Dominion, Acts 1-4 (Manga Video, two tapes, 12.99 each)

This Island World release continues certain themes seen in predecessors, ‘Akira’ and ‘Fist of the North Star’. All three are set in the future, following some sort of global catastrophe, and contain healthy helpings of mayhem in one for or another. ‘Dominion’ probably has more in common with ‘Akira’ than ‘Fist’, sharing it’s urban setting and dark-edge SF style.

Though despite taking place in a world where pollution is so bad that face-masks are vital, ‘Dominion’ is pure entertainment with few pretensions. Destruction of property, black humour and sex are key features, but it could hardly be played any other way when the police drive tanks, would like to get tactical nukes, and are chasing a trio of criminals consisting of a half-cyborg and a pair of bioengineered cat-bimbos known as the Puma Twins – who in turn are after a batch of urine samples from humans unaffected by the hyper-icky atmosphere.

The tapes are dubbed, rather than subtitled, but it’s very well done and 95% of the time you could hardly tell they weren’t made in English. However, Island World also replaced the music, and the new soundtrack isn’t really suitable, notably during the Puma Twins diversionary strip-show, and is wimpy to the point of being annoying. [This contrasts with their version of ‘Project A-ko’, where the music was untouched, but the dubbing left a lot to be desired, the three lead characters sounding almost the same. It gets a C, a serious markdown from the A- given to the subbed ‘A-ko’ in TC12. What a difference a dub makes…].

The second tape is overall slower in pace, albeit only compared to the frenetic pace of the first half, and mostly deals with how cyborg Buaku has to team up with police gal Leoni for their mutual survival. Naturally, there’s the obligatory grand finale, which does perhaps leave a few too many loose ends unexplained. However, in the final analysis, both tapes provided me with an entirely acceptable, thoroughly enjoyable, hour of entertainment and are probably the best anime release yet. B+

Odin (Manga Video, 12.99)

The anime fan network is pretty sharp at picking up on good films. Word of mouth ensures that any decent anime will usually rapidly appear in Britain – for example, copies of the ‘Silent Mobius’ movie appeared here about two weeks after it’s Japanese video release. Given this, it says a lot about ‘Odin’ that, despite it being seven years old, I could find no-one who’d ever seen it before Island World released it.

But maybe ‘Odin’ was an undiscovered classic, a gem that fandom had somehow missed. Well, to quote the great philosophers, Wayne and Garth, “NOT!”. ‘Odin’ gets my vote as the worst anime yet inflicted on us – even ‘Fist of the North Star’, while shoddily dubbed and poorly animated, at least had a gleefully enthusiastic eye for splatter. ‘Odin’ lacks even that, being a tired space opera which looks perhaps ten years older than it is, and it was past its sell-by date to start with.

It starts off on the wrong foot with some dodgy pseudo-scientific waffle about starships powered by light, and rapidly goes downhill when we meet the characters, who all possess Japanese names, but have strong American accents. The storyline singularly failed to capture my interest; the first attempt, I fell asleep after 19 minutes, and even after a rerun, I can’t remember much about it. Read the box, if you must – TC has better things to do with the column inches!

It’s nice to see Island World demonstrating the breadth of anime. Like films or television, it runs from the excellent to the very poor, and the only possible reason I can think of why they released ‘Odin’ was as an example of the latter. Avoid, most definitely. E-

Aileen Wuornos (Nick Broomfield) – This documentary, by the man who did ‘The Chicken Ranch’ and ‘Tattooed Tears’, is about the woman claimed by the media to be America’s first female serial killer, a hitch-hiking hooker who supposedly offed seven clients. Well, actually, it’s more to do with the really sick people who’re exploiting her and the situation, including her lawyer and foster mother. Movie deals, interview fees, the works, and the documentary slowly warps into something that could be very black satire. When Wuornos herself finally appears, she’s about the sanest person we’ve seen and her ‘self-defence’ pleas seem horribly plausible – in an estimated 8,000 clients, seven psychos isn’t impossible. The film is stomach-churning, hilarious and totally gripping. A perfect documentary, and a must-see when it appears on C4. A+.

Bad Karma and Drill Bit (Alex Chandon) – Coming in on a wave of reviews are a pair of films from London-based Shapeshifter Productions. And hey, they’re actually pretty good. ‘Bad Karma’ scores with a gleefully energetic and imaginative approach cramming in warped idea after warped idea into an end product that’s part “Personal Services”, part “Evil Dead 2”, but is mostly unique (trans-dimensional creatures disguised as crazed Hare Krishnas?). While not all the ideas quite work, bonus points are due for having the gall to try, and the film is certainly miles away from the usual cliches. The story in ‘Drillbit’ starts off just as imaginatively – an AIDS cure turns people into zombies – but it peters out and becomes a show-case for violence and splatter (spot the TC contributor as a crazed killer!), though as it’s an extended show-reel rather than a finished movie, this is to be expected. Technically, both films are certainly as good as many pro-production I’ve seen, thanks in no small part to some impressive effects. Amateur psychologists may care to ponder the way that Alex’s mother ends up dying killed horribly in both films! B+ and C.

C’est Arrive Pres De Chez Vous a.k.a Man Bites Dog (Remy Belvaux/Andre Bonzel/Benoit Poelvoorde) – This ultra-cheap, b&w Belgian film is based around a serial killer (co-director Poelvoorde), followed by a camera team for a ’40 Minutes’ type documentary about his life and family (played by Poelvoorde’s real family, who didn’t know what the film was about!). At first, it’s a cheery exercise in black humour and sharp editing, with lots of shoulder-cam turning the murders into a psychopathic version of ‘Treasure Hunt’. But just as the killer is established as a near-likeable chap, the film crew gets drawn into complicity and the “hero” is gradually revealed as a real sicko, notably in one very nasty sequence that probably beats the “home video” scene in ‘Henry’, and is a near-cert for BBFC removal. The movie isn’t easy to watch, and it’s origins as a short film are occasionally far too clear, but it raises all sorts of questions about the nature of violence, and as debuts go, it’s uncomfortably impressive and intelligent. B

Hollywood Scream Queens Hot Tub Party (“Bill Carson”) – Michelle Bauer, Monique Gabrielle, Brinke Stevens, and a couple of lesser known names find a variety of reasons to take their clothes off in a near-plotless excuse for gratuitous nudity, mixing movie clips with special footage (see Michelle Bauer lick that chainsaw!). I detect Jim Wynorski and Fred Olen Ray at work, under pseudonyms (“Joseph D’Amato” as dialogue coach??) and it’s full of their usual trademarks – such as acting most politely described as ‘minimalist’. However, they know the target audience wants T&A and they deliver the pizza with never a dull moment from the time the scream queens put on their lingerie for a seance – as any cinephile knows, seances are always conducted so clad. Highly sexist and politically incorrect, so definitely recommended. B

Night on Earth (Jim Jarmusch) – For a film in which, basically, nothing happens, this is surprisingly good. It’s a collection of five stories, set in different cities at the same time, all concerning taxi drivers and their passengers. Few have much plot development, most just peter out with no real conclusion. But they are effectively directed, evoking the spirit of the cities effectively, and they’re also well acted all round, with nary a duff performance. Definite highlight has to be a manic Roberto Benigni confessing his sins to an unwilling passenger-priest, just ahead of a cutely smudged Winona Ryder as her tale is a little too schmaltzy. Only real complaint is the repetitive approach – it might have been better to have a different director doing each story, maybe Abel Ferrara for New York, or Dario Argento for Rome? B.

The Rapture (Michael Tolkin) – This is possibly the strangest film to come out of Hollywood in years and I’m not quite sure what to make of it. Telephone operator Mimi Rogers, disenchanted with a life of depravity, gets religion and heads off into the desert with her daughter, convinced the end of the world is near. I spent most of the film wondering when it was going to slip over into full-blown zealotry, as it’s pretty sympathetic to religion (even to Jehovah’s Witnesses!). But it stubbornly refused to go, and had my hair standing on end with some effective apocalyptic imagery and a last half-hour of general weirdness. Thought provoking stuff, albeit the thoughts were mostly “Eh?”. B-

Romper Stomper (Geoffrey Wright) – Anyone else think ‘Reservoir Dogs’ was nothing but a rip-off, right from the opening credits of men in suits and dark glasses walking in slo-mo, as seen in a million HK movies? Wish someone had told it’s director that “funny psychos” went out with ‘Nightmare on Elm Street 4’? Want ultraviolence? Try this Australian movie, an unmoralistic look at a gang of Melbourne skins and their ‘relationship’ with the local immigrants. Most memorable sequence is a fight/chase around the gang’s base, but most of the opening 45 minutes is chilling stuff. Then, as if to demonstrate skinheads are human too, the director throws in a lurve triangle. Big mistake – while perhaps realistic, it’s hard to accept and, hell, it was far more enjoyable to see them as monsters! So it finally ends up a maudlin love story/road movie, but (if you’ll pardon the pun) a nice stab, nonetheless. C.

Single White Female (Barbet Schroeder) – The key question in this film is not “whodunnit?”, which is obvious from the start, nor is it “will she get away with it?”, this being mainstream Hollywood fodder. No, the most gripping thing about this film is trying to decide how many times Jennifer Jason Leigh is going to take her clothes off. I won’t spoil the movie by giving away the answer, but suffice to say, it’s non-zero. Oh yeah, the plot – psycho flatmate tries to duplicate identity of her co-habitee. Nice ‘n’ sleazy stuff, though why anyone would choose a computer consultant as a role model beats me… Bridget Fonda doesn’t need to act, so doesn’t bother, JJL turns in her usual effective psychonaut. File under “lingerie or less”. C.

Tale of a Vampire (Shimako Sato) – Financed in Japan, directed by a lady,inspired by an Edgar Allen Poe poem, and oozing Anne Rice-ness – strange in many ways! Julian Sands is the title character, pining for a love lost last century, who finds a replacement working in a dust-filled library, but he’s also pursued by a mysterious man with a grudge (Kenneth Cranham). Sands seems born to the role (‘Gothic’ was good experience, no doubt) and Cranham is a good foil: together, with help from excellent cinematography, they overcome a script with some glaring errors (I doubt many public libraries in London are open till closing time) and the result, on a budget of less than a million pounds, is striking. More ‘Daughters of Darkness’ than ‘The Lost Boys’, gore bores will hate it, but if your IQ is less lukewarm you could do a great deal worse. B-.

Tiny Toons: How I Spent My Vacation – Fifty years on, Bugs, Daffy, Porky, etc, have grown up, married, moved to the suburbs and had kids. The results are depicted in this weird, surreal and very funny cartoon, which borrows heavily from places most American animated films don’t go: ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ and ‘Deliverance’ are obvious steals. It’s style, a relentless barrage of visual gags, is a straight take from the 40’s Warner Brothers stuff, updated to include sharp digs at Disney (‘Happyworldland, the happiest place on Earth’) and other icons guaranteed to sail over the heads of most kids. Probably the best American cartoon in ages, despite it’s Spielbergian roots. Trivia note: co-writer and executive producer Sherri Stoner starred in ‘Reform School Girls’ as bunny-clutching Lisa (who leaps off a tower after getting her ass branded) and was also the live-action model for Disney’s Little Mermaid and Beauty. This may explain a lot… B

HORROR MOVIE TAKES NZ FILM DOWN NEW PATH

WELLINGTON, SEPT 15, REUTER – A NEW BLOOD-AND-GUTS HORROR MOVIE, “BRAINDEAD”, SCORNS NEW ZEALAND TRADITION OF ART FILMS BY MAKING EVEN THE “TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE” SEEM LIKE A FAIRYTALE.

“IF YOU THOUGHT THE ’50S WAS ALL BOBBY-SOX AND INNOCENCE YOU DIDN’T LIVE NEXT DOOR TO LIONEL,” THE FILM’S PUBLICITY MATERIAL PROCLAIMS. SET IN WELLINGTON, “BRAINDEAD” IS ABOUT 25-YEAR-OLD LIONEL COSGROVE, WHOSE LIFE GOES OFF THE RAILS AFTER HIS BOSSY MUM IS BITTEN BY A RARE CARNIVEROUS RAT MONKEY AT THE ZOO.

BUT FAR FROM CLUTCHING THE SIDES OF THEIR SEATS IN TERROR, THE AUDIENCE AT THE PREMIER WERE ROLLING IN THE AISLES WITH LAUGHTER. DIRECTOR PETER JACKSON INSISTS THE FILM IS A COMEDY.
15-SEP-0204. HHK262 HA84714 NEVL
ENDS

Very few low-budget film directors have ever make it to the rarefied atmosphere of a Reuters news bulletin, a medium more accustomed to reporting foreign exchange news and political comment. With the appearance of the above story, Peter Jackson can safely be said to have “made it”, beyond the world of fandom.

His debut, ‘Bad Taste’ was ensured of a place in the genre hall of fame as soon as it was seized by Customs immediately on its arrival in Britain, and his latest movie, ‘Brain Dead’, seems set to acquire even greater fame/notoriety. Yet Jackson’s eye for combining splatter with humour leaves the viewer helpless with laughter most of the time, rather than throwing up. TC had a chat with this unique film-maker in Nuremberg, at the public premiere of ‘Brain Dead’:

TC – The speed of the film was incredible…
PJ – Yeah, I don’t like boring movies! When I see ‘Bad Taste’ now, I don’t like all that stuff at the beginning when they’re talking and I think , “God, get on with it – why did I put all this stuff in, why don’t we get on with the action?”. On ‘Brain Dead’ I was determined not to have too much dialogue, just enough to set the stories and the characters, and then just let it rip.

TC – What’s the aim behind the high level of comedy in your films?
PJ – I have a fairly large sense of humour, one of my idols is Buster Keaton, and you look at some stuff in ‘Brain Dead’, it’s Buster Keaton with blood. I don’t take stuff seriously – I saw ‘Hellraiser 3’ the other day at Cannes; it’s OK, it’s a good film, I didn’t hate it or anything – I thought it was quite good – but it was all just so serious. Some guy walking round with pins sticking out of his face, I just can’t sit there and think “This is really scary”. If I made a Hellraiser film, I’d like Pinhead to be whacked against a wall and have all the pins flattened into his face. I immediately start thinking of funny things and gags – that’s just the way I am, I doubt I could ever control myself sufficiently to make a serious horror film.

TC – How does it feel for a film fan who began as an amateur film-maker?
PJ – It’s good. I’m no different from any other fans. I like going to watch movies; I’m looking forward to ‘Evil Dead III’ as much as you guys. I’m just lucky I guess that I’ve had the opportunity to be able to make movies as well. I know that often fans make movies and some of them are very good, but I’ve managed to make them on 16mm and do it professionally. I guess I’m actually lucky to be living in New Zealand, because the New Zealand government are quite supportive of what I’m doing, and they’ve given me several million dollars to make these sorts of movies. Not many other fans around the world have got the chance to spend that sort of money!

TC – Is being a film director your dream career?
PJ – It’ll be my dream career when I’ve got total freedom to do what I want without having to worry about the budget. At the moment I’m always worried about what I’m going to do next, and whether I’m going to be able to get the money. ‘Brain Dead’ cost $3 million New Zealand dollars – that’s about the limit that I can make a film for as it’s almost impossible for me to get any more money there. And some of the ideas I’ve got are for bigger budget – I’ve got an idea for a $10 million movie, but at this stage I’ve no idea when or how I’m gonna make it. So it’s a dream come true but I still don’t feel as if I’ve got total freedom to do what I want. It’s always a struggle.

TC – What were the budgets for your three movies to date?
PJ – In US dollars, ‘Bad Taste’ was about 150,000, ‘Meet the Feebles’ was about 450,000 and ‘Brain Dead’ was 1.8 million so it’s quite a leap up from the other films, but we had to use actors which cost an enormous amount of money. Puppets were much cheaper!

TC – Have you ever consider moving to the US and filming in Hollywood, or would you prefer to stay in New Zealand?
PJ – I wouldn’t got to the United States unless I had a firm offer. I couldn’t just go over there and say “Hey guys, here I am in town, give me some work”. It would depend on what the script was – if it was one of my scripts, and I needed a lot more money to make, and the opportunity was there in Hollywood, or it was someone else’s script that I really liked. I’d like to do it one day just to get the experience. To have a broad experience of film-making you’ve got to make a film in America, just to find out what it’s all about.

What I have in New Zealand, and ‘Brain Dead’ is a direct result of this, is total freedom. The Film Commission never came up and told me what to do, they turned up about once just to have a look, they were there for about an hour looking around, then they went off again. They never came to the rushes, they basically give me the money, then six months later, I screen the movie for them and it’s finished. They can’t do anything about it and they don’t try to. It’s a great way to be – don’t care about censorship, don’t care what the investors think, don’t care about what anyone thinks, I just do my own stuff.

If I was in Los Angeles, as you will be fully aware, it would be a very different story. I’d be having to make a film for somebody else, I would be employed by someone to make their movie. They would have authority over what I was doing, and I wouldn’t like that situation, I’d find it very hard to deal with.

TC – Had you any problems convincing the Film Commission to give you money for your films?
PJ – The Film Commission didn’t give me money for 3 years for ‘Bad Taste’, they turned me down a lot. And we tried to make ‘Brain Dead’ in 1989, the Film Commission wouldn’t put all the money up then, though the amount of money we were asking for was the same, ultimately, as what they did put up in 1991. No, there’s no real problem, see I work on the scripts with other writers – Steven Sinclair and Fran Walsh wrote ‘Brain Dead’ with me – and we just work on the scripts and make sure that they are of a certain standard.

The Film Commission get given a lot of scripts to read, by filmmakers wanting money and they can only afford to finance 3 or 4 a year, so what you’ve got to do is make sure that your script is one of the three or four best scripts that they’re going to read. It really comes down to doing the work on the script and making sure that it’s good enough before you give it to them to read.

TC – Had they any problems with the gore?
PJ – They never had much experience of these films before ‘Bad Taste’. In New Zealand, over the last 10 or 12 years, there’s been fifty or sixty movies made and only about three or four of them have made a profit. ‘Bad Taste’ was one of them, so they thought “Hey, you put blood and gore in a movie and it can make money for us”. And they get money back so they can invest it in someone else’s film the next year. so it’s a good thing to do. Plus they know the fan reactions round the world, I sometimes give them copies of odd magazines and articles that have been written about the film so they realise that a lot of people round the world like that type of movie.

I don’t think they’d be quite so keen if they were serious horror movies, like ‘Texas Chainsaw Massacre’ or something, but my movies are basically comedies, they’ve a lot of humour in them. The two top people at the Film Commission were in Cannes and they came along to ‘Brain Dead’, and it was a really good screening, there was a lot of laughing and clapping. They’re not going to see any other New Zealand movie which has that sort of reaction at all, so I think they realise that these films aren’t so bad.

TC – What have been the things that turned out much more difficult, and what was easier?
PJ – I was a bit worried about working with actors in ‘Brain Dead’ for the first time, because I’d never worked with professional actors, but that was easier than I thought. You’ve just got to basically explain to them what you want to do. ‘Brain Dead’ was a much easier movie to make from my point than ‘Meet The Feebles’, which was the hardest thing I’ve ever done in my life. That was a real nightmare, from beginning to end – it was a very, very difficult film to make in all sorts of ways. We managed to finish it and get it out and I was exhausted by the end of that.

I thought “God, that was like going through hell” so I had a bit of trepidation with ‘Brain Dead’ because it’s a much bigger film in many respects, with more complications. But ‘Brain Dead’ was very simple, actually, in the end I found it a very easy film to make. It looks very complicated when you see it, but we planned all the effects, it was very thoroughly story-boarded, we had 12 weeks to shoot it and we basically went through on a fairly good schedule. We weren’t too rushed most of the time, and it was very straightforward in terms of production. Working with puppets was a nightmare, it was really horrible, very, very difficult, working with actors is much easier.

TC – Have you had any reaction from the Hensons to ‘Meet The Feebles’?
PJ – The only thing I heard is that there was a screening in Los Angeles of ‘Meet The Feebles’, for Universal. I wasn’t there, I wasn’t even in the country, but Universal wanted to have a look at the film and Lisa Henson – Jim Henson’s daughter, she’s an executive at Universal – saw it and apparently enjoyed it. She was quite shocked when she saw Kermit nailed on a cross!

TC – ‘Brain Dead’ is, I think, the goriest movie I’ve ever seen. Is this the direction you’re going to keep going in?
PJ – I’m not going to continue making films like ‘Brain Dead’ all my life, but on the other hand I don’t want to have a career where I leave that kind of film behind and never go back to doing a splatter film. The next film I make will probably be one called ‘Heavenly Creatures’ it’s a true story about a New Zealand murder case that happened in 1954. That’s something different as well, it’s a psychological drama with a bit of comedy. Then after that, I don’t know; one day we might do a ‘Bad Taste 2’ which I guess would have to be more gory than ‘Brain Dead’.

You get into a situation where you have to top yourself every time, do better than the film before, and I don’t want to spend my life making films that have more gore than the last one, there’d be no end to it. I don’t know – maybe I’ll never make another film as gory as BD. I don’t have a plan. Who knows what’s going to happen – you might get married or divorced or go to another country, you just don’t know. All I know is that I’m like you guys, I’m a fan of these sorts of movies and I’ll probably keep on making them in one form or another.

TC – Do you have any advice for film-makers wanting to follow in your footsteps?
PJ – I just think you should go ahead and do it. If anyone wants to make movies badly enough, and are prepared to sacrifice a lot, then they’ll make it. Ultimately, if you want to make movies, a lot of it depends on how much of yourself – or how much money – you’re prepared to sacrifice. I did ‘Bad Taste’ over four years, that took an enormous amount of effort to keep going, and I spent $17,000 of my own money. I was working at a job I hated doing, in a newspaper, but I did it because it was paying for my film stock, and paying for my processing, and I spent 17 grand over three years. And anybody can do that.

Anybody can keep on going, keep spending their own money, and make a really good movie. If you believe in yourself, you will ultimately make a good film and that will impress people. People are always looking out for new talent, for new young filmmakers. It’s not impossible to start making movies if you’ve never had the experience, everyone’s got to make their first movie sometime. So if you have something you made that is of a good enough standard, someone in Los Angeles – John Landis or Joe Dante or Sam Raimi – might look at one of your films and say, “Hey, this guy’s great” and give you a call. You just never know what’s going to happen so go for it and don’t give up, one day it’ll pay off.

TC – Any final message?
PJ – I’m very happy that anyone likes the films that I’m making. As I said, I’m just a fan myself, I’m no-one more special, I’ve just been lucky to be able to make the films. The films that I’m making are very reflective of my sense of humour, and the types of movies that I like watching, and in a sense if I know that there are a lot of other people out there that basically share the same sort of tastes as i do, I’m really pleased. Then I feel I’m not alone in liking these films.

Hot night, summer in the city, back o’ my trigger finger gettin’ itchy… In these enlightened (not!) days of milk and honey on our city streets, there is something to be said about people who embrace the conCept of heavy personal armament – usually, this is something like:

What is the compulsion that drives gun freaks? What is the driving desire that enslaves these people to potential instruments of death?

Well, I’ll tell you. No matter how moral, how strong in your belief that life is sacred and unnecessary property damage is bad for you, it’s hard to hang on to these high ideals when you’re holding several pounds of bucking bronco submachine-gun spitting 9mm lead at wooden targets that look like they’re being put through a shredder.

There’s something about the stench of cordite, the hot flare of the brass fountaining out of the ejection port that reduces most people to a psychotic frenzy. My guess is that it’s like a more destructive form of primal scream therapy.

A good example of this is Sanka thingy – can’t remember his last name, the Asian chappy who present Def II’s “Rough Guide” series with Magenta (luv those sunglassed) DeVine. On a trip to the USA, he visited a gun range and, after saying how sad it all was, wasted a slew of targets with gusto and a grin that Charles Manson used on Sundays. Go figure.

The typical weaponeer is perhaps best described with this formula: 2 parts Train Spotter, 1 part Moralist, 3 parts Honourable Samurai and 5 parts Gung-Ho Nihilist – the Train Spotter part is the bit of them that can quote muzzle velocity, rounds-per-second, bullet grain weight and all that.

My collection of guns is limited – some are real, some not, I won’t tell you which…break into my house one night and find out for yourself. Recently, I purchased a Heckler and Koch MP5K submachine-gun. It’s a nifty little thing, just small enough for me to hide under my jacket, with a banana clip that holds thirty rounds of 9mm ammunition. It’s sitting next to me as I type this, a product of that German stormtrooper engineering. It weights just over 6 1/2 pounds and it has a cyclic rate of fire of 800 rounds per minute, just over 13 bullets per second. You’ll see this weapon in the hands of terrorists in ‘Die Hard 2’, and under the expert control of the T-1000 in ‘Terminator 2’. Black plastic, ABS probably, all smooth and precision maintained…

Are you scared yet?

When The Fall Of Civilization comes (survivalist talk here), the gun owner will be ready, able to waste slews of the hordes until the ammo dries up or the Commies/Dinks/Muhfuggers/insert cultural minority here have been pushed out of East Cheam. This is the coda of the weaponeer, the justification for ongoing escalation of urban warfare (“I built this cruise missile to stop them kids from playin’ ZZ Top…”). Are we too far down to stop it? Answer yourself, by looking towards Los Angeles, Bangkok and Yugoslavia…

But, meanwhile, the little voices still talk. The neighbour with the loud stereo, the kid with the dog that pisses on your flowers, that git who sneered at you when you were at school. And it’s so eay, so simple, to turn out the lights and track them walking past your window, sunlight glinting off the scope. All you gotta do is pull the trigger.

Given the chance, I’d carry a gun at all times – I’ve been mugged at knifepoint and it’s left the scars on me – but I wouldn’t want anyone else to have one. That’s how it ends.

Given the chance, I’d line up my fears and shoot ’em till I passed out from orgasming, but for now I walk the streets, safe in the knowledge that guns don’t kill people, people with guns kill people.

Of course, back on the firing range, once you put on the amber glasses, and place the ear defenders on your head, your stream of consciousness becomes a blare of hot lead and brass, like putting a Paul Verhoeven film on fast-forward. All the thunder, the smell of napalm in the morning, the blood, the thrashing, and the almost sexual release as the target evaporates under a hail of fire, bullets with more acronymic names than a US defense contractor, the fire, the screaming, the brass fountain…

Then again, perhaps it’s just me.

Keep that powder dry.

Jim Swallow

Let’s start with a rather sad post-script to TC12’s column, which probably underlines how long has gone by since last issue:

Dick Klemensen, Des Moines: “Thanks for the new issue of TC. But one of the oddities of life, shortly after I got it with my letter about being married to Espie…the fucking marriage broke up! Combination of a lot of things. The pressure from the Immigration service, the age difference, her total immaturity (turning a younger woman from another culture loose in a country as rich as the USA is like turning a child loose in a candy store…Just remember – tight Oriental pussy cuts off the blood supply to your brain and you don’t think straight. But it is OHHHH so nice…!”

Further proof of how things Oriental can give one grief, comes from the co-editor of “Invasion of the Sad Man-Eating Mushrooms”:

Darren Jones, Upminster Bridge: “Speaking of illegal doings, I went up London a couple of weeks ago to interview Kim Newman. Unfortunately I got completely pissed very quickly and remember nothing of the interview. Anyway, afterwards, me and this other guy went looking for Cannon and Co. as I was after seeing what anime they had…We found Newport Road [Ed: Cannon and Co is in Newport Place] and it turned out to be a magazine shop of a dubious nature. He sent us around the corner to the proper address. Now, we were both pretty drunk and I looked at the address which was quite definitely right. The door was open and led straight up a flight of stairs, and a sign on the stairs read ‘Attractive Males Required’.

We had a quick vote, decided it was indeed the right place, and promptly charged up a few flights of stairs to find this clinically white door with a bell on it. I rang it…Well, the door opens and out comes this gorgeous woman, nothing on except a white body stocking which left nothing to the imagination. I could hear Jason gagging behind me and felt my own brain somersaulting in it’s juices. “Do you boys come here often?”, she purrs. “Erm, no – do you sell Japanese animation?” I ask. Trying to fix a stare to her eyes (totally impossible I can tell you, it was fixed firmly to the strand of string disappearing between her legs). “Oh, I think you’ve got the wrong address”, she says and slowly closes the door…The moral of the story is, don’t get pissed you can’t read street names.”

There’s also an interesting bit about losing a watch, which I’d better not print. It’s gone to the Zine Editors Blackmail File, before ‘Miller, Ken’, and after the following demonstration of how ‘zinedom corrupts, but pro-zinedom corrupts absolutely…

Steve Green, The Dark Side: “Knowing your respect for Ms.Beart, thought the enclosed might prove helpful.”

“The enclosed” is a picture of the blessed Emmanuelle not wearing many clothes, which is fair enough – however, the paper hankie he carefully attached clearly establishes something about someone!

Brian Bower, Preston: “The Customary Practice article: with it and the references to Liverpool TSO and in the comics review, can one assume that you have had recent dealings with The Thought Police? [Ed: luckily, not so far, but they probably still think I live at 247 Underhill Road!] I don’t know who was responsible for Three Pin Plugs – always good, this time excellent…This one was made more interesting than some articles I’ve read (in other fanzines, of course!). [Ed: Per, remind me to cut this bit out before Lino sees it] Enjoyed your Grievous Bodily Harm piece, apart from the completely unnecessary, completely unfounded, completely untrue reference to the very lovely, very talented Ms.Rothrock!”

Oh dear. There I was, about to congratulate Brian on his good taste and he blows it… I think we’ve now agreed to differ on that topic!

David Oya, Banbury: “Time to resub to Trash City, hence the enclosed cheque for œ3 for the next four issues. Sorry that I’ve taken the Passive Consumer stance so far, but other than stand agog in amazement at the Galaxy of Wonderment That is TC, there’s very little I feel I can do. Be assured though, that I’m thoroughly enjoying the 3D surround-sound subscribership experience…Loved the UFOs Conspiracy Corner…no doubt, to be filmed as a mini-series starring Christopher Casenove as John F.Kennedy and Emma Samms as the cunning, scheming Alien Sex Goddess Leather Lesbian Bondage-Fetish Evil Empress of the Universe. Or perhaps not”

Mike Landers, Colne: “I’m currently having a discussion with David Hines over the bimbo on the cover, I think it’s Ellen Barkin with Jamie Lee Curtis’ face, he thinks it’s Kim Basinger… The Conspiracy Corner piece was all the more impressive when MTV interviewed a bloke who supported much of Cooper’s claims just one day after receiving TC… Cooper’s rantings have just enough coherence to believe some of it, obviously not all but a lot of it does make sense”

Exactly my opinion, I’m always more worried if things sound just plausible enough to be possible. The next letter hits the mark about right…

Lee Clark, Saltash: “Just thought I’d write to tell you that after about 6 months of thinking about it, I’ve just had the back cover of ‘Trash City’ 9 tattooed, full size, on my arm. It hurt like fuck but it was worth it”

And on that thought, goodbye – I’m off to have a copy of TC10 put through my nose!