no government conspiracies, no zombies, no future… I can’t recommend this dumb ass, no nothing, going nowhere movie high enough. Forget Hollywood, the low budget/no budget scene is where it’s all happening now.

10 out of 10.

a goddamn movie moment

DEMONS AMONG US
D: Stuart Simpson 2006
Accent Underground 2dvd set


A long term labour of love this Aussie independent horror film first saw the light in 2001 as a short film before Simpson expanded the storyline and started filming the long version in 2003. It took until 2006 to complete it with a volunteer crew, a cast of unknowns and more balls than Wendy O Williams.

Kicking off with an opening segue of yabbie races, roadkill, powerlines, dirt tracks and railway lines in washed out black & white with spatterings of colour you straight away get the feeling that this is not your usual horror/splatter fare.
The story starts with city slicker Joe Melton (Nathaniel Kiwi) wandering into the local roadhouse in Miranda Falls on Christmas Eve to stock up on catfood where he meets Kylie (Laura Hesse) and they do that flirty ‘new boy in town’ stuff (and I come from the country, Simpson nailed that scene perfectly) before Joe is then accosted by a local who in a tribute to F13’s Crazy Ralph babbles about the signs and the evil before downing a tinnie. Joe then goes home to feed his cats but they don’t come for their tucker before sitting down to start his article on the evils of advertising. Meanwhile Kylie’s workmate Sally Winters (cover girl Hollie Kennedy) can’t get hold of her mum on the phone and is starting to worry about her. Things start to get a bit weird here. Joe wakes up to see something bloody and disturbing, he runs out of the house, the scenes fall apart, the colours wash out, the picture starts to drag and roll and stutter and I’m sitting there thinking, I’ve had this feeling before, what is it? Before I can work it out though, young Joe has stumbled upon the Winters household only to find blood, guts, grue and the entire family massacred in their lounge room. Seems Sally’s brother Jack was killed just a few days before in a car accident and now he’s back looking like a poorly paid extra from a Marilyn Manson video and he’s chowed down on the family and Joe’s moggies! Joe runs into the night only to bump into Sally who has arrived home to find her family dead and the weird city guy covered in their blood. Fast talking ain’t gonna get him out of this situation especially when the local cops find all his dead cats and Sally nailed to a tree. Of course, being possessed by demons, Sally ain’t really dead but her initial discovery by the local coppers, based by the way on the two dingbats from Debbie Does Dallas 2, is a good laugh but a real waste of a good looking sheila. (much the same as Debbie Does Dallas 2) Luckily Joe manages to convince Kylie that things aren’t quite right out there but not before Sally pays them a visit. It was about now too that it dawned on me – the fucked up flickering vision, the gap toothed fading out, the hazy pictures, the black & white movies, the split screens and blank memories… this is exactly like the end of a three day bourbon bender complete with DT’s, blurry nights, stumbling around on unlit roads in the dead of night, too bright mornings, blood all over yr clothes, monsters lurking, faces fading in and out… this is a horror movie not for the drug fucked but the booze fucked!!
And when the local cop Sgt Harding (Peter Roberts) started talking to himself before reaching for a bottle of Jimmy Beam to neck, well then I knew I was on the right track.
And though the pacing and style made me occasionally think I was watching an SBS late night short film with the use of colour, the split screens and blurry vision not to mention the hand held claustrophobic camera work I forgave Simpson – its a case of knowing your limitations and using them to your advantage. And when was the last time SBS showed a Demon-Noir flick drenched in bourbon, beer and blood anyway?
And despite the artistic bent when the demons are unleashed it’s a frenzy of blood, guts and grue that’ll have the horror geeks popping their loads in very short time. Throw in Joe in a dress carrying a talking axe (just a touch of Bruce Campbell there) car wrecks, dead bodies, demons on park benches, the copper with a drinking problem, parasitic eels and an advertising guru bastard arsehole (Ed Winters played by Peter Roberts in a dual role though you wouldn’t pick it) and you’ve pretty much got country life in Australia nailed. Okay maybe not the advertising guru but hell he’s really just the arrogant bastard who always stands at the back yelling out advice at the footy or cricket, who could run the country and still be home in time for tea if only someone would listen to him but is never there to clean up or sell raffle tickets or help out on working bees or remember his wife’s birthday... every little town has a family secret they try to hide away, little monsters and demons they don’t want people to know about, it’s just in this town it turns out to be the bloody devil himself. This is supposed to be a film that is having a dig at advertising and marketing but to me it’s a movie about life in the country. Either way, it doesn’t throttle you with the message, just lays it out there for you to find.
Forget Hugh Jackman and Nicole Kidman, forget all those high falutin’ arty champagne sippin’ aussie directors – Christ those fuckers wouldn’t know how to have a decent bender anyway… this is the real Australia, this is the real deal. These bastards are gonna turn the industry up on its head, or at least they’re gonna gate crash the party, drink all the piss, crack onto the hostess and not remember a thing in the morning. And as for Stuart Simpson I only have one thing to say – you silly, twisted boy.

redneck lounging in newcastle

The Anti-Social Social Club
Saturday 4th October, 3:00 – 5:00, Festival Club Newcastle
The Anti-Social Social Club resides in the outside lawn at the
Festival club. Grab a deck chair and kick back.
Saturday: The Redneck Lounge,
where fun activities include recovering from Friday night, Country n' Western toons and beer-ku poetry.

Beer Drinking Rock and Roll

The Veebees – Get It In Ya + Fair Dinkum Rock’n’Roll CD
The Veebees – Crack Us Anotha! EP
The Veebees – Drive Thru Bottlo DVD (All thru Ocker Records)

Like their namesake beverage these bastards are light on taste, light on bubble but fuck they’ll do the job to ya!! In the tradition of such other ocker rock scum as the Cosmic Psychos and the Meatbeaters these bastards are even more bloody Aussie (if that’s possible) with songs about barbecues, drinkin’, goin’ to the bottlo, utes and my fave – drinkin’ problem (two cans, two hands, one mouth) . After listening to this I was so thirsty I had to tell the missus and kid to piss off to nanna’s, buy a slab of beer, stop off for some snags, get home and fire up the barby, dig out me vhs of the 2000 grandfinal between port and glenelg and relax for awhile in true ocker fashion. Fark, but it was nice. This is Aussie Ocker rock the way its supposed to be played – a sense of humour, a sense of place and no bloody keyboards or nu-metal shite or any of that fucking hiphop/r&b jism sucking, gold chain yank wank. Just loud and proud three chords (ok two) oi oi oi aussie aussie aussie get a dog up ya crack another can where’s the bloody remote go you liddle bewdy fuck I’m so drunk even y’re sister looks good rock and roll! And the bloody extras on the dvd are funny as fuck – worth yr money alone!
www.veebees.com.au

two buck video review

UNHINGED

D: Don Gronquist 1982

Gronquist cowrote, produced and directed this early 80s slasher entry but maybe he should have let someone else have a say too. An attempt at a gothic/splatter/scary movie this doesn’t quite work as well as it should.

Problem number one, boredom. Three gals go off in a beat up old car heading to a rock concert. So we start with driving and more driving and more driving interspersed with mumbling, then it rains, more driving and then finally a crash. Only its the lamest crash you’ve seen since… since… well probably since John Boy Walton had his infamous fall from grace off the back of the hay cart. Really, they drove off the road at a very slow speed and went into a ditch, I mean come on – this is how we get them to the spooky old mansion?!

Oh yeah, the mansion. See, the girls wake up in an old house after a local handyman found them and their car in the ‘ravine’ they drove into. One gal Gloria is in pretty bad shape and upstairs somewhere, the other two Terry (the heroine) and Nancy are just shaken not stirred. So now the gals are stranded in an old house with a crazy old lady and her middle aged daughter Marion while they wait for the terrible storms to blow over and for Gloria to heal. Well, we assume Gloria is healing since we don’t see her for the next 45 minutes. (maybe Don couldn’t afford the extra actress) The old lady has a pathological hate of men, has had since her husband (and Marion’s daddy) was caught with an underage child back in the day. Unfortunately the old duck played by Virginia Settle, chews up the dialogue and spits it out in a bout of overacting not seen since the Golden Girls were at their peak. Christ, she’s not even a good over actor, just irritating. She keeps going on about Marion having men upstairs at night which as it turns out is a key plot point later on but its so fucking irritating that you ignore it and her.

Despite their accident the gals seem to have salvaged their hair supplies and the 80’s hairstyles (straight outta video clips) are truly beautiful. Nancy in particular does herself and the 80s proud. Now nothing much has happened yet, despite the shots of lightning, rain and the dark dark house. Of course we soon have the eerie keyboards and someone outside the window breathing heavily (that’d be the rain, get inside you fool before you catch a cold) Its trying to be neo gothic but its just dark and dull. There is someone inside though because they’re spying on the gals in the gratuitous shower scene (thank you Don) and breathing heavily a lot. So heavily that it wakes Terry up but no one else hears it?! Yeah right.

Nancy wants to get to the village because she’s run out of hair products or something so she sets off through the woods only to be tracked by shitty synth muzak and a killer with a scyth! Finally some action and not too badly done in a cheapy blood squib and cutaway style. No more hair worries for Nancy. Back at the house, Terry finally goes up to see her friend before we discover that someone is lurking. In fact the old face at the window routine made me jump! Yep, they’d lulled me into a complete state of boredom and I missed all the cues… turns out there’s a brother, a simpleton of course, who has to hide in the woods since his mad mother hates men and refuses to acknowledge his very existence. Oh and lots of gals have gone missing. Gloria gets hers in a bloody axe attack which strangely enough Terry doesn’t hear. She does however end up discovering a room full of body parts and her pals in slo mo. Finally things are beginning to happen, it took over an hour but the last ten minutes damn near make it worthwhile.

JE Penner as Marion pulls out a stunner finish that I admit I didn’t see coming! Either I’m getting old or I was just so dazed with the bad acting and slow storyline that I just wasn’t paying attention. Finally the old duck’s whinging about the men in the attic makes sense. I just wish the film had gotten us there quicker. Hard to say whether I recommend this or not. Those last few minutes are great in a slasher 80s B-grade fashion but the first hour of over acting, under acting, tedious dinners and 80s hair really test yr patience. Fast forward thru the dull bits, watch some of the overacting to get an idea of what’s happening, pause at the shower scenes and then watch the killings. That would be the best way to do it. And maybe stock up on the Stone’s too. you’ll need it.

green ginger wine two buck video review

THUNDERGROUND (Busted Up 2)

D: David Mitchell 1989

Okay, when was the last time you watched a movie that had Huckleberry Finn, hobos, bloodsports, buddies and boozing as its story line? While you’re thinking about that I’ll run this baby by you.

A B-Grade Chuck Norris type (Paul Coufus) jumps off a freight train and hits a hobo jungle stepping straight into a bare knuckle blue which he wins quite handily before teaming up with Casey, a hobo hustler who turns out to be a gal (Margaret Langrick from Harry & The Hendersons no less!). Chucky Jr don’t know shit about the hobo life, but Casey does, Casey can’t fight, Chucky Jr can. So the two team up. But it has to be in that buddy/not really buddy type scenario of course. So what we have is a 1940s hobo flick but its 1989. You get the feeling that director Mitchell who co-wrote the script originally had written this as a 40s flick but when he was offered the chance to adapt it to make this sequel he just went “sure, why not?” Trouble is that don’t quite gell. And anyway, there’s no mention of the previous movie anyway so why bother. Chucky Jr might still be the same character from the first Busted Up (which by the way I haven’t seen) but there’s no mention of his previous life or how he ended up on the bum anyway other than a sort of life sucks mini monologue that doesn’t answer any questions or matter. So what we have is a sequel that isn’t. Does that make sense? Ah who cares? Anyway, Chucky Jr and the gal go on the road heading down to New Orleans where “the Man” a legendary bare fist fighter is said to reside. So now it’s a buddies on the road, bickering and all that type of movie as well as a bloodsports flick and then Chucky Jr starts to show signs of serious booze addiction and the Gal starts reading Huck Finn and shit, we got it all then! Literature, fighting, boozing, getting of wisdom and I might add some absolutely stunning cinematography to boot! Who’d a thunk it? So the twosome head off to New Orleans and meet up with a slumming M. Emmet Walsh as a conman who offers them a blue with The Man but only after they can get some stake money together. He then offers Chucky Jr a fight against a big black son of a bitch called Mongo for a thousand clams in front of a bunch of rich decadent locals. All Chucky has to do is lose the fight. Which he does but only after being a stubborn son of a bitch himself and making Mongo earn the victory. M. Emmet cons them anyway and they walk away with a measly hunnerd bucks. (expenses and a small handgun) But at least they’ve got a fight against The Man now. Oh yeah, The Man is none other than Jesse Ventura!! Hope to hell he’s a better governor than he is an actor. Ventura meets them in a crypt and explains the rules. Basically there are none. It’s a fight to the death, no rules, no spectators, their $91 up against $9,000, survivor take all. Jesse has yet to lose of course. So then we get Chucky Jr and Jesse Ventura beating the crap out of each other in some swamp (the thunderground of the title apparently) until finally… well, I think you know the rest. Anyway Chucky Jr and the gal ride off into the sunset, well okay they jump a freight train, with their meagre winnings and goddamn it if they don’t kiss. Yuck!!!

This is such a weird hybrid that despite the bad acting, slow plot and inconsistencies, (bruises that come and go, the strange 40s/80s thing, the white clothes that stay clean despite them bumming it) I still enjoyed it. Hell, in the end I was smiling, until they kissed anyway. Of course it might have had something to do with the half bottle of Green Ginger Wine I’d consumed as well but its just such a bizarre mishmash of ideas that I couldn’t help myself. And like I said at the beginning, when was the last time you watched a movie that had Huckleberry Finn, hobos, bloodsports, buddies and boozing as its story line?

Another $2 VHS review

DEATH SHIP

D: Alvin Rakoff 1980

A mean spirited and bleak movie from the days of yore that I found on vhs for a lousy gold coin at some country market recently, Death Ship has always been one of those films that I remember watching in the grand days of videos, beer and stinky finger.

George Kennedy plays a crotchety sea captain of a luxury liner on his last voyage before forced retirement with Richard Crenna as the new captain in waiting who’s by his side learnin’ the ropes. While Cap Kennedy grumbles and farts we meet the rest of the cast. A coupla precocious kids that belong to Crenna, his wife, a horny crewman and his babe, the ship’s MC and bad comedian and an old lady who’s there, well, because you need victims basically. Anyway, while the horny crewman and his bit get it on and Cap K and Crenna and the brood sit at the Captain’s table, a dark and gloomy ship is bearing down on them, with wheels turning, engines pumpin’, orders flyin’ but no sign of a crew. The liner is in darkness, the gloomy ship daylight but hell, that sort of thing don’t matter in a b-grader like this anyway. Anyway, the ship rams the liner, things go haywire and then its daylight and surprise surprise the raft of survivors is… Crenna and his family, the horny crewman, his babe, the old lady and the comedian. You can almost see victim written on their foreheads. Cap Kennedy pops up out of the water miraculously and then so does the dark and gloomy ship. In fact how does a big fucking freighter sneak up on you and drop anchor without you noticing? Anyhoo, they all clamber on board although the cap and Crenna and horndog have to do it the hardway when the boat drops the ladder halfway through. And comedian immediately gets hooked upside down and dunked over board to either drown or get chopped up by the propellers as the boat ups anchor and takes off. Cap K starts hearing voices in German and seeing things, having flashbacks and generally looking dirty and wacked out. The rest of the survivors tumble around trying to find the crew, clean clothes, food and all that other survivor stuff while ignoring the fact that the ship is moving, the lights come on, an old rekkid player keeps playin’, the phone rings, the doors shut by themselves… it takes longer than you would think for Crenna to get that “what the fuck?” look on his face. And even then it takes horndog to point out that there’s no one running the ship before he catches on. The old lady eats some 40 year old humbugs that give her the worst case of acne you’ve ever seen. Cap K finishes her off thankfully cos she was way overacting. The ship dumps the life rafts on em and then Cap K shows up in a spankin’ new uniform and informs Crenna that Kennedy is still captain of the ship. Whoo hoo, Cap K has got himself a new command. The babe ends up trapped in a shower that covers her in blood before Cap K throws her overboard. This is a great scene with the gal spinning and screaming cut with one of the precocious kids getting spooked by the german music blaring out of the speakers… damn claustrophobic and very effective. In fact the whole flick is gritty, dirty and claustrophobic especially for a b-flick, there’s a real clammy uncomfortable feeling about this movie. Of course watching on a very old tape that’s worn out and dirty itself adds to the occasion.

But back to the story – Crenna and horndog follow the captain and stumble on a white supremist’s wet dream when they find a room full o’ nazi paraphernalia and soon realise that this ship was some sort of interrogation/torture boat, sailing around the Atlantic while the hold was full o’ folk to torture and kill. Horndog loses grip on reality in the film room when the movie just wont stop and ends up in a net full o’ bodies (which we had a flash of right at the beginning of their journey on the bucket o’ rust) and Crenna pulls himself together enough to stab Cap K who’s informed him the boat runs on blood and his family is its next meal. Grabbing his family he finds a freezer full of dead seamen (ex victims maybe?) and finds a raft and life jackets and hallelujah his family is saved. But of course not before Cap K takes a shot or two at him. Takes more than a kitchen knife to slow ol’ Cap down. In fact it takes the ship’s engine room to do it in a scene that’ll make you grimace even though you don’t actually see anything. Lots of people bag this film but hell, everytime I watch it I get the creeps. It’s dark, damp, nasty, mean spirited and bleak and I don’t care about the inconsistencies, the ship is used beautifully and to it’s fullest to make you shrink back and feel like you’re trapped too. It’s out on dvd but hell I just love the old worn out tape, it just seems right. This is a keeper.