11/30/12

The Best of Amicus: Part 10 of 10


A long time ago I laid out this ten-part series with chapters from ten different Amicus anthology films, culminating with 1973's From Beyond the Grave. Unfortunately the movie was removed from youtube months ago and hasn't yet returned. If you're interested, it was to be the chapter titled An Act of Kindness, starring Don Pleasance, Pete Cushing and Diana Dors (who hasn't aged well, and seems to take it out on her husband):





So rent it legitimately, via DVD or Amazon streaming or holodeck or whatever gizmo people are using these days, although it's one of Amicus' less essential films overall.

And instead of the planned Futurechimp Featurette, here's a second story from The House that Dripped Blood starring the great Chris Lee. Start at 6:45.




part 2
part 3
part 4

11/25/12

Movie of the Week: Blood for Dracula (1974)



This film carries an X rating, and appears to be unedited. So if you're at work, proceed with caution.




11/10/12

The Men Who Make the Music




Look, here's an edited version of Devo's straight-to-video promo film, made way back in 1979. Warner Brothers didn't like the anti-corporate narrative the band included in the interstitial segments, so they shelved it. The label changed their minds when Devo became hugely famous in 1981 and released it unedited. It hasn't been re-released since then in any format (I, however, rented the VHS from a local place in 1985 when I was 15 and made my own bootleg, which I still have today).

For copyright reasons, this youtube upload removes videos for the songs owned by Warner Brothers (studio recordings included on either of Devo's first two records), but you can easily find those elsewhere, separately on youtube or compiled on later home video releases. But here you get the material unseen in over 30 years, including their bizarre "Secret Agent Man" video from 1976, lots of songs from their 1979 tour (including their best live recording of "Smart Patrol"), and assorted oddball content they shot exclusively for the home video format.

(the first couple and last couple minutes of this video have been muted by the uploader to remove a copyrighted soundtrack)