Oh, I almost forgot...

HAPPY HALLOWEEN!

Haxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages

Haxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages is an interesting documentary from 1922. It broaches the subject of black magic and devil worship, chronicling the history of supposed witchcraft up to modern day (well, modern day as of 1922). It's less of an educational experience and more of a comment on the demagogic nature of superstition. Director Benjamin Christensen examines the behavioral traits of women in the 19th century that were accused of consorting with the devil and compares them with the traits of modern mental patients who are diagnosed with hysteria. The point of Haxan, it seems, was to quell any lingering beliefs in the supernatural. At the very least, the film aims to paint puritanical precepts as primitive. That's a lot of p's. I didn't mean for that to happen.

Haxan is broken up into seven chapters with the first twenty minutes or so consisting of subtitles and still photography. Eventually, this bubbling cauldron becomes a motion picture. The visuals are stirring, creepy even. Haxan was fairly hardcore for 1922. We get to see partial nudity, a severed finger, a dead baby, and a great deal of sacrilegious imagery. The atmosphere is palpable. Christensen himself plays Satan in several scenes. In my opinion, his unsettling appearances are the highlights of Haxan. The make-up is rather impressive, and the colored tints accent his demonic visage. I can definitely understand why people were freaked out by this flick when it was released.

If you're a fan of silent horror cinema, you'll want to pick up Haxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages. The Criterion DVD includes the 1967 version of the film, which features narration by William S. Burroughs. I haven't watched it yet (the '67 version, that is), but personally, I would recommend viewing the original version first. The score is worth checking out. Is there anything I didn't like about this mute chiller? Well, it takes awhile to get going, but once you're past the "slideshow" section of the film, it's smooth sailing.

Parts Unknown #2: Smackdown

Smackdown is the best wrestling show on television. The key word there is "wrestling." Each week, there are usually three matches that run at least ten minutes long. The main reason why I enjoy wrestling is because of the athleticism on display (well, that and the hokey nature of professional wrestling...it's no different from watching a b-movie). I get pissed off whenever I'm shortchanged in the wrestling department (I'm looking at you, Raw). So how does this week's episode stack up?

PROS

~ The opening segment featuring Kane, Paul Bearer, Edge, Rey Mysterio, and Alberto Del Rio. Good stuff. As the most recent Kane/Undertaker feud has proven, the show is highly entertaining whenever Glen Jacobs is near a microphone. I can't believe that he's just now in his prime.

~ The Daniel Bryan/Dolph Ziggler match. I'm loving this feud. Again, these two guys worked a stellar bout. The "suplex struggle" was superbly executed and succeeded in drumming up natural momentum for both competitors.

~ Vickie's cat suit. Damn! Tell Jerry Lawler to knock it off with the degrading fat jokes on Raw. The woman is in great shape.

~ The dissolution of The Dashing Ones. Cody and Drew should never have been a tag team to start with. Drew is destined for a great singles career, and while I'm not a fan of Cody's current gimmick (it's been done a million times), I have to admit that he's a solid wrestler.

~ The main event.

CONS

~ Another loss for Kaval? Why isn't he getting a push? And why the fucking fuck was he cut from Bragging Rights? I understand that they might be doing this to give him an underdog's appeal, but Jesus. Enough is enough.

~ No Chris Masters? No Dudebusters? Not cool, dude.

~ The Diva match. Obviously, they looked tasty, but this entire division is dreadful.

A solid Smackdown. Nothing more, nothing less.

Parts Unknown #1: Impact

Hey, look! A wrestling column! Each week, I'll be reviewing different wrestling shows. Nothing too in-depth (it is wrestling, after all). I'm just going to list the pros and cons of this week's episode of TNA's Impact. Since this is an introductory edition of Parts Unknown, I should tell you where I stand on TNA as a whole. 3-6 months ago, it rocked. However, ever since the ECW guys formed their own stable and the presence of the immortal ones (Hogan and Bischoff) permeated all of TNA programming, things have gone downhill. There are too many old fucks sopping up screen time and everything is beginning to taste like WCW. I still dig TNA, but at the moment, WWE has the superior product from a creative standpoint.

With that out of the way, let's break down this week's Impact...

PROS

~ The opening Knockout brawl was fantastic. This entire division is looking better and better each week. There aren't any Knockouts that I can say I dislike. Yes, Lacey Von Erich is a godawful wrestler, but I like her simple-minded character. The fact that she's insanely hot doesn't hurt either.

~ The 6-bitch tag match between Angelina/Velvet/Mickie and Madison/Tara/Sarita was fun and well-paced.

~ The tag team division. Holy shit. TNA continues to nurture the best tag division in pro-wrestling. If you don't think this is the best tag division in the world, you're fucking wrong. It's as simple as that. The 3-way championship bout between Generation Me, The Motor City Machine Guns, and Ink Inc was phenomenal. Crazy spots, dude. Team 3D coming out after the match was okay, but I sincerely hope that they lose at Turning Point.

~ The street match between Jay Lethal and Robbie E. I enjoyed the use of cheap weapons, although I'm not sure that Robbie E. is ready for a title shot. We've seen so little of him in the ring, that I still can't tell if he's a competent wrestler or not.

~ Velvet Sky's boobs.

CONS

~ RVD's "paranoia" angle is just stupid. It's not believable that he would suddenly question the motives of the EV2 gang.

~ A casket? A goddamn casket? Get your own gimmick match.

~ Jeff Jarrett in the main event? And he wins? Against Matt Morgan? Ridiculous booking. I'm fine with Matt turning face, but I could think of ten better ways to do it.

~ 30 minutes before the first match? That's a gargantuan no-no, in my book.

~ Why do I keep making statements in the form of questions? I blame Dixie Carter.

~ Eric, your heel character is generic. "I'm a bad person. I don't care about anyone else. I love heels and I hate faces. Have I mentioned that I'm a bad person?"

~ Reaction is still a pointless show.

That's all I got. Overall, it was just more mediocrity from TNA. This company needs more repair work than Hogan's back.

Non-Horror Film of the Week

I'm back...again!

After a long period of frustrating soul-searching and introspection, I've decided to dig up Random Reviews and give it one more shot. I've probably lost several readers after disappearing off of the face of the earth without any explanation, but I'm okay with that. I'll find new readers. I tend to go through what I refer to as "geek cycles." I'll burn out on movies and get sick of writing every six months or so. I've never actually enjoyed writing, but this past year, my dissatisfaction with the craft reached a fever pitch. I had no passion for this blog whatsoever.

So what can I do to ensure that this won't happen again anytime soon? Well, if I continue to blog, I need to do it differently. I need to be more selfish. I'm really good at being selfish, so this shouldn't be a problem. For one, I'm not going to review every single movie I watch or every single CD I buy. Also, I'm not going to read other blogs and try to comment on all of them on a regular basis. Sorry. It feels like a job, and I'm not a proponent of fishing for comments. Honestly, I don't read much anyway. Most bloggers will post comments in an effort to "network" or market their own blog (either that or it's their way of thanking that person for leaving a comment on their blog). If I ever comment on your blog, it's because I have genuine interest in the article and not because I feel obligated to. It's just exhausting, man.

Okay, I've rambled enough. Long story short, Random Reviews is back! I'll be expanding the scope of this blog to include topics other than movies and music. I'm excited to introduce these new columns. Later!

Chinese Robot Fuckers

What's with all of the nonsensical Asian gibberish that I've been receiving lately in the form of comments? Does anyone know how I can put a stop to it?

WARBEAST - KRUSH THE ENEMY

Warbeast are signed to Phil Anselmo's Housecore Records. They are a Texas thrash band featuring ex-members of Rigor Mortis and Gammacide. These guys are veterans of the underground scene, and it shows on Krush the Enemy, an intense agglomeration of tightly wound tunes that recall the flesh-stripping speed of Slayer and the monstrous groove of Pantera. This will sound audacious, but in my eyes, this record will be heralded as a classic in ten years. It's that good. Is it original? Not terribly, but when music is this satisfying, it doesn't need to be unique of experimental.

Are you a fan of Sadus? Demolition Hammer? What about Exhorder? If so, you'll have a field day with Krush the Enemy. There is nothing modern about it thanks, in part, to Phil Anselmo's organic production. You won't find any triggered drums or cut-and-paste leads here. I doubt very strongly that they even used a computer to track anything. Editing? What's that? The songs themselves teeter between "old school" sensibilities and "new school" sensibilities. Thick riffs are draped over a variety of tempos. Warbeast avoids that feeling of sameness you hear on most thrash albums. Every time that I've popped this disc in, I've listened to it straight through without skipping over the filler (because there is no filler).

In all honesty, this band sounds more like Slayer than anyone else. Imagine if Kerry King had an imagination and played decent solos. That's essentially Warbeast in a nutshell. If you're a true metalhead, buy this sucker pronto!

Geek Out #1

Have you ever seen something that is so cool, so awesome, so badass, so fucking gnarly, that you geek out to the extreme and you realize why you're single? And alone? And blogging? And running out of reasons to wake up in the morning? Sorry, I'm getting ahead of myself. This column will highlight things that transcend primitive adjectives like "cool" and "awesome." There isn't a word to describe these things. I have to warn you, though. As the name of this column suggests, viewing the video below may cause violent geek-outs. Make sure you are alone. Lock the door. Handcuff yourself to your chair just to be on the safe side. It's time to GEEK OUT! That's a sort of tagline I came up with. I guess it's not too bad. I don't know.

Never Sleep Again

If you're like me, you know almost everything there is to know about the Elm Street franchise. Freddy is my favorite villain of all time. He gave me countless nightmares as a child, and ever since I became a rabid horror junkie, I made it my mission in life to read as much as I could about the crispy one. Interviews, Fangoria articles, wikipedia entries...I absorbed enough knowledge to make an Elm Street documentary. Y'know, like this one. That's why Never Sleep Again felt a little pointless to me. Every serious horror fan knows most of this stuff. No, not all of it, but at least 75% of it.

In this instance, 75% accounts for three hours of material. On the upside, people can point to Never Sleep Again as being the definitive Elm Street documentary. It certainly uses all four hours to cram as much stuff into your head as possible. I'm not saying that it's poorly made. Hell, it's awesome. I just had a hard time staying plugged in after the halfway point. I did appreciate how they handled some of the goofier sequels like Freddy's Revenge and Freddy's Dead (both of which are underrated, in my opinion). Addressing the former's homoerotic overtones was a wise move, as the topic lightened up the proceedings. Man, Mark Patton looks like a completely different person, as does the "hall monitor" girl.

The tidbits of minutiae that I was not privy to were quite interesting. I love how the teenage cast members of Dream Warriors went to Robert Englund for advice on how to woo Patricia Arquette. I would have done the same thing. What you get out of Never Sleep Again will depend on whether or not you're a willing participant. Personally, I wasn't willing to sit through four hours of anecdotes that I was already familiar with, and technically, I didn't. I fell asleep towards the end. No rating because I don't feel objective about this one.

Random Reviews: Phase II

From the moment I created this blog to the time of my surgery, Random Reviews popped and crackled like strips of bacon resting on the surface of the sun. Since then, everything has died down. The recovery process has been unbearable at times. It now seems that the surgery itself was ineffective. It was a complete waste of time. Over the past few months, I feel like I've let down my readers. I am now faced with the challenge of building this blog back up. It will be a little different than it was before. I may even change the name to accommodate some of the new ideas I have. I won't be able to update it every single day. In retrospect, I'm not sure how I was able to update it so much before.

Anyway, my first new review since the surgery will be posted tomorrow. I said this on the last update, but it bears repeating...I've slacked off long enough!

An Announcement Announcement

A big announcement will be made soon. I have slacked off long enough. Stay tuned!

R.I.P.

Yesterday was the saddest day in metal since the brutal murder of Dimebag. Ronnie James Dio lost his battle with stomach cancer at 67 years of age. The term "metal god" is thrown around a lot in the metal community, but Dio may have been the definitive METAL GOD. He was there when this shit was invented. Plus, he was known for being one of the classiest guys in metal. I didn't get into Dio-related stuff until a year ago, but it didn't take me long to realize that he was one of the best singers on the planet. If you don't own Black Sabbath's Heaven and Hell, you are not metal. It's that simple. I can understand not owning every single record that Dio appeared on because he appeared on 1,734 records (and they're ALL worth listening to), but Heaven and Hell is a must.

On a lighthearted note, here's a list of the compact discs/cassette tapes I've been playing lately...

Cirith Ungol-King of the Dead
Heart-Dog and Butterfly
Arsis-Starve For the Devil
Immolation-Majesty and Decay
Deftones-Diamond Eyes
Trouble-Psalm 9
Grave-Soulless
Assjack-Assjack

Insert Title Here

This whole resurrection process is taking WAY longer than expected. By the time I get on my computer, I'm in too much pain to think straight. I've thought about changing this blog's format to make it easier for me to update. Maybe instead of reviews, I could just post my random thoughts on random subjects. For instance, I'm debating whether or not to see the Elm Street remake. It sounds fucking atrocious. Freddy played an integral role in my childhood, so it infuriates me to no end to see Michael Bay bastardize him. I know that I shouldn't judge a film before seeing it, but in this case, it's awfully tempting.

I'll stew on the blog matter. I'm not really sure what to do.

Peter Steele R.I.P.

Man, this is a huge blow to the hard rock/metal world. Steele was a truly unique individual whose lyrics reminded us not to take ourselves too seriously. His pained bellows also gave confused, frustrated listeners a gloomy body of work to relate to. He was much, much more than a tall bassist with a big dick. If you don't know who I'm talking about, go listen to Type O Negative right now.

I think I'll mark my return to writing random reviews by covering a couple of TON records. Watch this space.

I'm back!

Yes, I have returned. This is the first time I've been able to use my computer in over a month. I've been bedridden since the surgery, but today, I'm in my wheelchair. There is still some discomfort, but it's tolerable. My incision is very nearly healed. It was trying to open itself for awhile, but it seems to be heading in the right direction. I should go over a few things. It's time for a bulleted list!

• THANK YOU for all of the well wishes that I've received. I can't believe that people are still visiting this blog. Your support means so much to me.
• Even though I'm back, I'm not in "review-writing" mode just yet. Obviously, I'll keep you in the loop. It shouldn't be TOO much longer, but I have a lot of catching up to do.
• Remember the Get Well Soon Giveaway? Well, I need Carl, Emme, and Franco to send me their addresses. Congrats! I'm confident that you'll love your uber-cool prizes.
• I'll be visiting the blogs of my fellow bloggers over the next few days. I can't wait to see what everyone has been up to.

That about covers it. Once I've settled into my old routine, RR will be running smoother than the delicate nether-regions of a baby Stegosaurus.

I leave you with an extremely random VHS cover.

Update: Based on the Film "Precious: Based on the Novel 'Push' by Sapphire"

Hey, everyone. This is A.J. Hakari, a friend of our gracious host Dom, who, as he's instructed me to write, is a beast not yet ready to rise again. His surgery was a success, but numerous complications have made recovery longer than expected. Due to nerve damage suffered during surgery, he is currently bedridden and cannot sit in his electric wheelchair for long without experiencing great pain. Thus, he hasn't been able to get on a computer and isn't sure when he will. But he does thank everyone who submitted contest entries, and he'll have me announce a winner very likely in the next week or so. Another update will follow from me if Dom isn't able to log on in the next couple of weeks. Dom thanks you all for your patience and hopes his female readers will leave messages of pity and faux flirtations.

-A.J. Hakari

Prepare Yourselves

The beast is poised to rise from his grave...

Hiatus

Okay, folks...I'm off! Thanks for all of the well wishes. I'll try to post an update once I've returned home. Random Reviews will be back in business in a couple of weeks. It will be better than ever!

It Came From Beneath the Sea

(mini-review)

I've officially seen all of the Harryhausen films that I care to see. It Came From Beneath the Sea was the last one on my list. I've been putting it off because I've never been particularly enthused by "giant octopus" movies. The main reason why I'm not razzle-dazzled by oversized cephalopods can be summed up in two words - The Beast. Yes, I'm talking about the made-for-TV Peter Benchley adaptation. It bored me senseless as a child, and ever since, I've associated octopi with humdrum tedium. But The Beast didn't utilize stop-motion effects courtesy of Ray Harryhausen, now did it?

This flick does, although we don't get to see the full-blown creature until the last ten minutes. The build-up is more gratifying than I was expecting. We spend most of the first act in a claustrophobic environment with the captain of a submarine as he tries to nose out the source of a disturbance on his sonar system. Before his crew can figure out what's happening, the sub is jostled by an unseen force. Of course, we later discover that the unseen force was a giant octopus, a colossal monster dog-paddling and breast-stroking its way through the Pacific. The "it" that comes from beneath the sea looks fantastic, and it interacts with all of the model sets with great celerity and pliability.

The second act drags a bit, but the pace is chiefly well-managed. I really liked Faith Domergue as the scientist hired to identify a hunk of octo-flesh. With the exception of one scene where her character screams her head off, she's written as a strong, independent heroine. You don't see that a lot in b-movies from the 50's. Overall, I would definitely recommend It Came From Beneath the Sea, but it doesn't compare to The Beast From 20,000 Fathoms or Jason and the Argonauts. Just saying.