Nightmare Sound Lab is dedicated to all things Horror and SciFi in music, art, movies, comics, and culture. At Nightmare Sound Laboratory there is a monster in every room and a robot doorman to guide the way.
Mad science is the only science studied here, and outlandish sonic experiments are the rule, not the exception.
I am happy to present a new feature here at Nightmare Sound Laboratory! In case you haven't guessed it by now, I sort of have a thing for Horror movies, as well as Sci-Fi,Cult, Asian Cinema and, well, just movies in general. As such I have a collection of over a thousand films, including many obscure titles. From "so bad it's good" to "so good it's terrifying" and everything in-between, I'd like to present some of my favorite picks in this feature I call "Nightmare Theater". I won't be doing reviews here 'per se', but I will present some recommendations and sufficient description to solve your movie night dilemmas. The hottest picks from my private collection, rated on a scale of 1 to 5 skulls.
Today's picks are from my Asian Cinema collection. Here are a couple of my all time favorites and definitely amongst some of the wildest films out there!
Hellevator
"Hellevator" or ("The Bottled Fools") the 2004 Japanese film written and directed by Hiroki Yamaguchi is definitely NOT for the kiddies:) It is gruesome, freakish, post-Apocalyptic cyber-punk in an elevator. This film makes M. Night Shamylan pee his bed while David Lynch laughs about it. It's weird, it's tense, and it's everything I love in a film. "A Clockwork Orange" get's stood on it's head, crammed through "1984" and dropped in to a brave New Tokyo most of which occurs while a group of strangers are trapped on an elevator with dangerous prisoners. Bored with "regular" old movies? THIS IS A MUST SEE FILM! Five Skulls!
Save the Green Planet
"Save the Green Planet" (2003) is a Korean film from the mind writer/director Joon Hwang-Jang. This Dark Comedy lives up to both characteristics to the highest degree. Again, this film is NOT for children, nonetheless it can be both heartwarming AND horrifying in the same moment. Byeong-gu (Ha-kyun Shin) suspects his boss is an Alien. With the help of his adorable hapless, naive but loyal girlfriend Kang Man-shik (Yun-shik Baek) they go to extreme measures to save the world from invasion! Madcap creepy fun! 5 Skulls!
Volcano High
Another splendid Korean film by Director Tae-gyun Kim, "Volcano High" (2001) is a fun high flying fantasy FX film about violence between rivals at WanSanGo (Volcano High). This is silly comic book fun with plenty of martial arts madness, schoolgirls who kick ass and enough mystic Kung Fu to sooth the Taoist in me. Think Battle Royal but WAY cooler! Exciting cinematography and experimental tones give this a super comic book feel! The film centers around Kyeong-su (Hyuk Jang) a transfer student known for disciplinary troubles, who must unite the students to face a greater enemy than rival gangs. The DVD comes with an English version dubbed by famous rappers (Snoop Dog, Method Man, & others); DO NOT WATCH THE ENGLISH VERSION! It ruins the movie, and whether you like those artists or not, the dubbing is sub par and the entire flow and vibe of the film is lost. There is also something about the nature of the Korean language that is so critical to the actors' performances. Definitely watch the Korean version with English subtitles. You won't regret it! You guessed it: 5 Skulls!
These are three of my all time favorites so we got 15 Skulls up on the trophy wall!
Nothing like watching a good film with some great fiends!
That's all for now, till next time at Nightmare Theater,
This New Year I am probably the last person who should write about “How to keep New Year’s resolutions” (so I won’t). I am as guilty as anyone of what I call the creative “Art of Multi-crastination” and have a task list longer than my arm stretched out before me as we speak!
I’d like to talk about the “Why” - Why NOW is a particularly important time. And I don’t mean in that nebulous Zen “Now is the only moment of power” kind of way (even though it’s true).
As we approach this New Year - 2011, many of us carry forward resolutions to do more, do it better, and get in great shape while we are doing it.These valiant goals and others come in many forms and just about every artist, writer, musician, filmmaker and entrepreneur have a host of industry specific goals they would like to achieve at the start of each year.
For Artists of all kinds, the journey from creative inclinations to professional aspirations and achievements is indeed a great odyssey!
But this year is a particularly interesting and fortuitous year to get on top of that list and really tackle the goals you wish to achieve.“The industry” is in a temporary upheaval and there is a groundswell of independent arts activity and technology that is shifting the balance of power and creating a more Artist friendly environment with more direct connection to audiences. Alternate paradigms are emerging and gaining ground.
The challenge and core “down in the gut” question for many ambitious creative people has always been “How can I “make it” doing what I love to do?”For many that means finding a functional “middle class” path that not only provides life’s necessities, but also the means to facilitate the manifestation of more new and unique collaborations and works of art and entertainment.
There are some lovely new “memes” spreading across the internet like “authenticity” and “Becoming one’s own brand”, but … there is still a long way to go! There is always the danger that these ideas with such great potential could simply be assimilated and abused to dysfunction by the pre-existing stagnant industry giants or people that are still so saturated by the previously engrained “competition” and “scarcity” based paradigms that they simply imprint the old memes upon the new ones, effectively canceling their value. (i.e. SPAM and “Push Selling” ain’t “NEW” or “authentic” simply because it’s “tweeted” from a freakin’ Star Trek lookin’ Android or iPhone”).
2011 holds a great deal of potential opportunity precisely because we are in this state of flux. The atmosphere is bristling for change and anyone with the courage and fortitude to play a positive role in that development NOW has a good chance of finding their “wave” in the years to come. Being flexible and open to new ideas, people and processes while maintaining clear focus on our goals may just be the key to riding this wave. I truly hope that there are many of us who can heed this call.
We need to cautiously but expeditiously find our way through developing better business paradigms SO THAT we can really sit down and focus on developing our craft and our art. That is after all, the heart of what we do and the reason why most of us do it in the first place.
We need to be able to focus on writing NEW stories and finding amazing new ways to tell them.
We need to expand our creative and cultural vocabularies by collaborating with artists, friends and partners that enrich and enhance each other
And we need (and deserve) to be able to survive and thrive while growing and expanding to our full creative potential. “The Arts” play a very important role in culture – too important to be left in the hands of bean counters and corporate executives with no connection to the art itself.
Whatever your role in the world of arts and entertainment, now is the time (while the “system” is broken or at least reasonably off its footing) to rebuild our industry more in the image we’d like to see, rather than simply struggling to get on for the ride and trying like hell not to get bucked off.
Just keeping our ordinary New Year’s resolutions seems hard enough. Getting on point toward building a great career and body of work in the Arts is an added challenge. Doing it during an economy in flux adds even further complication. Attempting to change the industry one artist at a time may seem even more daunting. But determining to do any of those things NOW may just be the single step that launches the rest of your own amazing creative odyssey in the world of Art and Filmmaking in the 21st Century.
Stanley Kubrick's "2001 A Space Odyssey" was a groundbreaking film and represented what great filmmakers could achieve at the time. It spoke to the 21st Century over thirty years before it would actually arrive.
Take inspiration from that and speak to your own future as an Artist and your own personal creative odyssey for 2011.
Happy New Year!
T. Reed- Composer @TAOXproductionshttp://www.taoxproductions.com
The Story of my Race to the “Mortuary” with Horror Director - Tobe Hooper
First let me clear a couple things up –
This was not a metaphorical race to the grave, nor an actual footrace to the gates of the cemetery.
This was a race to finish a film.
But before I go on…a second point:
Tobe Hooper is NOT the Devil! (I just thought that was a snazzy title;)
But he might as well have been, to the people who wanted his horror masterpiece banned, often based on the name alone! “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” will go down as one of the most groundbreaking films in the Horror genre. The greatest irony is that, for a film with such a gruesome reputation, there was very little gore (at least by today’s standards) and precious little stage blood used, and yet it still resonates as terrifying to this day!
No small part of this was probably due to the unique score created by Tobe Hooper himself, using unconventional instruments to create the discomforting sound that was so important to creating that horrific environment. But as we know - as directors become more “in demand”, having the time to score as well as direct becomes a much less viable option (yes, even if you are John Carpenter;) So this was a rare point in his career where passion and skill had the perfect environment to converge!
Oh and synchronicity…did I mention synchronicity? (I’ll come back to that – so pay attention!) But let's just start with the fact that Tobe Hooper's "Texas Chainsaw Massacre" was inspired by Wisconsin's (and perhaps one of the World's) most notorious serial killers, (and human taxidermists) Ed Gein!
In any event, the art, hunger, dedication (and suffering) which usually only comes from that kind of an independent film making experience, came through in the film in an artful, earnest and terrifying way. The New York Museum of Modern Art agrees apparently, and has a copy of the film amongst their permanent collection.
But you didn’t come here to listen to me wax poetic on the virtues of “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” (even though I gladly could, and would) you came for a race! Ah, but first, Synchronicity! (Told you there’d be a quiz!)
Long after the original TCM struck terror in the hearts of British censorship boards (and others), long after “Poltergeist”, Tobe made a movie adapted from a short story Stephan King called “The Mangler”. The film featured Nightmare on Elm Street’s Robert Englund and Ted Levine as well as, yes, you guessed it, a demon possessed laundry mangling machine.
And here is where strange synchronicities (and your’s truly) come into the story.
Flash forward about 9 more years! (2004) I fly to San Francisco to meet with the Director of a film called Mortuary to sign contracts and have a look at the roughs on an actual telecine machine. In fact, the entire film was being edited on the very machine that was used to edit Terry Zwigoff’s Robert Crumb documentary, {“Crumb” 1994} or so I was told. It was entirely believable.
Just an aside: Terry Zwigoff (by the way) is also a Wisconsin Native and a musician/filmmaker. I hadn’t even considered that coincidence (and that his name is also Terry) until writing this article now!
10 years later the machine he used to cut “Crumb” wheezed and cranked like it had a devil in it, the kind of thing that could only happen to a machine after having born witness to the surreal expression of countless filmmaker’s projects! As Director Sean Hazelaar showed me reel one, we carried forward with the conversation we started on the phone before I arrived at his studio. He had mentioned one particular scene involving a mortician’s furnace in which all the set sound was destroyed by a bad hum generated by nearby machines. I would be expected to really make something sweet here, because it was a very important SFX scene.
When he asked me about this, I hadn’t seen the film yet. It just so happens that I have an extensive background in horror and a huge collection of horror/scifi and Asian films (on good ol’ hard copy DVD;)
I thought about the furnace scene and off the top of my head I said something to the effect that I could hear music/sound there sort of similar to that in the scenes of the evil machine in Tobe Hooper’s “The Mangler”. The Director’s jaw dropped. He informed me that the guy they hired to do that special FX scene was someone who had worked on “The Mangler”.
That in itself was wild! But there’s more…
As my team had taken the reigns of much of the post production, music and sound and were well into getting the color corrections, score and sound design under way, we discovered that Tobe Hooper, by some utterly ‘Bizzaro World’ coincidence, was in production on a movie also called “Mortuary”!
Van Hazelaar Productions “Mortuary” was nearer completion at the time, but Hooper’s “Mortuary” had a larger budget and the capacity to roll a little faster. From here the race was on!
Tobe Hooper's "Mortuary" Trailer 2005
Now we all know it didn’t really matter, as two movies can have the same title in many cases (There was already a Howard Avedis film called “Mortuary” done in the eighties.)
Howard Avedis' "Mortuary" Trailer 1983
~
In the end we had to differentiate the name for foreign and US sales anyhow, so the name of Van Hazelaar’s “Mortuary” became “Final Remains” (which, I am proud to say, was one of my suggestions). It really wouldn’t matter at all, but factually, the statistically unlikely event had occurred. Two movies called “Mortuary” would both appear on IMDB as having been released in 2005. It was just a matter of whose film would get finished first! In truth, Tobe Hooper was probably entirely oblivious to our 85,000 dollar picture, as he was likely quite busy directing, but somewhere an assistant whose job it was to pay attention to just those sort of things must certainly have noticed the site. It would have been hard to miss our use of the Mortuary Movie domain at the time (Now located at VanHazelaar Productions website).
Clip from Mortuary aka final Remains
In the end I believe we technically finished our film first, but with the clout and machinations already in place for Tobe Hooper’s film to enter a marketing and distribution stream, it would obviously be Hooper’s “Mortuary” that would make it to market first. VanHazelaar’s “Mortuary” aka “Final Remains” did however get distribution a little later, in 2006, and is currently available as a rental from: Blockbusterand for sale via Amazon.
"Mortuary" aka "Final Remains" Trailer
In the end, it didn’t matter who won in this race with the Devil. The only thing that mattered, is that for a brief time in 2005 we got to run that race right alongside horror film legend, Tobe Hooper, tiptoeing on the edge of synchronicity with one degree of separation between us and a Master of Horror! Rod Serling could have had a field day introducing this story. It certainly added zest to the project before we got to the truly terrifying (and far less glamorous) part of filmmaking – the hard work;)
Speaking of work I suppose I need to finish mastering the
Mortuary aka Final Remains - Soundtrack/Score CD
that has been sitting on my drive for 5 years now!
Halloween is almost at hand and the Flyway Film Festival located in Pepin & Stockholm Wisconsin has already begun! Big ups to my fellow Wisconsinites on their successful Kickstarter campaign which helped fund this years awesome films and events including the Special Kickstarter Backer Screening/Party for Gary King's "Death of the Dead" Friday October 22nd at 10:00 PM at the Lake Pepin Art & Design CenterDirector Gary King will be in attendance!
I like to help and encourage other Wisconsin film and music makers to step up to the craft however and whenever possible. Unfortunately, I am booked in the studio for the next month and will not be able to attend this years event! I did however do my part by pitching in to the Flyway Film Festival Kickstarter Campaign AND I have been asked to provide a CD of music for the DOTD After Party. And this I have done, (and if snail mail cooperates it will be arriving before Friday Night's Event!;)
In fact, I thought I would volunteer to add a bonus to the rewards offered by the Flyway Film Fest! For anyone who was a Kickstarter Backer for this years festival, I am going to offer a FREE DOWNLOAD!
Are YOU one of the 65 backers of The Flyway Film Festival Kickstarter Campaign? Would you like to receive a FREE DOWNLOAD of the 'Death of the Dead Party -TAO X MIX'?
All you have to do is comment on this article (in the comments section below) including the phrase: "I supported the Flyway Film Festival on Kickstarter".
OFFICIAL INSTRUCTIONS UPDATE - As posted on Flyway Film Festival Kickstarter Backer site: TAO X Productions is offering a Halloween Bonus Reward for anyone who supported the Flyway Film Festival Kickstarter Campaign:
I gotta make you work for it a little bit, so leave a comment that includes the phrase "I supported the Flyway Film Festival on Kickstarter" under this Blog Post: http://nightmaresoundlab.blogspot.com/2010/10/death-of-dead-at-flyway-filmfest-2010.html
And send me an email to taoxproductions@gmail.com or follow & tweet me @TAOXproductions letting me know, so I can email or DM you a link & code to retrieve a FREE download of the DJ mix I created for The Flyway Film Festival "Death of the Dead" Special Kickstarter Backer Screening After Party!
Scary good music all from my studio for the scary holiday:)
I would also love it if anyone would choose to follow my Nightmare Sound Lab Blog!
Feel free if you like, but I won't make you do that to get your reward.
Thanks,
T. Reed - Composer/Producer
TAOX {The Art of X} Productions http://www.taoxproductions.com http://nightmaresoundlab.blogspot.com
P.S. If you are already a blog follower but did not support the Flyway Film Fest campaign and want a copy, please comment on this article with some damn fine fancy talkin' on what you do to help and uplift the state of independent artists, musicians, filmmakers and the craft in general. I can be persuaded to give out a few more codes for a free download:)
Thanks for all of you who are dedicated to the craft and culture!
T. Reed - TAO X Productions - Nightmare Sound Laboratory
Let me preface this article with a little background. I am a 'Type A', multi-media multi-taskin' creative madman who is entirely unsatisfied sticking to one discipline. I do believe I could be very happy with a set of octopus arms to achieve all that I would like to. So far, knowing of no living mad doctors who can achieve this operation successfully, I have had to settle for less sleep to create more time.
I started as a graphic artist only to become a musician. I employed all of my artistic and sculptural skills for supporting my musical projects including creating posters, promo art, packaging, props, and set/stage design. For two decades I have been pouring creativity out of one vessel or another. I became involved in video production in the late 80;s and since that time have added several other skills and projects to my already full schedule of mad scientist, rock and roll
'comic bookery' (To use a term Tyler Weaver, (creator of "Whiz Bam Pow") likes to say.)
The other day I visited Tyler Weaver's Blog News at: The Tyler Weaver Daily and there was a mysterious audio file the emerged from out of nowhere! I couldn't even be sure that is where it came from! I was frantically closing windows to see if some strange pop up had hit me...nothing; Maybe it was only my subconscious speaking to me? In any event, I am not normally keen on auto-play files on websites wherever they come from, but this one was tastefully mixed, haunting, humorous, and the source of an epiphany in my life as a crazy multi-media artist!
It was a lecture from a soft compelling voice with gentle British accent describing the nature of procrastination.
"Procrastination is..." - It listed through a number of obvious definitions. We've all been there and can relate. But then...it got a little deeper.
Now, I know I procrastinate, but I'm also so busy most of the time that it is hard to picture myself as a "procrastinator" per se'. I mean, how can one be procrastinating if they are always busy, right?
And that is where the revelation kicked in...
I laughed when the voice said "Doing the dishes is procrastination." Because yes, I had coincidentally stepped into the kitchen to do a few dishes when I heard it;)
"Making lists is procrastinating" ...
BUT WAIT! I have to make lists to keep all these projects and their (ever-extending) schedules in order!...And on and on the list went...etc., etc.
And then it said something I can only paraphrase (as the ghostly voice has since vanished from whence it came.) It regarded starting new projects to ensure you could never finish any of the old ones still lost in the loop. FLASH! A light went on in my head. I know I DO THAT! It's not on purpose, and I definitely DO finish lots of things, but still, there is an element of truth inside the statement uttered by that disembodied voice!
There is a certain thrill to the chase when it comes to ideas. The pragmatics and logistics of starting a marketing campaign for an idea in motion, is generally not as alluring as the next "BIG THING" idea that pops into one's head. Carried to it's logical conclusion, without discipline, this can lead to creative projects left on the back burners (of a stove stored in the garage.)
Keep loving what you do and doing what you love!
What do you love to do creatively? Have you fallen into the trap of 'multi-crastinating'? When you've finished adding your comments, you can always procrastinate some more by visiting fellow 'multi-crastinator' Tyler Weaver's latest project at: http://tyler-weaver.com/WhizBamPow!.html
Let me know what you think in the comments!
And don't forget to TWEET if you are a #multicrastinator as well!
~
In October 2010 Charles River Press will be releasing
"Rock & Roll Ghost Stories"
edited and compiled by Stacy McArdle-Sardelli.
Stacy was the editor and chief of the music and entertainment magazine Babble and Beat. In this frightful collection Stacy brings together musicians from around the world to share their real life ghostly encounters! Some of the Artists who have provided true ghost stories include:
The Church, Tim Finn, Nosferatu,
Metropol, Screaming Mechanical Brain
Well, no, not really, But I just discovered that Unstoppable Pacific is offering up a way cool poster for a Horror film I scored back in 2002
"Blood Reaper"This Movie got some incredibly cool DVD box art devoted to it for the American, Canadian, U.K., S. African, and Japanese releases... and now this beautiful full size 40"x27" high quality 4-color process poster designed by New York Graphic Artist Brenda Trevethan.The artwork, in fact far surpasses the film, which featured Scream Queen, Brinke Stevens in a brief appearance.
This movie succeeds at being exactly what it is, and does so unapologetically, so despite it being a typical STV teenage slasher flick, for me it had a level of humor and charm others might not necessarily see. I suppose that scoring this film, for weeks, and hearing the director's instruction in the background of the rough audio added to the humor that I alone would be in the unique position of engraining into my experience. I mean there's something hilarious about watching an actor looking at a dripping substance hitting the ground, and hearing the director in the background whispering
" You look up...and sure enough... it's blood!"
You can see a trailer for Blood Reaper here: It was the first feature horror film I scored and I had fun doing it. I hope and believe that my music served it well. My favorite aspect of the film was probably the most understated, the scenes with a homeless woman who lived in a tent, played by Emalie Ortega. They had a very 'David Lynchian' vibe which I attempted to accentuate with the sound/music.
I wish all the best to the cast and crew of "Blood Reaper" and the Producers at U.P. and hope they continue to put out creepy films. Their latest short film looks pretty cool! See Unstoppable Pacific's Trailer for "Eternus" Here:
I am happy to present a new feature here at Nightmare Sound Laboratory! In case you haven't guessed it by now, I sort of have a thing for Horror movies, as well as Sci-Fi, Cult, Asian Cinema and, well, just movies in general. As such I have a collection of over a thousand films, including many obscure titles. From "so bad it's good" to "so good it's terrifying" and everything in-between, I'd like to present some of my favorite picks in this feature I call "Nightmare Theater". I won't be doing reviews here 'per se', but I will present some recommendations and sufficient description to solve your movie night dilemmas. The hottest picks from my private collection, rated on a scale of 1 to 5 skulls.
