The Lorax

Here is a perfectly charming adaption of Dr. Seuss's environmental cautionary tale The Lorax. Renders the 2012 version obsolete.

8/10

The ABCs of Death

Here are 26 short films about death.

Each director involved in the project was given one letter of the alphabet to work with. The result is sometimes quite awesome (D) and sometimes boring (G) or even downright stupid (F).

Sadly, the really good stories are few and far between.

Here are the stories in detail:

A is for Apocalypse: The beginning is quite promising, I thought. The apocalypse itself is only hinted at and only shown as a red light outside the window of the room the story (a murder, but - as we learn - out of mercy) takes place in. 6/10

B is for Bigfoot: Also quite good. Here a bed time story about a snow creature coming for the little children - made up on the spot - becomes ghastly reality. Well, sort of. 7/10

C is for Cycle: Weird but still a cool idea. I only found it irritating that the subtitles turned 'Bruno' into 'Bruce' for some reason. 6/10

D is for Dogfight: Brilliant. Gets by without any dialogue. 9/10

E is for Exterminate: Yeah, yeah. A spider. Of course there was going to be something with a spider. Meh. 4/10

F is for Fart: Really? 'Fart' is the one word you come up to build a horror story around? And then it is not even a horror story, just plain stupid. 1/10

G is for Gravity: The height of boredom. 2/10

H is for Hydry-Electric Diffusion: Are those foxes? I've decided they are foxes. One (British?) soldier fox goes into a strip club, where a very hot (apparently) fox is on stage. Unfortunately, she turns out to be a Nazi and wants to electrocute the soldier fox. No, really. 2/10

I is for Ingrown: Woman tied up in a bathtub always makes for decent horror. 5/10

J is for Jidai-geki: A samurai has to execute someone. Very strange laughter, distorted face, buckets of sweat. Japanese weirdness. 3/10

K is for Klutz: A piece of shit. Literally. 1/10

L is for Libido: Torture porn. Actually, torture + porn. 5/10

M is for Miscarriage: This may be the shortest piece of the them all (or maybe that is Gravity). A miscarriage in the toilet. 3/10

N is for Nuptials: Hilarious. 8/10

O is for Orgasm: S&M in all its slo-mo beauty. 7/10

P is for Pressure: Prostitution and kitties. 4/10

Q is for Quack: Yes, killing an animal will totally make your movie better (the movie in the movie, that is). And shooting a duck that sits inside a cage is, like, so manly, too. These two guys are too stupid to manage even that. 4/10

R is for Removed: A patch of skin (?) is removed that is actually a strip of film (?). What is going on here? Also, disgusting. Then the guy, who's skin has been removed pushes a train. Why? Nobody knows. And then it's raining blood. 2/10

S is for Speed: A woman kidnapping another while outrunning some sort of monstrosity, flees in very, very fast car. Then she runs out of gas and the monstrosity catches up with her. He tellsher she can't run forever and takes her hand. She falls down and - back in the real world now - dies from an OD. 4/10

T is for Toilet: Ah, claymation. The toilet spews green goo and turns into a monster. Blood and gore and melting faces. Weirdly fascinating. 6/10

U is for Unearthed; There's the vampire bit. Dug up, hunted by townsfolk, gets teeth pulled, a stake through the heart and head chopped off. Very old school, this. 6/10

V is for Vagitus (The Cry of a Newborn Baby): A robot warrior thing bites a baby's head off. 3/10

W is for WTF!: Movie makers (presumably) that have been given the W discuss the possibility of the letter. So meta. Also, clown zombies. WTF indeed. 1/10

X is for XXL: An overweight woman getting attacked and shamed by everyone she encounters. They're all French, so the being an asshole bit comes easy to them. Said woman then stuffs her face with everything in the must disgusting manner. Then she performs some DIY plastic (?) surgery on herself. Gross. 3/10

Y is for Youngbuck: A creepy janitor is really into the sweat of teenage boys. And hunting. This is like a horrifying music video. 2/10

Z is for Zetsumetsu (Extinction): Sushi, woman in Nazi uniform, a Japanese guy channeling Dr. Strangelove, a huge dildo and a food fight. 2/10

Sounds from a Town I Love

Die beispiellose Verteidigung der Festung Deutschkreuz (The Unprecedented Defence of the Fortress Deutschkreuz)

So, I am not the world's biggest Werner Herzog fan, but he made some awesome films with my favorite actor, Klaus Kinski (not my favorite person, mind you, but my favorite actor). This is not one of them.

This piece with the unnecessarily long title (if you read it slowly enough, it will take you longer than watching it) was filmed in Deutschkreuz, which is in my home country. It is under 15 min long and takes place in a castle, that was once the site of a battle between the Russians and the Germans during WWII.

A group of four young men visit the place and find uniforms and equipment. They dress up and play at defending the place. The only people around, however, are some farmers. The four get ready for the attack that - to their deep disappointment - does not come.

In the end, they storm out of the castle in full gear.

Yeah, it's weird.

5/10

Tales from the Crypt: And All Through the House

A woman kills her husband with a poker to the head on Christmas Eve. After she sends her daughter to bed, who is all excited about the impending visit of Santa Claus, she dregs the body out of the house to drop it into a well.

As she does so she misses the all important news bulletin warning people in the area of an escaped convict, murderer of four women, who is heavy set and thought to be dressed up as - you guessed it - Santa. And he attacks her right then and there. Luckily, she is able to fend him off and flee into the (yes, very remote) house.

In her first panic, she calls 911 but hangs up when she cannot see her attacker. Shortly after, her phone rings, but while she ponders whether or not she should answer, a tire comes flying though the window and Santa attacks her from behind.She manages to smash his head in with an ax he was carrying.

Then the phone rings again. Local law enforcement checks up on all residents in the area and she is informed that an officer will stop by in 20 minutes. Now that she has two bodies laying outside, she plans to frame Santa for her husbands death, hitting his head with the ax a few times to cover up the head wound from the poker.

Then the door to the house falls shut and she searches her husbands body for the keys while her little daughter looks out the window to see a shape in the snow where until just a minute ago the body of Santa had been lying. Must not have been as dead, after all.

Then she calls to report her husband's murder and when looking out the window realizes that the ax is no longer in his head and that Santa is no longer dead. Now she is in a real panic. She accidentally locks herself inside a closet right under her daughter's room and watches as Santa climbs up a ladder, ax in hand with the little girl cheering him on.

The last scene is the girl holding Santa's hand followed by a close up of the mother screaming.

5/10

Some Folks Call It a Sling Blade

Who's Watching Who

WHO'S WATCHING WHO from Sebastian Solberg on Vimeo.

HELL NO: The Sensible Horror Film

Tales from the Crypt: Spoiled

There were some really crappy episodes on Tales From The Crypt. Case in point: Spoiled, the penultimate episode of season 3.

A neglected doctor's wife takes a few cues from a bad TV show and tries to seduce her husband. When she fails to succeed she gets cable TV (to better receive her favorite show) and starts and affair with the cable guy (another great actor that paid his dues, Anthony LaPaglia). They do it in the living room while her husband is pouring himself into his research downstairs.

However, he does catch them in the act one day (they don't even notice) and he immediately starts plotting his revenge on the lovers. He uses them to step up his research from rabbits to humans.

2/10

Tales from the Crypt: The Sacrifice

Insurance salesman James sells life insurance to rich asshole Sebastian Fleming. Soon after he starts an affair with his wife Gloria and together they hatch a plan to kill Sebastian. They do so by throwing him off the balcony.

Since Sebastian had not yet signed the papers the police have no reason to suspect murder and file the case away as an accident. So far so good. Unfortunately, as soon as the police has left, old family friend Jasper shows up to commiserate the new widow.

He also shares the information that - since he has been in love with Gloria for a long time - he had rented a place right across the street to at least see her every once in a while. Also, he takes the occasional picture with a long lens camera and he just happened to snap a few of James throwing Sebastian to his death.

Jasper threatens to give the pictures to the police unless he is allowed to "share" Gloria with James. They agree, but James has a hard time dealing with the situation and eventually kills himself. Which was the plan all along. Gloria and Jasper ride off into the sunset together.

3/10

Ollie Klublershturf vs. the Nazis

Night Gallery: The Cemetery

Rod Serling is one of my heroes. Not only did he give us the genius Twilight Zone but he followed it with the wonderful Night Gallery. Here, the episodes are divided into two or three short films, often featuring well known actors.

The introduction, yet again, is done by Mr Serling himself, standing in the darkened Night Gallery, uncovering paintings that represent the stories to come.

The Cemetery is the very fist tale (of three comprising the pilot episode). It is about the black sheep of a well off family, appearing after his uncle had a series of strokes and speeding the elderly man's demise along to get his hands on the inheritance. As soon as the uncle is dead the nephew is haunted by a painting of his uncle's that appears to be changing before his eyes. It shows a cemetery that suddenly has an extra hole, at first empty, later with the uncle's coffin inside, then with the image of the uncle leaving the family plot, coming to get the culprit. And get him he does.

The body is discovered by the uncle's butler, Portifoy, who pulled the strings on the painting hoax, only to have the painting haunt him as it did the nephew.

6/10

Tales from the Crypt: The Man Who Was Death

The very first episode of Tales from the Crypt is narrated by this charmingly handsome man:

His name is Niles Talbot and he is the executioner at a penitentiary. That is, until the death penalty in his state is abolished and Niles finds himself out of a job. However, he continues his work of electrocuting murderers that the judiciary system failed to put behind bars (you know, like Dexter does).

He branches out after a while, but before he can fry a go-go dancer in her metal cage, he gets caught....right when the death penalty is reinstated. He faces the electric chair as badly as many before him, screaming and cursing and scared as hell.

Great kick-off episode!

8/10

Un Chien Andalou (An Andalusian Dog)

This film is all imagery and no plot.

Nearly everyone has seen the famous picture of the woman's eye about to be sliced by a razorblade and this is part of the sequence that opens the film.

Other images include a man riding a bike in a nun costume.

Ants crawling out of the palm of a hand (the man's in the nun costume).

A severed hand placed in a box and given to a woman, who is subsequently run over by a car.

Grand pianos, rotting monkeys, the Ten Commandments on tablets, two priests tied in ropes draged around the floor.

The list goes on and none of it makes sense. But it's all good, because it is not supposed to make sense. Actually, Luis Buñuel and Salvador Dalí expected people to react negatively and expressed some disappointment when the opening night audience liked it. Allegedly, both had armed themselves with rocks as self-defense.

8/10

The Twilight Zone: Nervous Man in a Four Dollar Room

John "Jackie" Rhoades is a small time crook, doing odd jobs for the slick George. Here he paces a small room, biting his nail, waiting for George to call about the next assignment. When George does call and Jackie cannot get any details out of him over the phone, it only makes him more nervous.

Eventually, George drops by and tells Jackie that he has to man up and kill a man, something Jackie has never done before and obviously does not have the guts to do. He describes himself as "nickels and dimes". But he is left with the choice to kill or be killed. They set to meet again in the room at 2.30 a.m., at which time the hit should have been done.

When he is alone again, Jackie tries to get his courage up by talking himself up in the mirror. But then his mirror image starts talking back. The two Jackies start fighting over their life of petty crime and occasional stints in prison. This other half of him wants Jackie to get his life on track.

George calls again to check on whether or not Jackie is actually going to do as he is told. When he comes at the agreed time, however, Jackie has not even left the room and the target is alive and well. What George didn't see coming is that this "nickels and dimes" guy is not going to take any shit anymore and knocks George down before chasing him out the door.

In the last scene we see that Jackie has traded places with his former mirror image.

Wonderful acting by Joe Mantell, who later appeared in another episode of The Twilight Zone.

8/10

Le Voyage dans la Lune (A Trip to the Moon)

One of the earliest films in the classical sense and it is...science fiction. How about that?

It runs for only 14 minutes and it took people to the moon long before we were even close to considering space travel.

It is humorous, introduces us to weird characters and gave the world the often used, iconic image of the (man in the) moon with a looking glass, checking out what those weird little people on earth are up to.

An absolute must-see.

10/10

Goodbye Mr Snuggles

The Twilight Zone: Where Is Everybody?

This is the very first episode of The Twilight Zone. Ever.

It launches with an intro by Rod Serling, in which he addresses potential buyers of commercial time. He relates what the show is about and gives a glimpse of some of the episodes to come, showing off some of the props to be used. He also boldly predicts that this is a high quality products. He turned out to be right, of course.

Where Is Everybody? is about a man walking down a country road and into an empty diner in which the music box plays at full volume and the coffee is still on the stove but nobody appears to be around. He assumes that somebody must be in shouting distances, so he gives his order anyway and starts talking away. One thing he announces is that he is not sure who he is, but he knows he is hungry and has a bit of money to pay for coffee and breakfast. He helps himself to a cup, throws a coin onto the bar and heads off down the road again.

The town he comes into is as deserted as the diner was. He tries and fails to find anybody in the shops. At one point he thinks he sees a woman sitting in a car and starts talking to her immediately, before realizing that it's a mannequin.

Not only does the man not know who he is, he also does not remember waking up. All he remembers is walking. Also, he feels he is being watched.

What is actually happening is he is an astronaut in training, confined in an empty room to test whether he can potentially stay sane locked inside a tiny aircraft. As he gets carried away on a stretcher, he starts talking to the moon he was supposed to travel to.

7/10

The Twilight Zone: The Mighty Casey

During tryouts for the Hoboken Zephyrs, the desperate team meets a left-handed pitcher named Casey. He has the strongest arm ever seen and pitches with unbelievable precision. The only problem is - Casey is a robot.

The coach - played by Jack Warden, who I can hardly remember as anything else than a baseball coach - and the man who built Casey decide to keep this little bit of information to themselves.

Alas, it had to come out eventually. When Casey gets hit in the head by a ball, the following check-up reveals that he is not human. A baseball official is called in and it is agreed that he would be allowed to continue playing if he is equipped with a beating heart.

When he returns to play he doesn't have the heart (Ha!) to strike out any of the opponents. He goes off to do charitable work.

5/10

The Twilight Zone: Deaths-Head Revisited

One Mr. 'Schmidt' (formerly an SS officer operating under the name Lutze) revisits the town of Dachau and the remains of one of the most infamous concentration camps. He goes through all the buildings, regarding everything with a happy sense of nostalgia.

What he does not expect is to meet the prisoners that have died there some 17 years earlier. The first of these is named Becker and Lutze assumes that he is a sort of caretaker of the site. Only briefly he wonders why the man hasn't changed since they last met.

It's the sound of what seems to be the wind that makes him nervous and he cannot seem to open the door again. Becker then informs him that he has to stand trial for crimes against humanity, the court entirely made up of the former inmates of 'Compound 6' of the camp Dachau. The verdict, of course, can only be 'guilty' and his punishment is insanity.

6/10