Blu-Ray Review: American Horror Project Volume One

By Tim Murr

When you delve into the glut of independent American cinema from the 1970s, you’ll be amazed at how many films were actually produced in that decade by penniless mavericks far from the infrastructure of Hollywood or New York City. Remember, too, that film- making was a massive undertaking, not just in the pre-digital world, but also pre-video. (For some insight into the trials and tribulations into the hardships of the indie horror director in the ’70s, please check out the book Shock Value by Jason Zinoman.)

The fact that we have small indie efforts like Texas Chainsaw Massacre, Deranged, Night Of The Living Dead, Last House On The Left, Driller Killer, or Phantasm that have risen to the status of bonafide American classics or, at least, cult classics, is something we should all be thankful for. So many films from the grindhouse circuit have been lost to history. That’s where Arrow Video comes in with the start of an amazing new series, American Horror Project.

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Music Review: Voivod, Post Society EP

By Tim Murr

Formed in Quebec in 1983, the prog-metal masters Voivod have shifted and mutated, thrilling fans across 13 studio albums. Their 1984 debut album, War and Pain, was a paint-peeling thrash classic. It was to metal what The Road Warrior was to cinema; a line in the sand for others to dash across. With each album up to Angel Rat, when the band started to splinter, Voivod progressed and evolved their sci-fi Rush-meets-Motorhead approach.

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VHS Visions: Alien Nation (1988)

By Tim Murr

My favorite type of science fiction is where it’s basically our real world but with a twist, just one or two things off, like Robocop or The Fly. Dystopian futures and spaceships are fine, but I rarely feel sucked into those worlds in the same way. Alien Nation was one of my favorite films as a kid. It came out in 1988 and I couldn’t wait for it to hit my local video store. Being rated R, I knew there was no chance in hell of my parents taking me to see it in the theater.

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Music Review: Golden Daze, Golden Daze

By Tim Murr

Shoegaze or Dream Pop was a genre I always liked in theory, but was never really able to embrace back in the early 1990s. So I don’t have a terribly wide frame of reference for reviewing Golden Daze’s self-titled debut, but leaving the album on hours-long loops has been a very enjoyable experience. Does this mean I like shoegaze and dream pop now? I guess so!

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Music Review: Lycus, Chasms

By Tim Murr

I don’t know if “beautifully arranged” is a phrase often applied to funereal doom metal, but it certainly applies to the new album from Lycus, Chasms. The four long tracks that make up Chasms play like a four-part symphony of despair at the death of the world.

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Music Review: I Am Thor (Original Soundtrack)

By Tim Murr

Welcome to my fourth Thor review in the last year! I’ve been on a quite a journey of discovery with Jon Mikl Thor. When I reviewed the re-release of his landmark 1983 album, Unchained, my memory of Thor the frontman, was fuzzier than my memory of Thor the guy that was in that Adam West zombie movie.

Since then I’ve reviewed his newest release, Metal Avenger (2015), an album that contained some of his strongest material to date. Then, there was the fantastic documentary, I Am Thor. Rock documentaries are pretty common and usually just a boring fan letter to the subject. Sometimes not even including any of the artist’s music due to rights issues. I Am Thor delivers by being a compelling documentary, chock-full of music from Thor’s entire career and featuring great interviews with many people from Thor’s life.

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Blu-Ray Review: I Am Thor

By Tim Murr

There is no good reason Thor weren’t bigger than KISS. Oh, sure, there were reasons, but not good ones. Starting out in the body building world before moving on to rock and roll, Jon Mikl Thor made a name for himself with feats of strength and great stage presence. His first serious foray into rock as Thor was a glam classic (Keep The Dogs Away, 1977). It should have been huge. It was not.

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Farewell, Tall Man: Angus Scrimm and Phantasm

By Tim Murr

It’s only been a few days since actor Angus Scrimm died at the age of 89. Though he also worked outside of the franchise, it was the Phantasm series, in which he played the Tall Man, that made Mr. Scrimm a horror household name. His final film, Phantasm: RaVager, is set to be released sometime this year.

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VHS Visions: Rawhead Rex (1986)

By Tim Murr

“Get upstairs, fuck face! I can’t keep God waiting!”

Recently, Arrow Video released a gorgeous Hellraiser box set. In 2014, we finally got the director’s cut of Nightbreed.  But still, on the film’s 30^th anniversary, there is no news of a DVD/Blu-Ray release of Rawhead Rex!

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Music Review: Bloodiest, Bloodiest

By Tim Murr

“Doom-laden hardcore psych-metal” is how you’d describe the sophomore album from Chicago’s Bloodiest, a six-piece experimental band with members from Russian Circles, Corrections House, and Yakuza. If you are a big fan of Black Sabbath, Neurosis, Saint Vitus, Unsane, or the Melvins then Bloodiest should fit your taste quite well. Mixing 1990s hardcore, drone, and noise, Bloodiest creates a heady brew.

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