First part here
Dan, Ben and Triv finish what they started with ecclectic zeal as we finish off the wonderful AGFA driven ‘Drug Stories’ set (Merged version coming soon too!)
Category: Experimental Film
Silent Night Deadly Night 2 – (1987)
And with that! we’ve reached the end of another season, and once again we’re revisitng the ‘Silent Night Deadly Night’ franchise with probably the most infamous entry of the entire franchise.
Yes, we’re doing the ‘GARBAGE DAY’ movie. and honestly, this one was really quite the blur from a behind the scenes standpoing on the show, the last 3 months of the year were frankly pretty crazy and (to my admitted shame) this one ended up kind of being bashed out in a bit of a haze while dealing with a load of personal issues around work. Nothing too awful mind…just jarring. it’s something im still kind of dealing with now even, but I’ve gotten a bit of a better grasp on it. for now at least.
Anyway; enough of my problems! Silent Night Deadly Night 2! the film that made me wonder how on EARTH they followed up on this with 3 other movies. and…well, you’ll find out exactly HOW they did in a year or two. because…im not touching those movies again for a while let me tell you now!
Anyway! merry christmas and all that! we’ll be back in february! all my love x
A Wrestling Christmas Miracle – (2020)
Not content with ONE dose of Ken Del Veccio madness in the form of ‘A Karate Christmas Miracle‘ I just HAD to keep digging and eventually wind up watching it’s spiritual sequel. Because of COURSE I did.
What I will say for this film is, across the board, its better than the first film technically. that still doesnt save it from being demented in my opinion.
I really hope they make this duology a trilogy some day, as Id love to get a nice tryptic going with these films. I dunno…maybe ‘A Ballet Christmas Miracle’?, ‘A Golfing Christmas Miracle’? hmm…how about ‘A Kickboxing Christmas Miracle’? that one could have legs (LITERALLY!)
In either case, the madness is over…for now, and I can finally get back to covering other christmas specials like ‘The Christmas Consultant.’ *shudders*
Winterbeast – (1992)
Well, its a bit late! but heres the first of our christmas specials, and rather wonderfully, we’re welcoming back George from The Best Little Horror House In Philly to help us take on a stop motion cult classic like you’ve never seen!
The one big thing I can say about this is, I didnt actually pick up on the ‘Twin Peak’ themes and references (to my UTTER shame) until George sent his side of the script over! I was so busy focussing on the execution I totally missed it! but im SO glad George caught it, because as soon as I heard it, suddenly the whole thing took on a completely new life!
It’s kind of a good news/bad news with Winterbeast. the good news is Vinegar syndrome have done a lovely restoration of it on bluray! the bad news is, it’s part of the ‘Home Grown Horrors’ boxset which only has a limited number of copies left! So nab this while you can! and thank you SO much to George for jumping in on this one with me 🙂 he’s awesome and I hope we get to work together agains soon!
*Sigh*… Nukie (1987)
…Look, whatever I say at this point is VERY likely to be overshadowed by the frankly ludicrous events that Red Letter Media have comitted in January 2022, auctioning off a sealed copy of Nukie for tens (possibly hundreds by the time the auction closes) of dollars after woodchipping 103 OTHER copies.
While I absolutely found tremendous catharsis in seeing that happen (please feel free to destroy as many copies of ‘Nukie’ as can be collected. At the same time, they absolutley havent helped my case here. The entire point of the below review was to basically say ‘Dont put this film on a pedestal. its actual garbage, its beyond boring, its beyond any form of actual critical note, just leave it and let it fall off the radar and into obscurity’
What they’ve done has now meant that that absolutely cant and wont happen, and that, if anything, it’s much more likely than ever to get some kind of Bluray release. I honestly have no further comment to make about this film than what I say in my below review. I wont be selling my copy of ‘Nukie’ to make a quick buck, nor will I be proliferating the “Oh man! it’s SO bad! YOU GOTTA SEE IT!” myth.
I repeat what I said in my review here; Nukie is an unremakrable film that should be forgotten and isnt worth your time. it’s not worth anything close to a ‘status’ and if you want affirmation that what im saying is correct, look at how much time the RLM guys ACTUALLY spent reviewing this movie. it’s THAT unremarkable.
Footprints On The Moon (1975)
‘Footprints’ was a film that chronically fell into the ‘I’ll cover it next season’ pile. As far back as season 7 I’d intended to cover this one, but when it came to finalising the running order, it just didnt sit right with what was in the dock at the time, so…i’d cull it over to the next season and PROMISE to do it then…where it’d sit on the list again till the very last minute and then ultimately get culled back to the NEXT season and so on.
The fact i’ve actually finally got it out, AND the fact that it came out only a week or so after Severin Films announced a lovely box set which includes this film. was both coincidental and a very nice surprise.
I honestly always seem to forget just how interesting a concept this movie was and how surprisingly fun it could be. Im really going to have to dig it out again in the near future for a re-spin. It’s definitely not perfect. But it is one that I recall with fondness.
Wicked World (1992/2019)
When it came to an opening episode for season 12, it was really a case of the planets quite wonderfully aligning. I have a real soft spot for the works of Barry J. Gillis. Ever since I first caught his opening feature “Things” damn near a decade ago, I’ve been entertained and impressed with his work ever since and when AGFA announced early last year that they were reissuing Barry’s 2nd feature “Wicked World” well, it all fell into place. I’d just started work on this season at that point, and it arrived WELL in time for me to cover it.
So! given the draught of Gillis titles i’d covered on the channel, his big bluray debute of “Wicked World” really seemed like a no brainer! it has everything you could possibly want in a Gillis movie and more!
If you’d like to grab a copy of Wicked world, theres limited stock available via Vinegar Syndrome Here
And for you really wild cats out there, Barry actually has a new film currently in production and due out imminently with updates coming via his facebook page, which I highly recommend checking Here
Finishing the Complete Eleventh Season (2022)
Well! when it came to the 2nd half of our 5th anniversairy celebrations, I decided to try and do a bit of everything. Part of me wanted to cover movies i’d wanted to do for years (“Flight to Hell“, “Cannibal Girls“, “Camp Blood“) Some were movies i’d promised id do in the future, and then totally forgot to do in the future (“The American Ninja 4“, “Cyborg Cop 2“, “Alien Species“) and some were first time watches that arrived on short notice and genuinely caught me off guard (“Gatwick Gangsters“, “Night of the Demon“, “Dont go in the house“). Hell, we even rounded off the TYTD Reviews episodes by revisiting our very FIRST video for the channel “The Dragon Lives Again” hopefully finally doing justice to a film I’ve long admired and wished my review of could have been better.
It was a celebration of the old, and a look forward to the future of the channel. With this series marking a few milestones, it being the last season edited in 1080p,the last season edited in Adobe Premiere Pro, The last to use the branding we’ve been using now since 2020 across all fronts and the last season predominantly recorded on my focusrite condensor mic, a mic thats pretty much been what you’ve heard me through since AT LEAST 2020, which also made a few on and off appearences between 2017 and 2019 too.
What does the new season hold? well as seen in the review for “Dont go in the house” i’ve had a systems and kit upgrade on almost all fronts! including a new machine, a new mic, new lights for the packaging shots, new editing software and some other new tools to help give a bit more variety. As such we have new branding across all our main shows, we’ll be solely uploading in 4k going forward with better quality sound and visuals, faster processing power means it takes less time to export and convert reviews now, and as such it means we’ll be able to *hopefully* turn things around a bit quicker which’ll give me some time back to be able to enjoy a sunset or eat a well prepared meal!
There have also been some changes that are not quite as pleasent to announce, but here we are. After 2 years or so of monthly uploads and over 50 feature length commentaries, “The Comedy Dining Experience” will be swapping back to an irregular upload schedule, as it was when we first launched in 2018. Part of this is down to the amount of time it takes to edit the commentaries, part of it’s down to lower uptake than our other shows (we’ve had some episodes record less than 20 views after 3 weeks of being live in some cases) and part of it’s down to both myself and Ben just being absolutely ram jammed with stuff going on at the minute. Im in the middle of writing/recording and editing next years episodes (and I still have stuff to finish with Season 12!) and Bens recently had several good news stories that means he’s a lot busier than he was at the moment.
What this means in practical terms is that the Comedy Dining experience isnt going anywhere, it just means that, for the moment at least, it’s going to be on pause while we sort life stuff out, and when it does come back it’ll be likely an “As and when” affair rather than a regularly scheduled “thing” which will allow me more time to work on and refine our reviews, and it means we wont be oversaturating the channel too.
What it ALSO means is that we can do other fun things like monthly game night streams (we’ve done 3 so far and a pilot) AND it’s meant I can start an official Discord from which we’ll be hosting various watchalongs, games nights and other good stuff, alongside chats on everything from good and bad movies to music and weird youtube oddities, so do please tag along for that!
Season 11 marked a change in the wind for the channel, and with Season 12 currently rolling out weekly, I hope your enjoying the direction we’re taking the channel in, I had an absolute blast working on this season, I think it’s one of my favourites i’ve worked on alongside Season 10 and the chance to work and hang out with so many interesting people in collaboration has been an absolute delight. I couldnt have asked for a better 5th year on the platform.
Doc Shock 2: Electric Boogaloo (Documentary Reviews 2) (2022)
Well; we’re back on the documentaries again, and honestly, it’s been WAY too long. EVERY season since the original “Doc Shock” I’ve sworn BLIND that i’d do another doc shock that season. EVERY. SINGLE SEASON. I’ve sworn id do it, and every time for one reason or another it’s completely fallen through. WELL! for my 5th anniversairy i’d be DAMNED if I was going to let one of the oddities of “The Red Triangle” go unloved! So here we are!
the big downer with this one was unfortunately the copyright aspect of the whole thing, at least 3 out of the 5 documentaries I covered in this video were almost ENTIRELY made up of archive footage. basically narratives built using news stories, old interviews, stock footage. a patchwork of history woven together to tell a story. and the problem with documentaries that are built like that from a critical standpoint is two fold.
First, it makes it difficult to convey exactly WHY the documentary is so good, because the footage isnt strictly indicative of the quality. me showing you news footage of Frank Sidebottom riding on a riverboat or Obama giving an interview wont tell you DIDDLY about what the documentary is like…it just tells you Frank Sidebottom and Obama are in those respective documentaries. and in the case of “The Silent Minority” the footage is SO harrowing, that even though it IS on youtube and available to view in full, I wouldnt feel comfortable showing it for the purpose of recommendation (seriously it’s that hardcore) So this is one of the rare cases where really, for the most part, I felt that including footage was kind of pointless…not that that matters really because…
Secondly; including all this archive footage is basically like trying to will youtubes copyright system to nuke the video. Seriously; it’s bad enough when I cover ONE movie in terms of getting worldwide blocks, takedown notices and other such bunkum. So IMAGINE trying to upload a review of a documentary that uses HUNDREDS of clips from various TV channels, films, internet uploads etc…it’d be a massacre. and one im not entirely interested in trying to clear.
So in the end this ended up being “Audio Only” a little underwhelming…true. But! this isnt a standard review…this is really more a list of recommendations. and I really hope you find a documentary thats right for you!
Valerie and her Week of Wonders (1970)
This is…unfortunately, one of those few situations where I honestly dont have a lot to say about the behind the scenes of this weeks episode. I know it’s always a bit of a downer when all I can really say is “Watch my review for the full story!” But sometimes it just be like that tho m8.
What I CAN say, and its totally off topic, but hey. your reading this, you’ve got time. is that at the time I was working on this review I was in a quite stressful and unpleasent place. in fact a decent chunk of this year has been rather stressful and genuinely unplesent at times. I quite recently got a promotion at work where i’ve basically been assigned to *fix* a VERY broken aspect of their business. I like fixing things, im ALL for improvement projects and optimisation. It’s my jam…but this thing…this fucking thing…holy shit. it’s BROKE.
As a result I spent the first 3-4 months being basically dragged by the project face first into the dirt. it was sprawling, awkward FULL of weird variations and bylaws that made NO sense. I likened the experience of coming into work as “Stepping on Landmines” because the problems were seemingly invisible till stepped on, at which point you’d be launched into 2-3 weeks of absolute shrapnel induced carnage only recovering long enough to accidentally drag yourself onto another one. it’s been a shit time honestly. it was painful and i’d regularly find myself working WAY overtime and burning myself out over the weekends trying to catch back up with myself only to repeat it all again the next week!
But! in the last 4-8 weeks i’ve finally stopped being blown up quite so frequently, i’ve managed to slim out some of the worst aspects of the system and introduce better, more robust procedures that have not only given me back more time during the day to actually work on larger improvements to save me even MORE time. But have actually (more often than not) given me my evenings back as well. Im still a few weeks off saying im “comfortable” again…but for now at least…I dont feel quite so distressed by it all and im kind of getting back to being happy with my lot again…and if thats the direction im heading in, I can live with that!
Anyway; yeh…kind of…went off on a tangent there. ENJOY!
TYTD Reviews 