Speaker 1: Hey, welcome back Episode two of Punk Vacation and Unofficial
Speaker 1: Vinever Syndrome podcast. This is Chris Haskell. As I said,
Speaker 1: you may know me from They Live by Film, you
Speaker 1: may not know me either way. Please join me on
Speaker 1: this journey. I want to use this podcast as a
Speaker 1: way of finding joy and unfettered creativity, which I associate
Speaker 1: with the Vinegar Syndrome titles. I want this to be
Speaker 1: a podcast dedicated to bringing awareness and context to movies
Speaker 1: of any budget, from anywhere and during any time. This
Speaker 1: is what I hope is the only episode I'm not
Speaker 1: going to have a guest. I already have some exciting
Speaker 1: guests lined up for September and even one in October,
Speaker 1: which i'll promote his channel here in just a moment.
Speaker 1: But yeah, I thank you so much for joining. What
Speaker 1: I want to do with these mid month drops is
Speaker 1: this is dropping in the middle of August, so I
Speaker 1: want to go through all the July releases. I've watched
Speaker 1: thirteen movies since I got my subscriber shipment in so
Speaker 1: it's been a marathon, and as typical Vinegar Syndrome fashion,
Speaker 1: seen a ton of movies from all over the board,
Speaker 1: and I can't wait to get in and talk about these.
Speaker 1: It's been a fantastic journey. So the way I want
Speaker 1: to go through these with y'all, I want to do
Speaker 1: the mainline titles first. Then just the way my brain works,
Speaker 1: I want to go alpha through the sub labels so
Speaker 1: it'll be cinematographed. Then we're gonna do Degausser. There's no
Speaker 1: distribt picks from July, and I hope I didn't mess
Speaker 1: that up. I don't think there's any. Then Vinegar Syndrome
Speaker 1: Archive Labs, and then pictures, so we'll go through all
Speaker 1: those titles. I'll give you my review. I'll tell you
Speaker 1: what I thought about it. Who would tend to like
Speaker 1: this kind of movie? What I thought? You know, if
Speaker 1: it's something that you have to just rush out and get,
Speaker 1: or if it's something that is more of just like
Speaker 1: for a specific audience. As this is a podcast dedicated
Speaker 1: to the love of Vinegar Syndrome, I'm probably not gonna
Speaker 1: just straight up shit on any of the movies. There's
Speaker 1: one this month that I didn't love, but even that
Speaker 1: I can tell it's more of like a style thing.
Speaker 1: And everybody I told about why I didn't love it,
Speaker 1: they were like, oh, that sounds interesting. So sometimes it's
Speaker 1: just a matter of preference. So we're gonna go through
Speaker 1: them all. We're gonna go through spine number four seventy two,
Speaker 1: four seventy three, and four seventy four, and I'll talk
Speaker 1: a little bit about the letterbox views just to give
Speaker 1: a sense of kind of how many other people have
Speaker 1: seen this. I'll talk about what I can tell in
Speaker 1: terms of how it's selling from them. This is not
Speaker 1: inside information. I'm just getting it from their website. But
Speaker 1: we'll kind of go through that and then talk a
Speaker 1: little bit about the films themselves, what stood out to me.
Speaker 1: And there's gonna be some I'm just gonna be a
Speaker 1: fair warning. There's gonna be some that I'm a huge
Speaker 1: homer for this time. There's some that I think are
Speaker 1: must owns, especially for Vinegar Syndrome fans, really for any
Speaker 1: fans of any movie. So be prepared for a little
Speaker 1: bit of homersm coming up. And I will try to
Speaker 1: get to the four partner titles that I saw as well,
Speaker 1: so we'll get to that at the end. As long
Speaker 1: as this does take too long, all right, let's jump.
Speaker 2: In somewhere in the forbidding. Tundra mountains of Lapland, high
Speaker 2: above the Arctic Circle, a group of mining engineers were
Speaker 2: prospecting for copper, but what they on earth was a.
Speaker 1: Story title Number one Spye number four seventy two in
Speaker 1: the VS mainline is a movie that had an English
Speaker 1: and a Danish movie filmed at the same time and
Speaker 1: released separately. And although they have a ton of overlap,
Speaker 1: it is actually two separate movies. Although it's commonly quoted
Speaker 1: as one and the movie is reptilicous, there is two
Speaker 1: directors on this. The Danish director is Paul Bang and
Speaker 1: the English director is Sidney Pink. Again, it's a little
Speaker 1: bit confusing, and it does sound like semantics, but these
Speaker 1: are two separate movies that were filmed at the same
Speaker 1: time with the same cast about roughly the same subject matter.
Speaker 1: But they were determined and intended to be two separate films,
Speaker 1: not one, not one with just like a language translation,
Speaker 1: so they were actually filmed as two separate ones. VS.
Speaker 1: As always does a fantastic job of getting both the
Speaker 1: additions on there. It's that case that it's like a
Speaker 1: They call it a gloss hard slipcase plus slipcover combo,
Speaker 1: so it goes inside a slipcover, then it goes inside
Speaker 1: the hard slip case. As always, Vinegar Syndrome did a
Speaker 1: fantastic job on these special features and including all versions
Speaker 1: of the film. So this is a three disc set.
Speaker 1: It's a UHD disc and two Blu rays. It's a
Speaker 1: new scanned four K and the print I saw look beautiful.
Speaker 1: I saw the Danish version when I watched it. As
Speaker 1: far as I remember, they're claiming this is the for
Speaker 1: the Danish version of the film. This is the first
Speaker 1: time it's been in the US on any disc, DVD,
Speaker 1: Blu ray anything. They redid the subtitles for the transfer,
Speaker 1: and as you can imagine, the sub the features are fantastic.
Speaker 1: There's a commentary track with a film historian. They have
Speaker 1: a great retrospective thirty two minute retrospective on the film itself.
Speaker 1: There's an eleven minute feature called Life After Reptilicus. There's
Speaker 1: a thirty minute I guess another documentary with a film
Speaker 1: historian named Steven Bissett who's also an illustrator and he
Speaker 1: kind of walks through the legacy of Reptilicus, and a
Speaker 1: thirty minute feature. So there's just a ton of special features.
Speaker 1: It's packed beautiful art as always, and beautiful film, beautiful
Speaker 1: packaging all around. All right, as far as I can tell,
Speaker 1: this one has sold about two thousand copies. There's just
Speaker 1: under two thousand copies left. It's you know, this has
Speaker 1: been a big seller for them. This is a popular release,
Speaker 1: and I kind of get it. You know, this is
Speaker 1: there's a there's this whole subgenre of kaiju movies or
Speaker 1: monster movies. Obviously for fans of Godzilla, obviously for fans
Speaker 1: of Gamada, but even beyond that. You know, there's a
Speaker 1: whole bunch of movies that were made in Korea and
Speaker 1: in Europe that had these monsters in them. Obviously the
Speaker 1: US had some monster movies, and so this fits just
Speaker 1: very snug in that genre. I wouldn't say there's anything
Speaker 1: to me that necessarily stands out as like, oh, this
Speaker 1: is the best one in the genre. But I like
Speaker 1: this movie a lot. It's very snug, it's very comfortable,
Speaker 1: it feels very known, and you know, it's it has
Speaker 1: a message in it as well. It's just it's a
Speaker 1: perfect example of one of these genre films. The basic
Speaker 1: story is there's some miners that are digging up in Lapland,
Speaker 1: which is where Santa Claus is from, obviously, and they're
Speaker 1: digging in the eyep there and they accidentally cut off a tail.
Speaker 1: It's frozen, so they bring it back to Denmark for science,
Speaker 1: and there's a you know, a sleepy scientist that forgets
Speaker 1: to close the door in the freezer, wakes up. The
Speaker 1: tale is thawing out. Unfortunately for them, this is a
Speaker 1: regenerative beast. So even though it's been asleep for you know,
Speaker 1: hundreds of thousands of years or millions of years or whatever,
Speaker 1: the tale immediately wakes up, starts to grow, and wreaking
Speaker 1: havoc ensues. I think you'll know by now by the
Speaker 1: way I'm describing it if this is a movie you
Speaker 1: would like or not. For me, it's a film I'm
Speaker 1: really happy to own. I like monster movies. They're the
Speaker 1: kind of thing that I can have on sometimes it's
Speaker 1: nice to have on, either to sleep or to if
Speaker 1: there's chores, or if it's just like a lazy Saturday afternoon.
Speaker 1: I like having these kind of movies in my collection
Speaker 1: that are on and that are very relaxing and calm.
Speaker 1: This is a fantastic example of that nothing is for me.
Speaker 1: Nothing is necessarily stand out. It's not like it's hilarious
Speaker 1: or you know, the the special effects work is amazing
Speaker 1: or anything like that. I just it's a solid entry.
Speaker 1: They hit all the beats, uh and it's a ton
Speaker 1: of extras, so it's a it's a fun all around package.
Speaker 1: I'm very happy I own this one.
Speaker 2: Didn't find your dorm li mon bon my mo.
Speaker 1: They all right now, I'm not even gonna bury the lead.
Speaker 1: We're getting to what's probably my favorite one we're gonna
Speaker 1: talk about today, although there's one that may come close.
Speaker 1: Eleven hundred views on letterboxed and a movie that I
Speaker 1: had not seen, although I do enjoy Category three films
Speaker 1: talking about a Chinese torture chamber story one. So if
Speaker 1: anybody did listen to episode one with Curtis, we talk
Speaker 1: about this a little bit. So this might not be
Speaker 1: a surprise for all of y'all. This movie is fucking amazing, Okay,
Speaker 1: it is. It is everything I love about Kathrey. It
Speaker 1: has some brutal moments, but it's hilarious. It's way over
Speaker 1: the top. There's nudity in the film, but it's all
Speaker 1: done in just to perfection. I think this is I
Speaker 1: couldn't you know, for a long time I said, Ricky,
Speaker 1: oh is my favorite? KA three, this is pushing it.
Speaker 1: I might be willing to say this is better. I
Speaker 1: don't know. I have to see it again. But this
Speaker 1: movie is amazing. What a surprise by far and away
Speaker 1: the surprise of twenty twenty four in terms of viewing
Speaker 1: for me. Oh yeah, it's by number four seven three
Speaker 1: if I didn't say that. But this movie is an
Speaker 1: absolute and must have for I would say for anybody
Speaker 1: that's willing to put up with, you know, some of
Speaker 1: the edge of your content within movies. What you get
Speaker 1: in exchange for that is just pure joy. And like
Speaker 1: this is a party movie. It's a fantastic movie to
Speaker 1: watch in a group. It's hilarious. Absolutely something that's gonna
Speaker 1: shoot up the ranks for you know, horror lists or
Speaker 1: best movie of all time lists. This is a great
Speaker 1: job by Vinegar Syndrome and Sam Deagan, who did a
Speaker 1: lot with the disc public, you know, from the production
Speaker 1: side commentary and really kind of added some amazing context
Speaker 1: for this one. This is just this is one of
Speaker 1: those ones that people are gonna wish they own it.
Speaker 1: Looks like it's also sold about four thousand copies, so
Speaker 1: it has some left. It's not like a mad panic
Speaker 1: to get it. But I would please please get this
Speaker 1: before it sells out. This is one of those ones
Speaker 1: that for years people are going to be talking about,
Speaker 1: and I guarantee at some point in your life there's
Speaker 1: gonna be a moment where you have not seen Chinese
Speaker 1: Torture Chamber story, and then there's gonna be a moment
Speaker 1: where you see it and you're gonna wish you had
Speaker 1: seen it ten years sooner. So I don't even really
Speaker 1: want to give too much away, but I'll give a
Speaker 1: little bit obviously to kind of tantalize and tease a
Speaker 1: little bit here. There is a This is a story
Speaker 1: that's very loosely based off of a collection of stories
Speaker 1: that came out around torture in sort of you know,
Speaker 1: ancient Chinese history, right, So there are elements in this
Speaker 1: story that are very real and that happened, and they
Speaker 1: kind of built on that to make the story all right.
Speaker 1: So this movie came out in nineteen ninety four, directed
Speaker 1: by Bosco Lamb. I haven't seen a lot from Bosco Lamb.
Speaker 1: He's a name that I know, but in terms of
Speaker 1: the movies that he's directed, I haven't really seen a ton.
Speaker 1: He was a kind of ad and actor, and he
Speaker 1: was around a lot of Hong Kong cinema. He's he
Speaker 1: was involved with God of Gambler's series Casino Raiders. He's
Speaker 1: been involved in a lot of movies, but as far
Speaker 1: as directing, you know, he doesn't have a lot on disc.
Speaker 1: So it's and he only has twelve movies that are
Speaker 1: kind of titled to him, credited to him, So you know,
Speaker 1: it's possible we get a few more Bosco Lamb movies
Speaker 1: if there anything like this, I want them all. He
Speaker 1: what he's able to do in this movie so well.
Speaker 1: The reason I'm so crazy for a Chinese torture chamber
Speaker 1: story is he takes these historical documents and this historical
Speaker 1: kind of torture stories which are obviously horrific and terrible,
Speaker 1: and he puts this sort of magical twist on them,
Speaker 1: and he and he tells the story of one particular
Speaker 1: lord who brings a woman into his harem, and he
Speaker 1: there's a there's an order of command to kind of
Speaker 1: get time with him, but he falls for one of
Speaker 1: the new recruits that the new women that come in
Speaker 1: he he dies, and so most of the movie is
Speaker 1: a trial about the woman who is accused of murdering
Speaker 1: this this lord, and it goes back in time and
Speaker 1: sort of catches up the story of of what's going on.
Speaker 1: So that's the structure of it. But what happens within
Speaker 1: that structure is this insane beautiful like I don't even know.
Speaker 1: It's almost like a Princess Bride or something where you
Speaker 1: know it like it cuts back to the scene where
Speaker 1: they're in a courtroom and then it kind of goes
Speaker 1: to this fantasy land of events, and the difference between
Speaker 1: the fantasy and the reality in the courtroom are stark.
Speaker 1: This movie is nothing like a Princess Bride. That's an
Speaker 1: insane comparison only in structure. But the scenes in the
Speaker 1: courtroom do involve some torture. But then when they flash back,
Speaker 1: they show this kind of budding romance and they show
Speaker 1: sex in a way that is just hilarious, Like there's
Speaker 1: a woman who's playing with all these different sex toys.
Speaker 1: The most famous scene in this film is this wusha scene,
Speaker 1: this beautiful kind of wusha scene that's filmed very authentically
Speaker 1: it would fit in any you know, martial arts film,
Speaker 1: this kind of wusha based, this beautiful kind of ballet,
Speaker 1: and the whole time this couple is fucking okay. And
Speaker 1: so it's just there's this crazy there's this crazy sex
Speaker 1: going on. They're yelling things at each other. I was
Speaker 1: dying in this scene. There's but the comedy is throughout
Speaker 1: even before when this lord he's married to his wife.
Speaker 1: Obviously he's having sex outside of marriage, as is she.
Speaker 1: But when he has sex with his wife, she's into
Speaker 1: all these crazy things, and those scenes are really funny.
Speaker 1: It's just it. Don't be Curtis said this, and I'll
Speaker 1: say this too, don't be, you know, dissuaded by the name.
Speaker 1: This is not a torture movie. If you're looking for
Speaker 1: a torture movie, we'll talk about that in just a second,
Speaker 1: because the sequel is closer to that. But Chinese Torture
Speaker 1: Chamber Story one has light on the torture chamber and
Speaker 1: just freaking hilarious throughout the rest of it. Just a
Speaker 1: pure joy to watch. I don't really know how else
Speaker 1: to say it. It's just a movie that I want
Speaker 1: to recommend to everybody. Shout it from the Hills. This
Speaker 1: should be in your collection. It's not a risk. If
Speaker 1: you're a fan of laughing and just kind of enjoying
Speaker 1: movies and having fun. This is right up there with
Speaker 1: anything you could name it. It's not so bad. It's
Speaker 1: a good movie. If you want to call it like that,
Speaker 1: I don't. I don't even like that term. Anyways. It's
Speaker 1: not like that. It's a very well made movie. It's
Speaker 1: just hilarious, and they're The commentary from San Digan is amazing.
Speaker 1: And there's a special feature of Rika Schultz from on
Speaker 1: Some Horrors. By the way, if you're not listening to
Speaker 1: Unsung Horrors podcast and you're listening to the Vinegar Syndrome podcast,
Speaker 1: I think you'll love Unsung Horrors. Not that it's all
Speaker 1: Vinegar Syndrome, but there's a lot of crossover and content
Speaker 1: and in kind of mentality of listening listeners, So listen
Speaker 1: to that podcast. But she but Erica breaks down a
Speaker 1: video essay where she goes through and finds historical documents
Speaker 1: and like scans the images in and like goes a
Speaker 1: very academic but entertaining discussion on like the history of
Speaker 1: Chinese torture. It's an extremely well made video essay. I
Speaker 1: don't I'm not going to call out a lot of
Speaker 1: individual special features, but this one is top notch. It's
Speaker 1: very good and it's worth the disc in and of itself,
Speaker 1: let alone the movies which are just fantastic. So I
Speaker 1: could gush forever about Chinese Torture Chamber Story one, I'll
Speaker 1: stop there, staying on spine four seventy three for a moment.
Speaker 1: Chinese Torture Chamber Story two. The first one had eleven
Speaker 1: hundred views on letterbox. This one only has three ten
Speaker 1: as a recording, not as many people have seen this.
Speaker 1: This is definitely a film that is probably way underseen
Speaker 1: and is a good idea. I think to include it
Speaker 1: as part of a double feature. I don't know how
Speaker 1: many people would you know, buy, although anybody that saw
Speaker 1: the first one would rush out to buy the sequel,
Speaker 1: But I think fans of the first one purely for
Speaker 1: that fun element might be a little disappointed by the sequel.
Speaker 1: I think it's good in its own way, but it's
Speaker 1: a very different movie. So the director is Ken Nam Cho,
Speaker 1: probably most famous. Most of y'all probably know him from
Speaker 1: Chinese Eerotic Ghost Story. I'm sure you might say there's
Speaker 1: one that you like better, but as far as I know,
Speaker 1: that's sort of his most famous film. This film has
Speaker 1: a lot more actual torture. So this is much closer
Speaker 1: to the name. And you know, this is what you're
Speaker 1: probably looking for. If you just pass by the shelf
Speaker 1: and you see torture Chambers story, this one probably has
Speaker 1: a lot more of what you want. The interesting thing
Speaker 1: about it is that although it can be pretty brutal
Speaker 1: at times, there's certain you know, there's certainly levity in
Speaker 1: the movie. It's not all just pure brutality. In fact,
Speaker 1: some of the characters are very light and not quite
Speaker 1: Samo hung funny, but they're just lighter and just kind
Speaker 1: of more goofy. They would probably fit in like a
Speaker 1: you know, mister Vampire series or something like that. But
Speaker 1: the overall tone is certainly much darker, and it's it's
Speaker 1: a movie that I think is is good. I'm guessing
Speaker 1: that it's gonna be pretty split in terms of people
Speaker 1: that watch the first one. I go in to watch this,
Speaker 1: I would say, just kind of know who you are.
Speaker 1: If you want to have a good time and laugh,
Speaker 1: watch the first one. If you want something a little darker,
Speaker 1: then this is the one for you. A little more,
Speaker 1: a little more nasty, a little more gnarly. This is
Speaker 1: where to start. It's just similar. The the other thing
Speaker 1: I think it's probably worth calling out is that it's
Speaker 1: very historically accurate. So this is where Erica's essay video
Speaker 1: essay really stands out to me, because it's actually extremely
Speaker 1: accurate when she starts breaking down like the different types
Speaker 1: of torture that was used. Some of it is in
Speaker 1: the first movie, for sure, but a lot of it's
Speaker 1: in the second one. And it's interesting. I mean, you know,
Speaker 1: it's it's a horror movie because of the horrific things
Speaker 1: that happen, and it's even crazier that this was common,
Speaker 1: and you know, it was the way that a lot
Speaker 1: of people got sort of the justice system used these
Speaker 1: torture devices to get information from people. So that's interesting
Speaker 1: part of history, right, I mean, you know, it certainly doesn't.
Speaker 1: Luckily we're not in that situation anymore. But you know,
Speaker 1: before the mythology of like truth serums and all that
Speaker 1: kind of stuff came out and you know, tough interrogators,
Speaker 1: tough FBI interrogators, before all that, there was just straight
Speaker 1: you know, physical torture to get information, and in both
Speaker 1: movies actually the torture is used in a way to
Speaker 1: have people admit guilt even when they weren't guilty. So
Speaker 1: you know, there's certainly some parallels there to like the
Speaker 1: Salem witch trials and you know, just the conquistadors and
Speaker 1: a lot of these you know, really shitty kind of
Speaker 1: leaders that abuse their power to get what they want
Speaker 1: out of out of people that they have in power over.
Speaker 1: So yeah, it has good history to it. It's interesting.
Speaker 1: I personally like the first one quite a bit better
Speaker 1: because I just like to have fun with these movies,
Speaker 1: but the second, the second film, is quite good. The
Speaker 1: other thing worth calling out is that Frank Jang does
Speaker 1: the commentary for Part two. As usual, It's a fantastic
Speaker 1: linguistic and cultural commentary. Frank is amazing at kind of
Speaker 1: breaking down what's going on and why and why they're
Speaker 1: using certain phrases and just you know the history of it.
Speaker 1: It's very different. Sam Degan's commentary is incredibly well researched
Speaker 1: and gives a lot of context. Is anything Frank Jang
Speaker 1: is just that's his specialty, right as being actually Chinese
Speaker 1: and knowing all these like little linguistical nuances and stuff,
Speaker 1: so that's there too. There's a really cool feature by
Speaker 1: Justin Declo of the Important Cinema Club called The Cat
Speaker 1: Three Films of Wang Jing. I think it's worth a watch.
Speaker 1: It's very good. The video essay that I was talking
Speaker 1: about is called Titillating Torture, and there's a good booklet
Speaker 1: that's written by Grady Hendrix. So yeah, I mean, this
Speaker 1: is a I don't know how to say it to me,
Speaker 1: this is a slam dunk, absolutely must own. No matter
Speaker 1: how much I pare down my collection, this one's staying
Speaker 1: in and it's probably going into my top one hundred
Speaker 1: films of all time.
Speaker 3: I love it a lot, all right.
Speaker 1: Next release Vs. Four seventy four coming in at nine
Speaker 1: hundred and sixteen views on Letterbox as of time of recording.
Speaker 1: In Therapidos Punks and Vengeance of the Punks double feature,
Speaker 1: this is another one that I'm gonna say is probably
Speaker 1: pretty close to a must own. This movie is awesome.
Speaker 1: It's so fun. It really really feels like a kind
Speaker 1: of osploitation movie or an Italian genre film. It's got
Speaker 1: the very similar vibe, very similar budget, very similar aesthetic.
Speaker 1: It's just it snuggles right in there right with the
Speaker 1: best of the just these kind of fun, exploitation action movies.
Speaker 1: There's a biker film, punk rock film. Anarchy is throughout.
Speaker 1: I mean, this is we'll get into in just a second.
Speaker 1: This is truly an anarchic film. So they really captured
Speaker 1: the spirit of what it is to be punk rock.
Speaker 1: It didn't shy away from it. It has sold slightly less,
Speaker 1: but it's still selling really well best I can tell.
Speaker 1: It's sold around through thirty five hundred copies so far,
Speaker 1: so I have no idea how this one's not sold out.
Speaker 1: This movie is awesome, and I'm only guessing it hasn't
Speaker 1: sold out because maybe people haven't heard about it. But
Speaker 1: it is a yeah. I really do think this is
Speaker 1: like a must own this is it's just fun. It's
Speaker 1: extremely energetic in all the best ways. I loved it.
Speaker 1: It's a nineteen eighty seven movie. Francisco Guerrero is the
Speaker 1: director of it, and he's sort of this great genre filmmaker.
Speaker 1: Like if you go through his you know his filmography,
Speaker 1: He's got stuff like the White Condor, Condo Branco. Anyways,
Speaker 1: he just his filmography looks super fun, lots of action movies.
Speaker 1: Again just I don't really know how to say it
Speaker 1: other than he just seems to be a genre film director,
Speaker 1: like in His Blood, and it seems to make some
Speaker 1: really fun action movies. In Trepido's Punks Is it's just
Speaker 1: a wild film. So there's not there's really no good
Speaker 1: guys in this. It's funny the way they set it up,
Speaker 1: because there's this gang of punks that come through and
Speaker 1: they terrorize. They just love doing coke, they love breaking things,
Speaker 1: they love murder. They're just like, you know, they're bad people.
Speaker 1: They don't hide shy away from anything, but they're so awesome.
Speaker 1: Oh they rape too, so you know they hit all
Speaker 1: the beats. But they're just awesome people. Like they're I
Speaker 1: mean within the movie, like within the logic of the film,
Speaker 1: they're awesome and they're not shying away from all the
Speaker 1: bad things they do. But they're portrayed as just like,
Speaker 1: look how cool these people are, And honestly, they are
Speaker 1: pretty cool. They have great costumes. The music, the soundtrack
Speaker 1: is awesome. It's a there's a theme song created for
Speaker 1: this and it's super fun. The music is super fun,
Speaker 1: so you know, you have these punks that are doing
Speaker 1: terrible things, and then you have these sort of really lame, boring,
Speaker 1: dumb cops that are written to be that way. I
Speaker 1: don't think it's like a budget issue or the way
Speaker 1: they're filmed or something. They're just written to be uninteresting
Speaker 1: and you don't really want them to win, even though
Speaker 1: they're doing the right thing. And so of course there's shootouts,
Speaker 1: and of course there's some action in the film, and
Speaker 1: I guess like the basic premise is that, you know,
Speaker 1: these punks to get revenge on the cops for imprisoning
Speaker 1: them and kind of making their life hard. They go
Speaker 1: back and they abduct the wives and kill the wives
Speaker 1: of these wardens and jailers and cops, and then you know,
Speaker 1: there's a war that ensues between these groups. It's a
Speaker 1: This is just a I know I've said fun like
Speaker 1: twenty times. I don't really know a better word for it,
Speaker 1: but this is just a great time again, kind of
Speaker 1: like Chinese torture chamber story, although for a different reason.
Speaker 1: This is a fun party movie. I think like this
Speaker 1: is a great movie. In a group, You'll be singing
Speaker 1: along the soundtrack, You'll be tapping your toes to the
Speaker 1: good punk song, and yeah, it's just one of those
Speaker 1: movies where I think, as weird as this might sound,
Speaker 1: it kind of you want to talk about it afterwards
Speaker 1: and maybe kind of diagnose it a little bit because
Speaker 1: it's just it leaves you with this weird feeling of like, well,
Speaker 1: who am I supposed to be rooting for here? I
Speaker 1: think the Francisco Gotreto pulls off that balance flawlessly. He
Speaker 1: nails it. I think he really gets it. And this
Speaker 1: I don't know. I don't know if this is going
Speaker 1: to be like a top one hundred movie for me,
Speaker 1: but it's a contender. It's very good. I liked it
Speaker 1: a lot. And again, I want to be really careful
Speaker 1: with this as we go through. And I'm, you know,
Speaker 1: representing vinegar syndrome here of course unofficially, but like, you know,
Speaker 1: I want to be really careful with this. Term so
Speaker 1: bad it's good. I'm going to try not to use
Speaker 1: it anymore after episode two. I just want to like
Speaker 1: kind of start to draw a distinction here. And the
Speaker 1: only reason I'm using it is to stay like there's
Speaker 1: a temptation to say, like, oh, it's good because it's funny,
Speaker 1: or whatever. But like, no, like this is you know,
Speaker 1: they had some budget constraints and stuff, right because they
Speaker 1: were trying to put together these movies in nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: even nineteen eighty eight in Mexico off of you know,
Speaker 1: whatever money they could find, right. But like, it's a
Speaker 1: very well made movie. I mean, you put it up
Speaker 1: to Mad Max. You could put it up to like
Speaker 1: I said, a lot of the exploitation, a lot of
Speaker 1: the Italian genre cinema, has a good score, It understands story,
Speaker 1: the characters are phenomenal. So yeah, it's good. I think
Speaker 1: this is all around a fun movie. I'm super glad
Speaker 1: to I've seen it so shot at the same time,
Speaker 1: although it was released later, is the direct sequel La
Speaker 1: van Ganza delos Bunks or Vengeance of the Punks. This
Speaker 1: had a different director. His name was Domian Lacostas Bartosa.
Speaker 1: He's not quite as His films are a bit more
Speaker 1: kind of I don't know how to say it, like
Speaker 1: maybe a little bit all over the place. But he
Speaker 1: was another one of these directors that made a ton
Speaker 1: of action movies, and this was near the end of
Speaker 1: his career. He's a little bit He had been working
Speaker 1: for a while, but yeah, this is kind of near
Speaker 1: the end of his career. A lot of his movies
Speaker 1: have death or vengeance in the title, so this fits
Speaker 1: in pretty well there. But this has even less views
Speaker 1: on letterbox, so similar to Chinese Torture Chamber Story too,
Speaker 1: this is almost exactly the same, So yeah, that's interesting. Actually,
Speaker 1: So Chinese Torture Chamber Story had eleven hundred ended epidos
Speaker 1: Punks had nine hundred, so pretty close. And then both
Speaker 1: of the sequels have almost the exact same number. This
Speaker 1: one's at three h five instead of three to ten,
Speaker 1: so the sequel drops off quite a bit. I would
Speaker 1: say this one, it picks up right where we leave off,
Speaker 1: has a lot of the similar characters, not everybody, but
Speaker 1: a lot of similar characters, And this one just jumps
Speaker 1: right into like quite a bit of rape and just
Speaker 1: like long kind of extended sex scenes. I guess you
Speaker 1: could say orgies, but it's not really like it's just
Speaker 1: sort of like, again, this kind of anarchic spirait to it, right,
Speaker 1: So it's not that everybody's having sex. It's like when
Speaker 1: they get back to camp, they're just kind of lounging around.
Speaker 1: Some people are drinking. Some people are super excited to
Speaker 1: be doing cocaine. Some people are just naked, you know,
Speaker 1: getting getting into it. So it's just like this sort
Speaker 1: of lifestyle that they've built up, and you know, it's
Speaker 1: a vibe. I guess you could say film. Both films are.
Speaker 1: I think both directors capture the sentiment of it and
Speaker 1: like the tone of it perfectly. This also has a
Speaker 1: good soundtrack. I think it's a great sequel. I don't
Speaker 1: think there's a big drop off in quality. These are
Speaker 1: two Interrepredos Punks and Vengeance of the Punks, just back
Speaker 1: to back, fantastic double feature. And this is vs. Four
Speaker 1: seventy four. And so if you know, for me rounding
Speaker 1: out the month, as far as the main line goes,
Speaker 1: you have two films that are I don't really care
Speaker 1: who you are like in terms of what you like
Speaker 1: to watch in movies, I would say must watches, if
Speaker 1: not must owns, for sure must watches. And then the
Speaker 1: sequels for those films, which it's nice to have as
Speaker 1: a package, and then Reptilicus, which some people are going
Speaker 1: to be mad at me for not calling a must own.
Speaker 1: I mean, if you're a fan of these kind of
Speaker 1: monster films. It's a slam dunk again. Like I said,
Speaker 1: I like it a lot, so I could just understand
Speaker 1: why some people wouldn't want to have it. It is
Speaker 1: close to that kind of thing that mister Sands Theater
Speaker 1: would make fun of in terms of like the quality
Speaker 1: of it. So if you know, if that's not your thing,
Speaker 1: just just be forewarned. But I had a great time
Speaker 1: with all these and I think VS Mainline killed it
Speaker 1: this month. Maybe on leave for a couple of months,
Speaker 1: but that is a pen and you had a breakdown.
Speaker 1: You want a sanitarium. It wasn't a leave, it was
Speaker 1: a breakdown. What are you force me to say these things?
Speaker 1: All right? Cinematograph, I'm gonna go through the sub labels now.
Speaker 1: Cinematograph is primarily, as far as I can understand, the
Speaker 1: baby of Justin La Liberty. I think Justin has, as
Speaker 1: far as I can tell, meticulous taste. Everything he's recommended
Speaker 1: or everything he's put out that he's kind of been
Speaker 1: a part of, has been fantastic. This is title number
Speaker 1: six in his cinemat Cinematograph. Line one through five has
Speaker 1: been something I've really liked. In fact, title five is
Speaker 1: an Able Ferrara movie called Dangerous Game, and the movie
Speaker 1: is fantastic. It's just kind of I guess the probably
Speaker 1: the closest thing you would compare it to is like
Speaker 1: a Leaving Las Vegas type of self destruction movie, although
Speaker 1: it's done in different way, but it's Harvey Kaitel self
Speaker 1: destructing for you know, our forty minutes or whatever. But
Speaker 1: the special feature, the documentary with Abel Ferrara, it's just well,
Speaker 1: it's more of just a frank discussion with him kind
Speaker 1: of goes into why I love Abel Ferrara so much.
Speaker 1: It's this extremely raw, brutally honest take, kind of introspective
Speaker 1: look very similar vibe to Yodaawski when he does his
Speaker 1: commentaries where he's just like nothing to hide and so
Speaker 1: he you know, Abel Ferrara gives this fantastic description of
Speaker 1: what it was like to work with Madonna, what it
Speaker 1: was like to be in the studios, why he was
Speaker 1: kicked out of Hollywood, Like, he just gets into all
Speaker 1: of it. And I love that special feature. So that's
Speaker 1: title five, which came out I guess most likely June.
Speaker 1: I think they try to put out one a month,
Speaker 1: maybe make because of the partner month thing. But that's
Speaker 1: a to number six, which is a Jonathan Demi movie.
Speaker 1: It is a extremely underseen Jonathan Demi movie. If you
Speaker 1: think of how popular he is as a director, this
Speaker 1: one only has forty four hundred views on letterbox, which,
Speaker 1: again just for those tracking at home, is less than Reptilicus,
Speaker 1: which had sixty eight hundred. So not a lot of
Speaker 1: people have seen Last Embrace. This was a movie that
Speaker 1: came out. It was a pretty early movie in his career.
Speaker 1: You know, he got his start through AIP. He did
Speaker 1: a lot of films for American International, and then this
Speaker 1: came out in nineteen seventy nine, right before he kind
Speaker 1: of got into his golden years. He was still doing
Speaker 1: a lot of music videos here. He was still doing
Speaker 1: a lot of other types of kind of artistic projects.
Speaker 1: For me, the only movie from Jonathan Demi that I love,
Speaker 1: truly love is Stopped Making Sense. I know he's done
Speaker 1: Silence of the Lambs. I think it's a pretty good movie.
Speaker 1: I think Manhunter is a better Hannibal Lecter story. But
Speaker 1: Jonathan Demi for me, is as a director that I'm
Speaker 1: okay with. Last Embrace did not change my opinion of
Speaker 1: him as a director, so I can't lie and say
Speaker 1: that I love this movie. The video essay from Sam
Speaker 1: Degan is is fantastic. The commentary I've listened about half
Speaker 1: of the commentary. I don't know how much you've heard
Speaker 1: of Howard as Berger, but he's just this fantastic kind
Speaker 1: of historian. Steve Mitchell does a great job on this
Speaker 1: as well. So it's a beautifully packaged film typically you know,
Speaker 1: vinegar syndrome fashion, the packaging, the art, the special features,
Speaker 1: everything is top notch. This is a four K and
Speaker 1: a Blu ray together, so it's a double feature or
Speaker 1: double disc feature, you know. Really, Last Embrace. It's what
Speaker 1: I what I don't like about it is it kind
Speaker 1: of plays into a lot of genres that I struggle
Speaker 1: with in general. So again, this is kind of like
Speaker 1: I said in the beginning, as I describe why I
Speaker 1: didn't like it, you probably more than half of y'all
Speaker 1: will probably be like, well, yeah, I definitely want to
Speaker 1: see that. The best I can I can put it
Speaker 1: to you know, put it is that it's to me,
Speaker 1: it's a combination of like a circa, like a Douglas
Speaker 1: cirque melodrama with the spy sort of mystery film, and
Speaker 1: it also has a layer of that paranoia that you
Speaker 1: might see in a movie like the conversation that you
Speaker 1: know is that it has that new Hollywood vibe at times,
Speaker 1: but it also definitely I think tries to lean into
Speaker 1: that classic fifties kind of melodrama aesthetic. I don't want
Speaker 1: to shit on the film. I think there's gonna be
Speaker 1: a lot of people that watch this and give it
Speaker 1: five stars. A lot of people are probably gonna love
Speaker 1: the aesthetic. A lot of people are probably really gonna
Speaker 1: resonate with this because they like melodrama or because you know,
Speaker 1: that whole paranoia aspect is done very well. The main
Speaker 1: actor in this is Roy Schneider. Excuse me, Roy Scheider,
Speaker 1: and you know he's actually really good. He has to
Speaker 1: play a part where he's coming out of an institution,
Speaker 1: a mental institution, a psychiatric hospital. He's being released and
Speaker 1: he lives with this paranoia that he's being followed. And
Speaker 1: it's that whole thing that's in a lot of thrillers,
Speaker 1: I guess to say, where you don't know if they're
Speaker 1: being paranoid or if they're paranoid is based on something
Speaker 1: real and you just don't really know, so it adds
Speaker 1: to the drama. There are some elements to this movie
Speaker 1: I think they nail. For me, it was a little
Speaker 1: bit of a confusing tone and I didn't really register
Speaker 1: with it. But please please comment, tell me why I'm
Speaker 1: an idiot. I would love to hear from people that
Speaker 1: love this movie. It has been selling less. I don't
Speaker 1: think that's any tie into you know, my views on it. Obviously,
Speaker 1: I'm not saying that. I just as far as I
Speaker 1: can tell, it has sold only about two thousand copies,
Speaker 1: which is still pretty good for a movie that a
Speaker 1: lot of people have seen. You know, for a Jonathan
Speaker 1: Demi picture, you probably would have thought it would have
Speaker 1: sold more. I'm imagining this is going to sell a
Speaker 1: lot during the sale the you know, biennial sales. If
Speaker 1: I was going to pick it up and give it
Speaker 1: a chance, it would certainly for me, I would wait
Speaker 1: for the sale. But don't let me dissuade you. If
Speaker 1: you're into cerchi and melodrama or that kind of conspiracy
Speaker 1: theory genre, it does a good job in both of those,
Speaker 1: all right. Moving on from cinematograph, moving on to Dicaser video.
Speaker 1: There was a release from de Goster in July, it
Speaker 1: was Blood Cult. The story behind Blood Cult is pretty cool.
Speaker 1: There was a filmmaker named Christopher Lewis. He was one
Speaker 1: of the first or maybe the first filmmaker hired specifically
Speaker 1: to make direct to video movies. So he made some
Speaker 1: horror films. Vinegar Syndrome has released a lot of them
Speaker 1: and previous to this, and one of the ones that
Speaker 1: came out this month was Blood Cult. It has under
Speaker 1: a thousand views on letterbox and it's an interesting one
Speaker 1: to have such a little views because it's got kind
Speaker 1: of a cool history, right, I mean, it was a
Speaker 1: pioneer in a lot of ways. Blood Cult the Ripper
Speaker 1: was a movie that came out from De Goser last month,
Speaker 1: I believe, or within the last two months. And then
Speaker 1: separately on the VS mainline, there's a Homegrown Horrors box
Speaker 1: set that has Blood Cult too, but it has a
Speaker 1: differ I think it's maybe Revenge. It has a different name,
Speaker 1: but it's in the Homegrown Horror set, and so it's
Speaker 1: the first three these kind of early three direct to
Speaker 1: video horror films from Christopher Lewis. He has a very
Speaker 1: distinct style. This movie is a lot of fun actually,
Speaker 1: so it opens up well within the first five minutes anyways,
Speaker 1: there's this killer is beating someone to death with someone
Speaker 1: else's head, just to give you a sense of, you know,
Speaker 1: the wildness here within Blood cult. Right, So Christopher Lewis
Speaker 1: had a good sense for horror creative in the Kills.
Speaker 1: I think if you think about the budget on this
Speaker 1: one was pretty low and that shows at times. I mean,
Speaker 1: it's not flawless, and people are people that don't like
Speaker 1: this are going to point out maybe some of the
Speaker 1: acting or some of the aesthetics of it are pretty
Speaker 1: low budget, which I mean fair. But if you once
Speaker 1: you kind of get settled into this story, I think
Speaker 1: you see Christopher Lewis was trying to do and I
Speaker 1: think it's it's a pretty solid story. Actually, it's a
Speaker 1: pretty solid horror story. I think it's done really well.
Speaker 1: I think the kills are very kind of imaginative, obviously
Speaker 1: in a very macab way. I think the mystery, sort
Speaker 1: of the suspense of who the killer is is kept
Speaker 1: pretty well and the whole thing has this sort of
Speaker 1: dreamy vibe to it at times like that. I think
Speaker 1: they use the camera well when they want to convey
Speaker 1: like for example, when when the Cult comes in. When
Speaker 1: you first meet the cult, they sort of pan out
Speaker 1: to where the there's not a lot of detail. You
Speaker 1: lose the fact that it's like a low budget film
Speaker 1: that you smoke a lot, that you shadows a lot.
Speaker 1: They use the music well to create atmosphere. I think
Speaker 1: they do a good job. I think there's a lot
Speaker 1: of artistic vision in this uh. And it's a really
Speaker 1: good release, this one. See it's sold at least the
Speaker 1: limited edition, you know, because the standard always sells as well,
Speaker 1: but at least the limited edition has already sold over
Speaker 1: a thousand copies. It's selling pretty fast, it seems like.
Speaker 1: And as far as features go, it's cool because they
Speaker 1: actually found an old commentary truck with the director, so
Speaker 1: they put that on here. And there's a new commentary
Speaker 1: truck with the producer of the movie and a film
Speaker 1: historian named John Woolley produces Linda Lewis, who's related to Christopher.
Speaker 1: And then there's a bunch of documentaries and kind of
Speaker 1: shorts on there. I guess there's a new interview with
Speaker 1: Linda Lewis. There's an interview with Bob Blair, which is
Speaker 1: pretty cool because he's the son of the person who
Speaker 1: produced this movie, so he gives that background. That's an
Speaker 1: eight minute interview with him, and there's a full hour
Speaker 1: long documentary they found and put on this disc as well,
Speaker 1: from twelve and a few archival interviews. So it's extremely
Speaker 1: stacked release, very similar to the way that Saturn's Core.
Speaker 1: I don't know if y'all have a lot of those
Speaker 1: in your you know, in your shelves, but if you
Speaker 1: don't have Saturn's Core and you're okay with shot on
Speaker 1: video or like a lot of low budget filmmaking, you know,
Speaker 1: they're one of the best at just stacking hours of
Speaker 1: content on the disc, and Degasser certainly is doing a
Speaker 1: good job of feeling like that. There's also an early
Speaker 1: short film that was also produced by this guy, Bill Blair.
Speaker 1: It's called The Appointment. It's fine, it's it's cute, it's
Speaker 1: it's a fun little watch. It's short, it's like seven minutes.
Speaker 1: But yeah, so you know, it's definitely sov you have
Speaker 1: to kind of know if that's something you're comfortable with
Speaker 1: and that's something you're interested in. But it has this
Speaker 1: great history of being an early, you know, kind of
Speaker 1: a movie made specifically for the home video market. So
Speaker 1: the I said Linda was related to Chris, I'm sorry,
Speaker 1: it's his wife. So you know, you get to see
Speaker 1: the movie and then you get to hear the wife
Speaker 1: of the director talk about it, and she has obviously
Speaker 1: all the history and and everything, so it's uh, yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean, I think this is a fun one. I
Speaker 1: like it. I do like SOOV movies I have. I
Speaker 1: have a lot of them. I watch a lot of them.
Speaker 1: For me, I'm really happy to own this and I'm
Speaker 1: excited to go check out The Ripper pretty soon so
Speaker 1: I can complete the trilogy. All right. Moving on from
Speaker 1: Degasser is, I don't think there's a distrib Pics title
Speaker 1: from July. Please forgive me if I got that wrong,
Speaker 1: but I don't believe there is. So going right into
Speaker 1: we have three more left. We're gonna do Vinegar Syndrome Archive,
Speaker 1: Vinegar Syndrome Labs, and then Vinegar Syndrome Pictures. Okay. The
Speaker 1: Archive is a movie that similar to Chinese Torture Chambers story.
Speaker 1: It's one of these like siminal events in my life
Speaker 1: where there was a time when I had not seen
Speaker 1: this and a time when I had, and I am
Speaker 1: so happy to have seen this one. Okay, A Vinegar
Speaker 1: Central Archive is an interesting line because they're forty five
Speaker 1: titles in, so I can imagine that they might be
Speaker 1: entering into like a phase where you don't know what
Speaker 1: to buy, or you know, it's hard to keep up
Speaker 1: with them, or some of the early titles are going
Speaker 1: for these crazy prices on eBay, so the completionists get
Speaker 1: frustrated and don't want to buy because they don't, you know,
Speaker 1: they don't want to feel like they can't complete. I
Speaker 1: get all that this is one you need to own.
Speaker 1: I swear they call me Macho Woman is so good,
Speaker 1: it's so funny. I don't know how there's only five
Speaker 1: hundred and eleven views on Letterbox. First of all, this
Speaker 1: must be one of those movies that just kind of
Speaker 1: snuck under the radar. It is a produced by Trauma,
Speaker 1: not made by Trauma, but it's distributed by Trauma. It
Speaker 1: is a if you want to compare it, it's not
Speaker 1: a perfect comparison, but if you're going to compare it
Speaker 1: to a modern movie, it's sort of like a proto
Speaker 1: You're Next, where you meet this woman and you don't
Speaker 1: realize what she's capable of and as the film unfolds,
Speaker 1: you just see her getting stronger and stronger and stronger
Speaker 1: and smarter and more savvy and more handy and more
Speaker 1: you know, better ingenuity. And it's just crazy the stuff
Speaker 1: that she's doing. By the end of the film, you know,
Speaker 1: she's like this stone cold killer. And she starts off
Speaker 1: as this meek, meek but there's this traditional kind of
Speaker 1: suburban you know, housewife or girlfriend, whatever it would be
Speaker 1: other than your next The other comparison for this would
Speaker 1: probably be something like a rape revenge movie, although there's
Speaker 1: no actual rape in the movie, so you don't have
Speaker 1: to sit through that to get to the revenge part.
Speaker 1: It's like, as they start to attack her, she uses
Speaker 1: her sexuality to entice them in to then destroy them,
Speaker 1: so it happens in kind of rapid fire. She's somebody
Speaker 1: you don't want to mess with. It's the villains in
Speaker 1: this movie are what make it really fun. And I
Speaker 1: guess I've said this three times now, this is a
Speaker 1: fantastic movie. In a crowd, at a live event, at
Speaker 1: a party, it's a great time. Like there's this wonderful
Speaker 1: training montage where she's in this shed like sharpening her
Speaker 1: tools because she's about to go back. Even though she's
Speaker 1: you know free or can escape, she's about to go
Speaker 1: back to the people that tried to hurt her and
Speaker 1: get her revenge on them. And this whole montage around
Speaker 1: getting all of her weapons ready is just beautiful film making.
Speaker 1: It's fantastic. It's the way she sharpens the weapons, the
Speaker 1: way she creates them, thinks about it like kind of
Speaker 1: you know, utility belt that she builds to hold them
Speaker 1: all in, and just the whole thing is wonderful. And
Speaker 1: then the final kind of act of the movie is
Speaker 1: her using all these weapons and sitting traps and just
Speaker 1: becoming this like expert assass and just off of her wits.
Speaker 1: It's fantastic. They call me Macho woman is It's the
Speaker 1: most fun I've had in you know, vs archive has
Speaker 1: Action USA, which is the movie that got me into
Speaker 1: VSA a couple of years back. So I think it's
Speaker 1: I don't know if it's as good as that. It's
Speaker 1: one of my favorite movies of all time, but it's
Speaker 1: in that same vein as Action USA. It's just a
Speaker 1: movie that has no business being as good and as
Speaker 1: fun as it is. And this is right up there
Speaker 1: for me, which I don't know if you haven't seen
Speaker 1: Action USA. That may sound like a joke or like
Speaker 1: I'm being sarcastic or something, but that's about the highest
Speaker 1: compliment I can give an action movie. I don't know
Speaker 1: how else to heap love on a movie other than
Speaker 1: to say it's it's in the ballpark of Action USA.
Speaker 1: Just in terms of the creativity and the madness that
Speaker 1: goes into the writing and the making of this movie.
Speaker 1: It's pretty NonStop action. It doesn't really take a lot
Speaker 1: of breaks. It's just super fun. And I wish that
Speaker 1: Patrick donahue made a bunch of more movies. He only
Speaker 1: has a few credits to his name. Probably the most
Speaker 1: famous one outside of this would be a movie called
Speaker 1: Kill Squad. So hopefully some of you all have seen that.
Speaker 1: I can't wait. I've heard about it for years. I
Speaker 1: haven't seen it, but I'm definitely gonna go check it
Speaker 1: out because Patrick got Donna, Who's somebody that I wish
Speaker 1: he was just still making movies. The other thing about Oh,
Speaker 1: I should say they kill me or they call me
Speaker 1: mach a woman. Seems like it's sold around two thousand
Speaker 1: copies ish in that range. It's just it's a shame.
Speaker 1: This movie needs to sell ten thousand copies and it
Speaker 1: needs to be on everybody's shelf. It's that good. I
Speaker 1: can't wait for it to get recommended. You're hearing it
Speaker 1: here first. I just can't wait for more people to
Speaker 1: see this and start recommending it around. I hope it
Speaker 1: gets a huge cult following, and I hope everybody involved
Speaker 1: has a long career at conferences talking about how much
Speaker 1: fun they had making it all right. As about the
Speaker 1: opposite of the spectrum as you can possibly get from
Speaker 1: they call me macho woman. Let's talk about VS Labs.
Speaker 1: So VS Labs is a fascinating sub label for me.
Speaker 1: They have, you know, the sci fi box that they
Speaker 1: put out of Peter Schalkin Movies is possibly my release
Speaker 1: of the year it came out. I love those movies.
Speaker 1: Obviously Radiance you know, put them out at the same
Speaker 1: time or whether it's like a split release or whatever.
Speaker 1: But the VS release was fantastic for them. As always,
Speaker 1: the Labs line I think has just it's fast, like
Speaker 1: the difference. It's truly it feels like a lapse, like
Speaker 1: it really lives into the name. And this movie is
Speaker 1: another great example of truly living into the name because
Speaker 1: it's a nineteen eighty nine movie made for Polish TV,
Speaker 1: so right around then in Polish television, it's kind of
Speaker 1: like a golden era, right That's when you have the
Speaker 1: decalogue that came out right around the same time, and
Speaker 1: then you have this movie by Risad Bugaiski and these apologies.
Speaker 1: Polish names are always tricky for me, but Interrogation is
Speaker 1: if anybody has seen Tom tick Vers Heaven, it reminds
Speaker 1: me a little bit of that's It also has some parallels,
Speaker 1: although this is going to be an odd comparison talking
Speaker 1: about Polish people coming up out of the war, but
Speaker 1: it has a little bit of comparisons to a Nazis
Speaker 1: politation movie. There's no Nazis in this movie, but there
Speaker 1: is a kind of secret police and there is this
Speaker 1: kind of control. The world of Interrogation is a world
Speaker 1: where police can bring people in and hold them for
Speaker 1: no reason and interrogate them if they think there's a crime,
Speaker 1: if they think they're involved, they can hold them and
Speaker 1: torture them and do whatever they want to. So it's
Speaker 1: about the story of a woman who's brought in and
Speaker 1: you know, interrogated, and it's a very strict police regime.
Speaker 1: They have no respect for these Polish prisoners that they
Speaker 1: view them a lot of them. They view them as
Speaker 1: conspirators or specifically communists. Is kind of like the bad
Speaker 1: word of the time. And so they're in there trying
Speaker 1: to get information for them to break up the communist
Speaker 1: you know, rebels I guess in the area at that time,
Speaker 1: and a love story kind of develops. It's complicated, right,
Speaker 1: but there's a love story that develops between the prisoner
Speaker 1: and one of the guards. I don't want to give
Speaker 1: away too much, but the way that it plays out,
Speaker 1: you know, it has its own twists, and it has
Speaker 1: its own kind of angles there. This is for sure,
Speaker 1: you know, an art house movie. It's for sure a
Speaker 1: more serious festival film. It would be interesting to see
Speaker 1: what happens if this one sells like hotcakes for them.
Speaker 1: I think as of the time I'm looking at this,
Speaker 1: it's not exactly been as hot as a seller as
Speaker 1: some other titles. I don't know, you know, maybe this
Speaker 1: is exactly what labs is for, is to kind of
Speaker 1: figure out which ones are going to sell more and less.
Speaker 1: It'd be really interesting to see if if Yes starts
Speaker 1: to dig into Polish movies. Obviously those wells are pretty deep.
Speaker 1: There's a lot of fantastic directors and filmmakers that have
Speaker 1: still not been released even though they've been mined for
Speaker 1: films for years, and so I think, similar to Italy, Sweden, France,
Speaker 1: you know, this is one of those countries that has
Speaker 1: a pretty rich film history and a lot to pull from.
Speaker 1: So if this one does sell well, I'm assuming there
Speaker 1: might be more. Honestly, even if it doesn't sell well,
Speaker 1: justin whoever's listening for the vs Labs line, please put
Speaker 1: out more Polish films. For the most part, there there's
Speaker 1: always something interesting, you know. This one I think suffers
Speaker 1: a little bit in my mind of being a little
Speaker 1: bit melodramatic at times. I think it's not very subtle
Speaker 1: in what it's saying and the way the writing is
Speaker 1: done and the way the characters are written. It's certainly
Speaker 1: I think lacks a bit of subtlety, but it's very
Speaker 1: engrossing the way the story plays out is and I
Speaker 1: had a great time with this one. It's somewhat well
Speaker 1: seen on letter box, not great. It has thirty two
Speaker 1: hundred views, so it's somewhat known. The special features on
Speaker 1: this are a little bit light, although there's a really
Speaker 1: good one. So they have a forty eight minute documentary
Speaker 1: with one of the people that's interviewed for that is
Speaker 1: agnieko Holland, who she's just been in some of the
Speaker 1: best sort of Polish films ever, and so it's really
Speaker 1: cool to hear her talk about it, as well as
Speaker 1: director Bogeyski's widow. So it's some archival footage that they
Speaker 1: found of her talking about it, and then there's an
Speaker 1: essay and booklet written by a Polish historian, so it
Speaker 1: creates some nice context around what was happening and what
Speaker 1: was going on why this film is important. So yeah,
Speaker 1: I mean this is a nineteen It shows nineteen eighty
Speaker 1: two when it was made. It was released many different
Speaker 1: years all the way up until nineteen eighty nine. So
Speaker 1: this is one of those movies that has a you know,
Speaker 1: like a complex release history. It was yeah, I don't know.
Speaker 1: I mean, it was nominated for a Palm d Or
Speaker 1: when it came out in nineteen ninety right, So look,
Speaker 1: I mean it's it's a film that has a lot
Speaker 1: of critical success behind it, and I think there's elements
Speaker 1: of it that I liked a lot, and I'm a
Speaker 1: sucker for Polish cinema, so I'm pro on this one. Yeah,
Speaker 1: I'm just I'm fascinated every time VSL has a new
Speaker 1: release because it's all over the place. It's like, you know,
Speaker 1: a western sort of comedy, Western or I said, Polish
Speaker 1: sci fi. Now this one. But while we're on the
Speaker 1: topic of interrogation, if you haven't seen Tom Tickfers Heaven,
Speaker 1: it's something I've been meaning to revisit. I remember loving it.
Speaker 1: I saw it in theaters. Actually I don't even know
Speaker 1: twenty years ago, now, twenty two years ago, whatever, but
Speaker 1: I remember loving it and I still vividly remember the
Speaker 1: ending and sort of some of the way this story
Speaker 1: plays out. So I do want to go see it.
Speaker 1: After seeing this kind of made me want to go
Speaker 1: back and revisit that. If anybody's seen Heaven recently, please
Speaker 1: talk to me. I'd love to hear if it still
Speaker 1: holds up, and y'all, we have done it. Last one
Speaker 1: Vinegar Syndrome Pictures VS. Pictures. This is released number seven.
Speaker 1: It's eight eyes. It's directed by Austin Jennings. If y'all
Speaker 1: know the name. It's I believe his first feature of
Speaker 1: film or second. But he has done over eighty episodes
Speaker 1: of The Last Drive In with Joe Bob Briggs, so
Speaker 1: he's you know, he has a lot of connections in
Speaker 1: the industry. This is a horror film that he he
Speaker 1: has made. It was released last year twenty twenty three,
Speaker 1: played at a bunch of horror festivals, got a lot
Speaker 1: of attention. Lead actresses Emily Sweet, who obviously is kind
Speaker 1: of becoming a scream queen in her own right, been
Speaker 1: in quite a few horror movies. Before I get into
Speaker 1: the movie itself, just a little bit of background. It
Speaker 1: has about eleven hundred views on letterbocks. I imagine that's
Speaker 1: gonna go up quite a bit as word gets out
Speaker 1: around this. I'll get into that in just a second.
Speaker 1: Has a lot of ties to just a lot of
Speaker 1: things that I love in general. Obviously, the Joe Bob
Speaker 1: Briggs is great. The producer of this is a guy
Speaker 1: named well Vinegar Syndrome has a hand in the money
Speaker 1: for this and producing it. One of the producers it
Speaker 1: was really involved in the Serbia side of this movie
Speaker 1: was a gentleman named Segar Dixon, who kind of has
Speaker 1: a trauma background, and it has sold pretty well. It's
Speaker 1: going pretty fast. There's just over a thousand copies left
Speaker 1: of the time I'm recording this, but it's selling pretty fast.
Speaker 1: I imagine it'll still be around in the sale, but
Speaker 1: probably not that much longer than that. I think it'll
Speaker 1: probably at least the limit, it will probably be gone.
Speaker 1: It's selling pretty fast. So the basic premise here is
Speaker 1: some kind of combination of like Texas Chainsaw Massacre with
Speaker 1: you know, maybe like an Eli Roth movie, like Hostel,
Speaker 1: something like that. Taurusts going to in this case at
Speaker 1: Serbia and Macedonia meet a local turns out to be
Speaker 1: the wrong person to hang out with. Terror ensues. Final
Speaker 1: girl comes out and has to claw her way out
Speaker 1: of a horrible, horrible, terror filled, horrific situation. This movie
Speaker 1: has a lot of pretty gnarly imagery, and I think
Speaker 1: one of the things is that I loved about it
Speaker 1: is it's obvious that Austin Jennings and maybe Matthew Frank
Speaker 1: the writer, I don't know who did it or if
Speaker 1: this was living put from Viennager syndrome. I'm not sure,
Speaker 1: but the actual horror scenes in this film are fantastic.
Speaker 1: It's like, you know, art in the truest sense macabre
Speaker 1: and you know, fucked up for sure, but definitely art.
Speaker 1: They are filmed well designed well you immediately you don't
Speaker 1: have to have any background though. The whole set design,
Speaker 1: everything is just pure terror and the feeling of being trapped,
Speaker 1: the feeling of being tortured. They capture it all falllessly.
Speaker 1: That's all done very well. The main villain in this
Speaker 1: the actor's name is Bruno. In the film, his name
Speaker 1: is Saint Peter. In real life his name is Bruno Velyanovsky.
Speaker 1: He's phenomenal. I think he does a really strong job
Speaker 1: in this. He has to play like a couple different tones,
Speaker 1: and he has to go back and forth between being charming,
Speaker 1: being kind of like serious, being funny, just being like
Speaker 1: a good pal, and then really deeply believing in the
Speaker 1: cause and why he's bringing people into this kind of
Speaker 1: den of torture as the movie goes on, and he
Speaker 1: plays it all believingly. I think he's a fantastic find
Speaker 1: as an actor. He does a really good job. And
Speaker 1: again the makeup and his makeup in particular really helps.
Speaker 1: But he pulls it off without it. I mean, he's
Speaker 1: just a great He seems like a really good actor,
Speaker 1: and he nails it. I hope he's in more horror movies.
Speaker 1: This is a gnurally nasty little number. There's no you know,
Speaker 1: there's a lot of tension early on, and certainly you
Speaker 1: get the vibe as they go deeper into Serbia and
Speaker 1: deeper into Macedonia that's something bad is about to happen.
Speaker 1: But then every time Saint Peter turns it around and
Speaker 1: he turns on his charm and he pulls them in
Speaker 1: further and pulls them in further until they find themselves
Speaker 1: in a situation they can't escape from. And you have
Speaker 1: to get that final girl energy from Emily sweet Who
Speaker 1: and to her credit, she's written well and she does
Speaker 1: a great job in this. She's a very strong female lead.
Speaker 1: Even early on in the movie, she's fighting I could
Speaker 1: get each step of the way of going deeper, and
Speaker 1: it's the husband who's kind of encouraging her to go
Speaker 1: along with this charming dude who's just having fun. And
Speaker 1: so the way that her character is written is very good.
Speaker 1: I think, you know, she's certainly the star and she's
Speaker 1: a believable star. This is a movie that probably doesn't
Speaker 1: need as many actors as it has, even I mean,
Speaker 1: this is a movie between Emily Sweet and Bruno Veglianovski.
Speaker 1: This is a standoff between two powerful actors, good and evil.
Speaker 1: However you want to think about that, I will say
Speaker 1: that Bruno's family when they do go into the family
Speaker 1: home and you see that and the terror really starts.
Speaker 1: Those characters are designed well. This is a This is
Speaker 1: a movie by somebody that's seen a lot of horror
Speaker 1: movies and has a good eye for what's scary and
Speaker 1: what's horrific. And I think they pull it off. It's
Speaker 1: a It's a really good movie and VSP has been
Speaker 1: a lot of fun to watch just as a sub
Speaker 1: label so far. I think this is release number seven,
Speaker 1: so it's crazy to think they've had a hand in
Speaker 1: producing seven movies already. But yeah, this is a really
Speaker 1: fun label to watch. I'm very curious to see kind
Speaker 1: of what they do. I mean, Riddle of Fire I
Speaker 1: believe was fully produced by them. But then you even
Speaker 1: go back into movies like Divinity from a few months ago,
Speaker 1: which is just unbelievably good and people have to watch
Speaker 1: Sick of Myself is so good. Scary of sixty first
Speaker 1: is way better than I thought. It would be. Really cool,
Speaker 1: little fun m I don't even know what the word
Speaker 1: is for that, like a horror movie kind of based
Speaker 1: on psychosis and very frenetic and chaotics, similar to Possession
Speaker 1: almost Obviously, New York Ninja is a fun story. If
Speaker 1: you haven't don't know that story. They Live By Film
Speaker 1: has an episode on it, and there's a million interviews
Speaker 1: that Curtis has done on New York Ninja, and then
Speaker 1: Censor is one of the first ones that they did.
Speaker 1: It was a really fun throwback kind of horror film
Speaker 1: with some really great kind of sploshy, kind of squishy
Speaker 1: kills and that are surprising. Yeah, we did it. So Okay.
Speaker 1: That is all of the Vinegar Syndrome mainline and sub
Speaker 1: label releases for July. I hope you got something out
Speaker 1: of that. Oh, I promised to go through the some
Speaker 1: of most of the end titles that I saw. Okay,
Speaker 1: I'm gonna do this very quickly because I did promise
Speaker 1: I was going to do it now.
Speaker 2: That is a photo of the creature in its natural state.
Speaker 2: It's blurring spearheading the search for the missing Alien is
Speaker 2: Colonel Evan Rosen.
Speaker 4: They will pick the creature apart a little by little
Speaker 4: bit by bit until we understand every little bit.
Speaker 1: Touch me and you'll pull back a stop. Today, I
Speaker 1: made it through five. I can't remember if I said
Speaker 1: four earlier. I made it through five. So we're gonna see.
Speaker 1: I'm gonna go alphabetical by name and just quickly just
Speaker 1: talk about him. Amanda in the Alien is the new
Speaker 1: AGFA release. Agva's up to fifty eight releases. That's insane,
Speaker 1: and they're still finding really cool pieces of culture. So
Speaker 1: Amanda in the Alien is a little bit like Starman
Speaker 1: if you've seen Starman from Carpenter, but if you can
Speaker 1: imagine it was made by somebody who loved clueless and
Speaker 1: maybe a little bit like Reality Bites. It's extremely nineties,
Speaker 1: but it's a really fun piece of kind of a
Speaker 1: time capsule of the nineties, with a story that's pretty
Speaker 1: similar to Starman and also ven a little bit like.
Speaker 1: It's about this alien that comes in and takes over
Speaker 1: bodies and has a sexual exploration and awakening and then
Speaker 1: learns to love and then yeah, I won't spoil the
Speaker 1: third act, but it's a fun one to watch for sure.
Speaker 1: Bleeding Skull put out Way Bad Stone. If there's any
Speaker 1: tabletop fans in this audience, this is a movie that
Speaker 1: is just absolutely a must own. I don't know how
Speaker 1: to say it. There will never be a more faithful
Speaker 1: Dungeons and Dragons adaptation, I guess you could say than this.
Speaker 1: I don't think it's I don't think they claim it's
Speaker 1: a Dungeons and Dragons adaptation, but if it's just it's
Speaker 1: basically people that were actually real Renaissance fair folks getting
Speaker 1: together with a filmmaker from Florida and creating like a journey,
Speaker 1: like a story from one of these tabletop games, and
Speaker 1: filming it with their friends. And there's some really cool
Speaker 1: costumes and set designs. Considering the whole budget with two
Speaker 1: thousand dollars, and from the quote from the director was
Speaker 1: a ninety percent went to feeding the fifty people that
Speaker 1: were working on the film. So Way Bad Stone from
Speaker 1: Bleeding Skull really cool. Find a great, great fun movie
Speaker 1: to watch. Go down. Death from Factory twenty five. As
Speaker 1: much as I talk about different labels here, I think
Speaker 1: this is the first Factory twenty five release that i've
Speaker 1: actually seen. I'm going to try to watch more. It's
Speaker 1: an interesting one. This is a definitely a modern art surrealist,
Speaker 1: nonlinear kind of work of art, more than more than
Speaker 1: a linear film. Very experimental. Yeah, I don't this is
Speaker 1: a this is something there's you know, when art label
Speaker 1: broke off of culture shock and art label was started.
Speaker 1: This has a similar vibe to what I think Warren
Speaker 1: was talking about trying to start with art label. This
Speaker 1: is just a yeah, it's a very experimental movie, and
Speaker 1: I wasn't quite in the mood for it. I'm going
Speaker 1: to watch it again so I can talk more openly
Speaker 1: about it and kind of give a more measured response.
Speaker 1: It cut me off guard and I struggled to follow it,
Speaker 1: but that's more on me than the film itself. I'm
Speaker 1: ready for it now. I don't ever read much on
Speaker 1: movies before I go in. I like to go and
Speaker 1: blind and let the movie kind of surprise me. But occasionally,
Speaker 1: for movies like this, it doesn't mean I need to
Speaker 1: see them twice. Claire Denny. Okay, so I have C Films,
Speaker 1: you know, as a relatively new partner label, and Bastards
Speaker 1: from Claire Denny is out and it's a masterpiece. I
Speaker 1: don't know what else to say about it. It's an
Speaker 1: art house masterpiece. And it's gonna continue to rise on
Speaker 1: cit and sound list. I'm sure. I'm sure it'll continue
Speaker 1: to rise on they shoot pictures. It's a it's a
Speaker 1: beautiful it's dark, it's very dark. It's very uncomfortable, and
Speaker 1: there are some scenes that are very horrific, as Claire
Speaker 1: Denny can do sometimes, but it's it's a fantastic movie.
Speaker 1: The basic premises there's a guy trying to find this
Speaker 1: this person who's sexually abusing kids. I guess I'm trying
Speaker 1: to think of what to say without spoiling too much.
Speaker 1: It's just I guess it's sort of like a ifnything Taken.
Speaker 1: The premise of Taken, I guess, but you remove a
Speaker 1: lot of the hollywoodness of it and you kind of
Speaker 1: strip it down to the idea of a chase to
Speaker 1: find to prove somebody's guilty of committing these horrific crimes
Speaker 1: and turn it into more of a French art house picture.
Speaker 1: That's kind of what Bastard is. But it's a masterpiece.
Speaker 1: It's really good. And then speaking of experimental Saturn's cores.
Speaker 1: I mentioned them earlier. Saturn's Core put out a double feature.
Speaker 1: I have not seen Kittie Killers, but I have seen
Speaker 1: Living a Zombie Dream and the movie's really good. Like
Speaker 1: it's another one of these ones, similar to maybe Cornshucker
Speaker 1: or some of these ones where it's an s OV film,
Speaker 1: but the way they construct the story is experimental and
Speaker 1: it makes it to where I'm watching it, I forget
Speaker 1: that it's a SOV and I'm just captivated in the
Speaker 1: way that they're editing and like the stories they make.
Speaker 1: This one is literally kind of looks asked the question
Speaker 1: of what would zombies dream about? But it does it
Speaker 1: in a very interesting way and extremely creative, and as always,
Speaker 1: it's chocked full of a ton of special features. So
Speaker 1: Living in Zombie Dream is a cool release from Saturns Court.
Speaker 1: And speaking of high numbers, they're up to thirty seven,
Speaker 1: So some of these partner labels from Ocean are getting
Speaker 1: up to becoming, you know, legitimate labels and to themselves.
Speaker 1: But I'm glad they're there. It's easy for me to
Speaker 1: kind of go in one place and buy them. Also,
Speaker 1: I hope they stick around for a while. I am
Speaker 1: on Instagram, I am on Reddit. I'll post the links
Speaker 1: in the episode. I would love to chat about this,
Speaker 1: like this is the fun thing I want to do.
Speaker 1: Like I said, I hope this is the only episode
Speaker 1: where I'm by myself. I'm trying to get guests for
Speaker 1: the next three or four episodes. We already have guest
Speaker 1: line up, so that we should be good. I'm going
Speaker 1: to try to keep that going as much as possible.
Speaker 1: Try to get people from VS and I try to
Speaker 1: get people from around the community as well. This is
Speaker 1: something that's important to me to not make mine, but
Speaker 1: to truly make the something for the community, right, So
Speaker 1: I hope we can do that. If you have anything
Speaker 1: on this that you don't like or you want to
Speaker 1: hear more about, just tell me. I'm wide open. And
Speaker 1: one of the things I do want to highlight there's
Speaker 1: a relatively new podcast coming out called the Trash Mechs
Speaker 1: Podcast by Armando, and episode one just came out and
Speaker 1: he's going to be a guest on here in October.
Speaker 1: If we can pull that off. I'm hoping that that
Speaker 1: works to get him on in October. But yeah, Armando
Speaker 1: is a super talented, knowledgeable person. Go check out the
Speaker 1: Trash mechs podcast and what else came up in this episode.
Speaker 1: Go check out aerosplus Massacre at Sam Degan's podcast. Go
Speaker 1: check out On Some Horrors. That's Eric Schultz's podcast. I mean,
Speaker 1: how can we possibly name all the great podcasts out there.
Speaker 1: Obviously we're on someone's favorite production. Go check out Disconnected.
Speaker 1: If you want to see live they live by film.
Speaker 1: We have other than the recent Fast and the Furious
Speaker 1: series that we just went through. If you go back
Speaker 1: through our history, we have a lot of interviews with
Speaker 1: the OCN labels and a lot of the different boutique
Speaker 1: labels really trying to be passionate about promoting this industry. Y'all.
Speaker 1: Thank you so much. I can't you know anybody who's
Speaker 1: listening this far. Thank you so much. I can't wait
Speaker 1: to do announcements on September first, right around September first,
Speaker 1: And what I'm gonna do is I'm going to pick
Speaker 1: a label to highlight, a partner label to highlight as well.
Speaker 1: I'm going to keep it as surprised, and I'm going
Speaker 1: to keep it a surprise because I don't have the
Speaker 1: guest finalized yet, but you know, we have time, so
Speaker 1: I'm going to get a guest finalized and try to
Speaker 1: bring in somebody from that label to talk about their
Speaker 1: films and and really go a little bit more in
Speaker 1: depth after announcements to spend time talking about their films.
Speaker 1: So it should be fun, should be I hope this
Speaker 1: is a good addition to the episode and give a
Speaker 1: chance to get to know some of the back you know,
Speaker 1: catalog titles a little better for some of these labels.
Speaker 1: Love you all again. You know on Instagram, I'm on Reddit.
Speaker 1: I'm not on Reddit under punk Vacation I'm on, so
Speaker 1: check the links to If you're on Reddit, come talk
Speaker 1: to me there. I try to write reviews. I average
Speaker 1: somewhere about three hundred reviews a year that I write
Speaker 1: on Reddit and also Letterbox. I'm obviously on there. But
Speaker 1: then you know, they live by film as a place
Speaker 1: you can find some more of the interviews we've done
Speaker 1: and some discussion we've done. Uh and then I can't
Speaker 1: wait to do a hundred of these, So all right,
Speaker 1: seell later.