Watching Movies Alone with crumbsroom

Tools    





The trick is not minding


Martin doesn’t think much of being a vampire. He knows what he gets up to once the sun goes down. The way those women look at him when he suddenly appears. Their eyes reminding him he wasn’t invited in here with them. Never invited anywhere. How they struggle to get away from him. Always fight back better than he expected. Call him a freak. An *sshole. He seems to know without his little kit of syringes, they would almost surely overpower him. Keep him forever hungry. So, an injection is always necessary. Stops the screaming. Stops the insults. Quickly puts them to sleep. And once he is finally sure they are no longer watching, he can begin to undress. It seems that even after all these years of feasting on the blood of young women, he’d still rather they didn’t see him naked.


Somehow, even after we have seen the violence he is capable of, we don’t quite fear Martin as you’d suspect we’re supposed to. Even once his struggle with that evening’s victim is over and he’s covered in their blood, he remains a pitiful specimen. Shrivelled. Sticky. In need of a wash before the morning light comes up. At no point will there ever be anything majestic or even menacing about Martin’s claim to the night. He only pulls it over himself, like a blanket he doesn’t want to get out from under. A place to keep the shameful things he does as a vampire out of sight. Unlike the grand entrances of Bela Lugosi or Christopher Lee, Martin will never fling open the shadows like a stage curtain on his way to the spotlight. For Martin, the spotlight would only make him worry he has been seen. That we’ve learned how being a vampire isn't at all like the movies. Especially when they are living with their cousin in Pittsburgh.

Over the course of George Romero's film, it’s clear Martin would never see himself as being worthy of the kind of cinematic attention he is getting here. That would be for all of the other better vampires. The ones who demand to have their likeness stretched three stories tall on the big screen. The ones who know how to make it with a lady. Who aren’t too shy to speak. Whose eternally damned youth will not be one forever clad in sneakers and boyishly stripped T-Shirts. Who at the very least have got some proper fangs you can really do something with. Not just some gawky overbite unworthy of the softest of necks.

You know, real vampires. The one’s who have lied to us since the dawn of cinema. The one’s who Martin can never compete with.

“Things only seem to be magic”, is all he has left to say when forced to confront matters relating to his supposed cahoots with the Devil. His unfulfilled mythical status. He will sound exhausted, as if eighty-four years of saying the same thing and no one listening has worn him down. “There is no real magic, ever”. These are the words he’ll use whenever needing to shrug off the nuisance of his cousin’s latest crucifix attack. Or when he sees him once again wasting his time getting out the garlic accoutrements. But they also seem as if they are being said to us in the audience. A plea to keep our expectations in check. To brace ourselves for what vampirism really looks like, once it has been sucked dry of all of its menace and romance and sense of the otherworldly. Leaving behind nothing more than what appears to be the shame of a teenage wank spread across all of eternity.

For those in the audience looking for a spell of Gothic doom, Martin can’t help but disappoint. It lives almost painfully in the real world. A place of rust and automotive decay and miles and miles of empty streets for Martin to aimlessly wander through, contemplating his next victim, but not always doing much about it. We’d probably not even notice him if we came across him in our own neighbourhood. He hardly even needs the sun to go down not to be seen. His life is one that is mostly just a disappointment. A disappointment to himself, to his family, to general decency, to the standards of vampirism and, if he ever became aware of us out there watching him, a disappointment to the cost of a movie ticket. He is a subject who might bore us as much as he bores himself.

“What kind of ****ing lame-o vampire was that”, those leaving the theatre might sneer to each other. “What a creep”

So, no, there will likely never be wax likeness of John Amplas erected in Madame Tussaud’s torture dungeon next to Max Schreck, curled on his bed with a phone, talking away his loneliness with a radio DJ. Complaining that he’s frightened of doing the sexy stuff with a lady. That no one will ever love him and how everyone eventually leaves him. But, if we can hold in our hands for a moment the thought of such an eternity as this, then think of his shame. His profound loneliness, rejection and inferiority. This pubescent angst of his that will never be grown out of, then we may find Martin might breach our defences after all, and illicit some sympathy from those in the audience who have a heart. And this will be where the horror of the film truly lies. Convincing us to forget all the things he has done. And what he will continue to do, unless someone stops him. And just contemplate the sadness of it all.




I’ve been looking to watch this for years now, but it seems rather hard to find. Or maybe it’s just me not looking in the right places.



I think all of my early Boredoms acquisitions were tape dubs of other people's stuff, and even then it was mostly from CDs. I had one friend who had a copy of Soul Discharge on Shimmy Disk (an excellent indie label, btw), but I never saw the original '89 Selfish LP in the wild. I'm happy that I didn't wait for vinyl releases before getting my hands on their Super Roots EPs. And even finding a number of their obscure releases in digital format (ah, the music blog days), I still have never managed to track down their cassette-only Boretronix collections.


I'm too much of a scavanger to be a purist.



I think all of my early Boredoms acquisitions were tape dubs of other people's stuff, and even then it was mostly from CDs. I had one friend who had a copy of Soul Discharge on Shimmy Disk (an excellent indie label, btw), but I never saw the original '89 Selfish LP in the wild. I'm happy that I didn't wait for vinyl releases before getting my hands on their Super Roots EPs. And even finding a number of their obscure releases in digital format (ah, the music blog days), I still have never managed to track down their cassette-only Boretronix collections.


I'm too much of a scavanger to be a purist.

Mine is the Shimmy. I don't pay much attention to the labels, only that it plays relatively clean.


I'm trying desperately to track down Pop Tatari, but I can't even find evidence of their being a vinyl release, even though their is an article from a few years back of a vinyl reissue of it and Chocolate Synthesizer.


I'm basically in love with everything I've heard so far ( I also have a copy of one of their trancy big drum extravaganza records, which is much easier listening, but still interesting regardless).



I generally don't listen to anything until I can find a copy of something on vinyl (I have obsessive tendencies). So, because of their status of being completely impossible to find, they've been a painful blindspot for me for thirty years.
I respect your commitment but I don't possess willpower at that level.

I think I've at least heard most of it now, other than the rarest of the rare. I'm not above ripping the Super Roots EPs from Youtube at this point. Maybe that will be my weekend project.
__________________
Captain's Log
My Collection



I’ve been looking to watch this for years now, but it seems rather hard to find. Or maybe it’s just me not looking in the right places.

It's generally a pretty difficult movie to find a proper copy of. Like I mentioned to Rock, there is a copy on YouTube that seems alright. At least it's not that significantly worse than the version i have on disc



Never heard of it, but I just may check it out. Crude fillmaking, outrageous violence. Yes, my calling cards
Apparently it's part of a loose trilogy and they're all on Refn's site. Got a few days off from work, probably gonna get to these soon.



Mine is the Shimmy. I don't pay much attention to the labels, only that it plays relatively clean.
Shimmy Disk is a label worth noting, not necessarily for sound quality, but because it was the home of a lot of semi-forgotten great bands (King Missle, Gumball, Bongwater), plus they put out a number of compilations featuring unreleased tracks and/or odd cover themes like the Monkees and the Rutles, etc.



I'm basically in love with everything I've heard so far ( I also have a copy of one of their trancy big drum extravaganza records, which is much easier listening, but still interesting regardless).
Oh yeah. As much as I love their ADD-freerock style of the early stuff, I would say that Super AE, Vision Creation New Sun and Seadrum/House of Sun is their best work. Very droney and kosmisch. They actually sound kinda focused.





we may find Martin might breach our defences after all, and illicit some sympathy from those in the audience who have a heart. And this will be where the horror of the film truly lies. Convincing us to forget all the things he has done. And what he will continue to do, unless someone stops him. And just contemplate the sadness of it all.
For me, this is what makes Martin something of a spiritual cousin to Psycho, where you have this person who is doing horrible things, and specifically horrible things that are driven by a resentment and anger toward women. But at the same time the damage that has been imposed on that person, in both cases from a young age, is so palpable that you can't help but feel sympathy. And I think it's especially important that in Martin, the victims are themselves mostly sympathetic, so it isn't a case of making it easy for the audience to disregard their deaths.



Also, I need to rewatch Martin one of these days. I was initially pretty cold on it, but watched it at a time when I wasn't used to its specific kind of roughness (Night of the Living Dead and Dawn of the Dead are rough in ways too, but their premises and violence give them a punchy quality this one doesn't have).
Yeah, especially Night, since its cast was partially filled with people who were clearly pretty unexperienced as actors, but I guess they were the best Romero could afford to hire with his budget, and it's not like they ruined the movie in the end, so no biggie.



So having uncovered these two gems over the past week, the question now becomes which is cinema's greatest ever achievement?



Witness the bold contrast of a film with both a terminal case of HG Lewis flatness during its daytime scenes, and the tactile qualities of a decomposing carnival during the night. Perfect visual counterpoints for a B movie determined to set a course towards complete derangement of the senses.



VS.






A movie that seems as if everything relating to its plot was scooped out of it, leaving only the visual residue of a bunch of half formed nightmare visions. It doesn't make a lick of sense, but who cares when a movie has every one of its edits leap frog from one imaginative inspiration or narrative convolution to the next with little to no forewarning. A tone poem of confusion that is possibly only rivalled by A Night to Dismember nonsense. Be prepared for a most beautiful headache.



Now, while I would never want to court any kind of controversy, I regretfully suggest I may have to suggest it's a tie. So, as an appeal to fairness, we should all now considering calling both of them the best movie of all time.



Wanted to like this more, but I feel like the fact that the segments got more coherent as they went on hurt it quite a bit.


I think watching these movies sober or without sleep deprivation might be negatively affecting my enjoyment.



Wanted to like this more, but I feel like the fact that the segments got more coherent as they went on hurt it quite a bit.


I think watching these movies sober or without sleep deprivation might be negatively affecting my enjoyment.

So you're saying it's....the second best movie of all time? Get out of my thread!


And I probably wouldn't recommend watching anything I like with a clear head. I like a movie to make me confused if it is me or the movie that's the problem.



So you're saying it's....the second best movie of all time? Get out of my thread!


And I probably wouldn't recommend watching anything I like with a clear head. I like a movie to make me confused if it is me or the movie that's the problem.

Also, I don't remember it getting any less confusing as it went along. I think the editing became less elliptical (the first segment is really painful to try to track from shot to shot), but it feels like the doors to bad movie hell blow off in the last half hour, even if it doesn't seem as technically incomprehensible.



So having uncovered these two gems



A movie that seems as if everything relating to its plot was scooped out of it, leaving only the visual residue of a bunch of half formed nightmare visions. It doesn't make a lick of sense, but who cares when a movie has every one of its edits leap frog from one imaginative inspiration or narrative convolution to the next with little to no forewarning. A tone poem of confusion that is possibly only rivalled by A Night to Dismember nonsense. Be prepared for a most beautiful headache.



Now, while I would never want to court any kind of controversy, I regretfully suggest I may have to suggest it's a tie. So, as an appeal to fairness, we should all now considering calling both of them the best movie of all time.
I impulsively added this one to my Vinegar Syndrome order since they sold out of the Forgotten Gialli vol. 2 and this only had 12 (now 11 copies left). I hope you’re happy.



I impulsively added this one to my Vinegar Syndrome order since they sold out of the Forgotten Gialli vol. 2 and this only had 12 (now 11 copies left). I hope you’re happy.

Lol


Claiming my victims, one by one, pocketbook by pocketbook.


I have definitely come to realize that there is probably no (curated) film distributor that seems to be more on my wavelength than Vinegar Syndrome. Every piece of **** I watch a terrible transfer of on YouTube that knocks my socks off, and that I think no one has ever heard of, inevitably gets released in some pristine variation by VS.



They get it! Even if they bastards consistently steal my taste-thunder and make a profit off of it, while I sit here in a cardboard box, watching whatever movie I can pick up via psychic transmissions (terrible reception)



Lol


Claiming my victims, one by one, pocketbook by pocketbook.


I have definitely come to realize that there is probably no (curated) film distributor that seems to be more on my wavelength than Vinegar Syndrome. Every piece of **** I watch a terrible transfer of on YouTube that knocks my socks off, and that I think no one has ever heard of, inevitably gets released in some pristine variation by VS.



They get it! Even if they bastards consistently steal my taste-thunder and make a profit off of it, while I sit here in a cardboard box, watching whatever movie I can pick up via psychic transmissions (terrible reception)
Between you and Rock’s penchant for classic porn, they got the folks in this thread covered.

And here I am buying Beastmaster in 4K from them when I could’ve been getting Spookies!!!



Between you and Rock’s penchant for classic porn, they got the folks in this thread covered.

And here I am buying Beastmaster in 4K from them when I could’ve been getting Spookies!!!
I must have seen Beastmaster at some point....have I seen Beastmaster?

Have I seen Beastmaster?????

*smashes beer stein over head*

Come to think of it, I don't believe I have ever seen Beastmaster.