PORNO HOLOCAUST Joe D'amato (1981); DVD
Horror/Porn DVD
A group of castaways wash ashore on a deserted island in this Italian sex/gore movie. They are unaware that a sex-crazed radioactive monster is also on the island. He attacks and rapes several of the women, who die horrible deaths because of course his sperm is radioactive. The survivors must find a way to either escape the island or kill the monster. Another Joe D'amato classic roughie....
DISINFORMATION: THE COMPLETE SERIES; DVD
Documentary/Underground Culture, 2 X DVD
Really underground TV from the Sci Fi channel, hosted by Disinformation co-founder Richard Metzger. Satanism, Extreme Pornography, weird conspiracy theories, mind-controlled sex slaves, time travel, outsider music, Painter Joe Coleman, comics genius Grant Morrison, Genesis P-Orridge, Kembra Pfahler, lots more.
"Incredibly well produced and presented in a straightforward manner... The results are bust-a-gut funny" -- Los Angeles Times, July 2003
Special features
The complete series intended for the Sci-Fi Channel
IN A GLASS CAGE (1986); DVD
DVD (1986), Used (Rare)
Talk about a movie that lives up to its reputation -- In a Glass Cage is relentlessly intense from start to finish. The story of a Nazi doctor /pedophile in hiding and the strange young man who comes to work as his "nurse," this film explores taboos with relish. Toward the end, the film devolves into a more horror movie, not to take away from the very real horrors it develops. In a Glass Cage packs a wallop earning its reputation as one of the more disturbing movies ever made. It 's very much a European movie, and, given its horrifying subject matter -- pedophilia, the torture and murder of children, the relationship between monsters and their victims -- it could never have been made in the U.S. Strongly recommended for viewers who have strong stomachs and are not otherwise easily offended.
THE CRAMPS – Live At Napa State Mental Hospital (1978); DVD
Live Music DVD, New
"A free concert at the Napa State Hospital" In June of 1978, The Cramps played to a room full of enthusiastic patients at the Napa State Mental Institute and instantly established a benchmark in public rock. Includes a performance by ZEV at a "Target After Hours" event in 1980.
WATER POWER, Gerard Damiano (1976); Uncut Composite DVD-r (Rare)
DVD-r, Uncut Composite (the 'cut' scenes have been sourced from video, and are not digital quality as the rest of the film)
Three intervening decades have done nothing whatsoever to blunt the impact of this notorious roughie, ripped from then current headlines about one Michael Kenyon alias the Illinois Enema Bandit who raped and forcefully, er, cleansed at least two dozen women between 1965 and 1975. Charged with assault and battery, he served a mere six years behind bars, only to be paroled in 1981 after which he wisely faded into well-deserved obscurity. While a TV movie of the week (starring Cameron Mitchell perhaps, think TOOLBOX MURDERS) might've been a tantalizing proposition, the counterculture seemed a more likely candidate to process this peculiar court case. It served as inspiration for Frank Zappa's song "The Legend of the Illinois Enema Bandit" and, for better or worse, this interesting but still extremely hard to take adult film long attributed to Gerard Damiano of DEEP THROAT and DEVIL IN MISS JONES fame.Though his name has always been prominently displayed in both credits and all publicity material, Damiano has repeatedly gone on record claiming he was supposed to do it, but didn't. Most sources henceforth agree that it was our old friend Shaun Costello at the helm, a theory supported by the familiar soundtrack choices (Bernard Herrmann's VERTIGO soundtrack has once again been extensively plundered to set the mood) as well as the director's brief appearance as an extra in a police station sequence. If indeed so, this truly stands as his most disturbing effort since 1972's FORCED ENTRY and it's a far better produced work to boot.
ANTHOLOGY OF SURREALIST CINEMA VOLUME ONE; DVD
Surreal/Art/Film DVD, New
ENTR'ACTE - From Director Rene' Clair. 1924. France. B&W. 14 min. Starring Eric Satie, Jean Borlin, Francis Picabia, Marcel Duchamp, Man Ray. Silent with music score. An early surrealistic effort from French director Rene' Clair based on an idea from painter Frances Picabia. After a man is killed his coffin takes on a life of it's own. After a long chase, he climbs out of his coffin and makes everyone that was chasing him disappear!
LA COQUILLE ET LE CLERGYMAN (SEASHELL AND THE CLERGYMAN) - Directed by Germain Dulac. Written by Antonin Artaud. Starring Alex Allin, Genica Athanasiou, Lucien Bataille. 1928. France. 28 min. B&W. Silent with music score. A radical feminist (in her day) and the second woman to direct films in the history of French cinema, Germain Dulac was a leading figure in Avant Garde cinema. Obsessed with a general's wife, a clergyman has strange visions of death and lust while struggling against his own eroticism.
BALLET MECANIQUE - Written and Directed by Fernand Leger. Cinematography by Man Ray and Dudley Murphy. Starring Starring Kiki Montparnesse. 1924. France. 16 Min. B&W. Silent with music score. An experimental film from Cubist painter Fernand Leger containing a montage of images and rhythms that create a hallucinatory effect. Features the original soundtrack.
ANEMIC CINEMA - Directed by Marcel Duchamp. 1926. France. 6 min. B&W. Silent with music score. The only film to come from the founder of the Dadaism movement (artistic and literary movement from 1916-1923), an abstract and annalistic film short containing spiral forms merging into a rotating
JOHANNA WENT The Club Years (2006); DVD + CD
Music/Performance Art DVD + CD, Used
This disc features performance artist Johanna Went in her legendary club show (1977-1987). Seminal, wild, and raw, these perormances were accompanied by live improvized music from some of L.A.’s most adventurous players including z’ev, Mark & Brock Wheaton, Greg Burk, Kerry McBride and many others. Included is a bonus audio CD of studio recordings, including the entire Poshboy Record 1982 LP “Hyena” (remixed and remastered) and the songs from the first 1981 45 rpm single “Slave Beoynd the Grave” originally released on Boyd Rice’s Graybeat label. With audio commentary Johanna Went and Mark Wheaton.
BLACK MOON (LOUIS MALLE) 1975; DVD
DVD Surreal, Used
A lot of avant-garde filmmakers experimented with Lewis Carroll's classic novel "Alice's Adventures in Wonderland". Some features that come to mind are Jaromil Jires' wonderful film, "Valerie and her Week of Wonders", Guillermo Del Toro's "Pan's Labyrinth" and Jan Svankmajer's "Alice". Louis Malle's surrealist experimental film "Black Moon" could very well fit into this category of the directors' own interpretation of the novel giving it their own "free form"! "Black Moon" is devoid of any central plot as such. Set against a post-apocalyptic backdrop of a "war between the sexes", this film simply chronicles the weird happenings as experienced (or imagined?) by a teenage girl, Lily (Cathryn Harrison) who has narrowly escaped being killed by men seemingly out to wipe out the entire women populace! Having been lucky to have escaped, she just speeds away in her car deep into the woods only to come across an isolated property, a huge manor house and its strange inhabitants. The house is dwelled in by a cantankerous, bed ridden old lady (Therese Giehse) with a weird fetish, who talks to animals, especially a big rat-like creature "Humphrey" in some language that's gibberish, and every once in a while speaks on a radio kept by her bed. There is a brother-sister pair around the house to take care of stuff. They don't speak a single word. They only hum some songs as they work around the property. Some snakes tucked away in unlocked drawers also share the space with them! The most bizarre of all though, is the presence of about half a dozen naked children running around playing with a gigantic pig; they keep interrupting Lily's path every time she chases a not-so-graceful Unicorn that seems to be a regular visitor around the property......
BODY MELT (Australia) 1993; DVD
DVD, New
'Body Melt' is one of the most underrated Australian movies of all time! Director Philip Brophy, who has a background in avante-garde electronic music and performance art, has created a wicked instant cult splatter movie. The film is all the better for having many Aussie soap stars and familiar faces in its cast, a fact that will probably be completely lost on overseas viewers. Just imagine your own "beloved" family favourites in the main roles and you might start to see what Brophy's done here. 'Body Melt' is a cult, bloody, body horror movie. Cult.......
GOZU (Takashi Miike); DVD
Surreal DVD (2003)
Takashi Miike's stark, "Yakuza Horror Theatre" presentation Gozu (2003) is an infernal cinematic nightmare of fear and anxiety, played out within a sepia-toned subterranean underworld abstracted to the point of outright parody. Like many of the director's more personal and idiosyncratic pictures, the plot is largely secondary to the uncomfortable atmosphere and wild sense of spectacle presented on screen, as Miike constructs an absurd and enigmatic story of a loyal Yakuza henchman struggling with issues of homosexuality, guilt and desire when he is required by his boss to "dispose" of his mentally unstable brother in arms. This incredibly personal and moral dilemma - in which the central character must juggle the greater notions of loyalty to his boss and the loyalty to his best-friend and mentor-like figure that he's obviously quite attracted to - creates a rift within the world of the film that plunges the whole story into suffocating surrealism, horror and the absurd.
FAUST Jan Svankmajer; DVD
Surrealist DVD (1994), New
"Faust" is a wonderful blend of real-time and stop-motion storytelling by a master of the surreal. An apparently ordinary everyman is led by curiosity into a dilapidated building which turns out to be a strange blend of alchemical laboratory, theater, and puppeteer's workshop. Suddenly, the man finds himself becoming the legendary Dr. Faust, selling his soul to the devil in exchange for magical powers. Jan Svankmajer is the true sorcerer here. He blends stage sets with real locations and seven-foot puppets with live actors, making magic of it all. Powerful, surreal, and more intelligent than any animation anywhere.
THE SAVAGE PLANET (1973); DVD
DVD Surreal Animation, New
This is a surrealist French animation from the 70s, and that's pretty much the sum-up of its description: Surreal, 70s, and French. Animations like this are quite rare, not only is it completely psychedelic, the intent was political in nature, though by these days the movie has toned down a bit. It is in fact a really pretty animation because of its use of colors and design, which for me is a lot more interesting than its historical value. For fans of animation of different types, it's a must see, but also for those who crave the underground psychedelic aspects of the 70s era.
