FILLMORE DISCOS 43 - '70s RARITIES 2

Death Laid An Egg, 1968 (*****)
a wonderfully deranged giallo hybrid that achieves the usually impossible task of bridging a powerful experimental aesthetic with intense entertainment - the result is a timeless classic of modern cinema; the similarly left-field soundtrack perfectly complements the sleaze and bizarre goings-on at the hi-tech chicken facility

Perversion Story, 1969 (***)
Fulci tries his hand at Hitchcock's Vertigo this time around and delivers an uneven, albeit enjoyable mystery that culminates in what seems to be a simple condemnation of the US legal system

Short Night Of The Glass Dolls, 1971 (****)
before arriving at its horrific finale, the movie's slow-pace is capably offset by the creepy premise of a comatose, but conscious, American journalist stuck in the mortuary; Communist Prague's interiors and exteriors provide the suitably atmospheric backdrop

Quelle Che Contano, 1974 (**)
unremarkable low-budget gangster movie that is most notable for a shockingly savage belt-beating inflicted upon Margie, the American gangster's masochistic prostitute mistress (played by Barbara Bouchet)

Macchie Solari, 1975 (***)
insane, extraordinarily chaotic banquet of simulated autopsy scenes amidst the usual heaps of italosleaze featuring the delightful Mimsy Farmer as the pathology student investigating a wave of suicides blamed on sunspots; afterwards, you will want to visit Rome's infamous Criminal Museum

The Witch Who Came From The Sea, 1976 (*****)
a highly recommended forgotten classic from the golden age of US independent cinema: Millie Perkins delivers an amazing disturbed performance as Mollie, a young mother psychologically damaged by the abusive childhood relationship she suffered at the hands of her father

Hitch-Hike, 1977 (***)
the ebullient energy of the script and the main protagonists' performances (played by David Hess, Franco Nero, and Corinne Clery) defiantly compensate for the seeming total lack of a budget

Patrick Still Lives, 1980 (***)
batshit crazy eurosleaze, maximum nudity, and an incomprehensible narrative all feature in a fun film whose final act boasts some truly jolting, gruesome violence

SHORT BREATHS 4

Horror Celebrities Night
never having been to a meet 'n' greet Q&A evening of this type, it was fun to be at the Jeckyll And Hyde pub to see David Hess, Catriona MacColl, and Giovanni Lombardo Radice
- they were all most articulate and likeable, Hess being especially entertaining with his anecdotal swipes at Dennis Hopper; shame he was so short-changed by the thoughtless structuring of the event, which otherwise was so much fun

Let The Right One On
some call it pedantry, some call it rigour, but I feel compelled to draw attention to the unbelievably retarded set of rules for the application of capital letters in song, book, and movie titles; seriously, who came up with this utter fucking nonsense? it all depends on coordinating conjunctions, phrasal verbs, prepositions of three letters or 'less' (sic), position of word in title, special notes for this and that, added to what your starsign is and whether you were born in a leap year or the seventh offspring of a black cat: for god's sake, just capitalise every word and be done with it (anybody anywhere who already does receives the dubious privilege of my unconditional admiration and respect)

Cut Hands
there's a Cut Hands concert this Saturday (20th March) at Roxy Art House, Edinburgh with the great Zbigniew Karkowski plus support from Aliased Neuron, demand for tickets may be quite fierce as the venue is said to be pretty small - more information

Thermal compounds update
sad to report that the flatlined patient could not be reanimated; a replacement was immediately procured in the form of a shiny new Slim