TURBO KILLER

Feast your eyes on this video for Carpenter Brut's "Turbo Killer". Another certified synthwave banger from the Frenchman, accompanied by some slicker-than-slick fetishistic imagery, courtesy of CG wizard Seth Ickerman. This is four minutes of 100% pure, neon Miami, cocaine-on-steroids, faux grindhouse insanity (a decade on and the cigarette burns and scratches aesthetic is still going strong. Robert Rodriguez, what hath thou wrought?)

However, you might want to check your moral compass at the door. Beautiful women, literally driven as muscle cars? Now THAT'S objectification!

Hit full screen 1080p, crank up your speakers, and enjoy some French sci-fi cheese served with a side of blasting horror-synth.

Keith Emerson

Keith Emerson has died aged 71, and sadly it would seem that the musician took his own life. Fans of Italian horror will always remember the prog rock giant for his score for Argento's Inferno. Although more old-fashioned than the two Goblin scores that had preceded it, it's no less memorable.

He also scored Fulci's Flashdance ripoff/giallo Murder Rock and, along with Goblin, contributed some tracks to Michele Soavi's superior The Church.

Mater Suspiriorum! Lacrimarum! Tenebrarum!

Dominae, Dominae Dominae Dominarum!

NO NEGATIVE

I'm always looking for music that hits that sweet spot between the old sounds that we all know and love and progression into something new, and Montreal's No Negative fit the bill perfectly. Psychedelic deathrock supercharged with the heaviness and energy of hardcore. Aside from the obvious deathrock touchstones, I get a Gone Fishin' era Flipper vibe off of this, as well as a healthy dose of early Butthole Surfers. Those things make me feel good.

FEEL IT

Sound and Fury

Polanski's Macbeth (1971) will probably always remain my favourite adaptation of the play, a film so full of trippy occultism, dread and blood that the experience of watching it isn't far removed from gothic horror. King Duncan's murder and the banquet scene (where Macbeth is tormented by the ghost of Banquo) honestly wouldn't feel out of place in one of Hammer's gorier offerings.

The final confrontation between Macduff and Macbeth is one of the most perfectly choreographed sword fights ever filmed. The desperation and single-mindedness of the two combatants is palpable and visceral, every second of fighting realistic, vicious and brutal. As with Boorman's Excalibur, you can really feel the weight of their armour, the two men battling exhaustion as they pummel and hack at the other. Macbeth's death (below) is horrific. Before a sickeningly realistic beheading, he's run through from armpit to clavicle, and it remains one of the nastiest stabbings ever committed to film. To this day, every time I watch it I feel queasy.

Now Australian director Justin Kurzel (Snowtown) has delivered his own version of the Scottish Play, no doubt also destined for cult status, albeit for different reasons than Polanski's. Fassbender and Cotillard both give mesmerising performances, and Kurzel comes up with some interesting personal touches (here Birnam Wood advances on Dunsinane as embers, not felled trees, and the film opens with an explicit answer to the oft debated question of whether the Macbeth's ever had a child), but the real star of this latest Macbeth is its visuals, courtesy of Adam Arkapaw's exceptional cinematography. 

Kurzel's film strikes a fine balance between traditional and contemporary: the dialogue, production design and Highland locations are what you'd expect from a traditional adaptation, but visually this Macbeth is like nothing you've ever seen. The exterior locations and interior sets are breathtakingly shot, but the thing that really brings it all to life is Macbeth's moody lighting and colour palette. I don't know how much of this Arkapaw achieved on location and in camera and how much was done in post, but the end result is exquisitely eerie and atmospheric. Highlights include some shots of hand-to-hand combat captured in ultra slow motion, like a dramatic tableau come to life. It's powerful stuff. The siege of Dunsinane at the end of the movie is pure apocalyptic eye-candy, the action obscured in smoke and bathed in an otherworldly diffuse glow.

I've been a fan of Arkapaw's for a while now, as he also did some stellar work on Cary Fukunaga's True Detective, so I'm happy to see that he received the American Society of Cinematographer's Spotlight Award for his work on Macbeth.  Anyway, see for yourself as I spent a while pouring through my Blu to pick out some of the film's most striking images.

INTERZONE DISPATCHES: Report #4.3

Let's continue our trip through the very best of contemporary artwork based on the films of David Cronenberg. Reach deep inside your guts and ask yourself, "is this real, or hallucination?", because this time we're taking a look at Videodrome.

Previous entries:

SCANNERS

CRIMES OF THE FUTURE; SHIVERS; RABID; THE BROOD

In a very real way, the dystopian vision of Videodrome has come to pass. Max Renn tells Masha that the pirate channel he's been watching is "just torture and murder. No plot, no characters. Very, very realistic. I think it's what's next." Later in the film Masha confronts Max with the truth, "What you see on that show, it's for real. It's not acting. It's snuff TV."

When David Cronenberg wrote those lines thirty-four years ago, the only things resembling Brian O'Blivion's transmission were Mondo-style shockumentaries (so tame by today's standards) and the televised atrocities of Vietnam that had appalled American families the decade before. The idea that you could simply type the words "torture and murder" into a search engine and be inundated with endless images and videos of just that was unimaginable.

The media landscape has changed so drastically (and rapidly) that it compelled authors David Kerekes and David Slater to update their book Killing for Culture, expanding it beyond its focus on Mondo and snuff* to include internet horrors like the Dnepropetrovsk maniacs and ISIS executions**.

The Canadian master's sixth film has turned out to be a frighteningly prescient vision. As is the hallmark of all great sci-fi, Videodrome is more relevant today than when it was created.

A series of poster redesigns, all playing with videotape noise, from the always reliable Silver Ferox:

Adam Juresko uses the VHS glitch to distort Nicki Brand's face:

A shirt design and poster from Aaron Crawford:

Videodrome for the meme kids from Michael DiPetrillo:

An abstract interpretation from Chris Malbon:

And now to the best of the bunch. This time around I have to give it to two artists - David Huntley (aka Mute) and Gilles Vranckx (who also did that stunning giallo poster art for Amer). First, Mute's gorgeous (and trippy) likeness of Debbie Harry:

Finally, Gilles Vranckx's superb artwork for Arrow Video's special edition Blu (which every self respecting Cronenberg fan should have on their shelf next to the Criterion Videodrome dvd). Another beautiful likeness of Nicki Brand, and I love that illustration of Barry Convex coming apart!

Ok, that's it for now you Cronenfreaks. Next time: THE DEAD ZONE and THE FLY!

*It's still the definitive read on the subject. Among other things, it thoroughly debunks the myth that black market snuff is anything more than an urban legend.

**Just a personal note: I won't watch any of that stuff. Never have, never will. The evening news already takes enough of an emotional toll on me. To quote Barry Convex, I just can't cope with the freaky stuff.