Check out Congorock‘s new Autumn Mix straight up hype from Milan.

Make sure to check his blog to keep up with his productions and dates around the country.

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Relatively recent (?) mix from dj duo M.A.N.D.Y. destroying the walls of Fabric, London. (check out record and flyer designs, really great)

Mark your calendars for their NYC invasion, November 10th at Studio B!

Brought to you by the good people of CUT!

Here we go with part II of my list, In Need of a Cult: Top 50 Movies Deserving More Fans! If you need a refresher on what it’s all about then just keep scrolling down or follow this link.

40) Night of the Comet (1984)
A comet passing over earth leaves all who see it turned to dust, and those not in a bomb shelter zombies! It’s Valley Girl meets Return of the Living Dead. This movie used to be an HBO staple (along with The Wraith and The Legend of Billy Jean). Not particularly gory or scary movie, but it is quirky and endearing.

39) Final Destination (2000)
You can’t cheat death, EVER! This is the first of one of the few decent horror franchises of the past decade. Although it was marketed primarily to a teenage audience, this film isn’t the kind of fluff you’d expect from that. It has a clever premise, creative and awesomely executed kill scenes, and just the right amount of camp mixed with good directing. All three installments are adrenaline fixes (with Final Destination 2 featuring one of the sickest opening car crash sequences ever!) , but the first installment, with it’s teen alienation back drop still takes the cake for me.


38) Behind the Mask: The Rise of Leslie Vernon (2006)
Part faux documentary/part slasher movie, Behind the Mask pretends Freddy, Jason, and Michael Myers are all real killers. Leslie Vernon strives to join in their footsteps as the next great slasher. This movie is a deconstructionist slasher/comedy, and does a great comedic job of embracing the clichés and directorial devices all slasher movies employ. Terrific casting (Robert Englund, Zelda Rubenstein) and plenty of little Easter eggs for horror junkies to catch in the background. The last third of the movie breaks the documentary style and becomes a traditional slasher flick. The only major flaw, I felt, was the movie’s total lack of gore. Considering how over the top it is elsewhere, I expected some insane kill scenes, but they are very mundane and have almost no blood. Still, it’s a great film in the tradition of Scream.

37) High Tension AKA Haute Tension (2005)
This is another excellent French film. High Tension is a non-stop rush of energy that’s excellently directed and acted. Its grittiness reminds me a lot of the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre. The gore is extreme and very believably executed. The movie never drags and keeps an impressively high pace from the second it gets going.

36) Terror Firmer (1999)
Terror Firmer is one of Troma’s more recent in-house productions, directed by (and starring) Lloyd Kaufman. Whenever Lloyd is in the director’s seat, you know a movie will not disappoint! All the gore, sex, extreme violence, and recycled car crash scenes you expect from Troma are here. It’s the harrowing story of a film crew and their blind director’s attempt to “make some art”… with a serial killer loose on set! Rumor has it the film was made with only a 300k budget! Troma always knows how to stretch a dollar!

35) The Serpent & The Rainbow (1988)
It’s understandable that in catalog as large and with so many classics, some of his great movies will get forgotten over time, but this is Wes Craven’s excellent take on a zombie flick. Set in Haiti, the story focuses on an anthropologist’s hunt to find real zombies… of Voodoo! Craven restrains himself from peppering this movie with all the camp that he is known for, and just delivers a very creepy, serious tale of horror.

34) Prince of Darkness (1987)
It’s one of my favorites from John Carpenter! Unlike The Thing (No. 48), Prince of Darkness hasn’t been gaining appreciation–it’s falling further into oblivion as just another movie in this prolific director’s catalog. The end-of-days theme in horror isn’t new, but I always loved the way Carpenter presented it here. A team of scientists and theologists are sent to investigate the contents of a mysterious cylinder found in an abandoned church that belonged to a sacred cult. Upon arriving, they are greeted with strange dreams of impending doom, homeless zombies gathering at the church’s fences, and supernatural equations from the church’s previous occupants. Like Event Horizon (No. 41), Prince of Darkness amplifies its creepiness through the use of great sets, and doles out the camp in the way only John Carpenter can.

33) Return of the Living Dead II (1988)
The original Return of the Living Dead goes down in the annuls as one of the greatest zombie flicks ever made. Its gore, effects, and comedy are second to none, and it has punk rockers and a great soundtrack to boot! But what about its sequel? Like The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 (no. 44), this film gets so eclipsed by the first installment that sometimes one forgets it even existed. Return of the Living Dead II, however, doesn’t stray far from the excellent formula set up in the first movie. Just more quality zombies, gore, and comedy!

32) Phantasm II (1988)
“BOOOOOOY!!!” Phantasm is one of my favorite horror franchises, the Tall Man is among my favorite horror monsters, and the balls… what can you not love about the balls!? The basic premise of this movie concerns outerworldly morticians harvesting dead bodies to become midget servants in their own dimension. While many people have heard of Phantasm, not many of them have actually ever seen it. Of those who have, not many have seen any of the sequels beyond the classic first installment from the 70’s. This sequel was made over a decade after the original and picks up right where the first part left off. Darker in tone and stronger in story (and definitely benefiting from the 10+ years of special effects advancements), this sequel is even better than the original. Unfortunately, due to legal battles over who owns the rights, Phantasm II has never made it onto DVD. This, of course, only further hinders this unique movie–and its entire franchise–from the acclaim it deserves. Perhaps, with rumors of Phantasm V being in pre-production, the Tall Man and his balls will finally get the attention they deserve!

31) Cemetery Man (1996)
Rupert Everett stars as an impotent caretaker of a cemetery where the dead rise each evening. Every night, he must quickly put them back in their place. Cemetery Man is more than just a zombie movie. While it takes style and delivery cues from Evil Dead and Dead-Alive (no. 50), Cemetery Man is more an avant-garde, absurdist fable. The film is often as funny as it is existential.

Stay tuned tomorrow for Part III

This Halloween, I decided to make a list of horror movies (or what I have loosely classified as such) that deserve larger fan bases than they currently have. Please don’t confuse this list as “The Best Horror Movies Ever Made” or even “50 of the Greatest Cult Classics” … it is not. These movies (well, most of them) haven’t even amassed the minutest of cult followings yet, which is why I wanted to make this list. All of the above are great movies, especially if you’re a fan of anything that’s labeled horror, shock cinema, cult, or a B-movie. Over the next 5 days, I will be counting down my “50 Movies in Search of a Cult Following.” If it inspires just one person to rent one of these movies–and if that person enjoys it and then spreads the word–I will be more than content. But more importantly, I like doing stupid lists like this, and this list is a window into everything we’re about! As the list progresses from 50 down to one, you may notice the movies getting more and more obscure.

So what factors contribute to a film making this list? Well, I used a few basic guidelines (some of which I slightly fudged when I felt I should or could). Besides a movie being either one that I thoroughly enjoyed or one that rubbed off on me in some way, it had to meet one of the following criteria:
1) A film that was overshadowed by either the rest of its director’s catalog or a more popular work. Or a film that was part of a series in which it was overshadowed by either the original or a more popular film in the series.

2) A film that, when first released, started gaining a following, but now has lost it due to being long out-of-print. Or it has been in- and out-of-print so sporadically in its lifetime that it could never nurture or maintain any kind of momentum in building a following.

3) A film whose budget, distribution, or studio push was either small, lacking, mismanaged, misdirected, or just non-existent (i.e., poorly marketed).

4) A film whose release saw heavy box office and rental competition, and somehow it just fell by the wayside.

5) A film that was widely criticized as too campy (poor acting, silly dialog, cliched, etc, etc). Some films are so heavy-handed in their approach to camp that the actual merits and qualities of the film can get lost unless the viewer knows what to look for (sort of like a classical musician viewing all punk rock as “simply cacophonous”).

6) A film that needed to age a bit before its genius could be understood.

7) A film that just wasn’t made to appeal to large audiences.

Anyway, enough talk from me. On to the list:

50) Dead-Alive (1992)
I’m putting this movie at 50 because it isn’t that unknown and already has a pretty healthy following. However, I felt compelled to include this film here because it should be as acclaimed and beloved as Evil Dead 2, and it simply isn’t! I’m not sure why Dead-Alive never reached the pop culture pinnacle that was bestowed on Evil Dead 2, but this film is just as deserving. Unfortunately, at this point, Peter Jackson’s directorial career is going to be forever intertwined with the Lord of the Rings Trilogy. This perfect little gory gem will forever remain a footnote.

49) A Nightmare on Elm St. 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985)
To be honest, this is not the best scripted or directed of the A Nightmare on Elm St. films (Parts 1, 3 and 4 in that order being heads and shoulders above the rest), or even horror movies in general. So why is it here? Because when you look at it like I do, as an after school special about one boy coping with his homosexuality, it becomes quite a different (and hilarious) movie. A Nightmare on Elm Street II had little involvement from Wes Craven and basically threw out a lot of the mythos established in the first movie (that was also cemented in later chapters) to present a cautionary tale in the guise of a Slasher flick of a boy trying to cope with his deep dark secret (i.e., Freddy/his homosexuality). Plus, the locker room shower-kill scene is classic.

48) The Thing (1982)
Any true John Carpenter fan will acknowledge this film as one of his classics at this point. But upon it’s release the movie was panned and bombed at the box office. It’s been a slow going 20 plus years for people to come around and see this film for the classic it truly is. As I said it’s taken some time for people to see the light on this film, but it still deserves way more devotees and accolades.

47) The Happiness of the Katakuris (2001)
Takashi Miike is better known in the U.S. for his excellent Audition, and the popular (and vastly over-rated) Ichi the Killer. However, Happiness of the Katakuris, to me, is Miike at his best. It is nothing like any of his other flicks, because it combines musicals, comedy, zombies, crime drama, and romance all into one pot. Anyone who is a fan of early Sam Raimi (the Evil Deads, Darkman), Peter Jackson (Dead-Alive, Bad Taste, The Frighteners), or any Troma film will absolutely love this movie.

46) Dawn of the Dead (2004)
SACRALIDGE! Look, nothing is ever going to top the original Dawn of the Dead, but I feel this movie never got a fair shake from people who actually enjoy horror/zombie flicks. It did alright at the box office, and I’m sure there is a legion of teenage kids and uninformed people walking around thinking this is the only Dawn of the Dead, but I also know there is a whole slew of other people out there who were all “Why tamper with what isn’t broken!?” and who therefore chose to skip this remake. Well guess what, this remake is an excellent update on the original and a worthy inclusion on any list chronicling great zombie flicks–right alongside the Romero originals.

45) Frailty (2001)
This movie got some strongly positive reviews from critics when it came out, but the studio never marketed the film correctly or towards the right crowd. It was just marketed as if it was some James L. Patterson (Along Came a Spider) type thriller. So this movie just kind of wasted away into the F section of most video stores, only to be rented by those who swoon for Matthew McConaughey. On first glance, it looks exactly like what it was marketed as… a cheap thriller novel adaptation starring McConaughey and Bill Paxton (who also directed it). But it’s actually a very well-crafted and paced psychological horror/thriller about a serial killer. And like so many of the movies on this list, it never takes itself too seriously, doling out large handfuls of camp into all of its “twists.”

44) The Texas Chainsaw Massacre part 2 (1986)
Made long after the original, this movie received a collective “Huh!?” when it was released. I get the feeling Tobe Hooper knew there was no way to match his original masterpiece, so he took things in another direction altogether. Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 amps up the camp, gore, and comedy to a level all its own, and does this really well. These are, of course, things the original never had nor needed. It’s a shame this movie gets forgotten behind Hooper’s original and that it got such a bad rap from people expecting another gritty horror flick.

43) Suicide Club (2002)
To me, Japanese horror is very hit or miss. Most of the films that start out great tend to fall apart towards the middle, and their collapse is usually colossal. However, Suicide Club is so absurd in its premise (though, for some reason seems totally plausible in Japan) and delivery that the film manages to stay tight throughout its entirety. It’s kind of hard to tell if all of the absurdity is intentional or just a perfect storm of elements, but in the end, it makes for a very weird film centered around high school students who giddily enjoy committing mass suicide.

42) Man Bites Dog (1992)
This is a spoof of reality TV before there even WAS reality TV. The point of the film is a bit clichéd (media encourages violence), but it’s the execution and acting that make this film so great. It’s a faux documentary that follows around a charming serial killer, who then manages to involve the film crew in his dirty deeds. It’s French, sometimes disturbing, and often hilarious.

41) Event Horizon (1997)
Event Horizon was marketed as a sci-fi movie upon its release, but it’s really just a classic tale of horror set on a spaceship. Its premise, like that of Man Bites Dog (No. 42), is nothing new. A ship goes missing, the crew is never heard from again, 7 years later the ship mysteriously returns, and now another crew is sent to investigate. But its how the film is directed and shot that make it so good. Event Horizon has some of the creepiest sets and most gruesomely gorgeous kill scenes that I’ve seen. These are truncated by stabs of camp at just the right time and length. The last 15 minutes are kind of a mess, but this is a creepy and enjoyable film any horror fan should see… alone and in the dark.

Head to Netflix or a video store and stay tuned tomorrow for Part II (40-31) of my list!

LOLZ

I’ll be in attendance.

Gimme Metal Art Show and Party @ KCDC Skateshop! (Oct 27 – Nov 11)

Curated by Dennis McNett 60 artists, 3 bands, 12 Pro skaters tearing up a halfpipe and mayhem.
Sponsored by Creature, Vox, and Independent.
Beverages by Zygo Vodka

Artists Participating (You may notice a few Mishka stalwarts in the mix): Sean Starwars, Martin Mazorra, Alice Helander, Mike Houston, Putrid, Maya Hayuk, Ghost, FA-Q, Eli Quinters, Toyo, Tom Huck, The Amazing Hancock Bothers, Bill McRight, Florence Gidez, Stryder, Mark Parrish, Wrona, Danielle Spradley, Jessica Herrera, Jesse Jones, Bryan Condra, Michael Alan, Blairwear tm, Damara Kaminecki, Maxim Ryazansky, Rezeon Scum, Pat Bronowicki, J. Pereira, Eliza Cutler, Frank Russo,Martina Secondo Russo, Caitlin Perkins, Joseph Valesquez, Alex Heir, Stefanie Bridges, Ali Gallagher, Jon Bocksel, Tamara Waite-Santibanez, Scott Meyers, Miss Soozee Q, Bryce Ward, Lindsay Staidig, Laura Kvistad, Kevin Golden, Derrick Riley, JJ Veronis, Walter Sassard, Pat Bronowicki, A.J. Nordhagen, Todd Seelie, Tobin Yelland, Michael Nirenberg, Rachel Domm, Sabrina Mansouri, Zac Shavrick, Julian C. Duron, Kirsten Flaherty, Dennis McNett and more …..

With musical performance by Dethrace, Bloodhorse, Smell Uv Death

Saturday, October 27th 8pm-Midnight. Bands at 9p
@ KCDC: North 11 & Wythe
Williamsburg, Brooklyn
L Train to Bedford Ave.

Iron Maiden – Can I Play With Madness?