Black Sabbath : Yorkshire Broadcast - Live in Paris (1970)

Black Sabbath were an English rock band, formed in Aston, Birmingham in 1968 by Ozzy Osbourne (lead vocals), Tony Iommi (guitar), Geezer Butler (bass guitar), and Bill Ward (drums). The band has since experienced multiple line-up changes, with Tony Iommi the only constant presence in the band through the years. A total of twenty-two musicians have at one time been members of Black Sabbath. Originally formed as a heavy blues-rock band named Earth, the band began incorporating occult- and horror-inspired lyrics with tuned-down guitars, changing their name to Black Sabbath and achieving multiple platinum records in the 1970s. Despite an association with occult and horror themes, Black Sabbath also composed songs dealing with social and political issues such as drugs and war. As one of the first and most influential heavy metal bands of all time, Black Sabbath helped define the genre with releases such as quadruple-platinum Paranoid, released in 1970. They were ranked by MTV as the "Greatest Metal Band" of all time, and placed second in VH1's "100 Greatest Artists of Hard Rock" list, behind Led Zeppelin. Rolling Stone has posited the band as 'the heavy-metal kings of the '70s'. They have sold over 15 million records in the United States alone and more than 50 million records worldwide. Vocalist Ozzy Osbourne's drinking led to his being fired from the band in 1979, but Ozzy began a very successful solo career, selling more than 100 million albums. He was replaced by former Rainbow vocalist Ronnie James Dio. After a few albums with Dio's vocals and his songwriting collaborations, Black Sabbath endured a revolving line-up in the 1980s and 1990s that included vocalists Ian Gillan, Glenn Hughes, Ray Gillen and Tony Martin. In 1992, Iommi and Butler rejoined Dio and drummer Vinny Appice to record Dehumanizer. The original line-up reunited with Osbourne in 1997 and released a live album, Reunion. The 1979–1982 and 1991–1992 line-up featuring Iommi, Butler, Dio, and Appice reformed in 2006 under the moniker Heaven & Hell until Dio's death on 16 May 2010. This is Black Sabbath performing in concert in Paris in December of 1970. Possibly the best film you'll ever see of the early line-up in action and contains some slightly alternative lyrics to old classic songs. This concert was professionally shot and has been taken from two YTV broadcast shown in the early 1970's. Set list includes: Paranoid Hand Of Doom Rat Salad Iron Man Black Sabbath N.I.B. Wasp Behind The Wall Of Sleep War Pigs Fairies Wear Boots

BLACK SABBATH : LIVE IN PARIS
YORKSHIRE TELEVISION  (1970)
55 MIN
UK

Maniac (1934)

Maniac, also known as Sex Maniac, is a 1934 black and white exploitation/horror film, directed by Dwain Esper and written by Hildegarde Stadie, Esper's wife, as a loose adaptation of the Edgar Allan Poe story "The Black Cat", with references to his "Murders in the Rue Morgue". Esper and Stadie also made the 1936 exploitation film Marihuana.


The film, which was advertised with the tagline "He menaced women with his weird desires!", is in the public domain. A restored version was made available in 1999, as part of a double feature with another Dwain Esper film, Narcotic! (1933). A full length RiffTrax for the movie was released on November 25, 2009, with commentary by Mike Nelson, Kevin Murphy, and Bill Corbett of Mystery Science Theater 3000 fame. John Wilson, the founder of the Golden Raspberry Award, named Maniac as one of the "100 Most Amusingly Bad Movies Ever Made" in his book The Official Razzies Movie Guide.


MANIAC
DWAIN ESPER  (1934)
50 MIN
USA
DOWNLOAD / MPEG2 / 1.3 GB

American Grindhouse (2010)

American Grindhouse is a 2010 documentary directed and produced by Elijah Drenner. The film made its world premiere at South by Southwest on March 13, 2010. The documentary chronicles the history of the American exploitation film from the days of Thomas Edison to contemporary films of the 21st century. The film features exclusive interviews with John Landis, Joe Dante, Jack Hill, Don Edmonds, Fred Williamson, Allison Anders, James Gordon White, Larry Cohen, William Lustig, Herschell Gordon Lewis, Judy Brown, Jeremy Kasten, Jonathan Kaplan, Bob Minor, Lewis Teague, David Hess and Fred Olen Ray. The documentary also features film historians Eddie Muller, Kim Morgan and Eric Schaefer. The narration is by actor Robert Forster.


After a bombastic opening credits sequence and an introduction that promises tons of gratuitous and sleazy sex, nudity and violence, the documentary American Grindhouse settles into something really hardcore: A hardcore history lesson.
Directed by Elijah Drenner, this chronicle of the seedy underbelly of film history does a damn fine job of showing how the notorious exploitation cinema racket is really the history of all cinema, that even from the days of Thomas Edison, all movies focused on the salacious and the bloodthirsty in order to draw in audiences. However, it is the grindhouse films that makes no bones about appealing to prurient interests while so-called mainstream films hide their licentious side under the cover of art.

One type of obscure, mostly-forgotten film covered in American Grindhouse are the ’50s childbirth films that were produced and promoted as allegedly educational tools, but were for the most part a cover so perverts could publicly gawk at a woman’s exposed hoo-haw and feel like stand-up pillars of their community. Drenner takes the opposite approach than that with his own documentary, promising the most vile, degrading acts ever committed to celluloid and offering up an actual, educational history lesson. Don’t get me wrong, though, American Grindhouse is packed to the gills with primo clips and trailers from the outrageous films being discussed. If you happen to want to gawk at a woman’s exposed hoo-haw — albeit with a baby popping out of it — and feel like a budding film historian, then this is the film to see. Lots of experts walk us through this seamy history, from film professors like Eric Schaeffer (Emerson College) to historians like Eddie Muller and Kim Morgan. In fact, even though the word “grindhouse” typically conjures up images of Times Square palaces showing horror, blaxploitation and skin flicks 24 hours a day in the ’60s and ’70s, American Grindhouse seems to linger more on the prior evolution of the exploitation film, including the wild, pre-Hays code days of Hollywood and the institution of that code, which set the stage to independent film hucksters to create the sordid types of entertainment that audiences truly crave. It’s a truly fascinating history and presented in a truly entertaining way by Drenner. In addition to the professors and historians, there are lots of great interviews with the actual makers, including established directors like Joe Dante and John Landis who got their start making exploitation-eque type features and obviously big fans of the genre. Although, at certain points, one almost wishes the entire documentary was just a long sit-down with the giddy, over-opinionated — in a good way — Landis mouthing off about different films and filmmakers. He’s interview gold. But there are also interviews with a few masters of the exploitation circuit, such as Don Edmonds (Ilsa, She Wolf of the SS), Jack Hill (The Big Doll House), Ted V. Mikels (The Corpse Grinders) and the wizard of gore Herschell Gordon Lewis. In fact, one of the most intriguing sections of American Grindhouse is the debate over whether Alfred Hitchcock‘s Psycho (1960) or Lewis’ Blood Feast (1963) was the beginning of the modern slasher movie craze. The only place where American Grindhouse falters is by being struck with title-card-itis, a disease that afflicts many documentaries. Generally, the film follows a linear path, moving from the birth of cinema up to the ’70s. But even with that structure clearly in place, Drenner still breaks up each time period, and the types of exploitation picture that dominated them, with a title card to tell the audience what it’s about to watch.
However, once the documentary hits the free-for-all ’70s when all manners of perversion and slaughter were exploited for entertainment, that clear linear flow gets tossed out the window and the title cards jump from genre to genre no matter what specific year is being covered. Thus, the film gets too jumpy for it’s own good and it feels as though certain subjects get crammed in and glossed over just to make sure nothing gets overlooked. For a quick example, there are title card sections for “horror” and “blaxploitation,” yet a film like Blacula only gets a brief clip in the “horror” section without a discussion of hybrid exploitation because the overall documentary is hamstrung by it’s title cards. With so much loving detail exhibited in the first three-quarters of the films, the lack of detail towards the end is incongruous and jarring.

Overall, though, all history lessons should be as much fun as American Grindhouse. Drenner has crafted a very loving tribute that should satisfy those who are already fans of the world of exploitation and those who know nothing about it. The fans get the great clips and trailers and serious discussion of their beloved medium, while the novices will actually learn a thing or two. Of course, those things will be a little disturbing, but that’s the fun and the thrill of the grindhouse experience.
 - Bad Lit   The Journal of Underground Film



AMERICAN GRINDHOUSE
ELIJAH DRENNER  (2010)
81 MIN
USA

Reflections of Evil (2002)

Reflections of Evil is a 2002 independent film written, produced and directed by Damon Packard.

 Bobby and his big sister Julie are visiting the Universal Studios Tour one warm '70s summer day. Suddenly, Julie is gone, and Bobby is left with his bewildered grandmother. Julie is never found. Years go by, and Bobby grows up to be a disgruntled, angry street vendor with a temper like a faulty blasting cap. He views the world as a series of standoffs, and is constantly lost in a free-flowing stream of his own unconscious thoughts. When he's not being confronted by evil bums, he's harassed by angry dogs, teeth bared and ready for the attack. Bobby is also obese, an issue exacerbated by his unbridled love of sugar. As he spends his days wandering a wasteland-like L.A., he reflects on his past (including a sighting of a young Steven Spielberg) as he constantly battles with inner and outer demons. To Bobby, the world is an ugly place, and when he holds it up to the mirror of his mind, all he sees are Reflections of Evil.


It is safe to say that Reflections of Evil is a work of stunted genius. It is the intricate and scattered effort of a freaked-out filmmaker overdosing on '70s TV, horror anthologies, and a severe lack of psychotropic drugs. Playing like a perverted version of the Me Decade staple ABC Movie of the Week, with a little Night Gallery and Gary Collins-era Sixth Sense thrown in for good measure, this cinematic rant is a brave, baffling film. It is mise en scene as mosaic, atrocity as artistic aesthetic. Imagine if you could peek inside the soiled, throbbing psyche of Cousin Dell from Wild at Heart, or dig beneath the surface of the sound to find the true inspiration for Fred Lane's snuff film soundtracks, and you get the basic idea of what this maniacal movie is aiming for. There has probably not been a more telling take on our corrupted cultural mindset than this visualized assault. As a statement about the inherent heinousness, anger, distrust, and psychosis bubbling under the surface of our suburban social order, these reflections are very potent indeed.

The creator of this crackpot acid trip, one Damon Packard, is a story unto himself. The long version is full of obsessions, disappointment and audacity. The short version goes a little something like this: desperate to be a filmmaker, part-time street vendor Packard pools the funds from a recent inheritance, catalogs his collection of film and TV footage, improvises an idea, and sets off to make his own movie. After completing the project (like the recent Tarnation, an Apple computer-crafted collage that's part narrative, part labor of love), Packard makes more than 20,000 DVD copies of the project and distributes them for free. He leaves them around L.A. (in stores and at ATMs) and mails many directly to celebrities. He gets the occasional response (several messages, both good and very bad, have been catalogued on Packard's Web site), and finds a champion in Sylvester Stallone's son Sage. But mostly, Packard laments—in long, free-form Internet rages—about the lack of recognition, both monetary and meaningful, for his work. The lack of attention is sad, but understandable. If you don't understand the lines and forms in a Pollard painting, if you fail to grasp the connections and themes in free-form jazz, if David Lynch's short films leave you perplexed and pained, you will not embrace this movie's entertainment value. Packard is playing on an irritated ethereal plane unlike any other. His brilliance is in the ability to recall the past perfectly, while making it mesh within a post-modern isolation and anger. Certain phrases that have come to define our modern life ("I will kill you," "You don't want to f*ck with me") are repeated incessantly, spoken by gang members, hobos, cops, and everyday citizens. Packard's character is on the verge of an all-encompassing breakdown, a man battling for a stake in his own sanity. Some of the material here is darkly disturbing. Other parts are ludicrous and hilarious. Between Bob's battles with his abusive grandmother (who refers to her overweight grandson as "disgusting" so often you think she's suffering from some manner of mental vapor lock), and his confrontation with the hostile populace of L.A., you don't know whether to laugh, cry, or just shut the goddamn DVD player off.

Packard's muse may not be pleasant, but it is very powerful. Reflections of Evil is experimentalism in the form of excess, a public working-out of some very private problems. Obviously, Packard has cinematic penis envy in the form of a certain S. Spielberg. The entire film seems centered on the Universal Studio's era of the blockbuster auteur (specifically, a little TV film called Something Evil), and Reflections takes potshots at E.T.'s daddy as readily as it reveres his overriding filmic force. The nods to the ABC Movie of the Week are wonderful, since they recall a time when terror and suspense was found inside slow-motion tracking shots and ghostly images of young women wandering aimlessly.

Packard does attempt to impose a kind of narrative basis for what happens here (it's standard shock-theater twist-ending fair) but the truth is that he appears to be functioning in more of an autobiographical than fictional mode. Packard may just be passing off his oddball eccentricities and in-house idiosyncrasies on the audience (what's with all this Chemtrail conspiracy crap?), but the way he says it goes to the very heart of the motion picture experience. Few films play with the conventions of cinema as effectively and as menacingly as Reflections of Evil. Decades from now, scholars will probably point to this film and find it to be a defining moment of no-budget independent filmmaking. But with Packard's luck, one could also easily see it being roundly rejected and forgotten forever. That's the mystery of his muse. That is the ambiguity of this ambitious, amazing work.

Here's a little praise for Go-Kart Films as well. Coming from the world of punk rock music, their dedication to the DIY spirit of the genre is commendable. Over the last few months, movies like Ball of Wax, Ding-a-ling Less, and Grace and the Storm have proven that this company has a real eye for the unusual and unique. Reflections of Evil definitely falls into this category. The technical presentation is amazing, from the excellent 1.33:1 full frame image, which looks purposefully flawed to reflect the multimedia approach by Packard, to the Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo soundtrack that features snippets of popular film scores, crazy voice-over acting (Packard even overdubs his own voice), and lots of Industrial-inspired noise pollution.

One brief side note: This DVD runs a little over 100 minutes. The original film was over 138 minutes long, and contained several montages made up of found movie and TV footage, as well as parodies of Star Wars, Schindler's List, and E.T. Most of this material has been edited out. There were also several issues with song licensing, which means a few important tunes are missing here. It would be nice to see the full version, but money matters will obviously keep that from happening.

Indeed, for Damon Packard, the entire world is crafted out of conspiracy and cabals. It is forged out of a Free Mason sense of secrecy and purposefully set up to subvert the efforts of those wanting to make a difference. Reflections of Evil is a stuttering shock treatment approach to understanding this indecipherable design, a movie masquerading as a madman's mission statement. No one said the truth would be comfortable or easy. No one said the past was pain-free. Bobby understands this all too well, and just like his motion picture protagonist, Damon Packard also suffers with the obvious oppression of everyday life. This is an amazing cinematic shriek. It should not be missed.
Review by Judge Bill Gibron - DVD Verdict
 
"I loved this film the first time I saw it and I thought it was one of the best films to come out in 2002, I programed it at the Seattle Underground Film Festival and it was a huge hit." - Jon Behrens

REFLECTIONS OF EVIL
DAMON PACKARD  (2002)
POLLOCK TRUST FUND
137 MIN
USA
If you like this film you should check out these other great films by Damon Packard available on DVD.

Panic in Year Zero (1962)

Panic in Year Zero! (1962), sometimes known as End of the World, is a science fiction film directed by and starring Ray Milland. The original music score was composed by Les Baxter. It was adapted to film by John Morton and Jay Simms from Ward Moore's stories Lot (1953) and Lot's Daughter (1954). In the 1962 novelization of the film by Dean Owen, which was published under the title End of the World by Alta Vista Productions with Ray Milland's photo on the cover, the introduction page asserted: "The screenplay was by John Morton and Jay Simms, from an original story by Jay Simms."

Soon after Harry Baldwin (Ray Milland), his wife Ann (Jean Hagen), their son Rick (Frankie Avalon), and daughter Karen (Mary Mitchell) leave suburban Los Angeles on a camping trip, the Baldwins note unusually bright light flashes coming from a great distance. Sporadic news reports on CONELRAD broadcasts hint at the start of a World War - which is confirmed as the Baldwins see a large mushroom cloud over what was Los Angeles. The family initially attempts to return to rescue Ann's mother near Los Angeles, but soon abandons these plans as panicked refugees from Los Angeles climb over one another to escape the fallout from the multiple nuclear explosions. Witnessing the very threads of society breaking down in front of them, Harry makes the decision that the family must make it to their secluded vacation spot in search of an isolated refuge. Along the way, they stop off to buy supplies — or, in the case of hardware store owner Ed Johnson (Richard Garland), take them by force when he won't accept a check — and extra gasoline. They also encounter three threatening young hoodlums, Carl (Richard Bakalyan), Mickey (Rex Holman), and Andy (Neil Nephew), on the road, but manage to drive them off. After a harrowing journey, the Baldwins reach their destination and hole up in a cave to wait for order to be restored. They find that Johnson and his wife are their neighbors - but not for long. The three thugs show up and shoot them. A farming couple suffers the same fate and their teenage daughter, Marilyn (Joan Freeman) is kept as a sex slave. Mickey and Andy happen upon Karen and she is raped. With guns in hand, the Baldwin men fight back, killing the two murderers and freeing Marilyn. When Carl returns, he is killed as well, but Rick is seriously wounded. With Marilyn's help, they get the young man to Doctor Strong (Willis Bouchey). The doctor does what he can, but the boy needs to get to an army hospital over a hundred miles (160 km) away or he will die. On their drive there, they run into a military patrol, scouting for the army that is reestablishing order. After a tense meeting, they are allowed to pass through.




PANIC IN YEAR ZERO
RAY MILLAND  (1962)
AIP
91 MIN
USA

Seven Doors Of Death (1981)

The Beyond (Italian: ...E tu vivrai nel terrore! L'aldilà, also known as Seven Doors of Death) is a 1981 Italian horror film directed by Lucio Fulci. It is considered by some horror film fans to be one of the best movies made by the Italian director. The second film in Fulci's unofficial Gates of Hell trilogy (along with City of the Living Dead and The House by the Cemetery), The Beyond has gained a cult following over the decades, in part because of the film's gore-filled murder sequences, which had been heavily censored when the film was originally released in the United States in 1983.


In 1927, Louisiana's Seven Doors Hotel is the scene of a vicious murder as a lynch mob crucifies and pours quicklime upon an artist named Schweick, whom they believe to be a warlock. The artist's murder opens one of the seven doors of death, which exist throughout the world and allow the dead to cross into the world of the living. Several decades later, a young woman from New York inherits the hotel and plans to re-open it for business. But her renovation work activates the hell-portal, and soon she and a local doctor find themselves having to deal with living dead, a ghost of a blind girl who seeks to get them to leave the house, a mystic tome called the Book of Eibon that supposedly contains the answers to the nightmare at hand, face-eating tarantulas, a young girl whose murdered parents become zombies and is herself possessed by undead spirits — and Schweick, who has returned as a malevolent, indestructible corpse, apparently in control of the supernatural forces. All hope is lost by the end, as the hero and heroine find themselves transported impossibly from a hospital stairway back to the hotel's basement. They enter a wasteland that Schweick was seen painting at the beginning of the film. After wandering around amidst fog and lifeless mummified bodies, the two go blind and fade into oblivion.

Following the release of City of the Living Dead, Fulci decided to continue that film's exploration of metaphysical concepts — in particular, the ways in which the realms of both the living and the dead might bleed into each other. Fulci also wanted to do a film that would pay homage to his idol, the French playwright Antonin Artaud. Artaud, a sometime member of the early 20th Century Surrealist movement, envisioned theatre being less about linear plot and more about "cruel" imagery and symbolism that could shock its audience into action. Thus, Fulci's original outline for The Beyond was of a non-linear haunted house story with the only solid plot element being that of a woman moving into a hotel built on one of the seven gates of hell (another such gate is depicted in City of the Living Dead). This original story focused on the dead leaving hell and entering the hotel with little outside of the ensuing carnage to link the scenes together. However, the German distribution company that owned the release rights to Fulci's films at the time were not interested in a haunted house story. Zombie movies were still popular at the time in Europe and Fulci's backers wanted something similar to his previous zombie films. Fulci agreed to rewrite his film, adding zombies and completely rewriting the film's final act to include a shoot-out between the main characters and a zombie horde at a local hospital. Despite these revisions, the final product is considered by many fans to be one of Fulci's best films and has even been praised for its oneiric incoherence.


SEVEN DOORS OF DEATH
LUCIO FULCI  (1981)
ROLLING THUNDER PICTURES
89 MIN
ITALY/USA