Video of the day - This Many Boyfriends (I Should Be A) Communist

A few weeks ago I went up to Leeds to make a music video for the band This Many Boyfriends. It was a beautiful day, which was extra exciting since I was shooting it all on super-8.

We had a basic idea, but I wanted to keep it relatively loose. There's a fine line between being too organised and being too unprepared. I always feel it works best if you keep things a bit shambolic and just try to have fun. People enjoying themselves are so much more fun to watch than people deperately trying to look cool. And it's a music video. It doesn't have to make sense. So what if there's an accidental jump cut here and there. This happens more frequently when you're using super-8, especially if you don't have a shot list and don't write down what you've already shot.

A few hours later it was all done. Then the only thing you can do is wait. That's the horrible part, just waiting for two weeks. What if nothing comes out? What if there's something stuck in the camera gate?

Eventually, I got the film back and could relax. No problems, just beautifully saturated super-8.

You just can't beat super-8 on a sunny day. There's nothing quite like it.

(I Should Be A) Communist by This Many Boyfriends is released on seven-inch vinyl in May on Angular Records

Bare Behind Bars (1980)

Bare Behind Bars is possibly one of the most insane Women-in-Prison movies I've encountered. It's just completely bonkers. Set in a Brazilian women's prison, we follow a number of inmates as they go about their daily business. This mainly involves having sex with other inmates or the prison staff or just anyone that happens to be available…oh and they take a lot of showers. There's not really any plot at all, apart from some sort of rivalry between inmates, resulting in some unfortunate stabbings. And eventually, when the inmates have had enough of the bizarre and sadistic treatment from the staff, they attempt an escape. The prison warden is a sex-obsessed lesbian, the prison nurse is an ether-sniffing loon bag (also sex-obsessed of course) who likes to eat watermelon in the nude.

With heaps of nudity and sex scenes that occasionally slips into hardcore territory, Bare Behind Bars is definitely not for everyone. But, it really is a weird one. The bizarre and completely over-the-top behaviour of some of the characters makes it difficult to take any of more horrible elements too seriously. The prison nurse is so loopy she wouldn't feel out of place in a Benny Hill clip. When she finally gets dismissed, her main concern is not being allowed to wear her nurse's hat again.

Bare Behind Bars is a completely mind-boggling experience.

The film is available uncut from Blue Underground on Region 1 DVD. It is available in the UK from Arrow Films, but this version of the film has had the hardcore snippets removed by the easily offended peeps at the BBFC (Details here).

Don't Deliver Us From Evil (1971)

Anne and Lore are best friends, two teenage girls at an all-girl Catholic boarding school. They realise that sinning is a lot more fun than being good, so they decide to devote themselves to Satan instead of God. All good so far, right? Unfortunately, these girls aren't just naughty in a fun way, they're downright mean. We follow them over the course of a summer holiday where they get up to no good. They play seduction games with local simpletons, kill some pet birds and indulge in a bit of arson...until one day when it all goes horribly wrong.

Don't Deliver Us From Evil is a curious one, a coming-of-age film without the feelgood factor. The devotion to sin and Satan might have started as an innocent act of rebellion, a game of sorts, but when you're just making the rules up as you go along, where does the game end? This is what Anne and Lore have to figure out. They kill one bird and think it's hilarious when its owner starts crying out of grief, but when Anne kills a second bird, she breaks down with guilt. Then there's their interest in sex. They're obsessed with it and constantly crave sexual attention, but neither of them are ready for it or know what to do with it.

The Catholic Church weren't too keen (probably still aren't) on the film and it's not difficult to see why.

I don't want to give away too much about this film, cause it's really worth seeing, shocking and tender in equal measures.

It's beautifully shot and Jeanne Goupil and Catherine Wagener are both excellent as the two friends, managing the tricky task of being good, bad, sexy, silly and hideously annoying often at the same time.

With all the young flesh on display the film was obviously made for a male audience. However, all the men in the film are portrayed as weak-minded, incompetent or just blind to what's going on around them. I don't know if it was intentional, but it sure seems like director Joel Seria is taking the piss out of his own audience, telling us "go on, watch these young girls prancing around in their underwear, while I tell you how weak and how easy to manipulate you are".

Anyway. It's a good'un.

Available on DVD from Mondo Macabro.

Shockwaves (1977)

I'm a bit sad that Shockwaves isn't more awesome. It's the kind of film that would be fun to recommend in a "you have to see this underwater nazi zombie film!" kinda way. Seriuosly, underwater nazi zombies! How can that be bad? Well, it isn't that bad, but it just isn't that exciting either. Don't get me wrong...the army of underwater Nazi zombies (I can't stop typing that sentence) are awesome and all the scenes where they feature are pretty damn cool. The problem is the rest of the film, which is mainly filler.

But those underwater nazi zombies...look at them!

The background story is something along the lines of...towards the end of the second World War, the Nazis had created some amazing SS troops that were able to live underwater. This amphibian specialist SS unit turned out to be a bit unpredictable and when the war ended it was all swept under the carpet...or under the ocean in this case. And the secret stayed there for thirty years until our gang of merry holiday makers interrupt their sleep. They have to abandon their leaking boat and get stranded on a remote island, populated only by a former SS Commander (played by Peter Cushing).

He tells them to get out of there before the shit goes down. But it's already too late and the underwater Nazis start picking them off one after the other. The nazis themselves are pretty hard to kill, unless you can get really close and take their goggles off. Yup. That's how you kill unstoppable underwater nazi zombies. Remove the goggles!

Shockwaves is alright as a curiosity and it has some really awesome scenes in it. But, the script is pretty lame and not really anything I'll be revisiting any time soon.

Trailer!

More VHS

Picked up a few tapes at a car boot sale.

Charity shop finds

Went for a walk, picked up some random VHS tapes.

Video of the day (Andrew Jackson Jihad - Gift Of The Magi 2)

This made me smile...a new video from Andrew Jackson Jihad. The song is Gift Of The Magi 2: Return Of The Magi and it's from their last album Knife Man which was out at some point last year. It's a simple idea, but it works really well and it's just fun to watch. And the song is ace!

Those guys are awesome! Bummer they're not playing at Plan-it-x Fest!