VHS Visions: Blood Tracks (1985)

By Brad Henderson

After Alien came out, we received rip-off after rip-off (mostly all good films, though) and the same thing followed after The Terminator was released. Hell, I’ll admit there were a ton of films from the ’80s that copied others because of the success of Hollywood blockbusters during that time.

After the release of The Hills Have Eyes there were a few films with the same likeness and concept but a different setting. Frankly, I couldn’t care less because most of these films were fantastic. Some of them are still my favorites and that includes the film Blood Tracks. Blood Tracks borrows many of the same elements of The Hills Have Eyes except it is set in the snow and the characters that get slashed to bits are a rock band called Solid Gold (Swedish band Easy Action) and their groupies.

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Music Review: Fox, Images ’74 – ’84

By Hanna

Fox is one of the few bands that have truly crossed over from junkshop glam into mainstream glam rock over the past decade or so. They always had people—notably Steve Wright—lobbying for them, but it wasn’t until Cherry Red started re-issuing the albums and YouTube allowed them to be rediscovered that they took their proper place in the genre. That initial wave of interest has only become stronger, and with this compilation most of their known music is now available. The three albums (Fox, Tails of Illusion, and Blue Hotel) were previously re-issued by Cherry Red, and there have been a number of compilations by various companies, but none as comprehensive as this one.

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Music Review: Giallos Flame, Archivio Giallo, Volume One

By Jeffery X Martin

Fans of horror movies from the 1980s know that half the fun of those flicks was the crazy synthesizer-heavy soundtracks they all seemed to have. Haunting melodies, strange electronic sounds, and spatial effects only served to accentuate the atmosphere, making the blood and guts more shocking.

It’s a weird groove to fall into, being a fan of music like that. You start bringing up musicians like Claudio Simonetti, Fabio Frizzi, Riz Ortolani, or Alan Howarth and most people stare at you like you’ve lost your mind. Then you start bringing up the movies those people have scored. Have you not seen Zombi? The Beyond? Buio Omega? How about The Fog? The original Dawn of the Dead, for cryin’ out loud?

You get a lot of blank looks and sympathetic nods, lots of people silently blessing your heart.

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DVD Review: Holy Ghost People

By Brad Henderson

Religious horror films are truly terrifying. We have our slashers, monsters, and alien horror, but we know those can be easily dismissed. Sure, there are accounts of people dressing up and killing people and there are serial killers, but we are not surrounded by that. We hear about these things on TV and the Internet but it doesn’t hit close to home. Probably the only things that hit close to home are school shootings because that could literally happen anywhere, at any time, by anyone.

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DVD Review: The Punk Singer

By Brad Henderson

Kathleen Hanna was my dream girl growing up. It all started when I went to a record store and found a copy of Reject All American by Bikini Kill. I had no clue what it was but the cover intrigued me. I gave it a shot because it only had a 99-cent price tag.

I left the store with a few CDs that day (mostly punk) and listened to them throughout the rest of the week, but that night I popped that one in and it did a number on me. First, it sounded completely badass. It was raw and ferocious. The lyrics were well thought out and this girl singer was not fucking around. Between “Rebel Girl” and “Statement of Vindication,” this was the best album that I’d heard in years. I immediately found out who Kathleen Hanna was and tracked down everything she put her hands into.

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Music Review: The Dandy Warhols, Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia Live At The Wonder

By Melissa Bratcher

Never a band to do things in a conventional way, The Dandy Warhols have released a live version of their seminal album Thirteen Tales From Urban Bohemia recorded in its entirety at The Wonder Ballroom in their hometown of Portland, Oregon. Thirteen Tales is a damn near masterpiece of smart pop sensibilities, great hooks, and the occasional space rock excursion, and represents the Dandys at the height of their powers. It’s hard to believe it was 13 years ago.

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Music Review: Foetus, Soak

By Less Lee Moore

For another perspective on Soak, check out Julie Finley’s review from December 2013.

“I can’t control the wind and rain, but I control the thermostat.”
—From “Kamikaze”

The newest Foetus release, Soak, is a companion album to a previous release, in this case, 2011’s Hide (review). (Calling it Seek would have been way too obvious for a guy like JG Thirlwell. You have to work for it.) And like 2006’s Damp (itself a companion to the previous year’s Love), it’s something of a Foetus sampler and not a straightforward “album” in Foetus terms. It’s also the first Foetus release in a long time that I didn’t love immediately. This is not to say that it’s a bad album—far from it—but it takes a bit more time to sink in. Despite being so obviously a Thirlwell production (could he be mistaken for anyone else ever?) the songs are all quite varied in sound and scope with the connections between them slowly revealing themselves to be sly and subtle.

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DVD Review: Sorority Horror House

By Brad Henderson

How do people normally feel about made-for-TV horror? I’m not speaking about direct-to-video flicks, I’m talking about the ones that go straight to television and then are put on DVD and buried almost instantly. These movies are easily dismissed and frowned upon. I give them a chance when I can because every once in a while you find a gem. Sorority Horror House is one of those films.

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