All Of Us Are Dead TV Series [2022]

After the success of the game changing brutal and frankly excellent global hits Squid Game and Kingdom, Netflix are no longer afraid to bring us quality adult Korean horror films and media. In fact, they’re embracing the fear with All Of Us Are Dead, a new Highschool Zombie Apocalypse TV Series, arriving at Netflix on January 28th, 2022.

All Of Us Are Dead is apparently based on the webtoon "Now at Our School (Jigeum Woori Hakkyoneun)" by Joo Dong-Geun and follows a band of students attempting to survive a Zombie Apocalypse.

Education has never been so much fun.

Watch the full trailer here:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MwPgGgXN_jw

Santa Claus is coming : Watch Christmas Evil (1980)

Watch Evil Christmas [1980]

You’d better watch out ‘cause Santa Claus is coming to town and this year he’s in a bad mood. He knows where you live and he’s carrying an axe. He’s checking his list to see if you’ve been naughty or nice. In fact, he’s checking it twice…

Ive often heard a rumour about a half decent retro horror film featuring a deranged Santa Claus serial killer. Can it be true? Yes, count me in. Its a simple premise, which in the wrong director’s hands could become ridiculous, or just enjoyably ridiculous - like Christmas Evil (1980).

Also known as You Better Watch Out, Christmas Evil’s narrative follows the classic horror file trope where the central protagonist suffers a traumatic childhood event which haunts him for the rest of his life - I’m talking to you Michael Myers. Laughably, in Christmas Evil, this occurs after a small boy is traumatised when he learns that Santa isn’t real. Following a nervous breakdown as an adult, he then goes on to commit a vengeful Christmas killing spree dressed as Santa Claus. (Thanks go out to Vinegar Syndrome for the film tip and trailer). Merry Bloody Christmas…

Watch the Christmas Evil trailer:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=t2zPRNgzBrM

Watch the FREE full movie on Youtube below:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6nARbo67el4&t=3s

Lockdown 2022 : The United Kingdom Of Complacency

Welcome To Plague Island.

Like a fat, old, retired heavyweight boxer, the UK government has recently been limbering up and flexing its muscles to make another late comeback in the fight against Covid. Already on the backfoot after waiting for the financial Christmas Golden Quarter to end, it has finally implemented Plan B. This largely faux PR exercise was a package of basic restrictions which should, on the advice of the WHO, have already remained in place to protect the public. Instead the lack of basic measures has fuelled rife mass infections across the country, and given rise to the spread of the new Omicron variant.

The Omicron variant is three times as infectious as previous variants and despite the remarkable effectiveness of vaccines, it could circumvent these defences, and already government incompetence has left the UK with the highest death rate per capita in Europe.

With much of the country sick or in self imposed isolation, there are few options left on the table - except for further undesirable lockdowns to prevent more deaths. But how can anyone trust a government that openly mocks its citizens with allegations and revelations of Number 10 Downing Street parties during Lockdown 2020? This was an unforgivable act. The government will eventually have to step into the ring and hope its subjects are compliant; even if it has proven itself unfit for purpose.

Perhaps we are all trapped in a 2020 timeloop, unable to break the cycle without a pancoronavirus vaccine?

A January 2022 Lockdown is now inevitable.

Happy New Fear 2022.

Roland JX-8P Synth Reborn IN 2021

Good news for fans of the original 1985 JX-8P synth with Roland’s latest announcement of its introduction into the excellent Boutique series, and reborn as the compact JX-08 Synthesizer. Not only is this a new iteration of a huge analogue digital hybrid beast, but it also includes the rare PG 800 hardware controller in-built, complete with original presets and a step sequencer.

Read an original 1980’s advert for the now very rare Roland JX-8P below.

View fullsize

Having once owned the original huge Roland JX-8P and been a fan of its excellent Blade Runner Vangelis pad sounds, I cant believe this thing actual exists and is now small enough to fit in my pocket. Well, almost...

Available from January 2022.

https://www.roland.com/global/products/jx-08/

Top 10 Giallos Of All Time

Who is the mysterious serial killer in black leather gloves?

This is the ultimate premise of every Giallo movie, which begins when the main protagonist stumbles upon a murder and the mysterious killer escapes. The witness then conducts their own investigation into the murderer’s motives while their friends and associaties are picked off one by one - as the killer closes in for the kill.

Giallo translates as the Italian word Yellow, a reference to the unique cover designs for Italian Mondadori pulp murder mystery paperback novels popular in the 1930’s. Giallo’s inception as a film genre began with Mario Bava’s stylistic reinvention of Film Noir as Horror with the Hitchcock influenced The Girl Who Knew Too Much. Although Bava and Lucio Fulci improved on this formula with later films, their work was perfected by Dario Argento who freed it from early genre tropes to create blood soaked celluloid dripping with lurid colours and murder set pieces where no-one - including men - were safe.

But no one does it quite like Argento. Or do they?

In descending order of greatness:

10. The Girl Who Knew Too Much (1963)

Mario Bava’s reinvention of the film noir distilled Hitchcock’s master of suspense into a new genre which dominated Italian cinema for decades. Say hello to Giallo.

9. Four Flies On Grey Velvet (1971)

Dario Argento’s early Animal Trilogy began with The Bird With The Crystal Plummage, followed by Four Flies On Grey Velvet, then Cat O Nine Tales. This, the second in the trilogy, is perhaps its best and notably features another soundtrack by Ennio Morricone before Argento later embarked on collaborations with the Goblin and some of his best known films and soundtracks.

8. Your Vice IS A LOCKED ROOM AND ONLY I HAVE THE KEY (1972)

Your Vice Is A Locked Room And Only I Have The Key has to be one of the longest film titles in history. But having said that, this obscure classic has an excellent soundtrack and great use of cinematography that makes this one of the best examples of early and bloodless Giallos.

7. Dressed To Kill (1982)

You can’t mention Giallo without recognising its cinematic influence on Hollwood thrillers which sought to emulate box office returns in the 1980’s with that strange beast, the American Giallo. Although Brian De Palma’s grimy Dressed To Kill is a controversial entry into our list, it proved that not all of them were bad.

6. Tenebrae (1982)

Its a hard choice between including Opera or Tenebrae on this list but Tenebrae is Dario Argento at the technical peak of his mastery with incredible visuals, a Goblin soundtrack, and a wholly original and better ending that you never see coming.

5. Blood And Black Lace (1964)

Mario Bava improved on The Girl Who Knew Too Much with Blood And Black Lace the following year to mix murder and high fashion into one of the genre’s most exquisite and influential contributions.

4. Don’t Torture A Duckling (1971)

Lucio Fulci wrote and directed this dark and disturbing classic about that unspoken rule of cinema - dont kill children.

3. The New York Ripper (1982)

Although it is not often considered a true Giallo, this dark and nihlistic Lucio Fulci classic contains many of the main elements and is much like its central serial killer, murderous and relentless. The New York Ripper’s lurid mysogyny depicts an unforgiving New York awash with sleaze and danger at every turn as women are terrorised and murdered by a killer bizarrely laughing and quacking like a duck. Somehow Fulci makes this madness disturbingly plausible, and the film leaves you feeling as grimy and unhinged as its New York killer.

2. What Have You Done To Solange (1971)

Massimo Dallamano was the cinematographer responsible for A Fistful of Dollars and For a Few Dollars More so his eye for the camera was legendary even before his directorial debut, the classic What Have You Done To Solange. With its 1970’s soft colour pallete and slow subdued atmosphere Dallamano expertly ramps up the sleaze, tension and intrique as a predatory school teacher is accused of killing his students, only to mount his own investigation into the lives of Convent girls who may not be as wholesome as they seem. The story is loaded with Freudian symbology and takes an unexpected turn in its third act with a memorable ending full of pathos for the main characters, including the killer.

1. Deep Red (1975)

Straight in at number one like a knife from the dark comes Dario Argento’s Deep Red. Like Tenebrae before it, Deep Red follows the life of another musician, David Hemmings, when he witnesses a murder in a neighbour’s apartment only to find himself the next target. This is perhaps the greatest Giallo ever made with great characters, incredible cinematography, shocking gore and masterful suspense that builds to an ever twisting narrative climax. Argento arguably made a catalogue of popular Giallos with bigger budgets and more intricate murder set pieces but Deep Red distills the genre to its raw, bloody, and strangely accessible ingredients.

Rumour has it that Dario Argento himself even donned the famous black gloves of the serial killer in all his movies.

Mondo Freudo 20th Anniversary Outtake

Celebrating The 20th Anniversary Of Mondo Freudo [2001 - 2021]

Join us in celebrating the 20th Anniversary of Freudstein’s debut LP, Mondo Freudo, with an original outtake.

‘Skull Axis’ was originally penned as the final track on the album but never officially released.

Listen to Skull Axis below:

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Sisters With Transistors Documentary

Sisters With Transistors is a powerful and thrilling documentary about the female pioneers of electronic music who changed how we listen to music today. Archive footage of artists such as Clara Rockmore, Daphne Oram, Bebe Barron, Pauline Oliveros, Delia Derbyshire, Maryanne Amacher, Eliane Radigue, Suzanne Ciani, and Laurie Spiegel, reveal their untold story.

Visit the official website:

https://sisterswithtransistors.com/

Watch the full documentary here:

https://www.modernfilms.com/sisterswithtransistors/watch

Day Of The Dead TV Series 2021

"Day Of The Dead" is yet another brainless zombie TV series from the SYFY Channel which is slowly lumbering towards us in October 2021. This new 10 part series follows in the well worn footsteps of The Walking Dead, Z Nation and Black Summer, and according to the showrunners, is described as a ode to George A. Romero’s “Day of the Dead”. Yes, you read that correctly, this show is somehow linked to that classic movie, but how and why is anybody's guess.

But before you get too excited, this low budget gore fest with its hapless victims looks like it will get pretty old, pretty fast, without Romero's trade mark social commentary. Instead you might be better off rewatching The Walking Dead, or better yet, watch Kingdom.

Check out the trailer and make up your own mind, if you're curious.

Coronavirus : Perception Management

In predictable fashion Boris Johnson has thrown in the towel and declared he can’t quite be bothered to save lives any more - because it’s all a bit like hard work. He would rather ‘let the bodies pile up than have another lockdown.’

We’ll have to save ourselves.

2021 is 2020 all over again but with better perception management. We are trapped in a loop of UK government inepitude and propaganda as it literally washes its hands twice of the pandemic while whistling Happy Birthday, Good Luck and Good Night.

It’s a populist approach to ending transmission prevention with voluntary mask wearing and social distancing, but one that may come back to haunt us. We are far from out of a pandemic with only 3% of the globe vaccinated and at a dangerous crossroads with only half the UK population vaccinated during the cusp of a Third Covid Wave. The Delta Covid variant is far more transmissible and with the over 80’s vaccinated, most deaths are now in the over 55’s, young people are still vulnerable, the Long Covid victims and bereaved quickly forgotten.

But maybe people don’t want the truth.

What better way to end a pandemic than to pretend it isn’t happening. All the government cares about is a PR success and if that means using Orwellian Doublethink, then they are not afraid to use it. Success without success. Success without remorse. Let’s take a moment to reflect on this right wing media headline from June 4th, 2021: ‘Opening Up Will Make Us Healthier’ and remember the government’s own so-called Freedom Day on June 21st was recently cancelled.

Scientists have long maintained that the best path out of a pandemic is not with vaccines alone, but with physical distancing measures and masks to ensure more dangerous variations do not evolve unchecked to elude vaccines and render them useless.

So what will the government be doing while we endure a pandemic that may now never go away as ‘we all have to learn to live with it?’ Boris Johnson will be busy putting up curtains in No.11 and writing a book about his epic Covid battle that was never won, Matt Hancock will be enjoying his new bachelor lifestyle, and Sajid Javid will be the new lockdown sceptic ‘health’ secretary busy comparing Covid to Flu to shore up the ailing economy while privatising the NHS. Probably.

While people get sick and die. This all sounds strangely familiar…

How quickly we all forget. Another Summer of complaceny awaits us because by Autumn some of us will be paying for it with our lives and we will be stuck in reverse all over again.

History is repeating itself.

Welcome back to time loop 2020. Plague Island.

Lockdown 3 Part 7 : Delia Derbyshire - The Myths & Legendary Tapes

Pioneering electronic artist, Delia Derbyshire is the focus of a lovingly directed feature length docu-drama called ‘ Delia Derbyshire - The Myths & Legendary Tapes’ from BBC Four.

Starring and directed by Caroline Catz, the film recreates the non conformist life of Delia Derbyshire in her unwaivering pursuit of electronic music as a a serious artform from the 1950’s onward, long before it was accepted by popular culture. The dramatisation is accompanied by narration from Delia herself in the form of original interviews, alongside interviews from fellow BBC Radiophonic Workshop members, while Cosey Fanni Tutti reworks 267 newly discovered unheard tapes into the soundtrack.

According to the Press Release : “This is a life story told through sound, using both Delia’s own pieces of music alongside a soundtrack constructed from samples chosen with musician and performance artist Cosey Fanni Tutti from Delia’s attic tapes. It explores the fantasy of a collaboration, an exchange of ideas across eras between two fascinating musicians. It celebrates independence and imagination and looks at how, when that energy is evoked by women and creates a spark, the pattern seen throughout history is that it is often dismissed, ridiculed or downplayed. A cinematic exploration of a legendary musical figure, written and directed by Caroline Catz, who also plays Delia.”

Available To Watch on BBC Four now :

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m000w6tr

Lockdown 3 Part 6 : Censor Film Trailer

Censor Trailer [2021]

Censor riffs on the 1980’s era of Video Nasties, a pre-internet time when horror films were often demonised by the British Board Of Film Censorship, the national press, and culture was vetted by moral guardians like Mary Whitehouse.

This new horror film cleverly trades on Video Nasty VHS visuals and themes as the main character, Enid, searches for her missing sister. Reality and fiction soon blur on her dark inward journey to discover the truth, with a narrative similar to Nicolas Roeg’s Don’t Look Now.

Directed by newcomer Prano Bailey-Bond, Censor is the newly celebrated darling of the Sundance Film Festival and has been tipped as this year’s best horror film. Censor is released on June 25th, 2021. You can watch the trailer below.

Read a list of the original 72 Banned Video Nasties here:

https://www.imdb.com/list/ls051364249/

Lockdown 3 Part 5 : Moog Sound Studio

Moog have announced a brand new mini modular synth, the Moog Sound Studio, with a fantastic retro style promo video created by Julian House of Ghost Box records. This setup is essentially the Moog Mother-32 Modular Synthesiser and Moog DFAM Analogue Percussion Synthesizer bundled together into a neat little package with a Moog 2 Tier Rack Stand and Audio Mixer, plus cables and a bunch of fun accessories.

According to their press release, this is “designed for beginner and seasoned synthesists alike, Moog Sound Studio introduces a uniquely comprehensive approach to exploring modular synthesis.”

The Moog Sound Studio is available in two versions:

Moog Sound Studio: Mother-32
Moog Sound Studio: Subharmonicon

Now stop messing around and watch this truly excellent promo video which will convince you the Moog Sound Studio may have just arrived from the 1970s…

For more information check out the official Moog website:

https://www.moogmusic.com/news/moog-music-introduces-complete-synthesizer-studio-experience

Spotify ‘True Horror Collection’ Playlist

Freudstein have curated a Spotify ‘True Horror Collection’ playlist for fans of 1970s horror soundtracks when there's no more room in hell.

Listen to the undisputed masters of horror film soundtracks who influenced and inspired the sound of Freudstein, including Suspiria by Goblin, City Of The Living Dead by Fabio Frizzi, Cannibal Holocaust by Riz Ortolani, and many more.

To stream the True Horror Collection follow this link:

https://open.spotify.com/playlist/2wOZUUawmNnMpZpz7LKCMr

Lockdown 3 Part 4 : Ben Wheatley's In The Earth

Director Ben Wheatley returns to his early folk horror roots with In The Earth, a worthy low budget successor to A Field In England. Filmed in 2020 during a very real global pandemic, it stars Joel Fry, Ellora Torchia, and Reece Shearsmith (Psychoville / League Of Gentlemen) in a search for a cure to a disasterous virus in a forest where madness, myth and psychedelica collide. Released 23/04/2021.

Synopsis : “As the world searches for a cure to a disastrous virus, a scientist and park scout venture deep in the forest for a routine equipment run. Through the night, their journey becomes a terrifying voyage through the heart of darkness, the forest coming to life around them.”