Joseph A. Ziemba

The Bleeding Skull! website was launched in January 2004 by Joseph A. Ziemba with the goal of posting reviews of the obscure VHS trashy horror films that he'd collected during his travels across the United States. Joseph met Dan Budnik shortly after starting the site and Dan became a co-conspirator and co-author for the site. The pair subsequently built the Bleeding Skull! website into the definitive on-line resource for obscure 1980s trash-horror cinema. Joseph and Dan in collaboration with the excellent publishing imprint Headpress have now gathered 300 of the reviews into a 340-page paean to bad taste movies of all type. In addition to the reviews the boom is full of black and white video covers, advertisements and photos from the movies covered. It is the obscure movies covered and the laugh out loud reviews that make this book so good. "Trick Or Treats" (1982), for example: Trick Or Treats destroys any hope of a narrative during its opening minutes. Instead, we get Chris Graver. He's a fat kid with catchphrases. He makes me want to saw off my ears" or "Heavy Metal Massacre (1989): "The first ten minutes of Heavy Metal Massacre consists of a credits sequence. Only, you can count the credits on one hand. What this means is that writer / director / producer / star Bobbi Young aka David DeFalco utilises this standard film component for something else. Namely, to show us his apartment. And to show us how cool he looks when he stares into the camera, in full Faster Pussycat regalia, amidst a wash of disorderly thrash metal, black-light tiger posters, ceramic skull busts and Radio Shack video effects. This is oblivious, misanthropic trash in its purest form. And it is magnificent." "Bleeding Skull!: A 1980s Trash-Horror Odyssey" is also magnificent! – a wild and hilarious volume to dip in and out of. In addition to the reviews there is also bound to be something new here for even the most devoted of completists to find. Certainly a new one on me was "Bloody Video Horror That Made Me Puke On My Aunt Gertrude" (1989). Now that sounds like a must-see film. More at: http://kvlt-kvltvre.blogspot.co.uk/… (mais)