Twins of Evil

Hairy

Dieter | he/him | 24 | transgender | turkey sandwich

I'm Dieter and welcome to my personal blog. My interests include but are certainly not limited to: viddy games, movies, old men, Batman rogues, literature best described as vintage schlock, spinosaurus aegyptiacus, literally all of human history, and selected fantasy works.

I like to focus on discussing old age, internalized homophobia, existentialism, individualism, and the concept of masculinity in my works. Sometimes I draw uncanny stuff. I have original works that I never bother talking about aside from the occassional snippet on AO3.

If you're here regarding The Simpsons/Burnsmithers, I wrote Burns To Smithereens.

I don't care about pro and anti, I don't know or care about anything fandom related. All I'd like to do is write about evil queer men and think about kissing. If you vehemently disagree with anything I say, write, or do please feel free to block or ignore.

I might not follow back for various reasons, it's nothing personal, but I specifically try to separate myself from fandom drama. I'm here to escape my life and have fun and read interesting things, not witness tonedeaf garbage takes on my favorite characters/media. I'm an adult and I recognize the depth of my interests and writing material.

Other than that, if you send me asks or give me nice comments I'll probably kiss you on the lips because idk how else to respond! I'm just a little guy. You can ask for my Discord if you wish, I promise I'm not mean, only a trifle weird and strange.

Here's my wee AO3:

Midjourney making dream movies

mixing Jodorowsky and over-produced vintage sci fi schlock

Someone should feed the A.I. the entire Jodorowsky's dune art bible and commit all the GPU power in the world for 5 minutes to see what it outputs.

HALLOWEEN BOOK REVIEW:

Neon Trash: Forgotten B-Movies of the 80s by MP Johnson (now writing as Emma Alice Johnson)

I love doing book reviews, so for the upcoming spooky season I thought I’d tackle a couple of my recent favorites, starting with this short little karo syrup-blood covered gem.

Neon Trash is a fictional tribute to bad movies. Not Hollywood bad- as the author makes very clear in her introduction- but shoestring-budget bad. The grimiest films from the golden age of VHS, made outside the big studios and often done by people with little directing experience. Films overflowing with tons of cheap liquid-latex monsters, cartoonish gore, and gratuitous nudity.  The bizarre movies one finds in catalogs at the back of yellowed fanzines moldering in cardboard boxes in a comic shop basement. Movies that showed once in a cheap downtown theater with sticky floors, then went straight to bootleg tapes with static, bad tracking, and lurid titles written on the side in Sharpie. Titles like “Meatface Massacre”, “One More Cannibal”, “Werewolf Beach Party”, and that ultimate of trashy 80s treasures- “Neon Meltoids”.

Most of the book is a “guide” to these fictitious films, summarized with delightfully gross and crass descriptions. The names and plots may be entirely made up, but they definitely capture the feel of vintage schlock horror. And as Johnson explains, just reading the weird summaries of such trashy films is often the best part.

The book also includes fictional interviews with some of the scream queens, weirdo actors, deranged directors and other staff of these monstrosities. There’s even a narrative story by Johnson about their quest to find a rare VHS tape of the quintessential 80s trash flick, “Neon Meltoids”.

The adventure doesn’t go well…

BUT the book does end with a special treat for collectors- a partial script of a previously lost scene from the titular film.

At only 60 pages, Neon Trash is a super-quick read that perfectly encapsulates the feel of grody 80s garbage horror. It appears to be currently out of print, but hopefully Johnson will re-issue it soon. In the meantime you can find used copies on Amazon:

https://www.amazon.com/Neon-Trash-Forgotten-B-Movies-80s/dp/0692783121

And find more books by Johnson on her website:

https://freaktension.wordpress.com/

TheDevilsPartner

#FilmMasters

DVD & Blu Ray

Supernatural Horror Classic, The Devil’s Partner (1961) Newly Restored 4K Special Edition

Includes Newly Restored Bonus Film, Creature From the Haunted Sea (1961)

On Blu-ray & DVD Jan. 16th

Special Features Includes New Interview With Roger Corman

ROCKPORT, Mass. — January 2024 — For Immediate Release — Vintage film restoration and distribution company Film Masters continues its tribute to the pope of pop cinema, Roger Corman, with the third installment of The Filmgroup series on Blu-ray and DVD, The Devil’s Partner, available Jan. 16.

Corman and his brother, Gene, founded The Filmgroup to distribute their own films. While the company did produce the majority of its films, including the cult classic Creature From the Haunted Sea, it also occasionally acquired projects by other filmmakers, as is the case with The Devil's Partner (1961). From director Charles R. Rondeau, the film is a macabre tale of an elderly man who regains his youth after making a deal with the devil. During the summer and fall of 1961, the two films were often paired as a double feature.

Half Man, Half Beast, He Sold his Soul for Passion — Director/actor Edgar Buchanan (best known as Uncle Joe on Petticoat Junction) appears in this supernatural thriller about an old codger trying to reclaim his youth, employing black magic to lure a woman away from his rival. The film also stars Jean Allison, Richard Crane and Ed Nelson. This well-crafted, independent feature has been hailed for its atmosphere and as a pioneering film in the devil worshiping subgenre made popular in the ‘70s.

Made in 1958, The Devil’s Partner languished with no release date until it was picked up and distributed by The Filmgroup, becoming a steady presence on the drive-in circuit, often appearing in tandem with Creature from Haunted Sea, another Corman classic from the golden age of drive-in schlock.

This spoof of spy/gangsters/monster movies stars Anthony Carbone as a gangster and smuggler who decides to kill members of the ship’s bungling crew and blame their deaths on a legendary sea creature. What he doesn’t know is that the creature is actually out there! Also starring Betsy Jones-Moreland and Academy Award-winning screenwriter Robert Towne (Chinatown) under the pseudonym Edward Wain.

​

The film was conceived when Corman finished shooting The Last Woman on Earth in Puerto Rico and discovered he had enough film left over to make another film. He enlisted long-time associate Charles B. Griffith, who—legend goes—had six days to write the script. Ever the pragmatist when it came to budget, Corman recruited locals to appear in this film as extras.

Special Features: Commentary for The Devil’s Partner is by Larry Strothe, James Gonis, Shawn Sheridan and Matt Weinhold of the Monster Party podcast; theatrical-length commentary for Creature From the Haunted Sea is by fan favorite Tom Weaver, with contributions from Roger Corman, Kinta Zertuche and Larry Blamire. Weaver also provides the liner notes for the film. Ballyhoo Motion Pictures contributes Hollywood Intruders: The Filmgroup Story with Part III of the story, as well as their new interview with Roger Corman on the formation of The Filmgroup; recut trailers, based on the original theatrical trailers; original Creature From the Haunted Sea theatrical trailer (from 16mm archival elements scanned in 4k); and a full essay for The Devil’s Partner by author Mark McGee.

Both films are presented with a theatrical aspect ratio of 1.85:1, as well as in a 1.37:1 television format. The televised version of Creature From the Haunted Sea includes an additional 15 minutes of footage shot years later to extend the film for a sale to Allied Artists. Discs are region free and include English SDH. Audio is DTS-HD/Dolby AC3s.

PRE-ORDER NOW:

https://www.filmmasters.com/devilspartner

About Film Masters:

Film Masters is a consortium of historians and enthusiasts who seek to celebrate the preservation and restoration of films. We are archivists, committed to storing film elements for future generations and reviving films that have been sitting dormant for decades. By scanning in 2K and 4K, we give these lesser-known films the red-carpet treatment they deserve. Leveraging modern means of distribution to release forgotten films back into the world, we also produce original bonus materials, including feature-length documentaries, which aid audiences in contextualizing and celebrating these works of art as they were meant to be. Visit us online at: www.FilmMasters.com

The Devil's Partner (1961) + Creature From The Haunted Sea (1961) Double Feature

Film Masters

Genre: Horror/Sci-Fi/Cult

Original Release: 1961 (B+W)

Not Rated

Format: Blu-ray & DVD

Running Time: 314 Minutes

Suggested Retail Price: $29.95 (Blu-ray) / $19.95 (DVD)

Pre-Order Now

Street Date: Jan. 16, 2024

This week my movie-reviewing partner Mladen Rudman takes us down the low road with the '90s-vintage movie "Trucks," based on a Stephen King. It's 18 wheels of schlock!

Read the review.

Mitochondrial eve parasite eve

Eventually you have to try and stop her from stealing the entire donor supply of a sperm bank so she can impregnate herself and give birth to a mitochondrian messiah. She melts a clutch of concert goers into a single gelatinous mass that looks like King Kong if he were made out of SunnyD. The last time you ever see more than a handful of people in the city is when Eve assaults yet another crowd on Christmas Day. Unlike similar schlock like Darkman, though, the game just keeps mutating like one of Eve’s beasts, escalating into odder scenarios as Aya herself keeps getting more and more trapped in the city.Įve is actually the embodiment of a sentient, evolved group of mitochondria - the engine in living cells - that are trying to overthrow the tyrannical rule of the human nucleus. Half urban isolation meets explosion fest like The Rock and half Clive Barker-ian body horror, it really does feel like a vintage piece of cheese pulled right off of USA’s Up All Night with Gilbert Gottfried. If it stopped there and Aya just had to track down Eve in New York, fighting off mutating creatures as she went, Parasite Eve would just be another eerie high concept action horror fitting of its era. If painter Patrick Nagel and The Babadook director Jennifer Kent were in charge of crafting the worst Freudian anxiety nightmare you’d ever have, it would still be less outlandish than the beginning of Parasite Eve. That’s also when the rats in the building start turning into hog-sized freaks with three-pronged whip tails that shoot fire. Her arms twist and extend into dark claws, her legs are replaced by a curving, coarse tail as she floats in mid-air ranting about how the mitochondria are starting a revolution. The singer then warps into Eve, our monster antagonist. This is one of Parasite Eve’s only scenes where New York is populated beyond Aya and her allies from the 17th Precinct and everyone happens to be on fire. They arrive at Carnegie Hall for an opera, but as the show begins with a wailing, wordless song, everyone in the theater save Aya and the singer on stage starts to burn. On Christmas Eve in 1997, NYPD detective Aya Brea goes on a date with an overeager man who’s never named. In trying to make a shorter, more digestible delivery system for its technological prowess, Square produced something weirder than anything they’d made before. Parasite Eve was an attempt to streamline the concept of a role-playing game - strategic, evocative games that take dozens of hours to unfold their action and plot - so it could more seamlessly integrate with the lushly animated, Pixar short-style story sequences that Square was revolutionizing on the PS1. (Is it a movie? Is it one of those VHS board games? These were valid questions in the ‘90s and they still are unless you’re the sort of person that immediately understands what “RPG” stands for.) That awkward moniker was a mission statement. Square called it a “cinematic RPG,” a weird genre signifier that raises more questions than it answers. That’s the New York in Parasite Eve.ĭeveloped by SquareSoft and released in 1998 for the original PlayStation, Parasite Eve remains an eminently playable, bizarre experiment as beguiling as its setting. New York at rest feels like a dream space made flesh, a place both alien and familiar, isolating and enveloping. All the speed and fury of 8 million people pushing and yelling between the cars and the sirens falls away into a rumbling susurrus, half noise and half feeling. It’s eerie the first time you experience it, coming home in the small hours or walking out the door before the sun comes over the East River. Everything slows for a while, neighborhood by neighborhood, the city’s cardiovascular system easing down just like a human body at the end of the day. It rests fitfully, ready to rise at the crash of a car, the wail and fade of ambulance sirens mixing with the sharp bleat of drunk laughter filtering up from the sidewalk at 2 a.m., but it does in fact slumber. Parasite Eve knows the truth: New York sleeps.

Tackling the progressive yet problematic #blaxploitation genre 2moro on the podcast with @mstonyatodd & @riacarrogan what’s the next controversial film genre I should cover? #PrepareForPrattle • • • #sexploitation #filmnoir #genre #subgenre #pamgrier #funk #blaxploitationfilms #soul #movies #cinema #blackcinema #fridayfoster #blackpower #movie #foxybrown #film #cartoon #smovies #blaxploitationmovies #rudyraymoore #dolemite #art #soulcinema #vintage #horror #jimlawrence #comic #schlock https://www.instagram.com/p/CftrXi_MNCk/?igshid=NGJjMDIxMWI=

Worlds Unknown #6 (1974) featuring KILLDOZER: The Dozer What Kills!!!! 

Carolyn Craig, 1959

B-movie horror, Oasis of the Zombies (1982). Also known as The Treasure of the Living Dead. Also known as Bloodsucking Nazi Zombies. Also known as The Abyss of the Living Dead.

From the back cover: Robert Blabert, whose father was killed in World War II’s African Campaign, is intrigued by tales that Rommel’s treasure is hidden somewhere in the desert. He convinces several friends to join him on an expedition to find the gold. Kurt, a German war veteran, also seeks the treasure… but he finds a horde of terrifying zombie soldiers who have slept beneath the sand for years.

Also known as Day-for-Night, the movie.