Bill Zebub returned to WFMU. You can hear his first show of the new season here https://wfmu.org/playlists/shows/129904 – in that playlist there is a pop-up player. You can consult the playlist when you are curious about the song.
The debut show was a bit more of a mix than is usual for Bill Zebub’s “Vortex of Chaos” and it shall evolve over time. When Bill Zebub’s show was in an overnight slot, he favored the ultra slow and melancholy doom, as did the listeners, but the new time slot is Thursdays from noon-3 pm (New York time zone). Adjust your time zone and your underwear appropriately.
To catch the stream live, simply go to https://wfmu.org/sheena Thursdays noon-3 pm NY time. You can participate in the chat. You can also comment on the playlist if you stream after-the-fact. Indulge your curiosity and discover music you haven’t heard before. Of course, there will be some known artists, like King Diamond, but there will be much that almost never gets radio play. This radio station is not forced to play the hits. It is an exploration. Come in with an open mind. Also, each show may vary. It’s not like a box of chocolates because you always know what is in the box of chocolates. In fact, most boxes of chocolates provide diagrams that reveal what is inside each one. The only way this metaphor works is if you have a blindfold and have no idea what is going to be placed into your mouth. It might not even be chocolate, depending on the ethics of the experimenter. Now THAT is thinking outside of the box of chocolates.
Fans have begged for a way to see the long out-of-circulation movie “Rape is a Circle.” Now is your chance to own a re-edit.
Visit https://www.kickstarter.com/projects/billzebub/catherines-pain and take a look at the delicious selections. If you are one of the people who only stream, you can still support the re-edit by pre-ordering the digital version. Of course, you can get the autographed DVD for less than ten billion dollars, which is quite a savings.
I must preface this review by revealing that I did not pay for this. A friend lent me the show without telling me a single thing about it. I did not pay for it because THE GAME OF THRONES insulted fans in the later seasons. I could not believe that anyone would give any related show a chance. I certainly didn’t, until I saw it for free, and I feel stupid for wasting my time despite knowing that it was pointless to invest any attention to any material from this franchise of betrayal.
The Game of Thrones was entertaining for the first four seasons, but the shows started feeling like television-writing, with heavy use of exposition. One example is when the fat-ass brought the woman who cuckolded him to his father’s home. During dinner, the fat-ass and father talked about a sword on the wall. I knew that the sword would be stolen or otherwise appear in the next scene or two, and sadly, I was right. “Exposition” is when characters say things to each other that is meant for the viewer, not each other. Well, that’s one definition, but the show degraded so far that ALL forms of exposition were frequently used.
There were many stupid behaviors that are also silly television-writing, like in the final battle when defenders left the protection of the castle walls and engaged the enemy. I can go on, but the point is that the battle was ridiculous.
HOUSE OF THE DRAGON is much worse.
There is no nudity, even when characters enter a brother or some sort of medieval sex club. This tells me that the show was made for a particular audience rather than to tell a good story. It’s filtered for imbeciles.
Another whammy is that a group of people who are similar to albinos are played by Africans. I almost spit out my beer. Black people are playing albinos. Did the producers think that we would be fooled by the white-hair wigs? Seeing this makes it impossible to take the show seriously.
The race-swapping of characters is another indication that this is not a good story. The show exists to entertain a certain type of viewer, and I am not the target audience. When I watch loosely-based medieval fiction, I don’t want to see such a ridiculous straying from reality. Yes, it’s a fantasy tale, but it is a fantasy based on certain rules. I love the FRIDAY movies, but I don’t love race-swapping.
As I ranted about this in an online chat. I joked that casting directors in modern movies are actually human-resources managers who are adamant about afformative-action, and a member said something about Hollywood requiring something similar to human-resources. I think it has more to do with shows and movies requiring certain diversity and strong female roles, blah blah, or else the work will be ineligible for awards, but I don’t know if this is true. Whatever the explanation is, I am fearful of watching anything new because I don’t believe that modern shows or movies are focused on stories. It’s all propaganda and gimmicks.
Getting back to HOUSE OF GARBAGE, there is a wimpy man who is portrayed as a warrior. In typical television-writing, he can fight fifty men and barely get a scratch. Oh wait, he gets shot through the leg with an arrow, but he can still run toward his enemy after fighting ten million warriors who fight him only one at a time. Shouldn’t such silliness be left for afternoon television shows meant for teens?
That wimpy male is also pure evil, which is not something I want to see. It’s childish. Then again, the target audience of this show is not people who read or have social intelligence.
I could not finish the show. I wanted to quit after the first half hour, but I felt like I had lost so much money at a casino that I should play a little more with some hope of diminishing my loss, but each minute was like losing another hundred dollars. I ultimately had to stop. Even if George Martin personally appeared on screen and said, “Just kidding. Thanks for enduring this hell. For your trust, you get a hundred dollars, and now you can watch the REAL show. I hope you enjoy this prank.” I would not have continued.
I am deeply saddened that there will be a second season. I had seriously believed that the backlash to this show would be so venomous that the show would be canceled. I did not watch RINGS OF POWER or WHEEL OF TIME because I knew they would be garbage. Viewers rejected the bastardized shows, which sent a message to the creators. I held hope that more such backlash would force studios to respect the stories or to just abandon the projects if they couldn’t refrain from inserting propaganda and other nonsense. Humans have let me down.
When I was a teen, I started reading the fantasy books by Raymond E. Feist. There is a television deal for an adaptation, but I am not excited. I will not watch a single second unless I am assured that the show was made in the spirit of the books. I hold no hope.
Bill Zebub is offering three movies on a BD-R, with each disc hand-numbered and signed. It’s $35 in the USA, and all others add $20 for shipping. Email bill@billzebub.com to receive ordering instructions.
The movies are METALHEADS (from 2001), DOLLA MORTE, and FRANKENSTEIN THE RAPIST. These are early movies, so you should only get this disc if you are a big fan. The reason why these older titles are being offered on a disc is that fans have begged Bill Zebub to re-release these, but it is highly unlikely that these will ever appear on any factory-replicated disc again, being that they are only of value to the devoted fans who want to devour every piece of cinema in Bill Zebub’s history. The reason why there is no packaging is that there are fans who own the movies, some in mint condition, who should be able to sell theirs for $200 or more. Yes, when Bill Zebub’s movies go out of print, they drastically increase in value. Some have sold for $700 or more. No, these will not be available on any streaming platform.
Also, be warned that FRANKENSTEIN THE RAPIST is not actually a movie. Bill Zebub filmed test-footage to see what works and what doesn’t. It turned out that there was over an hour of finished scenes, so they were pieced together and were made available in a limited run of 1,000, with an honest synopsis that made it clear that this was not meant to be released. It DOES contain nudity because Bill Zebub really did want to see what worked, and his ideas of a Frankenstein movie had nude scenes. Some of that footage later was used in other movies because Sativa Verte and Nikki Sebastion were too amazing to be relegated to lost footage. You get to see more of those shots here.
Also, the 2001 version of METALHEADS was a practice movie that Bill Zebub shot so that when he was going to pitch his first-ever script to producers, they could see a demo movie so they could see some of the visual ideas. Bill Zebub paid the actresses even though this was just to be used as a visual example because he took the project seriously. Spending no money is equivalent to saying that you don’t respect what you are doing, and you don’t respect actresses. Speaking of actresses, Suzi Lorraine and Darian Caine participated in this. Again, Email bill@billzebub.com to order your copy.
I expected to hate this movie for a number of reasons, chiefly because I have seen bad movies that centered around underground metal, seemingly to cash in on a built-in audience. Such movies had boring content, except for an occasional breast on the screen. The stories were hollow and poorly written, like the lyrics of some of the bands.
Death metal is not simply one style. If this movie used death metal as a strong ingredient, my hesitation to watch was because the creators might have been outsiders, or they might have been trendfags.
Some bad lyrics are actually what make the songs much funnier, as in the case of BATHTUB SHITTER. The band is Japanese, with a grasp of the English language that is entertaining, especially with songs like “Shit and Re-shit” which were written as a novelty. I love that band.
Some death metal bands have bad lyrics because the members are uneducated. Grammar is embarrassingly flawed. It makes me think that the writers hate reading. Bands with such members play mediocre death metal and appeal to the same kind of stupidity level as people who love Pantera.
Contrast this with bands like IMMOLATION that chose a literary path. Their early anti-christian lyrics were not vulgar and crude. They often criticized christianity with its own teachings rather than ejaculating on the face of jesus.
There are bands who write so well that their lyrics are veritable poems. I know that I have strayed from the review a bit, but if “death metal” is in the title of the movie, I want to supply some background as well as my worry that I was going to waste my time, unless there were breasts in the movie.
In the beginning, I was worried that I was in for cheese and mediocrity. Some of the characters were outside of metal, like people who had those gay plugs in their earlobes, which is pure gayness and totally alien to real metal. Another negative point is the women who had short hair and looked like they belonged in the hardcore or goth scene rather than death metal.
This gripe is personal taste. Unfortunately, hardcore, punk, and other gay trendy scenes have infiltrated metal, and I suppose that the movie represented the scene as it is today. In the past, promoters booked hardcore bands with metal bands because they thought that they could double the audience, even if it meant that there would be violence. These scenes usually did not mix well. Perhaps it’s like borderlands between two populations that hate each other. The border people sometimes mix, and that is better than fighting each other.
Now onto the positive. The movie completely surprised me. After the initial revulsion, I found myself enjoying the experience.
This was shot well. It wasn’t a lazy effort.
If you loved NAPOLEON DYNAMITE, you might detect that same essence in some of the dialogue scenes, which in my opinion is a compliment.
As for the story, it centers around an overzealous priest who gains some extraordinary abilities after coming into contact with pollutants, which would be cheesy if the movie were serious, but this sort of transformation is more of a nod to movies like THE TOXIC AVENGER as well as the lyrical content of some songs. By the time this occurs in the movie, you will have already decided that you accept all of the stylistic decisions that were made in the writing. Prior to that, there really wasn’t anything absurd.
The mentally ill priest has a specific reason for hating death metal, which you will have to see for yourself. After his transformation into the kind of villain you see in slasher movies, his hatred leads to violence. This is the horror aspect of the movie, and I will refrain from mentioning anything else of that aspect because you simply must enjoy discovering this yourself.
On the metal side of things, there is a rich world of characters in a particular metal scene. The relationships and situations were well-developed. There is a style and flavor that was well-crafted.
If you are acquainted with death metal, then you will enjoy some extra insight and you will laugh more than an average viewer, but this movie is not an inside joke. Anyone outside of metal can enjoy this.
I feel ashamed that I had pre-judged this, but that made me love the movie even more after it redeemed itself, and the redemption was fast, as in, less than ten minutes.
DEATH TO METAL is highly recommended for many reasons. It’s creative. The scenes sometimes masterfully mislead you toward the wrong predictions and then delight you with unexpected developments. It’s hard for me to refrain from giving you examples, but trust me, it’s for your benefit. The things I want to describe should be experienced by you when you see the movie for the first time.
This was very well done, and I wish great success to this remarkable film.
I have the Bluray, but the movie is available for streaming if you don’t mind contributing to the death of physical media.
I heard that the movie begins with a kid being killed after his mom gets raped for five minutes. This set my expectations high.
What really happened was that a chainsaw came close to what was very obviously a plastic or rubber doll. I wasn’t sure if this was cheesy on purpose or if the people who made the movie really thought that this was shocking. There was no gore in that shot, just blood. Grisly images were not depicted.
The rape was also shot as something that was implied. There was no nudity.
In the first ten minutes of most movies, you see enough to decide whether you accept the deal or if you stop watching. If you continue, it’s after you accept the rules that the moviemaker set. In this movie, it seemed that the rules were that there was going to be no nudity, and if there was going to be any gore, it would be cheesy.
Adding to the difficulty of accepting the boundaries of the movie, what at first seemed like bad color correction turned out to be a visual choice. I found it distracting. Instead of establishing a mood, it made me wonder if the quality of the footage was bad, and the bad color was a way to distract the viewer.
The characters speak Norwegian, which is interesting to hear. There are some sites that show the country and the architecture.
The main characters are in scenes that seem mundane, but some horror movies do the same. It might be that you are supposed to become familiar with the victims before they get abused so that you react more strongly, but I have often complained about this because we humans are a social species. We do not need to know a person in order to feel pity.
When I saw the bonus material, I wondered if I had seen the same movie that people were gushing over.
People were talking about how affected they were by the brutality. Did none of these people ever see a horror movie before?
The rape scene in the movie “Irreversible” is hard to watch. The rape scenes in “Christmas Cruelty” are like Disney in comparison, feeling like the filmmakers were afraid to depict such things. The scenes should have been left out because they were disappointing. Their omission would definitely improve the movie because the comical gore is like something in a Troma flick, but the bad rape scenes just seem like a cop-out.
The behind-the-scenes make the creators look like cool people, except that they seem delusional about what they made. I don’t know if their region of Norway is so secluded that “Christmas Cruelty” is considered over-the-top, but I don’t consider any of the content to be extreme. It works as a comedy-horror, to some extent, but I can’t enjoy a movie that seems to be afraid of its ideas. It’s like me making a movie about rabbits, but due to my irrational fear of those creatures, no actual rabbits are filmed.
You might be excited about the 400_ page picture book, which will be 8.5 x 11 with each page bearing one huge fullcolor photo. Every household needs one of these.
DICKSHARK, THE ULTIMATE EDITION will contian at least 2 hours of behind-the-scenes footage, plus the longest possible cut, which might be 7 hours log (but at least 5)
