Anthrax and Testament - Allentown, Feb. 6

In a way, I wish Crocodile Rock, in nearby Allentown, would stop getting shows I want to see, just because I hate the place so damned much. Every time I go there (and it's more often than I'd like to admit), I walk in thinking, If only someone would build a club to compete with this one . . . As it is, so far it's the only place in Lehigh Valley, PA, for shows of this size.

And this one was packed. Had to be over-sold by a decent number of tickets. God forbid a fire, or some other disaster, should ever break out in Crocodile Rock; most of its patrons would no doubt never make it out the doors.

Anyway, last night's show, featuring Anthrax and Testament, was phenomenal, my enjoyment dampened only by the enormous crowd, the spotty sound system (which muted every three minutes or so--typical of Crocodile Rock), and the fact that it took Anthrax forty minutes to come out, after Testament had finished their set.

I arrived at the end of Death Angel's set, so I can't comment on their performance; from what I heard, it sounded good. Testament came out to the sounds of the Hellraiser theme, demonstrating once more how well horror and metal go together, and their set was a fifty-five minute monster, with barely any pause between songs that spanned their entire discography. It truly did appear to be a double-headliner bill, as Testament played almost as long as Anthrax. They sounded tight, and Chuck Billy rocked a glowing mic stand, which he used to play air guitar during just about every instrumental break.

Anthrax opened with Earth On Hell and Fight Em Till You Can't, two songs off last year's Worship Music. They busted out Caught In a Mosh and Anti-Social, before returning to the new album, for The Devil You Know. Their set offered a total of four tracks from Worship Music, which, for my money, is the right amount for a tour promoting a new album. Too often bands come out with a record and tour for it, and only play one, maybe two songs, off of it. Or the reverse: they come out and play mostly new stuff. Neither of these approaches is satisfying for an audience. Why even put out a record, if you're not going to play the songs live? And alternatively, why play only songs a large portion of the crowd won't be familiar with?

Anthrax put most of the new tunes in the first half of the set, and spent the second half on songs from each of their pre-John Bush albums, getting a chaotic circle pit going during Indians. The song was stopped mid-breakdown, and Scott Ian addressed the crowd. He was concerned that the people in the back and in the over-21 section weren't having enough fun, and wanted to make sure they had as much fun as the crazy motherfuckers up front. They then re-started the breakdown and continued the song.

Whenever Ian or Belladonna had something to say into the mic, it was worth hearing. Not a lotta silly stage banter, like some bands do, just jokes and brief announcements. They pounded out eleven songs, disappeared for a few minutes, and then did three for an encore. All in all, a great show, very fast and intense all night.

I Wish Charles Band Would Stop Making F###ing Puppet Master Movies.

When is he going to quit?

As if the last few weren't wretched enough, Charles Band is releasing yet another terrible Puppet Master movie. Is anyone still watching these things? Maybe not--but they cost so little to produce, it doesn't take much of an audience to warrant making another, and hey, at least a handful of folks will fork over money for the new action figures, which will be priced at approximately 400,000 times their worth.

Here's an example of what one of the new toys will look like. In typical Charles Band fashion, the toys are available for sale long before the film's release.

Blitzkrieg is the name of the puppet. And he's easily the dopiest-looking puppet since Decapitron, from the mid-90s.

I did watch the last Puppet Master movie. It was the first one in years, so I watched it, but with low expectations, having seen several of the newer Full Moon movies, none of which are very good. What the hell happened to Charles Band? I know he doesn't care much about anything besides money, but the major faults of these movies lie not in the ultra-low budgets but in the almost non-existent writing. I'll be the last person to say the old Full Moon films had great stories or scripts, but they were written in a fun, B-movie kind of way. You could usually tell that the people making them were having a good time doing it. The new movies Band cranks out typically have about one original thought in ninety minutes.

Actually, Demonic Toys 2 didn't even have one.

The man clearly doesn't give a shit about making movies, only money. But I wish he'd leave the Puppet Master series alone.

I don't think I'm going to rent Puppet Master: Axis Rising. At this point even I'm out.

Exhumed Films' 24-Hour Horror Marathon - 10/30/11

Another successful twenty-four-hour marathon from Exhumed Films. This is the second year I've attended, and it was just as fun both times. Exhumed puts this on every October, last week of the month, noon to noon, at the International House in Philadelphia. They run a great show, with every movie played on film, trailers and shorts packed in between the films, and a zero tolerance policy in regards to talking and cell phone use during the movies. They also do not tell you which films will be playing, giving only vague clues. You can try and guess what they'll show, and at the end they give out prizes to those who guessed the most correctly--but the clues offer very little information, and it's damn near impossible to get any right. Fun trying to guess, though, and I like not knowing what's coming up until the title appears on the screen.

I went with my friend Mike, probably about the only person I know who'd sit for twenty-four hours of horror films, and we got in line about an hour and a half early, to insure getting a good seat. I like to sit on the end, not in the middle. There isn’t a hell of a lot of leg room at the International House (though the seats are pretty comfortable over all) and I get up a lot, probably at least one time per movie, and I’d hate to have to squeeze past people that many times throughout the day/night. Actually, we got almost the same seats we had last year, on the left side, towards the middle/front. As with last year, the crowd was really cool, not obnoxious at all, the theater didn’t smell too bad, and the temperature went back and forth between a moderate cool and a moderate warm, which is fine with me.

As we did last year, Mike and I got up after four movies to go down to the Italian restaurant for pizza and (just a few) beers. That restaurant is terrible; same awful service I remember from last year. They apparently have no idea that four hundred extra people are occupying the I-House right down the street for twenty-four hours, and they’re understaffed and slow.

We chose that point to leave because the movie playing in slot #5 was The Dead (2011), a new film, the only title announced ahead of time, since this is its “Philadelphia premier.” Unfortunately, the movie was presented digitally, the only one presented that way, as the distributor didn’t provide film prints for its North American release. Lame. Mike said he’d seen it the week before and didn’t think it was that good, so we skipped it and spent an hour and a half at Pizza Rustica (which is, I believe, Italian for “rusty pizza”).

The opening movies weren’t as strong as last year's. They kicked things off with a pretty bad undead-on-motorcycles movie called Death Wheelers (1973), or Psychomania, the title Mike knew it as. Some crazy British motorcyclists commit suicide and come back to life, drive around, terrorize people, kill innocents without ever showing blood. It wasn't a good movie, but the crowd laughed a lot and I found myself enjoying it nevertheless. Then we had Rodan (1956), which was fun to see; I hadn’t watched that since I was about ten (for the record, I'm now about thirty).

Then we had Frightmare (1983), which I thought I’d seen, but quickly realized was different than the Frightmare I’d watched and disliked. This Frightmare, with a young Jeffrey Combs, was pretty decent. After that, they changed things up a bit, showing an uncharacteristically grim (for Exhumed’s marathons) Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986), which I hadn’t seen since I was fourteen or so. At the time, it was probably the most brutal movie I’d ever watched (till I saw Last House on the Left, shortly after), and it’s amazing how . . . not “tame”, but . . . I don’t know the word I’m looking for, but after seeing Hostel, some of the French stuff (Inside, Martyrs), Serbian Film, some of the movies that have come out since Henry, it didn’t seem as torturous as it did when I was a kid. Still, the scene where Henry and Ottis videotape themselves murdering the family is hard to watch. Very good movie.

When we came back, we got an excellent block of three movies, all completely new to me: Trick Or Treat (1986), Night Warning (1983), and Frankenhooker (1990). The first I'd heard of but had never seen--and the marathon was a great way to view this one for the first time. A kid summons the evil spirit of a dead heavy metal star, after playing said star's unreleased final record backwards. Fuckin A.

Things slowed down when Decision for Doom (1976) (aka Dr. Black and Mr. Hyde, a much better, catchier title) came on, followed by Legend of the Wolf Woman (1977), an extremely sleazy European jobbie about a werewolf who spends most of h
er time as a naked human woman. After that Blood Diner(1987) played. I own this movie, but not a single frame seemed familiar. By now it was about six in the morning, and I fell asleep for the second half of this movie, but woke up for The Burning (1981), only nodding off towards the end of that one.

The Burning was a lot of fun to watch that early in the morning, after being up most of the night. I woke up to this one feeling the same way I did upon waking for Friday the 13th Part 2 last year. Slasher movies hold a special place in my heart, and they work great in a spot towards the head of the marathon (although I wouldn't mind seeing more towards the beginning either).

Maximum Overdrive (1986) was next, and I hadn't seen that in a while, so that was fun. Started nodding off towards the end. The final movie was Meet the Feebles (1989), but Mike (who was falling in and out of sleep and starting to feel kinda shitty) and I (who would have fallen asleep regardless of what the last movie was) did the same as we did last year and left after the final movie, Meet the Feebles, revealed its title.

Great time this year. Saw some favorites and some crazy movies totally new to me. As with previous years, Grindcore House provided coffee and pastries, and the I-House deli was open part of the time. I felt bad for the guy workin that place; he definitely had his hands full. The bagel egg-and-cheese sandwich I ordered was awesome, though. Looking forward to going again next year.

Review - Glen Duncan, "The Last Werewolf"

The Last Werewolf is a crazy new horror novel, packed with action, sex, and gore, but written in a semi-"old fashioned" style. The whole thing is a bit of a throwback to the literary classics of horror--Dracula, Frankenstein, and that sort--even the font type and the maroon-colored page edges evoking something written a hundred years ago. And yet the story is entirely modern, full of satirical jabs at Western culture and references to current films, TV shows, and gadgets.

Glen Duncan, a British author whose previous books I haven't yet read, has put together a pretty exciting werewolf tale here. And I don't have to tell those of you who are fans of this sub-genre that there aren't a hell of a lot of great werewolf novels out there.

Duncan's story gives us Jake Marlowe, a two-hundred-year-old werewolf preparing himself for his final days, ready to give himself up to the heads of WOCOP, an organization created in order to dispatch werewolves and other supernatural monsters. There's a rumor going around that Marlowe's the last of his kind, and the evidence is strong, considering no new werewolves have been created in years, possibly since Marlowe himself was turned in the 1840's.

The book is essentially about loneliness, despair at being one of a kind, and Marlowe's resignation to a life of loveless adventure, his only other option death, which he can't bring himself to carry out with his own hands. To say much more would, I think, give away too much of the story, which has its fair share of twists. I'm not completely sold on the chapter cliffhangers. He uses them quite frequently. On the other hand, I like short chapters, and this one's got about sixty in under three hundred pages.

Duncan is definitely an author worth following. I'm curious to see if he uses a similar writing style in his other novels, or if that was specifically for this one. Find out soon, I imagine.

Gallows - first show with new singer Wade MacNeil

I'm not sure why, but every couple of years I throw on Freddy's Dead: the Final Nightmare, thinking, Maybe this time it'll be good. Perhaps that's because I only watch the movie when I'm extremely tired and/or intoxicated, so I don't remember it that well, and only recall the few positive elements of the film: the crazy map, the town that keeps you going in circles, and the weird adult residents of childless Springwood. But I always end up regretting putting it on in favor or something else.

Anyway . . .

The first date of the AP Tour, featuring Four Year Strong, Gallows, and Title Fight, was last night in Allentown, at Crocodile Rock (a shitty venue to be sure, but unfortunately the only place in the Lehigh Valley to see shows of this size). Four Year Strong and Title Fight are fine, but my main reason for going was to see Gallows with their new singer, Wade MacNeil, originally from Alexisonfire, a band unfamiliar to me.

I'll admit being a little skeptical about someone new in the role of lead vocalist, since Frank Carter was so great in that band. And it was surprising to hear that a band that's written a number of songs that are seemingly very England-centric would take on a non-Englishman for the front spot on stage. But damn if MacNeil and the rest of Gallows didn't put on just as good a show as the last one I caught, a couple summers ago when they opened for AFI.

Their set last night opened with the intro to "Misery," they came out on stage, and fucking blew it away. The second song in, MacNeil came down onto the floor to sing, and a few songs later the guitar was down on the floor as well. MacNeil's vocal delivery of the songs from Grey Britain and Orchestra of Wolves was different, of course, than Carter's, as he's from Toronto not London, but no less powerful. The guy gets a very crazy look in his eyes when he's singing, too.

With very little pause between songs, they kept things going pretty quickly for their just-under-forty-minute set, playing five off their second album and three off the first, with a couple new ones in there, ending with the sing-along chant of "Orchestra of Wolves."

I know there are some folks who'd insist it isn't the same without Frank Carter singing, but after reading their write-up in Alternative Press, I wonder if those same people would enjoy an album that went the more commercial, standard rock sound that Carter was supposedly pushing for. Personally, I'm glad they decided to keep going and to keep the music heavy.

Any doubts one might have about the possibility of Gallows slowing things down or going "soft" are easily put to rest by the two new songs, both of which are fast, heavy, and very intense.

I look forward to hearing a new record, which hopefully will be out next year, and seeing them again in the future.

Go to www.gallows.co.uk to hear the new song "True Colours."

A Month of Horror Movies

October's nearly half-over and so far my seasonal diet of almost-daily horror films has consisted largely of mediocre stuff. In past years I try to split my month-of-Halloween viewing between old favorites and movies I haven't seen. So far this year I've focused on recent films I've missed, but it's probably time to thrown in some more favorites, or seek out some more acclaimed films. Here's what I've watched the last couple weeks . . .

The Horde (2009). French film about a team of cops out to avenge the death of a friend, who end up trapped in a building with their enemies. Both groups are soon attacked by the zombies ravaging the city and are made to team up in order to beat the zombies. This one kept me entertained, while offering just about nothing new for the zombie genre (except for inexplicably frequent uses of the word balls (e.g. "She's got no balls," "Where are your balls?" and "Those zombies are trying to eat our balls!").

Maniac Cop III: Badge of Silence (1993). I'd seen the previous two Maniac Cops but hadn't gotten around to this one yet. It's not bad. No Bruce Campbell, no Tom Atkins--but Robert Davi is pretty good. I like how all three films in this series were written by Larry Cohen and directed by William Lustig. Even though it's not a great movie, Maniac Cop III is kinda fun to watch, thanks to the writing and directing talent involved.

The Ward (2010). John Carpenter's new one. It's not very good. Dull, not particularly scary, but with a pretty good performance by Amber Heard. It's a "twist" movie, John Carpenter's first.

The Lost Boys: the Thirst (2010). To be fair, I didn't expect this one to be very good. It isn't. Probably on the same level as the previous Lost Boys direct-to-DVD sequel. These movies feel less like sequels and more like Edgar Frog spinoffs. They could stop making them and that'd be just fine. The Lost Boys (1987) is a great movie, and these low budget DVD jobbies don't even come close to doing it justice.

I took a break from the newer titles to watch Boris Karloff in The Ghoul (1933). It starts out promisingly, with lots of cool fog and creepy sets, but starts to get a little tedious around the halfway mark.

The Cottage (2006). A British movie that blends comedy, action, gangster movies, and, finally, slasher films into a relatively enjoyable genre mash-up. Quite a few funny lines in this one, and some surprisingly graphic gore scenes.


On the complete opposite end of the spectrum is Martyrs (2008), a French-Canadian film that disturbed me more than anything I've seen since a recent viewing of Serbian Film (2010). Like that film, the nauseating scenes of torture and brutal punishment are bearable only because of the strong writing and engaging directing. Still, I probably won't feel the urge to fire it up again any time soon. If you watch it, don't read too much about it beforehand, as any plot summary would pretty much require spoiling some pretty intense moments in the film's first twenty minutes.

The Omen (2006). It's hard to get excited about remakes these days, what with a new one coming out seemingly every month. I love the original Omen (1976) and wasn't particularly excited about this re-do (thus the five years between its release and my viewing it). It sticks surprisingly close to the original story. I haven't seen the Richard Donner film in a few years, but every plot point came back to me as I watched this one. The problem is, it isn't scary. Liev Schreiber does a good job (though he's no Gregory Peck), and the rest of the cast is adequate, but it never hits that creepy note the original did. And the kid isn't particularly scary, which, you know, for a film about a scary kid, that's a somewhat important ingredient.

Last night I checked out Legend of Bloody Jack (2007), which was a bloody goddamn mistake. I don't recall where I heard about this one, I feel like I read about it somewhere, but I wish I hadn't. Boring shot-on-DV, horribly acted pile of junk I knew I'd hate five minutes in. I even thought, "Why finish this? I'll probably fall asleep before the end, it'll kill the rest of my Wednesday night, and I won't remember anything about it in the morning." And that's more or less what happened. I woke up towards the end, backed it up to the last scene I remembered, let it play, still fell asleep before the finale, and this morning didn't care enough to "re-cap" the ending, which is what I usually do if I fall asleep watching something I'm not particularly into.

So far the rest of my viewing material this month has consisted of a few favorites (A Nightmare on Elm Street, Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan, Insidious, and Jason Goes to Hell . . . OK, JGTH isn't exactly a "favorite," but it's one of the Fridays I've seen least, and it's not a terrible way to pass an hour and a half). It looks like I'm going to need to be a little more particular about what I watch the rest of the month.

Looking forward to The Thing remake/prequel/whatever it is . . .

Review - Misfits, "The Devil's Rain"

New Misfits, post-reunion Misfits, Jerry and the Only's, whatever you'd like to call them--they're not very good. A huge fan of the original incarnation and the 90's version of the Misfits, I've seen Jerry Only's show several times over the last few years, and the live set never fails to disappoint. After Michale Graves left the band, Only got by singing for a while, and brought along folks like Marky Ramone, Robo, and Dez Cadena to back him up, and it wasn't too bad. But he completely lost it a few years ago. Playing the Danzig-era, and some Graves-era, tunes at ridiculously fast speeds, producing a sloppy mess only vaguely recognizable as Misfits songs.

But still, I was kinda looking forward to this album, hoping there might be something worth hearing contained in its fifty-one minutes. After all, I've listened to the "Project 1950" covers album many times since it came out in 2003, and that's got Jerry singing.

No such luck here. Basically, the new album starts out adequately, and after song #2, goes straight down the shitter. I'd say "straight down to Hell," but since this is a Misfits album (of sorts), that would be a compliment. No, "Devil's Rain" takes us nowhere near Hell, but rather to a budget theme park for the whole family, with no scary rides, no roller coaster loops, and nothing too exciting.

Here's a breakdown of the tracks:

"Devil's Rain" really isn't a bad opener. It's got a midtempo beat and is bookended by a thunderstorm, with a catchy chorus, and, while it isn't as good an intro as "Abominable Dr. Phibes" or "Kong at the Gates," it gets the job done. This is followed by "Vivid Red," probably the best song on the album. One of the few almost-thrashers "Devil's Rain" has to offer.

"The Black Hole" is the same kind of boring as "Land of the Dead" and "Twilight of the Dead." It fits appropriately, then, between those two, which by the way have been released together twice as singles ("Land" as the single, with "Twilight" as the B side, two years ago; and now "Twilight" as the single and "Land" as the B side--the album versions this time). Jerry Only knows he's got enough diehard fans who'll buy absolutely anything with the Misfits name on it, so why not put out the same songs twice?

"Curse of the Mummy's Hand" is musically OK, with a decent guitar solo in the middle. But the lyrics to this one are just too silly, even for the Misfits, especially Jerry singing the chorus, "The Mummy's Ha-aaand" in his best attempt at a rockin howl.

Makes me wonder who wrote which songs on "American Psycho" and "Famous Monsters". Lyrics and music on those albums are credited to the band as a whole, but I know from interviews with Michale Graves that different members were responsible for various songs. Graves still performs some of the tunes he wrote for the band, at his solo shows or with various other projects. Musically, "Devil's Rain" isn't very catchy or heavy, two things the Graves-era (and, of course, the Danzig-era) most certainly were, and the lyrics are beyond stupid.

"Cold in Hell" is a good example of lousy writing, with "It's cold in hell, they say, an endless winter" and other similar lines. At least the song's relatively fast. Still, this is about the fastest the record gets. Jerry's habit of speeding up, and in turn muddying up, most of the older songs at their shows really doesn't make sense when listening to this new album. If the guy loves playing those songs so fast, why'd he put out an album of mostly midtempo songs, with only occasional fast moments like "Curse of the Mummy's Hand" and "Cold In Hell"?

"Unexplained" sounds like something Michale Graves could have sung much better. The lyrics are very clear on this one, which isn't a good thing. And "Dark Shadows" seemingly wants to put the listener to sleep; it's a boring ballad that Jerry can't sing properly.

"Father" is almost kinda catchy, joining the ranks of the other almost-good songs on the album.

"Jack the Ripper" is a faster one, the first of two co-written by Dez Cadena. It's all right, but--I guess I probably don't even need to say this anymore--the lyrics are terrible.

"Monkey's Paw" is pretty stupid. The chorus is sang the same way as the chorus for "The Mummy's Hand," and both are equally dumb.

"Where Do They Go?" . . . Here's where the record takes a real southward turn. It was mediocre/tolerable up till this point, but then comes this "throwback" to the 50's. It's the kind of thing Jerry always talks about in interviews, his favorite kind of music, the sounds of his childhood. But having doo-wop girls on a Misfits song (even a 2011 Misfits song) is pretty silly. The chorus comes out of nowhere, makes no sense surrounded by the verses, and is almost embarrassing to listen to.

Almost equally embarrassing is "Sleepwalkin," a lame attempt at throwing some southern rock and blues into the mix.

"Ghost of Frankenstein" is boring, and "Death Ray," the second song co-written by Cadena, is pretty stupid, too long, and ends with a bunch of sci-fi sound effects I could have created on a computer in 1985.

I'm not sure who this album was written for, or if anyone even gives a shit about what the Misfits might be doing these days. If Jerry, Dez, and the guy from Murphy's Law wrote this album for themselves and are happy with it, then good for them. But I can't imagine any fan of either Danzig-era or Graves-era Misfits finding much to like on here. I wonder if they'll speed these songs up for their live show. Actually, that wouldn't be a bad idea, if they have to play them at all: speed some of these bastards up a bit and return the older songs to their proper paces. Or perhaps they'll play these songs in a "block" the way they usually incorporate the "American Psycho" and "Famous Monsters" tunes into their sets, giving the audience a chance to use the bathroom, get a beer, or contemplate leaving early.