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Hungry Not Horny Are Horror Addicts! Pt. One

It's hard to not discuss our art film leanings like Brothers and Glover’s It Is Fine! Everything is Fine! or Jodorowsky's Santa Sangre. Or our surplus of 80s screwball (Big Trouble in Little China!). And what about Boxing Helena or Labyrinth for Godssakes?!! But we need to discuss what's important, maybe we should introduce ourselves: we are horror addicts. That doesn't mean we like just any old horreur flick, in fact it's probably the genre filled with the most garbage. But that's the pleasure - you have to work to find those gems and when you do it is worth it. Admittedly, some of these horror selections are ones we grew up watching so the tastes being represented come from a personal and not so objective stance; sometimes movies are just awful but you can't really tell because it was part of your upbringing and so you have it ingrained that this is what a movie should be like. A lot of people think that movies like the Saw series are where true horror is found and then there are those of us who were raised on the Sleepaway Camp trilogy and can't see the appeal of extreme violence without a camp-y undertone. In no particular order, these are some essential movies.

Uzumaki Higochinsky (2000)

Uzumaki means spiral in Japanese and that is exactly what is obsessively feared throughout this beautiful film. The effects are nearly seamless and so focusedly psychedelic: part of the anxiety that builds is that you think your eyes are playing tricks on you. You have to see this one to understand what the hell I'm talking about. I'm not sure you even need to understand what is being said in order to follow the plot, it's a very visual story.

Demons Lamberto Bava (1985)

I actually saw this one kind of late for a horror fiend like myself. This is one where I became addicted to certain scenes. Example: 4 hardcore* punks are driving down a neon-lit (80's) avenue in some Italian city. You know they're hardcore because they are listening to Go West's We Close Our Eyes. The punk girl in the back seat bounces to the beat whilst they pass a Coke can around and use the straw to snort its contents. The Coke can helps the ignorant watcher realize these ruffians are snorting coke. These deliberate 80's tactics used for storytelling keep me coming back. Watch this one at a party and it's a good time, but it alone still creeps me out.

*Side note: Something I absolutely love about the 80s, especially horror, is how much punks and other subculture peeps are represented. In these films, the punks are almost never listening to "punk" music but rather some random, and usually lame, pop song that needed promotion at the time. Another good example would be Lost Boys where all the badass teens go to a Tim Capello concert. A non-horror example would be the punk club in Pretty in Pink that Ducky, Molly and their older friend attend which plays the Stray Cats and English-Beat-style reggae/new wave.

Suspiria Dario Argento (1977)

What I love about Argento is that he brings you into this strange dubbed language world that really requires re-watching to get the swing of. Stepping into an Argento film cold can be a confusing experience to say the least. You leave feeling unsure of what you have seen. It was violent, that's for sure. Suspiria is his most artsy and well-known with reason; just watch the opening sequence. This film takes place at a boarding/ballet school, Suzy Banyon is one of the only Americans so she already feels like an outcast. It gets worse when she is targeted by the witches who run the school. Unfortunately, like most people in horror films, Suzy is stupid and curious about her evil caretakers, which drives along a visually-stunning story.

Phenomena aka Creepers Dario Argento (1985)

Argento continues his carnal tales of little girls and the torture bestowed upon them. Real feminist shit. At least this one is educational, ok? There are insects involved. Jennifer Corvino (Jennifer Connelly - oh yes, Labyrinth) attends a Swiss boarding school where she is viciously mocked by her classmates, they sense difference. Good thing she can call the insects (like calling the rocks?) and they'll come gross everyone out. This one has some seriously horrifying moments. No, Argento does not spare the children.

Black Sunday Mario Bava (1960) - father of Lamberto (Demons, keep up!)

This is what a horror movie should look like. Like Uzumaki in that you don't even need to have the sound on.

Return of the Living Dead Dan O'Bannon (1985) "Get the lights! Trash is taking her clothes off!!"

1985 seems like the magic year so far, yes/no? This trashy return to the land of government-faulted zombie existence is just tinged with the air of John Waters. The overacting, ridiculous (brilliant?) dialogue and generally campiness definitely sing of The Trashmaster (Waters) so of course I was hooked from the opening. Amazing 80's moments, tons of laughs but also a film that stays fun from beginning to end. No undisciplined lag to be found, a pretty tight film overall.

If only Return of the Living Dead II was better because this is one of my favorite 80's horror film posters. That and Blood Diner.

The Thing John Carpenter (1982)

Just when I was getting ready to turn this one off, there was the dog scene. The Thing takes place in the Antarctic and stars our 80's hero stud Kurt Russell. I always really liked Kurt Russell but truly fell for him in his self-deprecating role in Death Proof; Kurt should have won an award for Stuntman Mike. Anyway, The Thing has some incredibly intense times and maintains most of that unease throughout. The startling and awesomely violent special effects are in stark contrast to the bland white landscape - the Antarctic setting also plays a huge role in how these guys are able to fight against their intruder; the isolation is daunting but the only saving grace at the dark end. <<---- spoiler alert!

Slumber Party Massacre II Deborah Brock* (1987) "I wanna be your Tokyo convertible. I wanna have fun with yooooou! *deep voice* I just love goin' through the motions."

Rockabilly camp horror... there are a lot of words for this movie. Slumber Party Massacre I was quite a flop and nothing but a boring slasher while its sequel is, in contrast, wonderfully extreme and filled with bizarre choices on the director/writer's part; that's kind of like the Prom Night movies in that the first is a boring Jamie Lee Curtis slasher while Hello Mary Lou: Prom Night 2 takes the series in a hilariously campy direction. SLP II opens with our feature characters, a rowdy girl group named Wednesday Week. You can tell they're wild because sometimes they take off their tops and dance! The band's backup singer/guitarist, Courtney, keeps thinking she's hallucinating this peppy rockabilly singer who happens to yield a massive guitar/spiral saw that mutilates the cast of this film, and looks like it’s what 90% of what the budget for this film was spent on. Her sister was crazy (as in loony bin crazy) so she assumed she was going down the same path but then everyone ends up dying and Courtney has to face the cackling guitarist herself. The music in this film is so catchy, beware!

* Deborah Brock both wrote and directed Slumber Party Massacre II as well as Rock n' Roll High School Forever. It's funny that this was female written and directed - it's not exactly sex positive as you may gather from the poster art.

What should we be watching? You let us know! What are some of your favorite film posters?

The Disembodied Head of Robert Smith Watches Disapprovingly Over Us All

Andrew Zimmern, Stop Judging Me!

It's not necessarily visible here -
But you can see it a little here -
And even though they seem to have attempted to airbrush it out of every last picture of the fucker, you can definitely start to make it out here.
Seriously, what the fuck is up with Andrew Zimmern's crazily sun-damaged head? For all of his haughty condescension, he seems to have neglected his own suffering pate which is has developed into an entirely different ethnicity from the rest of his body. Poor baby, right? WRONG-O!! Anyone who turns every meal into a macho tolerance contest (and no, it's not just about trying exotic tastes with this dude) needs some serious karmic payback. And for all the bullshit such concepts are, it nonetheless pleases this author greatly to imagine said celebrity food critic having balded and turned into a chubby hairless penguin as reparation for his hideous attitude towards food. For example, during one Halloween episode, he invites fans of his show to his home for a party for one of the aforementioned macho tolerance contests. A female Zimmern-o-phile doesn't exactly swoon over the mostly insect-based fare, and when she says that she isn't used to the taste of something, Zimmern condescendingly responds, "we say 'that's interesting'". Now perhaps I'm nitpicking, but if you invite fans of your show to you home, that's already crossing a line most celebrities that visible avoid like the plague for seemingly good reason. Beyond that, he then treats his guests as though they would have no other reason to be there than to take part in the fare his show covers, which would be a fine enough premise, were not every single one of these devotees obviously unprepared for such an endeavor. That said, most--if not all--rise to the occasion and manage to choke down some food that generally seems more or less nauseating par-for-the-course cuisine for his show.
Honestly, though, I may have my extreme tastes in music, but at least I don't go about forcing them on anyone or looking down on them for not attempting to see the world through my ears. Not every person's palette (or digestive system, in extreme cases) can tolerate exotic fare, and certain fears are better confronted in other ways (he's a food critic, not a therapist, for YHWH's sake!).

Hungry Not Horny's Wing Round-Up - 1st Edition: "Fuck these Chickens!"

Wings were something that we became passionate about once we moved to Baltimore. There are so many places that serve wings and each restaurant seems to have their own take, or at least an attempt at standing out in the sea of crispy juicy spiciness. A general rule for wings is that they should be eaten as fresh as possible. Like any fried food, it's best straight out of the fryer. An oven can attempt to re-crisp your wings but it ain't the same. The meat can also get overcooked when re-heated, generally not worth it.

Our first venture into the land-o-wings was at Towson's Pickles and Chips. I (B!) randomly wanted some wings and they were pretty good from P n' C. This sparked the whole baby chicken drumstick frenzy. We were now off trying every shop's wings and came across some major winners as well as some sore losers. The search was worth it b/c now we know exactly where to pick up a badass set of wangs.

1220 East Joppa Road
Towson, MD 21286

The general Baltimore area loves them some Cluck-U. We had one in Towson but they closed down just as we were realizing their goodness. The range of sauces is great and they have tons of other fried options which perfectly compliment a well-cooked wing. Our only complaint would be that the outside of their wings are not always crispy. Occasionally had a few soggy ones. Even so, it's worth a few not-so-hot ones to get that good batch.

20 East Ordnance Rd.
Glen Burnie, MD 21060

We consider Buffalo Wild Wings to be the ultimate, the winner, the supreme master of our wing-obsessed lives. We say that with our heads partially lowered for two reasons the main one being that they are a corporate chain and we would rather promote small and/or independent businesses. The second reason is that there is basically nothing else that is good on their menu. The fries are ok. The drinks suck. I ordered a mojito which had no alcohol in it and when I told the waiter that neither one of us could taste any alcohol, he shrugged. Whatever, it was Tuesday night (45 cent wings, baby!) so the place was packed to the brim. We get their super hot wings every time, the milder ones are just less interesting. May we especially recommend Hot, Wild and Blazin'? Anyway, order an extra side of sauce, sour lemonade and some mediocre fries and enjoy! But stay away on Tuesday, it's annoying how packed it gets.

8200 Perry Hall Blvd.
Nottingham, MD 21236

Universal Subs and Pizza, not much to say about their wings. We tried the Thermonuclear and the habanero heat was awesome but the sauce lacked flavor, it was just super hot and salty. We've heard great things about Universal but we have yet to see what it's all about.

1700 Joan Ave
Parkville, MD 21234

Bill Bateman's Bistro wings are too chunky and they are definitely stingy on the sauce. The Atomic was nice and very hot but these wings just don't keep us coming back. Neither does the atmosphere. Is it just us or are the Towson students rude as shit? DO NOT listen to the hype about this place.

7800 York Road
Towson, MD 21204

Chili Man is gross and we won't try their wings. Their cheese sauce is sour (!?!!?) and the chili has a canned/dog food feel to it. You take business from Burger Bros but maybe you should after what we say next. Also, your restaurant stinks, literally.

18 Allegheny Avenue
Towson, MD 21204

We've gotten overcooked wings too many times from Burger Bros. Do people really enjoy chicken jerky that much? Your burgers rock but your fries are so oily tasting. We want to like you, too, but even Buffalo Wild Wings has acceptable fries. Then again, you aren't called Wings and Fries Bros.... Touche.

14 Allegheny Ave
Towson, MD 21204

Red Robin's Buzzard wings are pretty damn good. One of the more unique wing sauces out there on top of a perfectly crispy wing. An extra side of buzzard sauce, their steak fries... my keyboard just shorted out from all the drool. Unfortunately, there’s no variety in sauce, only the buzzard sauce and you can't make it any more or less spicy, even if you ask one of those evil RR waitresses. Just kidding, they're always way nice...even if they do sneak glass into the meals.

1238 Putty Hill Avenue
Towson, MD 21286

*Gag* TGI Friday's wings. Do not order the soggy salty mess they call wings at this establishment. I will give in that the ribs are good. Damn you corporate food, damn you and your delicious preservatives!

825 Dulaney Valley Road
Towson, MD 21204

The Roost, famous for lake trout (whiting) makes unbelievable fried wings. Dose heavily w/ the house hot sauce, enjoy until you can't no mo. The owner is incredibly friendly, and not in a creepy way!! We loved everything we ate here. Anthony Bourdain already said it all about this place, just deeply comforting delicious food.

5281 Reisterstown Rd
Baltimore, MD 21215

Seasons Pizza makes an ok wing. Some days are better (crispier) than others. The Hot sauce is heavy with vinegar and fills your sinuses as soon as the Styrofoam opens. The Extra Hot is not that much hotter than the Hot but is just less vinegar-y. Seasons and Universal do something that pisses us off--and it may be the snob that sunbathes very openly within the both of us, but they serve partial wings or wings with broken bones. We aren't big fans of jumbo wings (Batemans) but shards of bone or tiny deformed wings just aren't appealing. Since we tend to split orders of wings, one of us always gets left with the tiny "disabled" wing and that's just not fair! Quality control, please. Is that just us or do other people not want that either?

40 York Rd
Towson, MD 21204

Bubbas of Towson, meh. Flabby chicken skin does not exactly keep us coming back for more. And where was the sauce? We almost tasted some. With most of these wing places, we wish they would let us know that we should order extra sauce on the side.

905 York Road
Towson, MD 21204

Any ideas for where else we should be sampling wings? Suggestions are very welcome, especially places that specialize in wings, have multiple/range of sauces, or just randomly happen to have great wings. Let us know, we hungry!

Making Friends With Your Problems: Pissed Jeans - King of Jeans

This album has been in heavy rotation on my various audio playback devices lately, and it’s a little hard to pin down exactly why. It is very much in the vein of other misanthropic lurching bands, with various pig-fuckery done in a vein made classic since Flipper (to whom they are frequently compared). However, there are some significant differences with both the lyrical concerns of the music and the more anthemic nature of the choruses—this is fist-pumping sludge, if anything. A greater degree of subtlety makes this ultimately a more pleasing exercise in song craft than the monotony typical of this genre. In fact, they make boredom sound positively nerve-wracking.

Much has been made of this band’s ability to invest everyday activities with an almost absurdly extreme pessimism, but one point I have failed to see mentioned is the reason this works in the band’s favor. While so many other bands have to struggle to maintain the shock factor of their aesthetic with increasingly lame and generic horror stories (sadly, e.g. Shot-era Jesus Lizard or Headache/Songs About Fucking-era Big Black), Pissed Jeans can fall back on a sort of “normal things are more easily exploited emotionally” approach, which allows them to tackle the same basic subject matter repeatedly: work, ennui, sexual decadence or what the woefully unimaginative narrator considers to be such. This is not to say that they are Bruce Springsteens of sludge, a working-man’s noise band, but it’s probably easier to re-write a twisted take on typical romance or an average shitty day than it is to continually rewrite a twisted take on a three-eyed baby that Anne Frank shat on the 6th of June, 2666, thus making their economy more easily explained.

Beyond lyrical aesthetic and the value therein, how do it sound? Well, I like it. That doesn’t count for much around here, but for what it’s worth, I enjoy it in a less-whine-driven-Shellac-y, slowed-down-Arab-on-Radar-y (sorta like their “O Henry”), more malevolent, less spastic Six Finger Satellite-y (perhaps as covered by the Melvins) sort of way. The opener, “False Jesii Part 2”, while more-or-less a straight-ahead glammy-rocker, manages to pack just enough incoherence into both the vocal exclamations and the instrumentation to make repeated listens seem more revelatory than they really are (not a bad thing).

I should quickly explain something that I’ve stated before (though hopefully not ad nauseum…yet): I love albums. That is to say the artist’s conception of the consumable item as a whole. The sequencing, thematic consistency (or, more frequently, LACK THEREOF), and general recording constraints usually make for some sort of compelling document at least worth a listen (with many exceptions). That said, mine tend to be reviews of ALBUMS.

The second track, “Half Idiot”, acts as a companion to the opener with an insurmountably loathsome protagonist. A very loose bass line snakes around tribal drums with darting, unpredictable vomit guitar for verses that shift into an efficient bang-on-one-chord chorus that builds back into the verse in such a way as to make the rippling carpet of instruments seem even more uncertain, Matt Korvette’s vocals more belabored and thickly slurred. This is a band that knows how to apply maximum pressure with a minimum of bluster, and it makes for quite the aural spectacle. There is little fat on this album: no guitar solos, only one song past the four-and-a-half minute mark, no instrumentals.

The one extended song, “Spent” happens to epitomize the lackadaisical attitude that most of the album features. A slow stalker of a song that measures just about the amount of time it should take to completely destroy every square inch of a small basement studio apartment, then boils over into barely sustained rage halfway through, which carries the album through to its hopeless conclusion several songs later with “Goodbye (Hair)”. The latter features such glowering sentiments as, “if my looks deteriorate, I don’t know what it will do to my self-esteem. Is this what I have to look forward to? I know it will only get worse. If only I had some way to stop it, or at least someone to blame besides myself…”

While “Goodbye (Hair)” manages to drag with the inevitability of old age, “Spent” rails against the ennui of its subject matter. Despite lines like “I earned an extra hundred dollars, there’s nothing I want to buy”, the band’s performance conveys a feeling of (understatedly comic) struggle rather than acceptance. During the plateau to which the whole song builds, the narrator so passionately describes his affliction that he contradicts his own complaint of a passionless existence.

With all of those strong points stated, the major weak point of this album is its sequencing. Side one’s bombastic rockers give way to a second side with considerably less energy. Though the songs are equally strong, it would be a less top-heavy album with just a couple of songs rearranged. I suppose that doesn’t count for much of a strike against it (more of a minor quibble), but ultimately it can make for a less satisfying listening experience on the whole. Both of Pissed Jeans previous full length efforts have benefited from a variety that ultimately lends the closing tracks some sort of greater coherence. Shallow’s closing “Wachovia” has the sort of fried guitar and crumbling drums that manage to embody the album’s tone of all-out unease while hinting at something greater. The same goes for Hope For Men’s “My Bed”, which is half lame psychodrama, and half lame-psychodrama-to-end-all-psychodramas-lame-or-otherwise, which is totally in keeping with the album’s general aura of suburban claustrophobia (although that said, Hope For Men did suffer from unvarying mood to a far greater degree than King of Jeans suffers from the inverse).

That said, “Goodbye (Hair)” is a fine song, it just sums up a different album from King of Jeans, which features its characters giving fewer concessions to the world around them (no defeat à la “I’ve Still Got You (Ice Cream)”, just plenty of woozily lumbering complaint and self-deprecating admissions of shortcomings), and a more heroic delivery than its lyrics suggest. While “Spent” would not necessarily have made a good album closer, it still seems like something with an equal level of pent up rage would be appropriate, leaving the listener feeling less like surrendering, and more like rioting. Music like this should incite audiences to action, and for better reasons than most typically revolutionary music: we were promised flying cars by now, but we can’t even find a cure for acne. When you think of those assholes a hundred or so years from now scooting around in mid-air all carefree and shit, doesn’t it make you feel pretty dissatisfied with the current state of affairs? You smell like shit, look stupid, and hate everyone—even the people you like. And if you don’t feel that way, then you have the sad problem of being in denial so deep it’s practically religion. You poor bastard.