Night of the Living Dead 3D: Re-AnimationDirected by: Jeff Broadstreet USA, 2012 Horror/Comedy,
Gerald Tovar Jr. [Andrew Divoff] runs the Tovar mortuary – a character previously played by Sid Haig in Broadstreet’s previous installment Night of the Living Dead 3D 2006, although this time around the movie is a prequel and takes place a day before that previous movie… Anyways, Gerald has a problem with his mortuary, as the dead won’t stay dead. Trying his best to keep the brooding undead epidemic – by keeping it secret from his staff, Aunt Lou [Melissa Jo Bailey], Handyman Russell [Adam Chambers] and Goth-Lolita necro-crush DyeAnne [Robin Sydney], and newly employed mortician Christie Forrest [Sarah Lieving]. To complicate things even more, Gerald’s younger brother Harold Tovar [Jeffery Combs] turns up on his doorstep after a long time of absence with grudge as he feels he was mistreated in the will… in short, he want’s the money he feels entitled too. Needless to say, things get complicated and Gerald has more than one shocking surprise hidden away behind locked doors.
Well, they do say don’t fuck with the classics for a reason…
Andrew Divoff, Jeffery Combs, and zombies… it sounds like a horror buffs wet dream… For some it probably will be, but for me it never took off, which is a damned shame, because I really wanted this flick to kick ass!But all is not lost in the land of the dead… I’m just very picky when it comes to my zombie fun, and anything trying to hitch a ride on Romero’s groundbreaking classic or Fulci’s companion piece, rubs me the wrong way. But if you can get your head past the semi-pretentious vibe that comes with a movie sticking its self with the “Night of the Living Dead” title, there’s a pretty fun flick behind all of the façade building.
Divoff is great here, and he’s obviously giving it all he can. He manages to give a grand performance as the morally tormented Tovar – there’s a real neat shock when the reason for his keeping zombies alive concealed in there – and the way he eases the audience into his personal hell works like a charm.
I have issues with flicks that try to blend horror and comedy, sometimes for no apparent reason, but I find Night of the Living Dead 3D : Re-Animation more of a satire than a horror comedy. A satire, which makes for some laughs through the Sister Sarah [Denise Duff] character in the shape of a Sarah Palin parody. This despite fucking up the time line… I was under the impression that this movie was a prequel to a movie that was made in the sixties and supposedly took place then too, not four decades later…
Despite being something of a slow mover– with the obligatory zombie beat every few minutes – I really liked the rift between the brothers and the reveal of the exploitative idea of Tissue Farming… But Gerald is all about family values and stopping at nothing to keep his fathers work in prime focus. There’s some great dimension to the character that Divoff presents. Combs get’s the job done, but not really much more, and despite a sudden plot curve, they still manage o kick in a shock twist at the very end of the flick.
Night of the Living Dead 3D: Re-Animation just about get’s a three out of six possible. The reason for this is that I don’t really feel that it’s either creepy enough or funny enough, although still enjoyable… it almost feels like a TV show... I don’t really know what they want with the movie, and I would have given the digital effects a second spin. When it comes to zombie horror I prefer the old school approach to special effects over CGI (sorry Fred), and when you have a movie set in a morgue, why not go all in with a classic gut spill? Although on the plus side, I’m sure this movie is a blast in it’s 3D version, as that’s what the movie primarily is made as, a 3D horror shock!
OK, so I passed 200.000 visits a week or so back, and I’ve been wanting to celebrate this in some appropriate manner… So here’s a little competition for you to dig away at, and there's some nice goodies to win at the end of it all!
1. The Crime Package
Well basically the Fernando DiLeo boxset, the gun stays with me. Four brilliant, hard and kick ass crime flicks that put others to shame. Starring the likes of Jack Palance, Henry Silva, Al Cliver, Barbara Bouchet, Gisela Hahn uncredited performances by Dario Argento regularFulvio Mingozzi and Ulli “Bogeyman” Lomel as a dancer. Then there’s the spiffy soundtracks by none other that Luis Bacalov and Armando Trovajoli - EuroCrime at its finest!
2. The Smut Package
Four Scandinavian Smut flicks from the golden age of Swedish Sin. Two Mac Ahlberg’s, a Torgny Wickman, and one Paul D. Gerber. Marie Ekorre is in two of them, Christina Lindberg has a small cameo in one of them, oh and did I mention that bloke of Emmerdale Farm? Funky music, fury chicks and lot’s of bonus features, such as Wickman’s never completed lost movie Drömdoktorn.
ALSO! Top winner will be receiving the complete CiNEZiLLA mixtapes on a smoking hot USB stick! So far there’s seven of them:
Velvet Razorblades - The Sounds of Dario Argento
Postcards from Hell - The Sounds of Lucio Fulci
Sleazy Succubus - The Sounds of Jess Franco
Perdu dans le cimitère – La Symphonie d’un Jean Rollin
From the Land Ice and Snow – The Sounds of Swedish Sin
Make them Cry Slowly – The Vocal Sounds of Italian Cinema
The Masala Meathook Massacre – The Sounds of Indian Horror
This package will even contain the not yet released SATANIK [Vol.666], SOLARIS - An Audio Experiment and SHAKIN’ ASS IN THE GRAVEYARD!So what do you have to do? Well pretty easy actually, the basic rule is that the person who can name and/or identify the most movies/characters in the CiNEZiLLA ident, get’s to take home one of the packages!
You can only name the character/movie once, so if you say SLIMER and then GHOSTBUSTERS, this is still only one point… and no, Slimer isn’t in there.
Send your answers to me via email: killfinger (at) Hotmail (dot) com, write COMPETITION – SMUT if you want the smutflicks, COMPETITION – CRIME if you want the DiLeo crime flicks!
Deadline is crack of dawn, April 1st (no joke) and then a few days after that I’ll declare a winner!Have fun and good luck.
Australian Post-Apocalyptic cheapie, that tells the tale of Crabs [Ned Manning], who takes his girlfriend Carmen [Natalie McCurry] to the Star Drive-In only to have the wheels of the car, a car he borrowed of his mate Frank, stolen. With the tires stolen, Crabs and Carmen find themselves trapped inside the drive in, which has been closed by the government to detain the restless delinquents within and keep them off the roads. Inside the electrified walls of the drive-in, a whole society has been erected… and held captive in this world where government control – as in feeding the kids drugs, bad movies and keeping the Sheila’s on the pill – Crabs starts desperately searching for a way out!
Because low-budget Ozploitation flicks are fucking brilliant, kicks convention ass, and Brian Trenchard-Smith was one of the greatest directors of the niche. Yes, a man with the motto “When in doubt blow it up, or at least set fire to it!” or “Fire is cheap, and gives high production value!” is a goddamned hero in my book.
Contemporary Aussie Rock Music, sinister delinquents, floozy chicks, a record breaking car stunt, climactic shootout and the most terrifying thing of the future…punks – think about it, people must have been scared shitless of punks in the eighties, as almost every goddamned post apocalyptic flick has mohawked punks in leather and boots as the thug villains of the waste lands. Although the real fear is presented in a smart piece of social commentary concerning racism. Which also works as a motivator for the community now faced with the dilemma, where The Star Drive-In once was a safe heaven free from “rice gobblers”, there’s a growing problem now that there’s non-white’s as part of the community. An intelligent reflection on Australian society in the late seventies, early eighties. See, exploitation films aren’t all about tits, ass and violence; they also want to say something.
Any movie with a 'Rambo 8' gag is worth the time watching, and inside the drive-in Escape 2000 (aka Turkey Shoot) 1982, and The Man From Hong Kong (aka Dragon Files) 1975, are screened. Both of them Trenchard-Smith flicks, and both movies that Carmen can’t take her eyes off… “I’ve got to see how it ends!” I love the balls of writing a scene like that into your movie, a scene, which shows just how damned great Trenchard Smith really was.
Where everyone else is seemingly content with being captive in the Drive-in, Crabs becomes a natural protagonist as he’s consistently trying to create change, i.e. get the hell out of the drive in controlled by Thompson. There’s a great tension that builds between Crabs and Carmen, as she becomes more and more adaptive to life within the fences, where Crabs becomes more and more determined to get the hell out.
Written by Peter Carey who you should recognize as the writer of another great Ozploitation classic, the deep dark comedy Bliss 1985, and one of the writers on Wim Wenders Until the End of the World 1991
Despite being something of a failure at the box office – but it did find it’s audience on the cult circuits later albeit the cultural elitists – the movie was nominated for a Australian Film Institute Award for Lawrence Eastwood’s production design. And I'll be damned if there isn't a drinking game somewhere in all that graffiti and detail in frame.
Dead End Drive-In get’s a four out of six as it’s a damned neat little movie. Yes it’s slow and tediously works it’s way towards the action packed climax for almost eighty minutes. But that’s part of the charm with certain cheap exploitation flicks, they are quite meditative and half the challenge is trying to keep awake whist watching them. Oh, and the Anchor Bay version has a great commentary track by Trenchard-Smith who is always entertaining to hear talk shop.
Three dopey kids with only a few weeks left before heading out to college take a road trip down south, to Mexico. In the small town of Manzanita, they just so happen to get caught up with a local cult. A cult intent on using a white man as part of their ritualistic sacrifice!
Supposedly based loosely on a real case concerning the Narcosatanicos (Why everything looks so damned much cooler in Latino spelling I’ll never know) A band of drug dealers, who performed ritual sacrifices and dabbled in the occult, left fifteen buried corpses on the Rancho Santa Elena – from then on known as Devil Ranch – thought that the magic would protect them from the police and one of them claimed to be invisible upon his arrest… Most of the fifteen bodies the police excavated from the ranch surroundings where missing brain and spine as these parts where used in the occult rituals performed. Fact always defeats fiction when it comes to bizarre stories like this one.
Borderland has a brilliant initial attack in its almost ten minute opening.Not only does it take us from Ordinary world into the realm of horror that we are about to be committed, but it also establishes a very potent and real threat to any protagonists presented after the prologue. Through a dark, disturbing and terrifyingly violent process, Police officer Ulises [Damián Alcázar] and his partner are captured, tortured, followed by Ulises being forced to watch whilst Gustavo [Marco Bacuzzi] and his mate slaughter Ulises partner with the warning “You go back to your cop buddies and tell them who did this”… Well if the cops, armed with weapons, and all their crime-fighting skills aren’t even safe, then how the hell are the poor kids – presented after the opening titles. From here on we also know that this is all about a Mexican occult sect with a passion for torture! Bring on the fresh meat.
Characters are established right off the bat, dope pushing Henry [Jake Muxworthy], Phil [Rider Strong], the virgin, who only want’s to get laid and Eddie [Brian Presley] the completive one of the bunch, nursing a conscious and holding a secret from his friends- all twenty something canon fodder way to familiar for comfort, and Mexico has all the remedies they need.
Needless to say we’re here for the carnage, but where I was expecting a pretty mindless torture porn flick, I actually ended up with a tense thriller with some damned hard moments of harsh violence and one of the best-goddamned goat scares in a long time.
Sean Astin has a great part as Randal, a mystic and sadistic go-between, serving Santillian [Beto Cuevas] as they prepare their “gringo” sacrifice for the occult ritual.
Oh, did I mention the hot mamacitas? Forget the old toothless witches of the Mexploitation flicks of the seventies, Ed’s romantic interest Valeria [Martha Higareda] and her cousin Lupe [Francesca Guillén] are if nothing else a damned good reason to watch Borderland. Ay Caramba!
Borderland get's a four out of six possible. It hooks me straight away, builds a severe atmosphere and catches my attention, but after that impressive intro, the movie sags and more or less drags on for a good forty minutes... Luckilly the last act is a nail biter and well worth the wait.
So the idea is that I’ll share some quotes from academic and philosophical works that reflect the way I feel about genre cinema. Let's see where it leads us.
Susan Sontag “Notes on Camp”
1964, Susan Sontag, essayist, political activist and literary icon writes a 58-bullet essay on camp. This essay is her first contribution to Partisan Review. Two years later the essay is reprinted in Sontag’s debut book Against Interpretation.
The passage I wish to share with you today is something of a mantra, a mantra definitely worth sharing…
“… because in their relative unpretentiousness and vulgarity, they are more extreme and irresponsible in their fantasy – and therefore touching and quite enjoyable!”
Susan Sontag, Against Interpretation (New York: Doubleday Books, 1967), 283.
It’s fairly common for fans of Dario Argento to hear rumblings and complaints about the latter movies. On occasion it’s even the fans themselves who provide the moaning and disdain. But at the end of the day – at least mine – Dario Argento is such an important genre director in so many ways that with his legacy also comes a huge dollop of forgiveness. Yes, I can take certain lesser movies because there are some great movies in the back catalogue, and not every one can be a masterpiece. They can’t all be Suspiria 1977, Profondo Rosso (Deep Red) 1975, L’uccello dalle piume di cristallo (The Bird With The Crystal Plumage)1970, and so on, through your list of personal favourites. It’s through the lesser movies that we come to understand the greatness of the classic Argento pieces, and lesser movies should be seen in the light of their being. At least he’s still making movies and the last thing anyone would want is for the damned negativity to drive Argento into the arms of frustration, try to please a never satisfied fan base and make that damned Suspiria remake!
I’d like to say after a string of weak so-so movies, 2001’s Non ho sonno (Sleepless) seemed to be a great return form. But that would really be a load of bullshit, as you’ve got Opera 1987, Due occhi diabolici (Two Evil Eyes) 1990, the magnificent La syndrome di Stehdhal (The Stendhal Syndrome) 1996 before things really got bad… and there’s really only one movie that spoils the barrel of apples for me. Il fantasma dell’opera (The Phantom of the Opera)1998, and only because it was the first Argento movie I showed my future wife – hey, it was new, it was Argento, so why not – but I made up for the let down by screening Profondo Rosso the first chance I got and managed to lift Dario from “that shit director” to that “pretty cool movie” director.
Which brings me to the made for TV movie, Do You Like Hitchcock? This one kind of reverberates all the traits he drew inspiration from when he defined the Giallo genre back in the seventies, and looking at the movie as a meta-homage then I find it to be a splendid thriller with an enjoyable Argento take on the works of Hitchcock.
Guilio [Elio Germano] is a young film student with an amazing apartment at the top of a block of flats. From his tower like location, he can see and watch his neighbours from his window that overlooks the square… an ideal setting for an Argento drama. Spying on neighbourhood hottie Sasha [Elisabetta Rocchetti], much to the despair of his girlfriend Arianna [Cristina Brondo], Gullio witnesses the violent murder of Sasha’s mother! His fixation with Alfred Hitchcock movies quickly lead him into suspecting that he’s actually watching Sasha and Federica [Chiara Conti] plan murder according to the murders found in the films of Hitchcock.
Do You Like Hitchcock? is a great reminder of what Argento does best, the murder mystery thriller - what we refer to as The Giallo! Classic genre traits, the amateur sleuth, the sensuous women, moral decision, red herrings, childhood traumas and a last minute twist ending are all here, and if you know your Argento you will also recognize several moments that definitely reverberate classic Argento moments from earlier movies. There's also a rather decent Pino Donaggio score to the movie too.
The movie holds several nods to Fritz Lang, F.W. Murnau and obviously Alfred Hitchcock and a bunch of narratives from his movies. You’ll recognize plotlines from Rear Window 1954, Dial M for Murder 1954, North by Northwest 1959 and Strangers on a Train 1950 is even featured in the shape of a DVD several of the lead characters rent (also the reason for the movies title being asked in dialogue by Sasha – “Do You Like Hitchcock?”
With part of the narrative taking place in a video store there several self promotion shots such as posters for Dario’s previous film Il Cartaio (The Card Player) 2004, and even Asia Argento’sScarlet Diva 2000. I’m not going to tell you that there’s a huge standee for Josef FaresKopps 2003, in the store, as it’s just embarrassing.
There are a couple of classic Argento gimmicks such as the extreme close-ups of items, shots from insides of locks, and solid cinematography. Although I really miss the sadistic prolonged deaths that I love about Argento’s movies. You know, first being stabbed in the leg, then falling face down onto a hard floor, only to be dragged down a flight of stairs, only to have one’s head slammed in the door before finally being stabbed repeatedly in the heart with a knife… the prolonged death that characterizes Dario Argento’s aesthetics. But being somewhat of a Hitchcock homage, it’s understandable that Dario held back on the violence, and after all there is a climactic re-working of the bath tub murder in Profondo Rosso a classic plot twist and a terrible rush of insight at the end that works for me.
Art the end of the day it’s fair to say that this is an entertaining Argento flick, it moves fast, is to the point and get’s the job done. Germano is a decent antagonist, a very typical Argento one to say the least. When it all comes around, and on second viewings, I really have to confess to liking the movies that Argento co-wrote with Franco Ferrini – and other works of his, if you still haven’t seen the magnificent Occhi di cristallo (Eyes of Crystal)2004 he co-wrote for Eros Puglielli, then you really need to check that out. A damned fine piece of modern Giallo if there ever was one. Do you Like Hitchcock? plays by classic Giallo rules and I love the meta-gag at the end where a very Edwige Fenech looking semi nude woman walks around her apartment in skimpy underwear whilst reading a classic Giallo book. A fitting homage to the genre that the Do You Like Hitchcock? pays tribute to.
Being a friend of independent distributors of film, I’m also quite fond of independent distributors of music too. You know the drill, it’s the smaller outlets that give you the most fascinating ride. Some of my favorite music comes from the smallest companies, often one-two man armies that live for the uniqueness of their catalogue over the profit of mainstream bullshit. Thinking video, a quick stop is, twenty years ago and Nigel Wingrove’s Redemption and Jezebel labels as a first instance of what I mean. Through Redemption we got all those wonderful Jess Franco and Jean Rollin flicks, you know what I’m on about so enough about that and down to the meat.
Talking about Jean Rollin, last year small indie label FINDERS KEEPERS released, for the first time ever - on CD and Vinyl for us retro nerds - the entire ACANTHUS soundtrack to Le Frisson Des Vampires (Shiver of the Vampire) 1971. A re-mastered, shit kicking, superb rock-prog album that is worth every penny. They also put out a limited five track EP of Pierre Raph’s soundtrack to Jeunes Filles Impudiques (Schoolgirl Hitchers) 1973…
Well get yer pants on and pop over to the web shop right now, because they are just about to release restored versions of Phillippe D’Aram’s score for Fascination 1973, and Pierre Raph’sRequiem Pour Un Vampire (Requiem for a Vampire) 1973 collected on one CD or on two 10” vinyl’s… I'm blowing the fuses of my house as I drool with anticipation into my laptop...
But wait there’s more… in just a matter of days (or in fact NOW if you are reading this after Friday the 9th of March) FINDERS KEEPERS American sister label, B-Music are releasing the “The B-Music Of Jean Rollin” the music collected on this disc is fantastic, and amongst the 31 tracks on the compilation is stuff that hasn’t been available before.
If you are a regular reader here, you‘ll know that Rollin and the soundtracks to his movies hold a special place in my universe. Well, now they can in yours too. Drop in at FINDERS KEEPERS and listen to some samples if you have any doubt in mind. Otherwise just order it all. I did, and I know it’s gonna be worth every penny.
Ask any twenty something hipster to name five awesome photographers and they will most likely name Richard Kern as one of them – Because they all read freebie mag Vice and will also name Terry Richardson too, as they both are frequently featured in the pages of that mag
Ask any forty something cineaste with a passion for underground and narrow niches to name five awesome photographers and they will most likely name Richard Kern as one of them – Because they all read freebie mag Vice and will also name Terry Richardson too, as they both are frequently featured in the pages of that mag… but the forty something person will also start off on a rant about those experimental underground movies that Kern made back in the eighties. Confrontational imagery encased in micro narratives with harsh bursts of audio-assaults composed by the likes of Sonic Youth, and Foetus. This was the Cinema of Transgression, a razors edge, where art meet’s low budget filmmaking, performance meet’s underground, sex meets death. I personally think that this time period is one of the finest ever when it comes to groundbreaking art.
Watching Richard Kern’s works again for the first time in a very long time, I still have to say that I prefer the grainy super 8 eighties/nineties movies to the later stuff. Their gritty rawness and enthusiastic aura generate such a potent stature. Popping in the new release transfers me right back to early- mid nineties and damn I did enjoy the Cinema of Transgression back then, and in some fucked up way I still get some kicks from those movies today.
Starting with Xeroxed underground zine’s such as “The Heroin Addict”, “The Vailum Addict” and “Dumbfucker”, filled with eclectic writings and images that in a Dadaistic way reflected the feelings the Roanoke Rapids, North Carolina born, Kern had for the saturation of culture, films, music and foremost for the ways of life in everyday New York it’s no real surprise that the anti-establishment soon moved on to handmade, zine movie making. Kern stepped into filmmaking with his first short, Goodbye 42’nd Street 1983 [also featured as an bonus on theExtra Action & Extra Hardcore DVD] which see’s a subjective camera wandering the now long lost 42’nd street and imagining what goes on behind the closed doors and cinema billboards… in more than one way the obvious influence upon the early films of Richard Kern pop up both on screen and in the thematic imaginary encounters he intercuts the walk down 42’n street with – seedy and violent exploitation cinema!
Mid eighties, alongside several other New York alternative scene characters like Beth B, Lydia Lunch, Tommy Turner, David Wojanarowic, and perhaps most importantly Nick Zedd they became a scene of their own, the no holds barred, homemade cinema movement christened by Zedd as, The Cinema of Transgression.
With a manifest written by Zedd which basically rejects the use of rules, structure and cinematic snobbery the doors where opened and New York underground cinema saw some of the most important and vital works being made in the short span of just five-ten years. Anything goes and anything does go in these movies, which definitely are not for the weak of heart. Theory meet’s improvisation, Performance meets structure, chaos meet’s reality. The movement is provocative, innovative and fascinating. The Cinema of Transgression is a movement to know, understand, love and respect.
Ironically, all the things they where taking a stance against, all figure in their movies, some in fantastic ways. The great victory is that these movies in their short form (with some exceptions as some are long massive pieces) become something of a concentrate of storytelling, juxtapositions and narrative. All that stuff I ramble on about in my texts here, well, it’s all in the movies of the Cinema of Transgression too, it’s not just mindless art fuck, and I still to this day say that the Cinema of Transgression did more for movies than Lars Von Trier’s Dogme ever did.
As for Kern, well, you could split his work into two important time periods between 83-87 and then 90- till today. In between 87-90 he left New York as he relocated to San Francisco to break up with his addiction to drugs. Amazingly enough he hooked up with New York shock-rocker (and times performance artist) Kevin Michael Allen, more known to you and me as G.G. Allin, later figure of the post Transgression director Todd Phillips! – Yes, years before he became the golden calf of Hollywood comedies – Road Trip, Old School, Starsky & Hutch, Due Date and both The Hangover movies – Phillips was knee deep in toilet rock drugs and faeces as he toured the US with G.G. Allin and the Murder Junkies for the documentary Hated 1994.
But back to Kern, during the first period, 83-87; his most important movies where made, stuff like The Manhattan Love Suicides, The Right Side of My Brain, King of Sex, and the magnificent Fingered. Among the cast members you will find cult figures like Lydia Lynch, J.G. Thirlwell (aka Clint Ruin, aka Foetus), Nick Zedd, a young Henry Rollins and Lung Leg. It’s also during this time period that Kern starts hanging with rock band Sonic Youth – who along side other alternative acts such as Foetus, Killdozer, Butthole Surfers and Cop Shoot Cop frequently are featured on the scores to the movements movies. Provocative and eclectic music for provocative and eclectic films At times the imagery, eclectic force and imagery of the movement all come off as destructive music videos, something Kern went on to direct several of as the years passed by. Sonic Youth (Death Valley 69, Goo), King Missile (Detachable Penis), Marilyn Manson (Lunchbox) and more recently Dentata (Earwig).
After cleaning up, in late 89-90 to now, he made the body of work for which he is most renown today, his photography much of which has graced the covers of many a cultural magazines and publications. Although where he’s obviously steered his career into sill photography, he still directed the odd short movie every now and then such as Sewing Circle, a hypnotic body modification/ performance that see’s star of Nick Zedd’sWar is Menstrual Envy 1992, Kembra Pfahler, have her vagina sewn shut by two other women. (Yes, this one is part of The Hardcore Collection now, and it was missing from those German VHS’ tapes once distributed by Jörg Buttgereit's producer Manfred O. Jelinski back in the nineties.)
The Hardcore Collection gathers some of the finest works created by Kern, and should definitely be part of any true cineaste – or alternative film historian’s movie archive. I can’t express the same enthusiasm over the Extra Action (& Extra Hardcore) disc, as the shorts on Extra Action more or less are movies made up of the models Kern shot still photographs of, moving about in suggestive ways. Like his shoot captured on video, and quite possibly as he shoots them for the Taschen book Action – with which the DVD “Extra Action” originally was included. Although the films do have some great scores by Thurston Moore of Sonic Youth and the Njuta Films release is worth picking up for the bonus movies as there are several early shorts on there, some of which haven’t been released before.
Kern described his filmmaking with the following passage: “I take what interests me in the movies and put it in shorter format so I don’t get bored. What interest the America public are sex and violence and the seamy side of life. Most people don’t have those in their lives, so they go looking for them” in more than one way, you will see this when you divulge into The Hardcore Collection (and bonus features on Extra Action & Extra Hardcore), are a time capsule unlike any other, and something that absolutely puts contemporary low budget filmmaking to shame. I love The Cinema of Transgression, it's the punk rock of filmmaking, punk rock with tattoos.
Now I only wish that someone would compile and reissue Nick Zedd’s works in the same way too, because you ain’t seen nothing until you have seen Zedd’s masterpiece Police State 1987, the surreal Thrust in Me 1985, Geek Maggot Bingo 1983, or the mastodon performance trip War is Menstrual Envy 1992.
Now enjoy some Kern directed Sonic Youth as you wait for your order to arrive!
