This album reminds me of the first time I head Manowar, which was the “Into Glory Ride.” That is not to say that SCALD is in any way similar in style. It’s the feeling of discovering something amazing and being unable to shed the music from my consciousness.
Every song on “Epic Doom Metal” is solid, and much of it is so memorable that ear worms will haunt you for a long time.
The title is a bit of a misnomer because the musical style isn’t doom, although there is a bit of ’70s flavor and the spirit of the greats from that era.
I am unsure if the vocalist is a permanent member or a sessions player, but his voice is a major reason why these songs are extremely enjoyable. It’s hard for me to compare him to anyone else. Suffice it to say that the vocals are clean, with a notable passion that delivers the lyrics in a heartfelt performance.
Manowar unified many factions of metal, and this album will do the same, whether you favor Power Metal, Death Metal, Doom, or the myriad other styles. There is no way that you will fail to respect this music. I foresee that this album will become legendary.
Most movies about serial killers are so watered down that they could be played on a woman’s romance channel. All of them ignore the fact that serial killers are sexual predators. That behavior is completely omitted from the movies.
Some movies show a little bit of gore, but not enough to paint the picture, even when the killer is the type who wants to horrify those who discover the bodies.
Why do movie-makers leave these things out? If you read books about the killers, every detail is vividly described. Why are you forbidden from seeing such things in movie?
Perhaps it is a remnant of Hollywood self-censoring so that religious imbeciles are appeased. Perhaps it is a remnant of the Victorian Age when man was exalted to ridiculously unrealistic levels. No one can live up to an ideal, so bizarre expectations lead to misery.
There is unfounded worry that seeing rape will turn you into a rapist, or that if you watch porn then you will be less likely to vote guilty in a rape trial. Beyond that, it is considered low-grade to show things as they really are. Again, details of the behavior of serial killers is described in books. Why not in movies?
Most movies about serial killers are basically just soap operas. The dialogue is completely fiction, as is the behavior, so much so that the character names in movies should be changed. It’s deceptive to name a movie after a serial killer when almost nothing in the story is true.
The day may never come when a movie satisfies the type of person who enjoys reading true-crime books and studies in criminology. many Americans are sexually repressed, sexually ignorant, and squeamish. The ones who aren’t don’t comprise a large enough audience for a movie to rise above the low standards.
Evilenko is not an exception to anything I have stated, but it has Malcolm McDowell.
In one of the many bonus items of the new 4K transfer on Unearthed Films, Malcolm stated that he did not want to depict someone who is real. He wanted to use his skills to make a character.
If you are familiar with Malcolm, then you will agree that he gave an impressive performance. He truly became someone else.
It was interesting to see the bland life in a communist country, but it was ruined by the British accents. This isn’t England. It made me recall how much I despised a cable show about Catherine. Everyone spoke in English accents, and some Russians were played by Africans. My point is that, if a there is some effort to bring authenticity, like wood carvings that are common in Slavic countries, why ruin that with a completely different ethnicity, whether it’s Celtic of African? That is understandable in a high school play, but not in a period piece.
Another annoyance was modern slang. Russians do not have the same stupid sayings as Americans. This kept shattering the illusion that I was watching something take place in Russia, even with the backdrop.
The dialogue was lazy in many places. I never want to be smarter than the movie. I can’t count the number of times I finished sentences in my head that the characters spoke word-for-word. Some situations were also as easily predictable.
It seems that this is a bad review, but despite the flaws of the movie, I enjoyed Malcolm’s performance, and some of the bland aspects of life in a communist setting were effective. If you converse with someone from another country, you might discover drastic differences in life. Someone from a small village in Ukraine might be shocked that half an aisle in a supermarket is composed of many different brands of coffee, for example. You might have an entire room in your house specifically for your trove of DVDs and posters covering most wall space, whereas someone in another country might only have the bare essentials.
Watch the movie for Malcolm, but if you want to discover the deeds of the serial killer, he described his rapes, tortures, and killings in court. If you read those transcripts, you will discover everything that this movie left out.
Bill Zebub will offer a limited amount of movie packs for BLACK FRIDAY. You can actually get them before that day. Email bill@billzebub.com and you can begin life anew.
The 30-packs will go for $260 and the 10-packs will go for $100. Each is a random mixture of Blurays and DVDs.
Get it for yourself, or get it with the intention of giving the coolest gifts possible to a shitload of people. Each movie will be autographed.
For a limited time, you can get the BD-R of behind-the-scenes footage in addition to an uncensored movie cover, or you can opt for the Bluray that will be autographed (for the same price as it will be in retail shops without an autograph). Other goodies await, like the popular Dickshark shirt that is sure to get you into lots of conversations with strangers.
Remember if you ignore your director, he will disappear.
I saw “Homework” during the era of VHS rentals. I was a pre-teen at the time, so I think the rental was through an older friend.
The movie was magical. As a pre-teen, I saw wondrous boobs. I fell in love with the blonde and was mesmerized.
As for Joan Collins, I didn’t know who she was. She had great tits, but her face reminded my of an ant. with a wide top of the head narrowing down to a tiny chin. Again, I was a pre-teen, so bear that in mind. I hadn’t seen boobs in real life, and I didn’t know that old women could have nice tits, so that was earth-shattering, ha ha. This was a movie that made me realize that an otherwise boring or bitchy woman could have immaculate breasts, so I should always keep that in mind in any encounter with such.
For some reason, this movie escaped my collection. I remember when I ravenously purchased movies that had only previously been seen on cable, theaters, or via rentals. I amassed a VHS library, later upgraded to DVD whenever possible, and then Bluray and 4K.
Homework is now available through Unearthed. For some reason, I only vaguely recalled that Joan Collins showed her boobs in this one, and I have seen many boobs since those times, in real life. I don’t mean to say that I am tired of boobs. A boob at any moment will freeze me in adoration no matter what. What I meant to say was that the boobs of Joan Collins are not more enticing than the boobs of someone who isn’t Joan Collins.
What I forgot was the blonde I wanted to marry. I don’t know if she was in any other movies. Perhaps I shall have to find out. Anyway, it was interesting seeing a girl who was at one time a woman in my eyes (because I was a pre-teen when I had a crush on her). She is now a girl in my eyes. I don’t mean an under-aged girl of course. She was an actress who played a younger character. It is almost like I am a ghost who can glance at any moment in the past, traveling time to experience lost moments with much greater awareness and knowledge in my current form.
One of the differences between modern movies and those of the eighties is, the characters who were teens could be naked in the past movies. I don’t mean that in a pedophile way.
It’s strange that even in a comedy, life is presented the way it is rather than the silly idealistic way that propagandists and human-resources styles ruin depictions of characters. I fully expect gangster movies to have mob bosses who reprimand underlings for using racial slurs. But yes, the drama in comedies of the past is vastly superior to many commercial films of this shallow era.
Show people how they are rather than how you expect people to behave in a corporate environment. It’s simple.
I was overjoyed to watch this and I marveled at the differences in my perception as an adult. It’s also interesting which parts I forgot and which parts I anticipated.
A newcomer will not, of course, be flooded with memories and having fallen in love with any of the characters, but this is a great time-capsule. Unlike the modern sex-comedies that have characters behaving unrealistically and striving to make a joke at every opportunity, this shows relatively average people going through their own experiences, sometimes funny, but never for the sake of a cheap laugh.
It’s worth seeing this difference in writing sensibilities.
There is an interview with the director, which reveals some bittersweet history of this movie. I don’t want to spoil anything, so I will just mention that this is a bonus chapter.
Again, I don’t know why I never pursued this movie when I was able to own it. Perhaps it was because I didn’t find Joan Collins attractive, except for her breasts. I had totally forgotten about the blonde who was was my imaginary wife. Perhaps it was too traumatic to admit that it was a love that could only exist in my head.
When I saw this movie, many years ago, I was angry. At that time, I had not seen any found-footage flicks, so I couldn’t understand why footage of naked women would be shown with bad lighting and low quality.
My opinion of this movie has changed. Throughout the years I occasionally thought about re-watching it, but I couldn’t find it in my collection. As luck would have it, it became available from Wild Eye Releasing.
The first thing that I must note is that there is a hot blonde featured in consensual shots. She might be a prostite, girlfriend, or model. Her role is not explained. Even though this is found-footage, her shots are often overlaid as if they are flashbacks, but it is more likely that this is just footage shot with the same character who is the victim in this movie. I didn’t analyze this because I was too busy wishing for better quality footage of her, or find a way to marry her. Her scenes alone are worth the price of the movie.
I must pause here to share my wish that some behind-the-scenes footage would have been available for the re-issue, but I think that there was no other camera used.
Now back to the movie. The woman who played the role of the under-aged girl is talented. Of course, when I saw the scenes of her molestation and rape, I knew that she was over 18 in real life, but her performance was incredibly convincing. She’s got a great body, which might be a strange thing to say about a character who gets raped, but it allows me to make a point. A girl might blossom into a woman’s body, but she still has the mind of a child. Some men do not understand this. But getting back to her being sexy, the rational part of me knew that this was an actress, and I wanted to marry her. But I felt bad for the character.
What I missed about this movie when I saw it many years ago was that this is not lazy or gimmicky movie-making. During that era, talent-less black metal bands were recording songs on a four-track recorder, or even a boom box, and referred to the garbage as “Necro” which made me laugh at the people who were duped. There were even bands signed to record labels who pocketed most of the recording budget and paid the bare minimum at the worst recording studios. Knowing this, I had assumed that this was the same situation with “Amateur Porn Killer.” But my opinion has changed.
The villain of the movie takes advantage of a girl’s trust and brings her into a motel room. The found-footage style is perfect for capturing the way the situation changes. The dialogue may seem meandering, but I will bet money that key points were memorized before filming. If this were a narrative style, then the dialogue would be edited for pace, but in the raw style of this movie, you see a predator prepare his victim.
I don’t know if the creator knew about the subject beforehand or if he guessed how such a predator would behave, but equally skillful was the way the victim behaved. The movie is much more than what it appears to be at first glance.
In real life, there were two men who made a rape den. They recorded their crimes so they could enjoy the footage later. The documentary that featured this story showed some of the footage of the rapists, which was shot in a similar quality.
It seems that many horror fans are squeamish about this subject matter, which makes me laugh. They can watch people being murdered or tortured, but they are unable to watch rape scenes. Maybe the difference is that you are not supposed to glorify rape scenes. But horror fans brag to each other about kill scenes.
I feel regret for having dismissed this movie when I first saw it, but I am happy that I have re-discovered it. I was able to see how ignorant I was long ago. Or would it be better to say that I have seen a much wider diversity of movie since then?
