I Don't Think You Have Very Long To Live

King Of Woolworths “To The Devil A Donut”

by Mark Cappelletty

Hammer Films was for years the sign of quality horror. It’s like Smucker’s, but with Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing instead of the Goober and the Grape: “with a name like Hammer, it’s got to be Bloody Good British Horror.”



Hammer’s last film was 1976’s To The Devil A Daughter, a fairly goofy story about demonic possession (one of the devil’s bloody minions, having just chewed its way out of a hapless woman’s womb, looks like Kermit The Frog as a fetus) that’s raised to acceptable levels with a very young (and shockingly nude) Nassatja Kinski and good performances by Hammer stalwart Christopher Lee and a cranky Richard Widmark, who undoubtedly wasn’t all that happy spouting dialogue about “the Stone of Asteroth” and the like. The documentary on the hard-to-find Anchor Bay DVD pretty much asserts how difficult Widmark was; fortunately, this was a horror one-shot for him, unlike such current “gotsta pay the bills” actors like Ben (BloodRayne) Kingsley, Jeremy (Eragon) Irons and current champ Michael (too many to mention) Madsen, who obviously needs the pain to help feed his poetic muse. Michael Madsen’s poetry will be showcased in another, scarier post.



In 2001, Manchester DJ and producer Jon Brooks put out the record Ming Star under the “King Of Woolworth” name. It’s pleasant but meandering mood music in the vein of Air, save for the cracking “To The Devil A Donut,” which fuses samples from To The Devil A Daughter with an ominous dance beat. It’s perfect Halloween music— you got your funky percussion, your cowbells and Christopher Lee telling you that he can “hear your pulse beat.” And it’s likely to scare the hell out of kids coming to your door. Take that “Monster Mash”!

This Is Not Mello Yellow

Donovan “The Hurdy-Gurdy Man”

by Mark Cappelletty


dvd screengrab courtesy of dvdbeaver.com

Zodiac, as long as it is (and the director’s cut due on DVD/HD-DVD in January, is rumored to be a full half-hour longer!), is one of the most unnerving movies in years. It’s not quite as bone-rattling as director David Fincher’s Se7en, but it comes pretty close. Fincher, using a lot of invisible digital trickery, transports us back to the San Francisco of the ‘70’s, both in the look and tone of the film. We get a real sense of a city under siege and the seemingly random nature of the killings makes you feel that anyone could be the Zodiac Killer’s next victim.



The use of Donovan’s “Hurdy Gurdy Man” is really effective— it’s the sixties flower-power equivalent of the “Ka-Ka-Ka” Friday The 13th musical cue. Once Donovan comes up on the soundtrack, you know the Summer Of Love is over— but good.

Fava Beans & A Nice Chianti

Q. Lazzarus “Goodbye Horses”

The Fall “Hip Priest”

Shriekback “The Big Hush”

by Mark Cappelletty

That Hannibal Lecter guy sure gets around. Between listening to Glenn Gould, developing psychiatric theories around the smallest piece of evidence and serving up human victims, Julia Child-style, you’d think that he wouldn’t have time to have good musical taste. But the first two movies based on Thomas Harris’ exploits of this character (I bailed after Hannibal) utilize strong music to unusual effect.

1986’s Manhunter is the scariest and most effective of all of these films. While the movie is definitely an element of the times — Michael Mann, of then-“Miami Vice” fame, traffics heavily in bright colors, pastels and knit ties (did the costume designer get a kick-back from Chess King?) — the thriller element is strong because the story’s ostensible villains are so underplayed and so frighteningly human. Brian Cox’s “Lecktor,” locked up in a white-on-white cell, isn’t that far removed from hero Will Graham (William Petersen of “C.S.I.” fame), and Tom Noonan’s Francis Dolarhyde reveals a deep sadness. But enough with all the psychoanalysis! The movie’s scary! Go rent it!

Even scarier is some of the ‘80’s music, including some earnest clunkers by the likes of long-forgotten bands like The Reds. The climax to “In A Gadda-Da-Vida” is fantastic, however, and Mann gets points for utilizing Shriekback, an art-funk band led by ex-XTC keyboardist Barry Andrews. The two songs on the soundtrack — “The Big Hush” and instrumental “Coelocanth” — can be found on their 1986 debut, Oil And Gold.

Jonathan Demme has always had an ear for good music— he directed the concert films Stop Making Sense, Storefront Hitchcock and Neil Young: Heart Of Gold and the soundtracks to 1986’s Something Wild and 1988’s Married To The Mob still hold up today. The Silence Of The Lambs is no different. When Jodie Foster chases serial killer Jame Gumb in his rotting basement, The Fall’s creepy and disturbing “Hip Priest” is playing in the background.


do you see?

But no scene is more memorable than the one in which Gumb —Ted Levine, a character actor best known today as Tony Shalhoub’s cop liaison on TV’s “Monk” — tucks his junk between his legs and does the serial killer equivalent of the Dance Of The Seven Veils. The song is “Goodbye Horses,” by ex-NYC taxi driver Q. Lazzarus, a lesbian who, according to her Myspace page, lives in Vegas and makes less than $30k a year. Jeez! The moody and undeniably catchy song is featured on the Married To The Mob soundtrack and proved to be a minor one-hit wonder for Lazzarus, who hasn’t put out a record in a decade. The song was parodied in Clerks 2 and turns up in weird tributes on YouTube, including one horrible clip where a little toddler warbles the song at his (off-camera) parents’ urging. That’s the scariest thing I’ll see all year.


BAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGGGHHHH - Kevin

Goth Brooks

Bauhaus “Bela Lugosi’s Dead”

The Dirtbombs “Kung Fu”

by Mark Cappelletty

It’s Halloween time and that means can only mean one thing anymore: Goths. Especially out here in Southern California, skinny high-school kids with eye makeup and jet-black hair can strut their stuff and not fear wedgies, swirlies or the occasional purple nurple. The Goth song of choice is, natch, Bauhaus’ 1979 single “Bela Lugosi’s Dead,” a drony and repetitive song with lyrics that would give even Anne Rice pause (“The virginal brides file past his tomb/Strewn with time’s dead flowers/Bereft in deathly bloom”). But man oh man, does it work. Most Halloween-oriented songs are either novelty hits or are scary only in context. With Peter Murphy’s deep, affected vocals shambling forth like a ghoul (and, with his Skeletor face, looking very much the part) and the simplest, eeriest bassline ever, this one is unsettling on its own any time of the year.



Even scarier is the use of “Bela Lugosi’s Dead” in the glossy 1983 Tony Scott pansexual vampire thriller/’80’s-era perfume commercial The Hunger, which juxtaposes Bauhaus singing this in some weird club (behind the same kind of fencing that saved Jake & Elwood Blues during their “country AND western” bar set) while David Bowie and Catherine Deneuve pick up a pair of hapless club-kid victims, one of whom turns out to be Ann “The Power Of Pussy” Magnuson. Bad stuff ensues. The Hunger isn’t particularly great, but Bowie is genuinely creepy, particularly in how Dick Smith’s early-stage old-age make-up almost perfectly mirrors how he looks today, and the movie has atmosphere in spades. And did I mention the smoking hot — and, for once, not thoroughly gratuitous — lesbian sequence between Deneuve and Susan Sarandon?

If Bauhaus is a bit too Goth for you, check out Detroit’s Dirtbombs, who take Kevin Haskins’ drum-beat and Daniel Ash’s guitar distortion and sample them for “Kung Fu,” off 2001’s Ultraglide In Black. Never thought you could shake your tail-feather at Bauhaus before? Well, now you can. Just mind bumping into the kid in the Skinny Puppy shirt. That black eye-liner is hell to wash out of your clothes.