Tag Archives: horror movies

245 – T Is For Terror In The Aisles: Antrum and the Deadliest Movies Never Made

If you read any of paranormal or horror movie blogs this week, you might have seen an article about a new “documentary” coming out that contains a film from the 1970s that has recently been rediscovered called Antrum. It was covered by Bloody Disgusting, Mysterious Universe, Unexplained Mysteries, and even Forbes magazine, who did the original interview with the producer Eric Thirteen.

Thirteen says that the movie was lost after a terrifying incident in a Budapest theater in 1988 and that bad things kept happening to anyone involved in the production of the film, or anyone who even watched it. Indeed the trailer even says that the film is rumored to be “haunted” or “cursed” and that you shouldn’t watch it alone, it says that it absolves the filmmakers of all liability. (Ha, let’s see that one hold up in court!)

The new release of Antrum: The Deadliest Movie Ever Made will feature a documentary with people who know the history of the production as well as have experienced some of the curse effects from watching the movie. What? You’ve definitely got my attention, so this has to be fake, right?

Of course it’s fake, producer Eric Thirteen even compares it to Lovecraft’s Necronomicon, a mystical evil spellbook that only existed in Lovecraft’s imagination. That was, until the author’s admirers created it and sold their fan fiction in book stores across the country and some people got convinced it was actually a reprinting of an ancient spellbook. He’s dropping the clues right in the interview that this is going to be a mockumentary!

COOL EPISODE UPDATE

Eric Thirteen himself listened to this episode and left a voicemail for us, which you can hear in its entirety in Episode 246 of See You On The Other Side.

Now, this movie sounds like a lot of fun and I love the cursed film angle as marketing (Zak Bagans even used it in his own documentary Demon House when he suggested that just watching his film could be dangerous and get you a spirit attachment who wouldn’t leave you alone!) But none of these blogs, who normally write about real people’s paranormal experiences bothered to let us know that it’s not a real documentary.

We just thought it was interesting, that these regular paranormal platforms wouldn’t let everyone know that this movie looks cool, but it’s just a movie. So, we wanted to handle that straightaway. This is pop culture using the paranormal as a marketing hook, because of course, that kind of buzz is great for publicity, as shown by the incredible financial success of the grandaddy of modern viral movie marketing, The Blair Witch Project. That was another fictional documentary where they tried to make the media believe it was real, and for awhile it worked just as well as Antrum is.

In this episode, we go into the similarities between the marketing campaigns of Blair Witch and Antrum, we’ll dissect Eric Thirteen’s interview with Forbes (as well as the incredulous coverage of it!), and then talk about some other fake films that used the illusion of versimiltude to get attention and sell tickets (or in our case, video rentals in the 80s!)

  • Faces of Death
  • Cannibal Holocaust (so real that the director was put on trial for murder!)
  • Alien Autopsy: Fact or Fiction?
  • Mondo Cane

And we have bring up some other great films that deal with cursed movies as well.

  • In The Mouth of Madness (itself inspired by Lovecraft)
  • Masters of Horror‘s “Cigarette Burns” (written by a staffer of Aint It Cool News, a site that led the way in the success of The Blair Witch Project)
  • The real urban legend behind The Ring

For the song this week, it was a no-brainer. Just understand that you’re listening at your own risk and we take no liability for anything that might happen to you after you hear “The Deadliest Song Ever Made”!

And of course, to go with the deadliest movie ever made, we had to write “The Deadliest Song Ever Made”. You’ve been warned, listen at your own risk because we take no responsiblity for what happens after you’ve heard it.

Now that you’ve hit play you can’t go back
you’re cursed forever once you’ve heard this track
There’s just something so evil about this tune
It makes the listeners deceased way too soon

So listen at your own risk
you’ve sealed your fate
This is the deadliest song ever made.
Don’t plug your ears,
for it’s too late.
You’ve heard the deadliest song ever made.

It’s the world’s most fearsome melody,
just the sound of it will end your life early.
We’re not saying anything legally,
but you’re damned to Hell for all eternity.

So listen at your own risk
you’ve sealed your fate
This is the deadliest song ever made.
Don’t plug your ears,
for it’s too late.
You’ve heard the deadliest song ever made.

242 – Twisted Dreams: The Beauty of B-Movies With Joe Bob Briggs

To those of us who are crazy about horror movies, there’s One Redneck To Rule Them All and that’s the host of MonsterVision, Joe Bob Briggs. To millions of impressionable teens, he was the voice who was able to find the best in cheesy horror movies. With his beer-drinkin’, nude scene-loving, onscreen violence-adorin’ attitude, he was the horror host that we all looked up to. A comic (real name John Bloom) who turned an encyclopedic knowledge of low-budget horror and sci-fi film into a full-time Hollywood job of commenting and writing about movies, and we couldn’t get enough.

Now it took me halfway through film school to get this, but the thing about movie lovers is that we love movies.

That’s a simple and seemingly obvious statement, but I want to clarify it because it means something. There are film snobs who can talk about the French New Wave and The Hollywood Renaissance and will pontificate on the power of Robert Bresson and Terence Malick and they are correct. Those movies are fantastic and while they take a cultured palate to appreciate, there is a passion that makes them rich and deserving of appreciation.

And if you were a film geek like me, you watched At The Movies with Siskel & Ebert, paid attention to the Academy Awards (before they gave a damn about “popular” films), and listened to your local overcompensating small town movie critic. We knew that there were “great films” and then we knew there were the movies that the rest of us watched for fun.

So there were brilliant and artistic films out there that could stir the cultured soul…

…and then there’s the lowest common denominator. Movies with simple plots that feature cheap grossout special effects to shock you, naked girls to tittilate you, and simple plots to so that even the lowest forehead Neanderthals among us can keep up. Guilty pleasures are what we call them. But why feel guilty?

Joe Bob Briggs is the guy that made those guilty pleasures not just okay, but something to be proud of. He could find ways to appreciate films made with affection and love, even if the budget is minimal, and even if they’re just about monsters killing teenagers. He knew when to call a movie out when they were lazy, but he knew how to craft film appreciation for the movies that the other critics left behind.

We met up in Austin during SXSW 2019 and discussed some of his favorite movies, his new show on Shudder, and even the movies that he’s never been able to get for his drive-in but wishes he could. Now, it’s a live interview in the restaurant in a crowded hotel where we were passing the microphone back and forth, so the audio isn’t like we’re at home in the studio, so please keep that in mind when you take a listen.

Me and Joe Bob Briggs at SXSW 2019

According to Joe Bob Briggs, there are three B’s every good B-movie needs:

  • Blood
  • Breasts
  • Beasts

And that sounds to me like a recipe for the kind of film that I want to watch. His new series is called The Last Drive-In and you can stream the show on the online service, Shudder. It’s got everything from Tourist Trap to Re-Animator and features the directorial talents of genre favorites like Clive Barker and (UW-Madison alumni) Stuart Gordon. When Shudder decided to run a horror movie marathon with Joe Bob in July of 2018 it got so much traffic that it broke downt he service for them, which some said was a sign of the sheer popularity of low budget horror presented by people who love it, but as Joe Bob said, “We worked hard on something and wanted people to actually see it!” So, they decided to bring it back as a full Shudder series.

While Joe Bob played to a rapturous and packed house in Austin during SXSW 2019, he’s also going to be appearing in Milwaukee for the Twisted Dreams Film Festival on April 6th. I also got a chance to talk to Chris House and Stephen Milek from the Twisted Dreams festival where Joe Bob will be doing his show How Rednecks Saved Hollywood where he shows hundreds of clips in a live show about how Tinseltown has relied on the same redneck stereotype to bring in hundreds of millions of dollars in box office receipts.

And that Twisted Dreams Festival is something you’re not going to want to miss if you’re in the Midwest. From The Lake Michigan Monster to The Amazon Hotbox, Chris and Stephen tell us about the horror and exploitation movies made with love that are going to be showing at the festival. So not only do you get a chance to watch Joe Bob Briggs do his show live, you can support dozens of independent and Midwestern filmmakers.

Click Here For Tickets

Twisted Dreams is Milwaukee’s Horror Film Festival and Chris and Stephen tell me their original favorite gnere movies and what got them hooked on horror films, they also lay out some of the highlights of the film festival for not only splatter and scary movie fans, but for aspiring filmmakers as well. And c’mon, they’re giving a special achievement award to American Movie‘s inspirational Mark Borchardt (the man behind Coven!) so you know it’s going to be a lot of fun.

Me, my sister Allison Jornlin, and Mark Borchardt

Chris House is also a ghost hunter with the Paranormal Investigators of Milwaukee so you know that we have to talk a little bit on what film influenced his journey to study the other side and what films best represent paranormal investigation (and of course I asked Joe Bob if he’s ever seen a ghost himself!)

Twisted Dreams Film Festival runs April 4th through 7th at the Times Cinema in Milwaukee. Click here to learn more and get tickets to this awesome event!

For the song this week, we were inspired by Joe Bob’s Three B’s. After all, when it comes to a horror film what else do you need? Here’s our latest track inspired by Joe Bob himself, “Blood, Breasts, and Beasts”!

There’s a creature in the wilderness
there’s a babysitter in a skintight dress
pretty soon they’re gonna meet and it won’t be pretty

I’m not worried about the misc en scene
of horny adolescents
All I know is someone is gonna die tonight.

Monsters in rubber suits
Killers in hot pursuit
Gut-wrenching violence
and a gruesome murder scene
You know I love that
gratuitous nudity
So give me
Blood
Breasts
and Beasts

There’s something underneath the floor,
There’s a sadist behind the closet door,
waiting for that couple to get it on.

I’m not worried about the misc en scene,
my interest is the prurient,
All I know is someone is gonna die tonight.

Monsters in rubber suits
Killers in hot pursuit
Gut-wrenching violence
and a gruesome murder scene
You know I love that
gratuitous nudity
So give me
Blood
Breasts
and Beasts

gimme blood
the stain’s getting redder
gimme breasts
the faker the better
gimme beasts
attacking some scream queens

gimme blood
the floor’s getting wetter
gimme breasts
the tighter the sweater
gimme beasts
to rip apart some teens

I want some…

Monsters in rubber suits
Killers in hot pursuit
Gut-wrenching violence
and a gruesome murder scene
You know I love that
gratuitous nudity
So give me
Blood
Breasts
and Beasts

Moog at NAMM 2016: Synthesizers and the Sound of Horror

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One of the most fun exhibits at the NAMM Show in 2016 was the Moog exhibit. Now you may have never heard of the Moog company, but I guarantee you have heard their synthesizers. Bob Moog was an innovator who helped popularize the use of the electronic devices in music.

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The exhibit was all about replicating a Florida island that a particularly inventive Moog synthesizer salesman set up to promote more synthesizer sales by having electronic concerts and light shows in the early 70s. The island was called “Electronicus“.

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The real fun was sitting down at the synthesizers and playing with the various settings that you could use to make music. And every time you started playing something, it felt like you were performing the soundtrack to a horror movie.

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That’s because besides dance music and progressive rock, there’s been no more prolific use of electronic music than horror movies. From the theremin (a very early electronic instrument that makes the spooky high-pitched “woooooooo” sound that we often associate with horror movie soundtracks) that was used in soundtracks like The Day The Earth Stood Still and The Thing From Another World to “Tubular Bells” that was used as the theme to The Exorcist, horror movies love using the synthesizer.

This article on Horrorpedia is a must-read as it traces the sound of synths in horror films over the decades and what makes it extra fun at the NAMM Show is that it doesn’t just honor the artists who use these tools to make music, but it honors the people who create the instruments in the first place.

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There’s lots of ways to be creative and making art or music is one of those ways, but there’s often just as much, if not more, creative genius in the manufacturing of the devices that make all of the art possible. And the innovation of Moog gave us some of the most unsettling movie music of all time!

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I played on this sweet synth for a half an hour, there were four different synths that could play at the same time in this one box!