Schmollywood Babylon

Meet the Ackermonster: a trip to Karloffornia

It’s the first of October, which for many means this is the month of horror. I never celebrate Halloween, or any other yearly celebration either - not even Christmas or Easter. But this time of the years I’m always getting reminded of when I met the Ackermonster himself, Forrest J. Ackerman. To be honest, I can’t even remember what year it was, but I guess it was during very early 2000. I was dating a guy from Stockholm (I lived in the small boring town of Östersund at the time) and together we went to San Diego for a week, at least as a base - but we also drove up to Los Angeles for a couple of days.

My goal with vacations is always to experience something out of the ordinary, and I don’t mean risking my life or anything. But doing something I always will remember. This time I visited Ackerman’s homepage and sent him an email. We would be in in LA on a Sunday, which was the day Ackerman’s house was closed for visitors - but when he, or the guy handling the communication, heard we were coming all the way from Sweden he glady opened the doors to let us visit.

It took us sometime to find the house, and when we finally found the Son of Ackermansion, overgrown by vegetation and - to be honest - looking like a mess from the outside. But it was a big house, hard to take care of for an elderly man. We walked to the backside and was greeted by a friend of his, a man I can’t remember the name of - but he had worked with stop-motion animator Dave Allen, a detail I never forgot. Ackerman met us in his library on the bottom floor and showed us his enormous collection of books, but everywhere - and I mean EVERYWHERE - was rare, cool and amazing sci-fi and horror memorabilia. In a corner was the stop-motion skeleton to one of the dinosaurs in the original King Kong and on his finger was Bela Lugosi’s finger ring from Dracula. Wow. I touched it.

He continued up to the upper floors, filled with amazing artwork on the walls, props and a bizarre, green carpet covering every inch of the floor. In one room was a replica of the robot from Metropolis, built by director William Malone. Ackerman himself was a pleasure, a genuinely smart and charming man (I later learned he was an atheist, which only gave him more points in my eyes). While I was too nervous to remember what he actually told me - except his classic tale how he discovered science fiction once upon a time, a book jumped out at him - one thing stuck with me, how he loved Starship Troopers, which according to him was an intelligent sci-fi movie, a great satire. He was old and frail, but enthusiastic as hell, but when we were suppose to visit the basement he stayed up in the house, and let this other man guide us.

Deep down there it was filled with old masks, monsters, props - most of it decaying in the darkness. His assistant, told us to be careful of the snakes - and continued to tell us about his friend, a snake handler, who got bitten and ended up totally paralyzed! We got out of there quickly.

Up in the house Ackerman greeted us with a friendly smile and asked if we wanted to join him for lunch! How could we say no! But before that he gave me a lithography who had some of Lon Chaney’s make-up mixed into the color! I also got a book about him, and he refused to take any money for it! This elderly monster joined us in our car and showed us the way to his favorite restaurant, House of Pies, where he also demanded to pay for the lunch himself! I think we ate a very delicious mushroom soup and maybe some pie for dessert. His assistant, the special effects man, was also with us - and a man who also was at the Son of the Ackermansion -. resting in a nearby room upstairs, and I always wondered who he was. I still wonder. My gaydar noticed something in this older man, probably the same age as Ackerman, who wore a striped shirt and a nice-looking jacket. He told us about his travels in Europe during the forties and the cool thing is that he actually visited the legendary horror theatre Le Théâtre du Grand-Guignol, more known as simply Grand Guignol.

After this wonderful lunch we took farewell to Ackerman and his friends.

I never took any photos (but I know somewhere is material on an old H8-tape) and never asked Ackerman to signed any of the stuff, even if I think the lithograph is signed in person by him. I recently checked the value and it was way more than I ever could imagine!

Even if my memories is getting more weak for each year, details disappear into the mist and the fact that I was a totally different person then (oh, there’s so much I would have done different if this was today - I wish I could have asked him some intelligent questions for example, and not behaving like the typical fanboy), I will never forget this day in Ackerman’s Karloffornia.

One year being an Ex-Ninja

Hey, it's been a year since I started Ex-Ninja, the follow-up to my former blog Ninja Dixon. Nowadays when you google Ex-Ninja you will find this blog at the top, but before that it was actually something completely different: 

1. Ex-ninja
A friend or confident of your ex that goes to the same parties/gatherings as you and informs your ex what you were doing and who you were with at said function. Ultimately, your ex will show as to send and icy cold/frosty stare to you that would make kittens cry.
Urban Dictionary

That's as far from me as possible actually, at least the last 15-16 years. I was more jealous as a young man. 

So I'm not jealous now then? Not at exes, I just don't care actually. But I still can feel a sting in the heart after leaving Ninja Dixon, hoping to find new readers through Typepad. It's gone very slow. The statistics is a little bit better now, when I get more and more steady readers checking in every day to see if I have something new to offer.

This might seem cynical, but you see, compared to some guys I've known I care about readers. If you don't have anyone who's reading your texts there's nothing worth writing for. I write for YOU, because I want to share my movie-viewing experiences to others. 

I'm not sitting here writing for myself, for the drawer. I write because I want other people to watch movies, sometimes movies they didn't know existed - or movie that deserves a reconsideration. That's why I'm writing about almost every kind of movie - except maybe comedies and normal, mainstream-dramas. Well, I can review a blockbuster from time to time - but it needs to go a few years since its release. 

So the reason why I'm here is you. Not for me. Not to give my movie collection a reason to exist. I need you, and I hope you'll stay at least another year. 

Thanks,

Fred

 

Valentine Schmalentine: The Ultimate Man Smooch in the history of action cinema!

It's Valentine's Day. Or "Alla Hjärtans Dag" as we say in Sweden. I really never cared for it, because I really don't buy the commercial aspect of love. It's like with Christmas, why not be nice to each other every day of the year? Why not love each other every day also? 

I know it's a hard thing to do to, because many days it's hard to love. It's hard to even like. So to break the traditional heternormative celebrations, here's Oliver Reed and Brian Thompson in the manliest smooch in the history of action cinema. Well, maybe the only male smooch in the history of action cinema. 

This is from Nico Mastorakis 1990 classic Hired To Kill. Brian Thompson is Frank Ryan, a mercenary who goes undercover as a gay photographer (or stylist, I can't remember) to get closer to baddie Oliver Reed. Reed is a bit skeptical and tests Thompson by offering him a long, juicy kiss. Beautiful, and kinda takes away the stiff machoism of the movie. But Thompson is a cool guy, very cool guy.

Today I also read a text written by Eric Stanze about George A. Romero's Knightriders. A brilliant film, but it also has one of the healthiest gay couples in the history of cinema up to that point. It's not a big deal, they're happy and it ends happy. No cancer, no AIDS, no quarrels, nothing negative. It's just two men in love. Kudos to Romero.

So remember, try to love someone every day, and don't fall for that commercialism. You don't have to buy hearts, cards, cakes or whatever and support soulless companies out there. It's enough with a hug or a kiss or whatever you want to do.

That's a real Valentine's Day for me. And it's free. 

Friday rant: Getting older, I'm fine with it.

My beard is getting grey. Tiny little white hairs is forcing themselves out, taking over my chin one piece of skin after another. The hairline is slowly crawling up and away, like a dog preparing to die. But I kinda like it. I like it because I can look back at - soon - 37 years of experience. That, if something, is impressive for me. I would never want to be 17 again. Or maybe, if I could rememeber where I am today and knew how to get there a bit easier. But except that, nah!

Getting older, I'm fine with it.

For a movie fan, a geek, a film nerd - whatever you call yourself - it's even better. I've seen everything I'm suppose to see. I've watched everything worth watching in the Italian genre cinema, I've experience the J-horror craze up and close, I've dived into Swedish cult cinema and watched everything by Roger Corman. I saw Blair Witch Project on a crappy bootleg tape when it still in cinemas in the US, and it was scary.

Then came the Indian cinema, the Telugu parts of India, the wackiness seeing chubby, small men doing advanced kung fu with the help of not so invisible wires. I've discovered Japanese murder mysteries from the 70's, Indonesian rip-off's, Norwegian horror, American shot-on-video classics from the eighties. 

Franco came and is still there. First the basics - Orloff, Faceless, She Killed In Ecstasy, then the sleaze, the weird sex-dramas, the noir-ish crime films from the early 80's, the later movies shot with no budget at all. Fulci of course, but I still many of his comedies to see, Argento - I've seen everything. My chase began for new martial art movies - from Indonesia (I began way before The Raid), Vietnam, Thailand - which took my life a step further by actually going there and finding some of the key actors. A memory for life.

I still, from time to time, does raids to get all the parts in horror franchises no one cares about. I have them all: Children of the Corn, Hellraiser. Wishmaster, Leprechaun, Critters - part one to fifty-seven. I'm starting to re-watch the splatter movies of the 60's, I'm more and more interested in the erotic thrillers from the 80's and 90's. It's like going back to the beginning, but it's not. It was just movies I ignored when they came - maybe because I was young and pretentious and just wanted obscure European films?

But this is just the surface, there's so much more - did I forgot Filipino superhero movies and Mexican wrestlers? I did. And Turkish action and Kurd fantasy, James Bond-rip offs from the Asian countries, Eastern European sci-fi, "American Giallos", gay exploitation, surrealism and downright classy story-based porn. 

I can't get enough.

What I think is even more important is to be open about today's cinema/video/vod/whatever. The production is fucking bigger than ever. Indie movies are thriving, and there's so many creative geniuses out there - and I'm trying - I'M REALLY TRYING - to watch them all. From Irish monster movies to Taiwanese slashers. 

We, everyone, who once entered this drug of an interested, owes every new filmmaker to go out there with open eyes, open mind and just watch everything we can see. I promise you there's much good stuff out there. I love the experience of hearing about something new. Sometimes it's Jason or Jocke who's heard something, or suddenly I see someone on Facebook who liked a movie I never heard of - and off I go, to experience. To purchase. Support, that's the key word here.

Sometimes it's shit. But in all honest, you can grab any random movie from the 70's and find it's even worse. Under all that nostalgia there's a lot of dung waiting to get the foot of a movie geek stuck in it.

I'm still searching the past for more stuff to see. I'm continuing to dig deeper into the Indian cinema, which is so huge is absurd. One day I will watch all those Edgar Wallace films I have on DVD, one day I will pour myself a huge mental drink of Pinku Eiga. I'm waiting for Eric Stanze or Jason Christ to make a new movie, I there will be a good production of genre films made in Sweden, serious films - not one joke 80's nostalgia jerk-off's. Real genre cinema.

I'm 37, and I still have that urge to find new and old movies, genres and concepts I haven't seen before. I love meeting new fans, new collectors, who just have discovered Fulci or Argento and just let them know where to go next. It's such an awesome feeling giving them old and new titles to watch, filmmakers to discover. Just to open the mind of a collector and make him realize how much movies he/she can buy from the whole world is a kick better than drugs. That's what makes those 37 years worth living, at least in this silly biz.

Somehow I hope this blog is an extension of the love I have of sharing more or less mainstream cult cinema and underratted filmmakers. To show people that there's no rules out there. You can love a movie, even if very few other does. You don't have to listen to what the acclaimed and "serious" critics out there say. It's all up to you, that's so awesome. But very few understands it.

I rarely write about movies I dislike because I find it to be a waste of energy. I rather encourage people to watch interesting flicks and make them experience something new than discourage them from something they might actually love. 

Anyway. It's Friday afternoon now. It's weekend time. That feels nice. Next week Nymphomaniac is released in Sweden and me and G will be there. This weekend we will go bowling, drink some drinks and just chill. Maybe review or two. We'll see :)

Ten years of Camp Slaughter: "Fluffy" remembers the shooting of a Swedish cheapo classic!

Richard Lidberg as Bunnyman and me, directly after my death!

Tonight it exactly ten years ago since I went to the premiere of Camp Slaughter. I took my boyfriend at the time, David, met up with my brother and his daughter, got together with my co-actors and the filmmakers for a good night's fun. That didn't happen.

For you who's not Swedish and not aware of the lack of horror films in this country this means nothing to you, but for me it was a living nightmare. I auditioned for Camp Slaughter maybe a year before, something like that. I was very nervous and the only thing I could remember was that the script described my character Fluffy as a "enormous, fat guy" or something like that. I know I'm fat - both then and now - but it still felt hard to read. I could somehow connect with Fluffy. I saw him as a closeted gay guy, obviously having a hard time meeting girls - and probably also boys. If he survived that night of terror he would probably have come out from the closet and started a new life far away from his shallow friends.

I still have the shirt and sandals ;)

During the meetings leading up the the shoot there was never any notion of us making a masterpiece, or a Swedish version of Halloween, Black Christmas, Friday the 13th etc - titles the distributor Sandrew Metronome tossed around in the marketing and on the cover. That's just absurd! The only titles that came up was stuff like Slaughter High, Friday the 13th part 5 etc etc. You know, the cheese that came during the end of the slasher era, the tackier and sillier movies at the end of the eighties. That was the plan and it was shot like that.

Another rumour that floated around like a turd in a swimming pool was the budget. The director mentioned sometime that if we had made the movie with a normal budget it would have been around two million kronor. Soon that was a fact. And oh boy, they used it against us. The budget was approximated 100 000 kronor (around 15000 dollars) and no one got payed what I know. That's absolutely nothing, not even today, for an advanced shoot like this.

One of the strongest memories from this time was how many marshallows I had to eat. There's outtakes where almost pukes because I've started to hate them so much. That was the thing with Fluffy, he loved these terrible candies more than anything. I also have one of the best kills in the movie, which is fun. I first gets stabbed in the throat and then get my head cut off. My body is later hanged up-side-down in a nearby tree. This was a lot of fun, except the tree-thing. I refused - because of my high anxiety to go up in the tree and I remember someone else from the crew had to double for me. They later didn't use that shot and instead I laid down on a green screen and they added me up in the tree through the work of digital magic. The other kill scene that's really good is when Erica Carlson gets stabbed to death in the van. It's not graphic, but it's brutal as hell!

The cast: Annika Marklund, me, Erica Carlson, Sofie Norman. Robert Arlinder and Christina Luoma.

I'm not sure how long the whole shoot took, but I spend around two weeks on set - one week actually shooting, and then I spent almost one week just hanging around because I had nothing better to do. It was a decent cast, for example Erica Carlson from the highly acclaimed Fucking Åmål (aka Show Me Love) from 1998 and Robert Arlinder who worked with Lars Von Trier in Dogville, he was the body double for Jeremy Davies. Also, in smaller part, you can see Sandy and Michael Mansson, veterans in movies, theatre and dance (including Abba - the Movie!). Christian Magdu has some kind of Hollywood career now, for example Illeana Douglas Easy to Assemble, a web series that aired betweeen 2008 and 2011. The only one with a real, cool career is  Sofie Norman - just check out her filmography! It was just me that got nowhere. 

Me trying to kiss an unconscious Erica Carlson.

In all fairness, I'm terrible in the movie. My Swenglish is not of this earth! If I could choose I wouldn't had tried out for the part, but one good thing is that I actually got a very good friend in the talented producer Anneli Engström - we're still hanging out from time to time! That's something! And I'm a MUCH better actor today, take a look at my official acting page!

The infamous add from the distributor.

It seemed like the critics first got the joke, the "thing" with the movie, what I've heard about the press screenings. They laughed at the right places - but more or less every review after was gave it the lowest rating possible, sometimes not even a rating. The distributor - it actually got a small release in cinemas - used the bad reviews in their marketing, trying to have fun with it, but it didn't work out. I mean, we're living in a country completely lacking humour, so it doesn't surprise me.

The time after the release was very disturbing. People, even the friendliest ones, suddenly saw it as their goal to be as mean as possible. It bullying, nothing else than that. It echoed my own time from school, which was hell - so I've stayed away from Camp Slaughter as much as possible afterwards - not to be reminded of the shit we all got. It's not a fantastic movie, but for what it was and considering the budget and time spent making it it's not that bad. It looks quite good (even if the director's experiments with the ratio wasn't that successful), it was probably among the first movies who tried to evoke the spirit of the eighties, the grindhouse feeling some might say, stuff that Ti West much later did with the masterful House of the Devil. With another director and a sharper script it could have been something - oh, and a slightly talented actor playing Fluffy. The production itself went very smooth. The producer did a fantastic job helping the movie, actors and crew, through a very tight schedule - and it's mostly because of her the final result become better than it should have been.

Something few people seems to aknowledge is how Camp Slaughter actually gained respect on the film market - to that degree that the production company got a job producing Stinger, the non-official sequel to the less rotten Tail Sting. But with the budget used - which was sooooo low - it's a miracle in its own way. Thanks to a good producer of course.

During the shoot of The Haunting of Camp Slaughter.

I participated in the DVD with two things. I did a commentary together with cast and crew, which was fun. I remember how the producer had to stop us because we were a bit to honest about a part of Stockholm which I even today was packed with inbreds and white trash - and I love white trash, I'm one myself. I also directed and edited a silly featuette about the real life hauntings the set was plagued by. Some fun stuff there, but if you look at it today it's amateurish. I shot new scenes for that little documentary, as a Criswell-style host sitting in his chair during a dark, stormy night. Not sure everyone got that joke.

Nowadays Camp Slaughter (not to be confused by the American movie Camp Slaughter that came in 2004, aka Camp Daze) is trapped in-between rightsholders and will never be able to be released again. I highly doubt it anyway. The two DVDs in existance - the Swedish release from Sandrew and the English friendly disc directly from the production company - are both extremely rare. If you find them, grab 'em!

Swedish DVD.

International DVD.

...And 'Jaws' One, Two, and Three.

The best thing with Monty Python's The Meaning With Life is the following lyrics from Christmas in Heaven:

It's Christmas in Heaven.
There's great films on TV:
'The Sound of Music' twice an hour
And 'Jaws' One, Two, and Three.

It reminds me of the days my dad took me to the video store and I forced him to rent Jaws 3-D over and over again. Once I made him rent Marius Mattei's Moving Target, starring Linda Blair and Ernest Borgnine. I remember how disappointed I was after seeing it and he - or maybe it was his wife at the time - who told me that sometimes people had to do movies just to make some money.

Maybe that was the moment I fully understood the business behind cinema. That it's all about the money. I always laugh when people complains about remakes about some old horror movie "because it's only about the money!". Do they REALLY believe the original movie was made for the sake of art? It's exploitation, they're just there for one thing: make a quick buck.

But back to Jaws 3-D. Or maybe genre sequels in general. I'm not ashamed to say I've seen Jaws 2, 3 and 4 more times than the first movie. It's similar with many other sequels (but not all of them of course, because a movie is a movie - doesn't matter if it's a sequel or not): when it's time for entertainment in the home of me I rather press play and watch Indiana Jones and the Kingdom of the Crystal Skull. Or The Last Crusade, etc etc. 

It's because sequels often takes the original concept, refines it and delivers the entertainment in a much easier way. Gone is the pretentious illusion of creating big art, instead it's raw, primitive story masturbation that counts. Nothing wrong with that in my humble opinion. That's the perfect way to tune out and turn off and forget the day that was. 

After suffering through Moving Target (and it's still a terrible movie) I got hooked on the cheaper versions of big movies - it could be rip-offs, sequels, prequels, made for TV or remakes (the latter are often, of course, more expensive) and somehow I think they still takes put most of my collection at home. The latest one who surprised me was the TV-remake of Humanoids from the Deep, which actually is a bit more fast-paced than the original and still delivers some fun original gore mixed with footage from the first movie.

That's the kind of remixes I like. 

People say they're trash, but they're just unpolished diamonds. And I love the rugged look, the beauty marks. The sign of humans working on them. It makes the come alive. 

2013: The Chronicles of Ex-Ninja!

Another year has passed and here I am, still alive - believe it or not. Sometimes I can’t believe it myself. Not that I'm living a destructive life, but my built-in pessimism doesn’t allow me to think too positive about stuff like that. It’s better to expect the worst than hope for the best, in that way I won’t get disappointed when it all fucks up in the end.

But it didn’t fuck up. That’s quite cool.

In my work I always imagine they will pull the rug from under my feet and reveal my true identity – a failure, a 100 % big fat juicy extreme failure. What I understand it’s a common worry in this crazy business. Most of us didn’t really plan to end up doing television, but got sucked in and got stuck – for better or worse. It reminds me of these lines from Eagles Hotel California:

 “You can check out any time you like, but you can never leave”.

I’ve checked out many times, but always get drawn back in. No, I’m not complaining. Life has been quite good to be the last couple of years. I’ve learned to do it my way, to not get caught in destructive patterns. But I still have yet to learn to not think of the past. The past is a ghost I believe it and I fear the most. I hope to one day make it go away. Do any of you know a good exorcist?

When a new year begins the world of movie geekery starts all over. Someone always proclaims the death of genre cinema, the death of DVD and Blu-ray, and the death of that and that. They’re always wrong. Sure, the DVD sales have been dwindling for years, but Blu-rays have actually raised its sales with 15-20 percent this year, and download and stream is going very well. The genre film itself is fantastic; it’s just getting better and better…. If you’re open-minded and not use the blockbuster multiplexes as some kind of benchmark of what’s being produced.

But true is that I’ve been buying less movies – mostly because I own so damn many already (approx. 4000 titles by now!) – and instead I’m focusing on buying more specific titles and less just buying only because I’m curious. I can wait for months and months for a special release, buy it and then save it for later. This year my favorite releases have been Arrow’s Deranged and Lifeforce, Raro’s Nighmare City and Vinegar Syndrome’s The Massage Parlor Murders and Night Train to Terror. Oh, and the new UK Blu-ray of The Wicker Man. It looks fantastic. But there have been so many great releases, a dream-year for us fans of the macabre and fantastic.

Here's my personal highlights of the year:

* For the third year I’ve been visiting The Weekend of Horrors together with Joachim of Rubbermonsterfetishism and Jason of Cinezilla, which as usual was a blast. It’s three intensive days going through thousands of movies, meeting guests and just enjoying a place where we’re more normal than most others.

* August the 12^th 2013 also meant the six year anniversary of me and G together. We met at a pizza joint in Orminge in 2007, fell in love and have never left each other since then. It still feels unreal. It’s like I finally met my soul mate, a humble person with very humanistic qualities, like me far from perfect, but aware of who he is. G will always be the highlight of the year.

* I’ve also changed my intake of unhealthy crap. Gone is almost all candy, soda, fast food. I’ve lost weight and I’ve gotten more energy, I feel healthier and because of this bought new clothes, in smaller sizes. Always a pleasure when that happens. I hope I can continue this road, so wish me luck!

* Me and Jason also started The Human Centipod, a podcast that's been recieved very well! We're eternally grateful to you all! It's so much fun sitting and talking about stuff we love. As you all can see on the right side you can listen directly the podcast here on the blog, but you can also get it through iTunes and Soundcloud. If you like it, please spread the word! :) And why not join our page on Facebook!

So what will happen the last weeks here at the blog? On Friday, the day after tomorrow begins my Antichristmas special. Tons and tons of genre films with a Christmas theme will be reviewed and after that, maybe close to New Year’s Eve will I publish a list of my personal favorite movies of 2013, a classic silly top ten! From the first of January I will get back to regular, normal reviews – and I already have a line-up of really cool movie reviews for you to – hopefully – enjoy!

I’m not a Christmas person of any kind and I won’t wish you a merry Christmas and all that, but I hope you will get some rest during the holiday, watch a lot of good and bad movies, hug your loved ones and focus your energy to save this poor world from racists, homophobes, woman-haters, bullies, war-mongers and other random idiots during next year.

And remember my five rules of judging movies; it will make you a calmer person:

1. Just because the masses think a movie sucks, it doesn't mean it sucks.

2. The only taste you can trust is your own.

3. The only bad movies are the boring ones.

4. Country, language, budget, genre, digital or film - this doesn't mean nothing! Storytelling is everything.

5. It’s just movies, nothing else. Chill down.

XOXOX,
Fred

Dreaming of Jean-Claude

When I was young and hip (just kidding, I never been hip…) I loathed Jean-Claude Van Damme. I loathed Steven Seagal more. I HATED Chuck Norris. Nowadays I still loath Seagal and Norris isn’t worth the energy to hate, he’s just too worthless. I can appreciate Seagal’s early films, like Nico and Above the Law – hell, I even find The Glimmer Man quite enjoyable and Belly of the Beast is a lot of fun – but he’s using a stand-in and stuntman for most of the scenes in that movie anyway. That’s a good thing.

What’s become stronger is my love for Jean-Claude Van Damme. It started to grow when I saw Replicant and realized that this guy actually could act, and soon I got sucked into the dreamy world of the muscles from Brussels. I’ve been looking back at his older movies and found that he’s been one of the most likable martial artists out there – and still is. My friend Martin Borell (who himself is a brilliant visual effects artist) mentioned to me once that the reason he really loves JCVD is that he smiles. He often plays quite friendly guys, just happening to get in trouble from time to time.

JCVD is too cool to pretend to be tough. When Seagal still have the moronic mind of a 12 year old school boy, JCVD have matured and manage to look back at his mistakes – and in the same time developed a fantastic sense of humor and self-reflection. He’s done some seriously great performances, Wake of Death for example. Or the Belgian drama JCVD, where he plays himself and delivering a stunning performance. It’s hard to deny, the man is awesome.

He still churns out direct-to-DVD movies and smaller parts in big, big movies. But he seems to like it. The roles is better nowadays, he tries to make something extra with the little screen time he have – look at the two latest (and excellent) Universal Soldier entries, Regeneration and Day of Reckoning. At the same time he’s one of the few things worth watching in The Expendables 2 and his upcoming comedy Welcome to the Jungle looks seriously funny. He’s on a roll and I hope he never stops moving now.

When talking about dreaming I always tell people my favorite dream. I had it maybe ten years ago, still can’t remember exactly when and where. But I remember it as it was yesterday. The night Jean-Claude Van Damme fought together with me against the living dead!

Imagine an autumn forest, Birch trees everywhere, naked from the upcoming winter around the corner. The leaves lay yellow and orange on the ground. The forest is not that dense, reminding me of my childhood outside Stockholm, perfect for playing hide and seek. I and Jean-Claude – and some more people I can’t remember the names of – takes shelter in a shack, something like the cabin in Evil Dead – but smaller and with less protection.

Outside the zombies arrive. They’re not the usual kind of zombies. They’re egg-zombies. Close your eyes and see Gyro Gearloose in front of you. Remove those yes, the beak and the silly hat – and you have something that looks like an egg on top of his body. That’s how they look. So we meet them between the trees. I guess Jean-Claude is kicking them; I’m probably wielding some kind of weapon. Nothing helps, we’re doomed to lose and we escape back into the not-so-safe shack.

We’re completely surrounded by the egg-zombies. Suddenly Jean-Claude gets an idea, just like Gyro Gearloose. He holds up at spoon. They’re eggs, and the best way to kill eggs is with knocking them in the head with a spoon.

And then we killed the egg-zombies.

Thieves with no taste in movies. I hate them. Kinda.

Twenty to five in the afternoon, my cell phone starts ringing. The sound of Yellow Magic Orchestra's Key, from their 1981 masterpiece Technodelic, fills the air. My co-worker Peder likes the tune and I let it ring for a little while so he can enjoy it, then I answer.

It's Ingalill, the elderly - she's in her eighties I guess - neighbor who starts talking. "You're not at home?". I tell her I'm at work, and so is G. "Someone broken into your apartment".

I turns cold. Completely cold. I can feel the sweat coming, and then the rage. It's one hour and twenty minutes home, and I'm already on the brink to a breakdown. I try to reach G, but after a while I realize I'm texting him on his Polish number. The brain rarely works in situations like this.

There's so many scenarios going through my mind. I can't reach G at first and of course my imagination tells me he's in the apartment hurt. Then, because I can be a quite frantic anti-racist and very open about me being gay, maybe someone attacked us. Killed the cats, sprayed hateful messages on the walls? We had a very agressive (and Christian) anti-gay stalker a few years back, is he back?

The train takes fucking forever. Its like it stops the double amount of times on the way to the place we live. Ingalill and two other neighbors meet me, they haven't - which is good - entered the apartment. They called the police an hour ago, but still no coppers. I go inside, see how the bedroom is completely turned upside down. They did a quick search in the living room and hallway. Even the bathroom.

I'm getting paranoid. Why didn't they even touch the TV? Or computers? They could have sold the TV for a couple of thousand kronor, at least. The police gets there after three hours more. A very friendly cop with a big beard and nice, brown eyes. Kinda cute, in a bear-way. The thieves have stolen a couple of things: my two iphones, the S3 and S4. My Nexus tablet, G's new camera house, a D7000 Nikon and three of his lenses, probably also some polish money he had in one of the drawers in the bedroom. 

The cats are scared shitless, but looks okay. They're happy we're home again.

But... but... they didn't even touch my massive collection of movies! I mean, what the hell?! I feel violated and sad. They could have sold those discs for a good amount of money! The DVD signed by both Lina Romay AND Jess Franco! All the limited editions, signed stuff, the slice of the Friday the 13th cabin! This is not just a crime against us, this is a crime against my movie collection! It's a crime against my movie taste! Against my collection of Alien rip-offs! Why didn't they even glance at the hundreds of Peplums and historical epics I own? What's wrong with the Mad Foxes blu-ray or the Carnosaur Collection? 

I feel hurt. Or "kränkt" as we say in Sweden. 

You can't trust anyone nowadays, not even the criminals. 

The Land of Meat, Sugar and Rain: Weekend of Horrors 2013!

Every time I enter Germany it strikes me it’s so sad, so grey. Of course I’ve only been in Düsseldorf in the evening and during the day in exotic places like Bottrop and now Oberhausen. The old people feels old, really gold, dragging their atrophied limbs through rainy streets, looking at us young people (in comparison) with suspicion in their somber eyes. It’s like this country never left the eighties, with the cheesy colorful store signs, mullets and stonewashed jeans on overweight middle-aged men with bags under their eyes.

The sole reason why I expose myself to this is Weekend of Horrors. This three day geekend jam-packed with working, fading and new stars and filmmakers, DVD- and Blu-ray dealers selling their stuff over long tables – and never enough change. The best way to make a salesman look sad even on the second or third day is to give them a 50 or 100 euro bill. The same sadness that’s in my eyes when I’ve spent 80 euro on Edgar Wallace boxes and a Blu-ray of Gallowwalkers.

So who goes to this convention? In five words: big guys with small wives. Lots of them, everywhere. With big guys I don’t necessary mean fat guys, most of them are tall, with long hair and black clothes. Their wives with pale faces and red lipstick. I guess that’s basically the German horror community. Then there are the foreigners, like me, Jason and Jocke from Sweden. Always with backpacks, always with big bills because we normally don’t have small money. And it’s always the same, the guest stars (aka “stargäste”) gets SO surprised we actually have travelled from another country to meet them. But that’s what we do when our own country never offers the same amount of geekery. The third form of visitors is those dressed like horror characters. We met two Pinheads, at least three Leatherfaces, one of those ghosts from Silent Hill, the pig from Saw, The Toxic Avenger (who worked for one of the dealers, ’84 Entertainment), the killer from Seed and of course a small army of Jasons.

Did you know that the only thing people eat in Germany is meat and sugar? And beer of course, but drinking it – except if it’s not already mixed into different form of sausages. This time we lived in Oberhausen, but I still dreams to the years on Bottrop when I could eat pepper beef at Dragans or a mixed plate of meat and fries at the serial killer (long story, but we’re all sure he’s serving human meat in that restaurant and having a torture chamber on top of it!). Still good food, and that’s what matters. This year we spent two evenings at La Pampa, which is one of many very similar steakhouses. I chose the “Balkan Steak”, which was a big piece of meat with cheese inside. I’m sure I planted my future heart attack from that meal. During the second evening the waiter also told us he was from Sweden, from Malmö, and we could make the orders in our mother language (well, Jason is British – a northerner, but more or less Swedish anyway!). 

Signed by Lina and Jess!

There are two highlights for me: the frantic shopping of movies and the star guests. The new location this year was Turbinenhalle, a huge ex-factory complex, now a club area with concert halls and bars in every corner. I think we walked many miles during those days. Deep inside are the DVDs and Blu-rays, table after table packed with strange German releases – oddities you never heard of before and here and there local filmmakers selling their own movies. I can’t even remember what movies I bought now, not in detail, but the stand-out must have been the Jess Franco DVD signed by both Lina Romay and Jess Franco. I’m usually not interested in signed stuff by someone I haven’t met, but none of them are with us today and that’s the closest I’ll ever get to my favorite filmmaker and his muse. You have to beware though, the Germans still cut their movies like never before. They love censorship. You think they should have learned from history, but they haven’t started to burn books yet. Good for them.

Weekend of Horror always have good guest, and their pretend-o-guests are even better. The pretend-o-guests are those they aim to get, but in the end – often quite early, but without telling their visitors – can’t get. This year it was, once again, Malcolm McDowall. And thirteen other people. Danny Glover isn’t even a horror icon, but it would have been cool to have McDowall sign Tinto Brass Caligula or even Kimberly Beck scribbling down a couple of words on my Friday the 13^th Part 4 DVD.

But don’t misunderstand me, I also met and talked with a couple of wonderful guest. Lori Cardille and Joe Pilato from Day of the Dead were there and they were wonderful people, I even got a kiss from Lori – which I will carry with me for a long while. I’ve heard some bad stuff about Pilato, that he’s rude or drunk or whatever – but like Linda Blair the last year, he was a great, friendly person. I chatted a bit with Heather Donahue from The Blair Witch Project and bought her book Growgirl. Her career waned quite quickly and she changed direction completely, becoming a pot farmer! Danny Hicks (from Evil Dead and Intruder) was also there, nice guy – and I had the pleasure to both meet Jörg Buttgereit and Olaf Ittenbach on the floor!

Jörg Buttgereit!

 

Olaf Ittenbach!

There are moments in life you know you will never experience again, and this weekend had several of them. I met Haruo Nakajima four times. Who the hell is that? Well, let me tell you:

HE'S GODZILLA!

Nakajima was the original man-in-suit, from 1954 to the early 70’s. Looking frail and a bit shaky at the table, having his daughter (I think) and a translator help him find the right spot on the stuff he was signing, but in front of the camera – during the photo shoot – he shined like star, straight back, glimmering eyes and grabbing on to use like we was family. He signed the Criterion Godzilla Blu-ray for me, a photo of him and the suit, my Ultra Q DVD box and a Hong Kong DVD of Submersion of Japan. He also signed the photo of me and him. I’m not religious, but I feel blessed. His work as an actor  means a lot to me.

 

Haruo Nakajima!

I had one more mission, and that was to hook up with Lance Henriksen a third time. So 12:00 on Sunday I went up to the photo shoot, took a photo with the guy and I planned to had it signed later. And then I waited and waited and waited… but my photo with him never appeared. Soon the time was four in the afternoon and I decided I didn’t want to wait anymore. Pissed off and disappointed I left the building, walked around the corner… and then Jason looked up and said “There he is!”. Yes, Lance was standing on a balcony above us.  Jason dragged me up the metal staircase and I explained the situation to my favorite actor – and of course, because he’s the friendliest guy in the world, he posed with me when Jason took a new photo.

In the end felt a lot better than taking a photo with him with one hundred people behind me wanting to do the same thing.

The bad things? Except that I never got that expensive photo with Lance I paid for, I would say Michael Biehn obviously cared more about heroine injections than the fans – he also behaved quite badly. During the Friday he just sat by his table for fifteen minutes and suddenly, before the Lance Henriksen-shoot on Sunday he told his handlers he refused to take photos with the fans… but later obviously regret that and came up to the photo place. He looks sick though, completely yellow. Sad, very sad. But I can have some understanding for someone who seems to have an addiction problem, at least such a serious one. The one I didn’t have any understanding for was the very annoying, embarrassing and constantly drunk Andrew Bryniarski. When he didn’t screamed and yelled at people – not anything rude, but it was very irritating, he obviously sneaked out in the back, smoked some weed and drank a lot of beer from time to time, stumbling around like a big baby. Grow up, Leatherface. Please.

Now it’s a year to the next Weekend of Horrors. I might have felt homesick like hell yesterday, and I love being back in good old Sweden… but I still can’t wait until I’m back in the German geekocalypse in Oberhausen, getting completely worked up because of some fading star said something nice to me or finishing up a good plate of meat.

Well, that’s actually secondary things. The best thing, the no. 1 thing, is to hang out with Cinezilla’s Jason Meredith and Rubbermonsterfetishism’s Joachim Andersson once again. Buddies rule, they rule a lot more than buying movies and getting stuff signed.

/Fred