Expanding our Brand

What up, friends?

Your old pal what's-his-face here, just thinking about the next step for TE. IMDb killed itself, the boards split up, and it... kinda sucks. Everyone went off in different directions, to all sorts of different boards, and the unity is no more. It's the end of an era, and I miss it terribly. Everyday, I idly browse the internet, but I just don't have as many places to look anymore.

Next month is going to be a busy month. We have the new Trash Challenge to keep us active, and if the October Challenge was any indication, this one could keep us steady. I for one am going to participate, and try for at least the bare minimum to watch a bunch of video nasties I've never seen, because it's important to have goals.

My fear is that without IMDb, we wont have random users casually wandering into our domain. This is a website out in the corner of nowhere, so it'll be hard to attract a new userbase.

Part of me wants to scour the abyss of the other imdb replacement forums, to find the refugees who want to keep the spirit of imdb alive, but at the same time, I don't want to live out my existance riding the coat-tails of something that used to be great. Nome sane?

@hotwings had the idea of writing our url on cash bills, which is totally illegal and I don't encourage that. •WINK•

How do you think we should expand our brand? I've already mimicked the imdb feel almost verbatim, but even the replacement boards aren't as active as the source was. What is the world coming to, and how can we adapt?

Santa Clarita Diet (on Netflix)

It is pretty funny and gory. It gets a bit goofy at times but I think the unexplained reason (Puke/Undead/Dead) Zombie thing is cool. Anyone see this yet?

#gore

Big improvement

This place looks much better with the white background.

The Strange Vengeance Of Rosalie (1972)



Budget isn't everything. It's often an important factor in a movie's success, and vital to obtain some amount of respect as an actual movie in the minds of most. But in some cases, a lack of budget just isn't that big of a deal, as the story is so dominant over all other aspects. At that point, it comes down to adding stuff just for the sake of adding stuff. Today, we're going to talk about one of those movies that has such a compelling storyline, that one may not even notice that they're watching a movie that looks as if it cost about 15 bucks to make. Today, we're going to talk about The Strange Vengeance Of Rosalie. Micro-budget filmmaking at its finest.

I really dig desert movies. That's where this movie takes place. Actually, the New Mexico Desert is where it takes place. However, the Spanish desert is where it was filmed. Just throwing out this unusual fact which I feel adds to the movie's mystique. So, Rosalie is supposed to be about 16 or 17, I'm guessing. No parents, grandpa just kicked the bucket. Rosalie is all alone, piss poor, uneducated and stuck in this desert shack with a bunch of chickens, which seems to be the only place she's ever seen. Rosalie doesn't have much going for her, these days. But she does have enough sense to realize she'd be a lot better off with a man. So, tricking one into coming out there and forcing him to stay forever seems to be where her head is at. And a messed up head, it is. Rosalie has some problems. One of which being that she doesn't seem to get the concept of right and wrong. She wants what she wants, and what she wants is the only right she knows. Rosalie is not so much selfish as she's just plain primitive.

So, this guy, Virgil, passing through a New Mexico highway, on his way to a much needed Hawaiian vacation, makes his first mistake. Virgil picks up a hitchhiker. A harmless looking teenager named Rosalie, who is using a potato sack for a dress. Rosalie claims she's from Chicago, visiting her grandpa who lives way out in the desert. She manages to guilt trip the good natured Virgil into taking her the entire way, but once they get there, no grandpa. Just s shack in the middle of pitch black nowhere. Virgil figures it's ok to take off since Rosalie is confident that grandpa will return shortly, but she seriously does not want him to leave. Serious enough to poke out one of his tires, pretty much blowing Virgil's chances of making his flight. Virgil sleeps in his car that night with the intention of deciding what to do the next morning. He doesn't get to decide shit, however, because Rosalie breaks his leg once he gets out of line. Rosalie is also a bit of a psycho.

Not a full fledged psycho, really. She's pretty pleasant as long as she always gets what she wants and is never annoyed. She seems to have enough good in her for Virgil to be able to convince her to get him a doctor. But first, he has to convince her that a broken leg is indeed a reason to need a doctor. And she doesn't seem to realize this, or really much of anything. Rosalie is very much in her own little world, and what's important to her is all that there is. And what's important to her is not being lonely. She agrees to go fetch a doctor as Virgil hands her some money for groceries, but she comes back solo, as we suspected she would. As Virgil tries and tries to convince Rosalie that #1, keeping him there forever is unrealistic, and #2, he needs a doctor or he could lose his leg, we are given examples of how frustrating it can be to deal with someone with such little sense. She's seemingly too dumb to outsmart, but manages to smarten up quick at the most inconvenient of times.

Virgil makes the mistake of appearing too friendly, which is very much misunderstood, leading to Rosalie assuming that they're going to get hitched. There's some gold buried with grandpa, and a greedy, unwanted third party who shows up, complicating things further. Virgil doesn't want any gold, and he sure as hell doesn't want to get hitched to the kid who just broke his leg. All he wants is to get away from this place and get his leg checked out. And the closer he gets to his freedom, the further away it all seems.



This is by far the best example of isolation that I've seen in a movie. Poor Virgil might as well be on the moon, as he's going nowhere with that broken leg. We don't ever really learn anything about Virgil, and all we think we know about Rosalie is what she tells him. Just like this tiny cast is isolated from the world, we the viewer are equally isolated from the knowledge of what is actually going on. At times, it seems Virgil is sincere when insisting they can run off together after Rosalie gets him a doctor. An unlikely scenario, but we're never given confirmation on anything. Especially what's going on in Rosalie's head. All the confusion finally culminates in a twist ending which compliments this story very nicely.

For those who are willing to dig a little deeper for the quality cinema so many others have missed out on, this overlooked little gem should brighten your day. And for any fans of Misery, you might see some similarities which may or may not have been borrowed from Rosalie. Either way, I think this one could use a little more recognition as the damn good movie that it became, despite the non existent budget it had to work with. In fact, I'm a little surprised a company better than Sinister Cinema hasn't snatched this one up and put out a decent release with some interviews or audio commentary, telling the story of this unique but overlooked desert Thriller. The Strange Vengeance Of Rosalie deserves a fanbase. 9/10



#Review

I hate the News

I just read that Asghar Farhadi wont be attending the Oscars. Yeah, that's right. Who the fuck is he, and why should I care? That's rhetorical. I don't give a fuck who he is. I just think it's stupid, and I hate news that tries to impress upon you that certain people's opinions matter. I also hate Hollywood for trying to beg us to vote for their sponsor, and throwing fits when the better man wins. We could make better news than that.

Dear Trump, make the news great again.

Anybody a member of the other IMDB replacements?

You know they made about 50 different forums when the news broke. I'm curious as to whether they'll get popular, and if so, how can we steal their users?

Let's get some feedback in this time of crisis.

Cult Brit horror comedy TV shows

so i'm getting comfy here, slippers on, Season of the Witch in the background soothing the eyes. bored. top 100 movies eh? gonna rate the shit outta these bean flicks

Whats this! Garth Marenghi's Darkplace in the last fucking place i'd expect to find it. four votes for a cult series seen little in the UK, let alone a sleazy southern cracker run random movie site! & i mean that in the best possible way - made my day muthaf'ukas

so here's a couple more disturbing wierd darkly funny shows:

Jam - Chris Morris is a twisted genius. known primarily for his satire (Day Today, Brass Eye, Four Lions) this is adapted from his late night/early morning ambient sketch show Blue Jam. The listener demographic was insomniacs n returning clubbers & Morris aimed to fuck with thier heads. He eventually got sacked for airing a cut'n'paste edit of the speech given at Princess Diana's funeral, entitled Bishop Slips.

The TV adaptation dubs the original radio vocals over the actors to create a disorientating effect on the viewer. Morris successfully argued that his show be aired without ad breaks, to keep the 'vibe' going. Helped it was around 1am.
Any way enough rambling, here's a TE friendly clip



The League of Gentlemen - another black comedy sketch show, not as risque as Jam, but more accessible n coherant. sorta. Aired on BBC in the 90s, heres a clip featuring my fave character.

sorry shitty quality, but please bear with it

"Tongiht we are going to watch one of my favorite muhoovies."
"Watership Down?"
"No..."

Your best watch for 2017 so far?

Regardless of film's release year.

For me it's : The Handmaiden (2016) 9/10

Lucio Fulci Films

Like him or hate him, I think it's hard to disagree on Fulci's films belonging on here. By the description alone of the site made by @Renzo_Capetto, Fulci's films belong.

old school horror movies, gritty exploitation films, and especially bad movies

Yep, that describes most of Lucio Fulci's films.

Personally? I'm pretty middle-of-the-road on his stuff. I liked 'Zombie' a lot and, to a lesser extent, 'The New York Ripper' the first time I saw them, but I hated 'City of the Living Dead' and 'The Beyond'. I've seen some of his other stuff too, like 'Don't Torture a Duckling' (hated), 'Manhattan Baby' (actually thought it was okay despite the overall negative reception I see towards it), and 'The House of Clocks' (also thought was okay). I'll be focusing on the first four movies I mentioned here though, as I've seen them the most and am more familiar with them.

The main reason I'm writing this is because I've been re-watching some of his stuff lately. I'll try to keep this spoiler-free.

To start... 'Zombie'. My first Fulci movie and my favorite Fulci movie. I remember renting this on tape and I loved it from the start. The zombie vs. shark and splinter in the chick's eye scenes are probably what most people think of when they think of this movie. So do I, actually. But there's so much other stuff going on too that makes this my favorite of Fulci's stuff. The mud-caked, worm-ridden zombies. The whole idea of the island setting, that something like that could happen on some island like that somewhere and most of us would be completely unaware until it's too late.

And let's not forget the main theme used in the movie. I like all of the music in the movie really, but that main theme especially just works really well I think. Fabio Frizzi is the man behind the music in 'Zombie'. He did the music for some of Fulci's other films too, but none of those scores are as memorable to me as 'Zombie's' score. Except maybe 'The Beyond's' score, but we'll get to that soon.

The second Fulci movie I saw, a couple years after first seeing 'Zombie', was 'The New York Ripper'. I don't think it's nearly as good as 'Zombie' or even the next movie I'm going to talk about, nor is the music as memorable, other than the opening theme, done by someone other than Frizzi, some guy named Francesco De Masi. Its crazy murders are pretty bloody and gory though and... that's kind of all I can think to say about it. The movie's nothing great or original, other than the killer sounding like Donald Duck, which is more laughable than anything, but it's entertaining enough that I don't hate it.

Now for 'City of the Living Dead' and 'The Beyond'. I know a lot of people love these two movies and I've always felt kind of weird for not appreciating them at all. To put it bluntly, I found them to be boring and poorly written gorefests. I love gore in movies, but not when it's the only thing going for the movie. Well, I recently decided to give them another watch and, especially with 'City of the Living Dead', I found myself enjoying it a lot more than I had in my previous viewings of it.

With 'City of the Living Dead', I think part of the problem was that I expected it to be more of zombie movie, especially with that title, when really, the zombies are just a minor aspect of it. It's more about the priest and whenever you see him, you know some bad shit's about to go down. And with that in mind, I think I can appreciate the movie a lot more than I used to, because as the movie's main villain, I do like him. The gore definitely doesn't disappoint in the movie either. All of that said... I still think the movie's ending is dumb and poorly played out. Maybe I'll learn to appreciate it more over time too, but I think it might take a lot more time.

And finally, 'The Beyond'. I'm still not a big fan of this movie. I 'get' it. I just don't really get into it like I do with 'Zombie' or now, 'City of the Living Dead'. As with the other three movies I've mentioned, it's got good gore. Also as I said before, the score definitely sticks out. But the whole plot... I just am not into it. I guess you could say 'well, with a Fulci movie, the plot isn't supposed to be great, it's all about the violence'. Maybe so, but a movie that's almost an hour and a half that has a poor story, but great gore isn't going to have much replay value, at least for me. I am a fan of some scenes, especially the parts in the hospital, as well as the opening kill, the bathtub scene, and the spider scene. Oh, and the ending, that's a lot better than 'City of the Living Dead's' ending. But even those scenes don't draw me in like 'City of the Living Dead' has managed to do. Maybe with another re-watch or two...

I won't lie and call myself an expert on Lucio Fulci's work. I've seen I think seven of his movies now. I forgot to mention 'Zombi 3' before, though it's hard to truly call that a Fulci movie since he didn't even finish directing it. I've also seen 'Wax Mask', which he helped write and I've heard was also supposed to direct before he died.

I would like to see Fulci's 'House by the Cemetery'. I've got a download of it, I've just not gotten around to it yet. Soon though.

#CityOfTheLivingDead #Gore #LucioFulci #TheBeyond #TheNewYorkRipper #Zombie

The Best of Corman/Poe/Price

From 1960 to 1964, Vincent Price and Roger Corman collaborated on 7 films based around Edgar Allan Poe's stories. Roger Corman also directed "The Premature Burial", which is the only film in his Poe series not to include Vincent Price.

#1960s #Gothic