Don't Kill The Messenger 72

Hello all. This will be the last DKTM for a couple of weeks - as things are about to get a little review heavy with Toronto After Dark and the Festival Of Fear just around the corner - so I've packed today's with all kinds of cool shit. Take a gander at these goodies.

As Advertised.

Meet Ballface, a weird little oddity I caught on AOTS the other day. As for the ensuing nightmares, you're welcome.

It's About Frickin' Time!

I got some great news this week, as I found out that JT Petty's 2006 snuff documentary S&Man is FINALLY coming to DVD. This is an excellent film that literally disappeared after its solid showing at Midnight Madness four years ago. The only way people have been able to see this film since was on rare bootlegs. S&Man is pretty crazy stuff and I imagine this movie will be even more chilling on video, without the director there to give context. Out of all of the post-screening Q&A's I've witnessed over the years, S&MAN's will always rank up there as one of the finest. Check out the trailer below.

S&Man is scheduled to hit shelves on October 12th.

A Match Made In Heaven. Or Hell?

Word dropped this week that Troma and Astron 6 will be partnering up for what looks like a little bit of unpleasantness called Father's Day. I assume if you are on this site, you've heard of Troma, but you may not be familiar with Astron 6. If not, check out their site here. The stuff they've been putting out over the past few years is nostalgic gold. I highly recommend Heart Of Karl. Anyway, Father's Day seems to be an extremely excessive tale about "a guy who goes around raping Dads." Yep, you read that right. Here's the trailer.

Hollywood Zombies!

Here below is some art from artist Matt Busch's new series Hollywood Is Dead. You may remember him from last year when he made a splash with his zombified versions of Drew Struzan's Star Wars posters. Now, he's taken on the rest of Hollywood!

Check out his site for the rest, by clicking here.

I'm Intrigued.

I happened upon a horror indie called Underbelly, while surfing the 'Net the other day and wanted to draw some attention to it here. It could go either way, but their website is well laid out and the option to view the very strong first scene of the movie is an inspired choice. Any movie that is described as "It was like some bizarre cross pollination with Last House on the Left, The Vanishing, Pulp Fiction and The Ring" paints quite a picture, wouldn't you say? I really like the look of the poster too.

Hopefully, you'll be hearing me follow up on this fairly soon. You can check out the website, by clicking here.

Okay, that's it for now. Talk to you all later.

It Came From The Archives 5!

The second season of VH1's Scream Queens began on Monday and I'm all over it like a moth to a flame.

So, in celebration of what is to be seven more weeks of joy for me while Queens plays itself out, I thought I would look back on all the blood-soaked babes of yore. When I was showcasing my collection of Fangoria cards a few months ago, I mentioned there was an epic special section they did in one of their issues called the Scream Queens Field Guide. Well, I dug it out recently and here it is below for your enjoyment. Click on any of the images to enlarge and let the memories commence.

Quite a database, eh? My favourites back in the day - apart from the obvious choice of Jamie Lee - were Kathleen Kinmont and Elizabeth Kaitan. I'm sure you can imagine my glee when I tracked down a copy of Rollerblade Warriors, which features them both together in the same movie. The rest of the issue above (#102, May 1991) is actually pretty bad-ass, with featured articles on several women in the industry, including Barbara Steele, Caroline Munro, Jill Schoelen and Rachel Talalay.

Bringing things back to present day, the term Scream Queen tends to get thrown around quite arbitrarily these days. However, a few actresses I really dig currently that have had their fair share of blood thrown on them are Katheryn Winnick, Lindy Booth, Katherine Isabelle (yeah, so I like my Canadian gals, what of it), Mary Elizabeth Winstead and good ol' Erin Brown aka Misty Mundae.

Boy Meets Girl...

Here, at long last, no thanks to this year's baffling release format - or lack thereof - is my latest 24-Hour Film Race short, J Plus K. Remember, the theme was "Happily Ever After" and the required object was "Chocolate". Enjoy!



Thanks to Darrin for putting it online, as I know he has a full slate right now. As far as I can tell, it is fairly untouched from the original version that screened at The Bloor. If you'd like to check out my previous two 24-Hour Film Race shorts, click here and here.

Don't Kill The Messenger 71

Hello all. Sorry if my posts become a little infrequent over the next month. I've recently started a new project that's sort of hijacked about ninety-percent of my gray matter. I'll still be covering Toronto After Dark and I have another archives feature coming up, but other stuff may have to wait for a bit.

Okay, I'm in.

A little bit ago, a red band trailer appeared on the web for Let Me In. Things are still looking good.


With Teeth.

Piranha 3D finally hits theatres on August 20th and I, for one can't wait. It looks like tons of fun and also seems that director Alex Aja has not held back in the gore (or skin, for that matter) department. Although, I guess we shouldn't have ever thought that he would. Here's the latest poster for the UK market.

There is apparently also some blood-drenched footage floating around the web now, but I think I can just wait another few weeks to see it in all its big screen glory.

My Latest Haul.

I went to the Toronto Underground to check out the DuoVision masterpiece Wicked Wicked last night, and Vagrancy was there selling some vintage goodies. DirtyRobot picked up the Peeping Tom Laserdisc and I grabbed this.

Ah-mazing...

It's a Mad Houssse!!!

I checked out the 1977 Japanese movie House recently, as it just finished a week-long run at the Bloor.


Accompanied by six of her friends, spunky teen Gorgeous (Kimiko Ikegami) decides to visit her aunt, who she hasn't seen since she was a child, at her country home. It is not long before they realize the house is haunted and an evil spirit is picking them off one by one.

House is one of those movies that's truly indescribable. I mean you can watch the bits on YouTube, but you won't be full witness to the insanity of this movie until you've experienced it whole. I cannot imagine the amount of drugs that must have been consumed while making this movie. I know I sure felt like I was on something while in the theatre.


All I really remember are images. Huge lips, bananas, floating heads, watermelons, ravenous pianos, killer pillows and, of course, the cat. Actually, that's not true, I can recall a great deal of it. I think it's likely because my mind was working to figure out just what the hell was going on most of the time. But in a good way. I also think House should win some sort of award for best character names. Along with Gorgeous, there's Fantasy, Sweet and Mac who likes to eat and Melody, who plays the piano, don't ya know. Then there's Prof, she's the one with the glasses and lastly, Kung Fu. She... well, I'm sure you can guess.

While doing some research, I read that the idea for House came from the director's seven-year-old daughter, which throws a whole new light on everything. Anyone who reads the web comic Axe Cop knows that a child's imagination run wild is a truly delightful thing.


If House sounds like your kind of trip, I have good news for you. Criterion is releasing it on DVD and Blu-ray on October 26th. I might suggest Criterion put a warning label on the disc though, something to the effect of “sparking up before viewing this movie, may cause permanent dementia.”

This Year's Crop.

Toronto After Dark announced its 2010 lineup this afternoon and it's not too shab. Here they are below, click on the image to see the trailer.

Even though there's a fair share in there that I've seen already, there's also a good number that I'm really excited to see. Fingers crossed that Neil & Axelle show up to the Centurion screening, as I know they were at Fantasia just last week.

Toronto After Dark runs from Aug 13-20. For more info on the films above, go here. For ticket info, go here.

Tasting The Local Flavour

Last Thursday, I took a trip out to the Underground Cinema to see Night of the Living Dead: Reanimated, but came by early as they were screening a locally produced indie called Zombie Dearest beforehand. I figured, why not support the home crowd, right?


Failed comedy writer Gus (David Kemker) tries to win back his ex-girlfriend Deborah (Shauna Black) by fixing up her old farmhouse. While excavating the septic line, he inadvertently digs up a zombie. In a flash of genius, Gus gets the zombie to do his work for him, but quickly realizes that keeping it a secret will be an even tougher job.

Now, I know this may not be fair, but when I hear tiny, locally-produced-for-nothing zombie movie, my first reaction is lower my standards. There I was watching this, expecting to cringe my way throughout, but you know what; those moments never came. To my surprise, it wasn't terrible. It's actually pretty funny comedy. Well, more specifically a romantic comedy with a zombie in it, but trust me, that's not as bad as it sounds.

The cinematography is excellent in Zombie Dearest and grabs you almost immediately. When a low budget film is shot well, that's the first thing you notice and it can instantly lift your opinion. Having a talented eye in your corner is invaluable. I can remember having the same thing happen in the opening moments of Street Trash. It also helps that it's a comedy that is, you know, actually good for a few laughs. Although it sometimes veers off into weird places, like this bizarre S&M montage that comes out of nowhere, it kept me interested throughout. The acting is, for the most part solid and David Sparrow, who you'll recognize instantly if you've spent anytime watching Canadian television, is great as the zombie workman, Quinto.


I wish more people turned out for the screening. There were about twenty people in the audience and over half of them worked on the film. I suspect they didn't really have any money to sink into advertising. The director David Kemker conducted a Q&A anyway where I was shocked to learn that they shot this on an impressive fourteen-day schedule.

Considering I took a gamble here, I was pleasantly surprised. I certainly got more enjoyment out of this picture, than I did from the one I actually showed up to see, but more on that later. Zombie Dearest is a quirky story that is competently made, which is more than I can say for a lot of micro-budget stuff out there. I'm not sure how big the audience is for a movie like this. The majority of zombie fans will likely find this on the tame side, and comedy fans generally prefer their movies sans flesh eaters, but you never know. If it were to pop up on VOD in the future, you may want to take a bite.