Screen Capture of the Day - Marianne!

Marianne Faithfull in Jean-Luc Godard's Made in U.S.A. (1966)

What's good for getting brains out of the drapes?

MCoQ may cause homicidal feelings in children—not so bad, as there are many parents in need of sushification. Still, consult, your doctor before administering.

Last night's show plain sucked, but if you like to be tortured, I can't stop you. Young George above will guide you to the playlist and audio archive page. With the stars Hesperia, Cobalt and Défaillance.

Screen Capture & Short Film of the Day - The Fearless Vampire Killers, Title Sequence (1967)

Despite Polanski's always-remarkable craft, and a few good jokes centering on a Jewish villager-turned-vampire, there's just way too much bumbling in this one for my taste. The Fearless Vampire Killers suffers from being over-long, and is plagued with scene after scene of tepid slapstick. Sharon Tate delivers the most captivating performance of the company, but her screen time is frustratingly minimal.

I do love this title sequence though, music by Krzysztof Komeda:

Screen Captures of the Day - Shuttle

I didn't really enjoy Shuttle while I was watching it—I felt generally restless (which can either mean the film is effective, or tedious), and I was also exasperated at the characters' inability to save themselves from the obvious hard time that was coming.

Still, Shuttle left a mark. Something about its insistent, un-glorified, almost banal cruelty made it linger. I can't recommend it for everyone, I can't even really recommend it, but it's stuck with me like a stomachache.

From: Laura "you don't scare me"

Last night's My Castle of Quiet was our most successful working to date. Jed brought the Tannis root, Glenn brought his knob-twiddling might, and Telecult Powers filled the room and the airwaves with their enveloping, preternatural sonic magnificence. Wow.

Link above; the psychedelic brain surgeons will take you to the playlist/archive page. Listen while seated in a cool, dark place. Do not attempt to operate heavy machinery until you know how your system reacts to MCoQ.

Telecult Powers Live on the Castle

On tomorrow night's My Castle of Quiet broadcast, Brooklyn's Telecult Powers bring their unique brand of haunting, buzzing, occult electronics live to the air. Spirits will be invoked, and personal realities tested. Expect two sets of warble and roar, from the abyss to the aether, starting at about 9 p.m. Doors at 8.

You can check out some live Telecult Powers videos at the Temple of Pei site, or sample some audio from WFMU's archives.

The Wild World of NSBM

Most black metal fans I've encountered breeze right past the issue of politics when it comes to NSBM, and with maybe a shrug of "you know me, I'm not a race hater," get right down to the business of digging the music. As someone of 100% Semitic blood, I do feel somewhat obliged to not breeze past the politics issue, but the truth is, that as a Jew, I feel uniquely privileged to investigate fascist and neo-fascist culture as much as I fucking well please.

Are these bands spreading a message of racial separatism, among other things? Absolutely. Are a bunch of xenophobic, twenty-something European metalheads, making demos on the cheap, really that much of a threat? Probably not (though the very spread of these sentiments is always corrosive.) Is the music—some of it anyway—curiously absorbing? Well hell, yes, or I wouldn't even be typing.

The best thing an inquisitive metalhead can do in this situation is to not give your money to these artists. If you want to sample some choice, down 'n' dirty National Socialist Black Metal, there's a very comprehensive blog called Wotan mit Uns that has newer stuff as well as "classics" up for download. There's a year's worth of daily posts to sort through there.

The appeal of a lot of this stuff is that sonically it takes black metal down yet another, wretched, twisted alley, somewhere between lo-fi art damage and punk, conceived in a garage full of guitars, amps, drums and sadly, swastika flags. If these bands took a stance instead for art deco, or against deforestation—and sonically stayed the same—we'd all have no problem with it; the music would just be another weird-ass subgenre, which is really what it is.

Try this on for size >>> Chattenkrieg, by Flammentod

GRAPES?

Last night's My Castle of Quiet horrorcast was a beautiful mess. I accidentally stepped outside the magic circle, and all the plates crashed at once to the floor.

Brigitte above will guide you by torchlight to the playlist page, where the audio transcript of our work has been preserved. With the stars The Alice Cooper Group, Antonius Rex and Velvet Cacoon.

Next week: Telecult Powers live!

Film of the Day - In the Folds of the Flesh, Title Sequence (1970)

I watch all the 60s/70s European thrillers I can get my hands on, just in case the next one turns out to be another A Bell From Hell. Not so with In the Folds of the Flesh; this is one Italo-Spanish co-production piece of Euro-crud. Watch only if desperate to see natural boobs and be confronted by a new, confounding plot twist every 20 minutes.

The title sequence, however, complete with a "Freud" quote and a liquid-swirl backdrop, might just get you through the day.

Harry

Click here for some musical accompaniment by Jed Hershon.

Screen & Audio Captures of the Day - La Residencia

I actually bought an $8.99 Elvira-themed double DVD (rel. 2007) so that I could watch La Residencia (1969, aka The House That Screamed [crappy Int'l title., -ed.]), a film that has been on my must-see list for many years. Fortunately, a "Play Movie Only" option is offered on the DVD, so one can see the movie minus the Mistress' drop-ins of groaner, fake-bosom shtick.

I knew this would be a cut above the Euro-sleaze I often watch, as seven years after La Residencia, director Narciso Ibáñez Serrador also made the artfully rendered creepy-kids drama Who Can Kill a Child?, so it wasn't too surprising when La Residencia turned out to be a smart, viciously odd, well-made hunk of lurid cinema.

At a 19th-century "finishing" school for wayward girls, set in the French countryside, it quickly becomes apparent that any appearance of propriety is deceptive: the headmistress is a tyrannical sadist; the headmistress' teenage son is a peeping tom; and the girls themselves are drawing lots to see who gets a weekly visit in the barn with the local woodsman.

Despite such a lack of innocence, there's a definite "proper-film" Hammer vibe to La Residencia (with a good rinse through scandalous, Suspiria-like vibes.) There's an icky "shock" ending, too—ultimately not so shocking perhaps—but with La Residencia, it's getting there that amounts to more than half the fun.

>>>Download choice audio: La Residencia - The Killing of Theresa

We Laugh at that name and love it.

My Castle of Quiet horrorcast No. 3 is alive in the better, virtual world, and available for streaming. Click on the face splatter above to enter the playlist page. You may even get a few hard yuks from the comments board.

With the stars Extinction, Ødelegger, Cromagnon and Al Qaeda.

Sanjulian

As a follow up to yesterday's post on Warren Publishing/Creepy covers, I'd be delinquent not to mention that four of the six covers embedded in my post were created by the great Spanish painter/illustrator Sanjulian, aka Manuel Pérez Clemente.

When I was in my teens, I painted a few creepy canvases, giving them all away to friends. The most memorable of these was a painting of Cerberus guarding the gate at Hades, painted for my dear, sweet, sad, alcoholic friend Mike C. I didn't know it at the time, but I have to say now that those paintings were an unconscious attempt not only to express my own grim aesthetic fascinations, but also to emulate Sanjulian's work.

Clicking on Sanjulian's name above will take you to his online gallery, where some of the artist's work is for sale, and my birthday, the most important of all Satanic holidays, IS approaching.

Warren Magazine Covers

For an eyeball-bustin' good time, visit Cover Browser. Pages and pages and pages of cover scans from comics, horror/fantasy magazines, manga, graphic novels etc.—no erudite text to clog up your senses.

I'm especially fond of their Creepy magazine cover archives. Some of my favorite Marvel Comics artists, like Gene Colan, Frank Frazetta and Frank Brunner also worked for Warren Publishing, whose titles, like Famous Monsters of Filmland, Creepy, Eerie and Vampirella, pretty much shaped my consciousness through my pre-teen years, before the first Damned and Ramones albums took over. For higher-quality scans of the Warren books, albeit with a slightly clunkier, more Web-designery interface, also see Pixeltube's Warren Magazine Collection.

The Sick Habits of a Young Nurse

Last night's My Castle of Quiet horrorcast is archived and available for streaming or pop-up playing. Click on Dad above to access the playlist page.

With the stars Atrax Morgue, Apoptose and Blue Sabbath Black Cheer.