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VHS Covers I Love: The Other Hell (1981)

micah — Wed, 30 Dec 2009 04:12:02 +0000

The Other Hell - Front Art

THE OTHER HELL is the U.S. title for L’ALTRO INFERNO (1981), a nunsploitation flick directed by prolific Italian genre director Bruno Mattei (credited on the back of VHS box as Stefan Oblowsky) and co-written by Mattei and Claudio Fragasso (he of TROLL 2 fame). Interestingly, Mattei and Fragasso were shooting a second nunsploitation film – THE TRUE STORY OF THE NUN OF MONZA (1980) – at the same time, in the same building, and using most of the same cast and crew.

The Other Hell - Full Artwork

THE OTHER HELL infamously features a scene where a nun boils a baby to death. But don’t worry… the baby gets even:

Goblin provided THE OTHER HELL‘s score, albeit inadvertently: Mattei and Fragasso lifted most of it from Joe D’Amato‘s BEYOND THE DARKNESS (1979). Still, it’s put to good use, as seen here (wait for the catchy groove to kick in at the 30-second mark):

This VHS was released by Inter-Light Video, and primarily uses just four colors (white, black, blue, and reddish-orange) to achieve a simplistic but striking end product. The blood-splattered nun in the bottom right corner is clearly terrified, and I like that it’s unclear whether the nun in the center of the box shares – or is the source of – that terror. The lightning bolt off the tip of the enlarged sword is another nice touch. Incidentally, the artist’s depiction of the terrified nun is a fairly accurate rendition of the source material, as shown below:

The Other Hell - Nun Comparison

More information about THE OTHER HELL can be found at the excellent (but NSFW) Nunsploitation.net.

Micah :: Reel Distraction

It’s Beginning To Feel A Lot Like Naboo

Justin — Mon, 21 Dec 2009 21:10:00 +0000

Is it just me, or am I the only one that LOVES that people keep on thinking up cool new things involving STAR WARS. Looking around today I found a site that tells the weather in your city in terms of locations in the STAR WARS films. For instance, Mondo HQ is in Austin and as of writing this, it’s feeling a little bit like Naboo right now.

Then, over Butt-Numb-A-Thon weekend, our local maestro of the mattress Kayla Kromer debuted her follow up to the Hamburger Bed. She based it off of Han’s Millennium Falcon and got REALLY nerdy with the detail. It’s almost exact! She was even recognized by the official STAR WARS website and was a front page story!

And last but not least, there is the AMAZING 70 minute dissection of THE PHANTOM MENACE. I’ve embedded the first piece in this EPIC 7 part review. I’m not going to go into in depth, but set aside 90 minutes, turn your phone off and get ready to roll on the ground laughing.

American Boy: A Profile Of Steven Prince

Justin — Tue, 15 Dec 2009 06:03:14 +0000

This weekend, I attended Butt-Numb-A-Thon at the Alamo Drafthouse. BNAT is a 24 hour celebration of Ain’t It Cool News’ birthday. You go in totally blind with no prior knowledge of the films that will be playing. Half are new and sometimes world premieres and half are repertory pictures. This year, we were treated to Martin Scorsese’s new film, SHUTTER ISLAND. Seeing this film made me go back and start digging for a film he had made that I had wanted to see for a long while and I actually found it on YouTube in its entirety. The film is called AMERICAN BOY: A PROFILE OF STEVEN PRINCE. It’s essentially Scorsese and some friends pointing a camera at the VERY interesting Prince and letting him tell stories about his one-of-a-kind life. Most of you would probably recognize Prince as Easy Andy the gun dealer from TAXI DRIVER:

Terror Tuesday’s Zack Carlson and Weird Wednesday’s Lars Nilsen had been recommending this movie to me for a long time and I’m very foolish to just now be watching it. The stories he tells in this film are truly amazing and are so detailed they couldn’t be made up. I’m guessing Quentin Tarantino has seen this film before, too. I won’t say what makes me think that exactly, but if you watch the six part film below, you’ll know what I mean. Let me know what you think of it in the comments!

THE FIRST PIECE ISN’T ALLOWED TO BE EMBEDDED SO CLICK HERE TO VIEW IT. THE REST ARE BELOW.

-Justin

The Art Of Bob Pepper

Wiley — Mon, 16 Nov 2009 21:49:59 +0000

I have some very wonderful formative memories of playing the Dark Tower board game from Milton Bradley- It had this giant plastic prop tower that honked and tweeted to let you know you had died of the plague or been hacked apart by hobgoblins or what have you (some wonderful nerds have actually recreated the game in flash here). I was young enough that I probably had no idea what was actually happening in the game, but I was endlessly fascinated with the artwork on the cards and other playing materials.

Bob Pepper was an illustrator who was most active in the 70′s and 80′s, before all illustration was soullessly cranked out in adobe illustrator after being gang-raped in the brainstorming phase by bloodthirsty marketing hacks who demand that each character be ’25% more extreme’ or ‘rastafied by six degrees’. Pepper lent his unique style of charcoal and watercolor to the iconic Love album “Forever Changes”, as well as a handful of boardgames and pulp novel covers (most notably several Phillip K. Dick books). His style is markedly 70′s – Mucha and Art Nouveau flourishes mixed with a more modern ‘graphic’ style influenced by comics and commercial art. It’s the sort of stoned fantasy illustration that has lost favor today, but which brings syrupy waves of nostalgia over me whenever I look at it.

Check out some Bob Pepper artwork, and read this interview with him.

-Wiley

Black Sunday Artwork

micah — Sun, 13 Sep 2009 20:27:16 +0000

Earlier this year I was lucky enough to meet the legendary actress Barbara Steele, and spent a few minutes talking with her about her performance in the Mario Bava masterpiece LA MASCHERA DEL DEMONIO (1960), better known in the United States as BLACK SUNDAY.

Over the years, several stunning posters have been created to promote this film. Given that today is Sunday (and a particularly dreary one… at least in my neck of the woods), I thought it would be fun to toss up four of my favorites (click on any of the posters for much larger versions):

LA MASCHERA DEL DEMONIO - Italian Artwork

BLACK SUNDAY - U.S. Artwork

LA MASCHERA DEL DEMONIO

The first version is my favorite of the four. Although I haven’t been able to track down an original one-sheet with that artwork (and doubt I’d be able to afford it even if I could), Ms. Steele graciously agreed to autograph a smaller high-quality reproduction for me:

Black Sunday - Autographed With Love By Barbara Steele

Youtube has a 20-second teaser for the film, as well as a longer trailer under the alternate title THE MASK OF SATAN.

Any fellow fans of Mario Bava and/or Barbara Steele? Let us know in the comments.

- Micah :: Reel Distraction

After Last Season…WTF? LOL? OMG? REAL?

Justin — Mon, 08 Jun 2009 18:33:30 +0000

Four of us went to see this last night. Don’t be fooled, it’s a shitty movie, but that’s obvious by the trailer. The real mystery is if this movie was deliberately made to be shitty or just a gloriously failed attempt at greatness. I’m guessing the former. What are your thoughts?

My office is a toy store: The Oozinator

Justin — Wed, 20 May 2009 06:24:13 +0000

Alright…this video is super old, but for all the ones that haven’t seen it…catch up:

So, now that you’ve watched the video, let me say that this toy is incredible on many levels. First off, the design of this gun is really beautiful.

James Groman is the guy responsible for making it look so impressive. He’s also a hero of mine for doing so much with Madballs and the criminally forgotten Blurpballs.

As a Super Soaker type gun, I’d have to say that this is right up near the top. First of all, getting shot with ooze is way more insulting than water. I guess it’s kinda fun on a hot day to get nailed with a shot of water, but some hot slime…not so much.

This thing has so much firepower, it’s crazy. It has a decently sized water tank on it plus the pump action ooze.

It’s kinda like the Pulse rifle Ripley uses at the end of ALIENS. When she’s out of ammo (water in this case) she switches over to the grenade launcher (ooze). I got this in the mail yesterday and took it outside immediately and was NOT disappointed. Put this shit back on the market…now! The ooze shoots a good 20 feet…probably more. We have a balcony around back at work and Terror Tuesday Zack and I took it back there and let off some rounds. Truly disgusting. The kids in the video weren’t acting. I don’t know what the ooze is, but it’s gross and not pleasing to the palette (I had to try it).

Best part about this…it was only 10 bucks buy it now on eBay. Trust me, if you see this for that cheap again, you’ve gotta grab it. It’s worth the price. I’m gonna be cruising for ooze packs from now until my dying day. Viva la Oozinator! Best Super Soaker ever.

Free Dance Lessons

Justin — Wed, 20 May 2009 00:06:26 +0000

Night of the Creeps Reunion!

Justin — Tue, 19 May 2009 00:47:51 +0000

First, watch this:

Now, get your tickets for this:

NIGHT OF THE CREEPS DIRECTORS CUT AND CAST REUNION!

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS!

-Justin

IWA King of the Deathmatch ’95

Justin — Tue, 12 May 2009 06:24:04 +0000

A friend and I have begun to watch all of the WWF Wrestlemanias. Tonight we finished watching Wrestlemania 2 and besides the Terry Funk/ Dory Funk Jr. tag team match, it was pretty weak. It got me to thinking how much I always enjoyed watching Terry Funk wrestling Mick Foley. Foley was a HUGE part of my teenage years. I was kind of obsessed. I called into radio shows to talk to him, went to every appearance he made in the Kansas City area and, of course, bought every book he wrote (they’re really great.). One of the happiest days my 8th grade year was when I got a catalog in the mail that had the IWA King of the Deathmatch 1995 tape in it. Holy shit! I begged my mom so I could do a phone order with her credit card so I didn’t have to wait the two weeks to do a money order. When I got that tape, it was a life changer. What I saw was REALLY mind blowing. Definitely one of the best matches he ever participated in. Sure, I saw LOTS of deathmatches coming out of Japan, but he always added something special to whatever he touched…especially these. I found the main event of the IWA King of the Deathmatch tournament on YouTube today and figured I’d share it with all of you. If you’re at work…don’t watch this. If you have a girlfriend and she’s in the room or you’re about to eat anything…don’t watch this.

Mick Foley, I love you.