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Blood Dolls is a Charles Band film from the late 90’s, which stands as one of his most wacked out & comic-book creations. It regards a masked eccentric billionaire-come mad doctor, who decides to take revenge on competitors via killer dolls he’s created. It also features a caged girl rock band, a philosophical clown-faced painted butler, moments of spurting red gore, and a hell-of-a-lot campness. Here from Full Moon Features, as either a Blu-ray or DVD, is a release of the film, taking in a few archive extras
So High I’ve Been is a three-CD compilation focusing on the European rock scene between the years 1967 and 1973. The fifty-seven-track collection takes in a lot of sonic ground, covering most sub-genres of rock at the time, with often some neat and creative edges. There’s a good blend of known acts such as Tangerine Dream, Magma, and Focus. Sitting alongside more obscure fare such as Alan Jack Civilization, Culper’s Orchard, and Acqua Fragile.
Here’s a double CD release of the two albums put out by Northern British band D.A.M. during the late 80’s and early 90's. Their sound primally focused on Thrash metal, but they blended in elements of Power metal, Speed metal, and Hardcore too.
Senso(1954) is an Italian period melodrama, drenched in forbidden passion and sprinkled with history and opera. It’s directed by Luchino Visconti(White Nights, The Damned, Ludwig). Here from Radiance Films is a Blu-ray release of the film, featuring a 2k scan and a mix of new and archival extras.
Here we see the very welcome return of Powerhouse’s Columbia Noir boxset series. For this 7th in the series, the focus is on films made in Britain. The Blu-ray set takes in six films- each receives a lovely new scans, and a selection of worthy extras. The films move between blends of caper-based noir and romantic drama, crime procedural/ courtroom drama, femme fatale melodrama noir, London mob-based noir, a blend of noir and over road adventure, and mystery-focused noir with gothic horror touches.
Iowa's Alex Nowack may be best known for his harsh noise/ HNW Boar project, but he will be turning heads with the latest under his Brutal Shift moniker, Pain Has Brought Me More Peace Than Any God. A dark and gloomy walk through the psyche and personal redemption, Pain is ten tracks of bleak ambient that craft a desolate soundscape. Although its release was timed perfectly with the spooky season and the dwindling of daylight, its strong construction and deep, penetrating drones will help bring any listener through their cold season, twilight commutes, and dark nights of the soul.
Jakob The Liar, is a DEFA film from the early 70’s set in 1944 in a Jewish ghetto, where an ex- café owner overhears a radio broadcast announcing the Soviet Army is making slow but steady progress towards central Europe. He tells a few people, with the word quickly spreading- he sees the news gives some hope, so he decides to pretend he has a radio himself. The picture blends grim drama with moments of levity/ hope, humour, and fantasy, making for an impactful, at times moving ride. Here from Eureka is a Blu-ray release of the film, featuring a 4k scan and a mix of new/ archive extras.
In 1976, director Francesco Rosi and producer Alberto Grimaldi adapted Leonardo Sciascia’s 1971 novel Equal Danger into the hazy, gritty thriller Illustrious Corpses, a film that offers no easy answers.
This is a sidetrack from my usual viewing, but a good one; Furious (1984) is here given the Blu-ray treatment by Visual Vengeance: one disc, a slipcase, a poster, some stickers, and a throwing star shaped ‘thingy’ designed to be hung off something. The film itself is short at 73 minutes, but the disc comes loaded with numerous extras, covering a wide range of material.
Re-Animator is director Stuart Gordon (From Beyond, Dagon and Castle Freak) and producer Brian Yuzna’s (Society, Bride of Reanimator and Beyond Reanimator) first foray into Lovecraft territory. This was closely followed by their adaptation of From Beyond, another Lovecraft tale that helped rocket the pair into the horror movie stratosphere.
Non Toxique Lost stand as one of the lesser-known, though still important bands to appear from Berlin’s early 80’s industrial scene. 026750,9 is the bands thirty fifth album, which appeared in the latter part of last year on Klanggalerie as a CD.
Here we have a collaboration between two long-active German electro-acoustic soundmakers, Asmus Tietchens and Achim Wollscheid. Apparently, the recording was found in a drawer in Tietchen's apartment last year, and it dates back some twenty years. What we have here is a single hour-long track, based around a droning yet often highly glitching soundcraft.
Parajekt is the Austrian duo of Bernhard Hammer & Matija Schellander, who create a sort of combination between the distant past and cutting-edge modernity, sequencing the kind of primitive rhythms once played communally on skin drums with analogue electronic devices and samples, for a kind of tribal IDM. This self-titled album is a substantial forty-one minutes, with eight tracks.
Ekin Fil, the nom de plume of Istantbul–based Ekin Üzeltüzenc, has been composing threadbare ambient works since at least the early tens, characterised by a heady mixture of field recordings, siren vocals, and reverb–laden piano. The cocktail is not unfamiliar to those who turn to Kranky label artists – Liz Harris, Tim Hecker, Adam Wiltzie, and so on – for their fix. While the elements and their gossamer dressing might be known quantities, there is something absent from Bor Boreas, Ekin Fil‘s latest offering. Not absent as in missing or lacking; absent like a void. The center has dropped out, and no amount of framing will bring it back.
The Incident is a dense, taut and tense example of the walled noise form with unsettling underbelly. The thirty-minute track from Cincinnati’s Whore’s Breath managers to create an effectively airless & uneasy vibe, which prevails throughout the track's length.
A Tapestry Made Of Angel Flesh blends thick ‘n’ crudely tumbling walled noise, with a sinisterly warbling ‘n’ wavering ambient undercarriage. This twenty-minute digital EP is the first release from this Alabama-based project.
Untitled Pig Collection brings together five slices of walled noise from this Old Town, Maine project, which themes all of its releases around pigs, boars, or hogs.
From 2024, The Devil's Wasteland is a zero-budget post-apocalyptic thriller/ horror. It features very cheap/ often gore-free effects, bad-hamming-it-up acting, and a fair bit of mouth frothing punch-up. Here from SRS Cinema is a very bare bones DVD release of the film.
Moljebka Pvlse are an experimental music group from Stockholm, Sweden, featuring Hara Alonso (piano), Isabel Fogelklou (Harp), Mathias Josefson (Electronics) and Kris Kuldkepp (Bass Guitars). They work with both acoustic and electronic instruments, as well as field recordings and found sounds, to create dark and haunting minimalist soundscapes. The band have released over a dozen albums on a variety of different labels; this is their third full-length album release for Zoharum Records.
Now here’s a film with an interesting/ unique concept-could a car run on human blood?. Ferat Vampire is an early 80’s Czech film which sits somewhere between conspiracy thriller, dark comedy, PR satire, and body horror. Here, from the fine folks at Severin, is a Blu-ray release of the film, featuring an HD print and around five hours of extras.
Dead Sleep is an early 1990’s Australian blend of medical melodrama and mystery thriller. It stars Linda Blair as a psych nurse who uncovers suspicious deaths. The film is based on the real-life case of Harry Bailey- a New South Wales psychiatrist/ medical administrator, who was linked to the deaths of eighty-six patients during the early 60’s and late 70’s. Here from Severin is a region A release of the film.
If 2024's Megaliths allowed Llyn Y Cwn to give these mysterious stone circles a voice, 2025's reworking, Megaliths In Dub, has given them motion. Reworking his field recordings to unlock the hidden beats within, this alternative view of the magic and mystery of prehistoric stone circles furthers our fascination and exposes even more of this unseen and unknown world. Obviously, these sounds are more manipulated than the original sources for Megaliths, but the re-interpretation adds another dimension to the enigma, another view, and a different retelling of the story. While Megaliths plays like grim epic poems recalling the past, Megaliths In Dub is like the graphic novel, quickly moving, charged up, and repackaged for those looking for an alternative experience.
V/H/S/Halloween is the 8th in the V/H/S/ found footage anthology series. As its title suggests, all six of the stories have an All Hallows' Eve setting and/or theme. Moving between a spectral-sourced frizzy drink, a deranged children's home, weird goings on/ murder in a medium’s house, a macabre alternative candy reality, a child killer stalking during Halloween, and a family-made haunt that suddenly becomes very real. Here from Acorn Media is a Blu-ray release of the film, taking in a commentary track and a few other extra
Atrophy is nearing an 80-minute ride into thick, dense, and truly hope-killing walled noise from this Hungarian project. This is an example of the world around you blocking noise, when you just want to get away for an hour or so, into constantly churning sonic nihilism.