The Best Reviews from Maggot Video

I was reading this review of the ultra fucked up Japanese nihilism film All Night Long and I came upon this section of the entry.

Prior to it receiving a DVD release with English subtitles it was heavily distributed on the Video Tape exchange circuit. The film gained a cult status amongst fans due to the films over-the-top violence and disturbing nature.

Ahhh the Video Tape Exchange circuit. Seems so fancy when you say it that way. Basically in other words, it was called horror trading. And people exchanged lists where you would trade your badly dubbed horror movies with their badly dubbed horror movies. I've documented this before.

As one of the sites that inspired this one, Gore Maggot Video was one of my go to guys to trade. Sure I know his real name, but to me and Insano Steve, he'll always be GoreMaggot. And his reviews on his list are legen....wait for it....dary.

We would trade up to 7 movies over postal mail with this guy. Insano Steve would head to Chinatown, get some VCDs, dub them and make trades. It was the ONLY way to see cult and crazy fucked up movies in the late 90s and early 00's. This died down when torrenting became crazy prevalent as well as YouTube but I still have a collection of VHS tapes from my horror trading days. Alas the irony is I have no VHS player to ever watch them again.

Maggot Video reviews sold themselves. I've collected a few below for you to enjoy but first check out. Enjoy!

I CAN DO D.V.D.'s NOW!!!!!!!!....Same prices as the videos,so let me know what you want.all titles are from international source, from one collector to another, no rights implied or given.I'm always getting new cool stuff so check back every couple of months.Thank you.

all titles come in clam-shell case with cover-art and printed disc's(with only a few exceptions).If you don't care about the color cover & case, I'll sell you as many as you want for only 8.00 $ each!

videos and D.V.D.'s are  recorded  in  SP  mode on high quality tapes & D.V.D.R's for best picture and sound quality

$10.00 per title (plus shipping, please see shipping rates)
get any 10 flicks for 80 bucks postage paid!
 
Great reviews of "Extreem" films. The spelling errors were part of the charm in my opinion.

DAS KOMABRUTALE  DUELL--WOW!!!!!! This is one sick puppy! I just got this in not too long ago ,once again ,its in German with no subs....but who gives a fuck!!!this shit rocks. This flick ranks right up there with PREMUTOS for unrelenting ultre gore and insanity.They use more fake blood in this than any flick I've seen in a long time(Maby the most ever) definatly one of the goriest flicks on this site. There is a scene where a guy sneaks up on a pregnant woman sitting on a bench in a park(I think its the broad from the picture below),he comences to kill her very brutally...then he cuts out her twin fetuses...throws them down and does a tatter masher stomp on them.This movie is sick.  HIGHLY RECOMMENDED FOR SICKO'S

Great reviews of Takashi Miike films. 

CITY OF LOST SOULS--Yet another kick ass flick by Takashi Miike(VISITOR Q) This one is an action flick on the same lines as Time & Tide but alot bloodier,plus he had a 4 million doller budget for this one and the F/X are awsome!You gotta see the CGI kung fu cock fight,it's like a MATRIX chicken fight.CRAZY!!!
 
GRAVEYARD OF HONOR—Cool Takashi Miike flick with lots of Yakuza violence ,abused women and drug induced insanity.

VISITOR Q--This is a very fucked up flick by Takashi Miike (Fudoh: A New Generation,Audition)This is his answer to GUMMO & REQUIEM FOR A DREAM.Lets just say this is the disfunctional family flick to top them all,This is way sicker than those other flicks though.If you are currently happy with your family situation,DONT! let your wife see this movie(or any of the guinea pigs for that matter 

Sometimes, you don't know the titles.

DEAD BABY DOLL (DONT KNOW THE TITLE FOR THIS ONE SO I MADE UP THIS )

I've seen this film and I agree.

DR.LAMB--Sick!sick!sick!cat.3(serial killer flick)

Sometimes he didn't have subs on his movies.

EROTIC NIGHTMARE—H/K Cat. 3 with Anthony Wong (Untold Story ,Ebola Syndrom) chinese language only. Sorry. 

MU ZAN E---THIS GROUP OF FLICKS STARTING WITH THE RED ROOM ARE PART OF A NEW LINE OF TOTALLY FUCKED UP FETISH/GORE FLICKS COMEING OUT OF JAPAN.SAID TO BE "THE NEW GUINEA PIGS" THESE FLICKS ARE WAY OVER THE TOP FUCKED UP.ALOT OF MENSTRAL FETISH SHIT IN THESE FOR SOME REASON(LIKE SUCKING A MOUTHFULL OUT & SPITTING IT OUT ALL OVER THE PLACE. SICK! THESE FLICKS ARE ABOUT AN HOUR EACH ,IN JAP. WITH NO SUBS,SORRY....PRETTY EASY TO FOLLOW THOUGH.

He used the "kick ass" alot in his reviews Which is how that phrase ended up in my reviews. 

FEMALE CONVICT SCOROION: JAILHOUSE 41----Kick ass,good quality,letterboxed,English subs(these flicks are cool,they look like they came from the same era as the babycart flicks,70's for sure.Beautifully shot..nice and violent and exploitational)

Some of his movies weren't for kids and he'd let you know. 

GAMERA 3,THE REVENGE OF IRIS--AWSOME!AWSOME1AWSOME1not for kids,blew me away!
GAMERA,GUARDIAN OF THE UNIVERSE--TOTALLY AWSOME!NOT FOR LITTLE KID'S 

We horror trader bootleggers suffered from copying the same dubbed copy over and over again and trading that shit.

ICHI THE KILLER--SUPER ULTRA GORY TAKASHI MIIKE FLICK! KILLER CGI GORE F/X ,TWISTED STORY. THE QUALITY ISNT THE BEST,BUT ITS WATCHABLE.THIS IS THE PRINT THATS GOING AROUND,IF YOU KNOW OF A BETTER PRINT THAT LET ME KNOW. HIGHLY RECOMENDED. 


Sometimes movies only needed one word reviews.
 
THE RAPE MAN- cool!
 
 And sometimes he gave you a fuckin screenplay for a review.

PSYCHO: THE SNUFF REELS aka. TUMBLING DOLL OF FLESH--Thomas Takanawa, Richard Fujimoto and Harold Akira are three lonely Japanese teens bored of their middle-classed existence. But before you can say American Pie, Bettie Hirohito enters the picture. She is young and effervescent; a robust example of youth and vivacity. “Hey guys!,” exclaims Thomas. “I’ve got my dad’s video camera. Let’s make a movie!” “What kind of movie?,” ponders Bettie. “A porn, of course,” shout all three males in unison; their wistful synchronicity and pleading eyes eventually persuading a begrudging Bettie. Harold, being the most endowed of the three plunders Betties hirsute vagina while the other boys shout words of encouragement and film the act. However, everyone knows that promiscuity and pornography lead young strays like our protagonists down a menacing path of illicit deeds and murder. And thusly, Yellow Love turns into the Slant-Eyed Slaughter. Bettie is tied down and forced to endure a bizarre mélange of physically sexual depravities. Bettie is chopped, diced and pureed into a mishmash of pulverized flesh and splintered bone. Psycho delivers a deluge of spilled blood and butchered flesh; its undertaking is another sick, but pointless endeavour where flesh is pitted against sharpened steel and as always, comes up short. While the film takes far too long to finally bombard you with some wonderfully vile acts, Psycho: The Snuff Reels is a hilarious romp that eschews typical pornography and gore motifs by combining the two styles; Psycho is a tumor rooted in Guinea Pig/Flowers Of Flesh And Blood and August Underground Mordum. It is an exciting Japanese gornography epic with a modicum of verisimilitude hindered only by annoying genital fogging.SICK!!SICK!!SICK!! Japanese language only. 


 I'll do a second part if you enjoyed this one. So who traded horror back in the day? Sound off if you did. 

Categories: gore, horror trades, horror trading lists, ichi the killer, muzane, rapeman, splatter, takashi miike

What the hell should I do with my VHS collection?

I did some summer cleaning over the weekend and I realized that packed in boxes I had overlooked is my entire VHS collection. After watching V/H/S a few weeks ago, it seems my generation is now stuck with VHS tapes that are neither valuable as collector's items nor useless as Betamax tapes. VHS tapes sit on that border of being cool nostalgia and being crappy nostalgia.

The funny part is I don't even own a VCR anymore so even if I wanted to watch one of these classic horror flicks I own (like Slashers above) I can't. And really....who has recently watched an entire movie on VHS?

Seriously have you?

I think not.

I can't throw them all away because well, shits fuckin toxic and electronic. There really is no proper way to recycle VHS tapes. Trust me, I've checked out sites and some sites ask you to pay to recycle them. Fuck that. I could Craiglist my collection. Maybe somebody out there wants my copy of Police Story 3. I'm not even sure anybody would want this. I could donate my collection to the Thift shop down the block. I mean would they even accept that?

Sure I know some people would say keep it and display it proudly but I'm kind of limited on space and I think it's about time I free myself of this archaic technology. Like all good things, it's time I let go of my 80s/90s obsession.

So I ask you horror blogosphere and the horror-verse community, what have you done with your VHS collection?

Here are some highlights of my collection.

Coven (autographed copy)
MTV's The State
George Carlin Jammin in NY
Luther the Geek (via Urban Fetch)
I Spit on Your Corpse, I Piss on your Grave (why do I own this?)
Assorted horror cannibal movies via trades (Cannibal Holocaust, Emerald Jungle, Cnnibal Ferox)
Assorted porn

A lot of movies I got via trades back in the 90s and early 00s.

Here are just some of the titles.

Violet Shit trilogy
Premutos
Visitor Q
Lots of Miike movie

Look here is picture of said box. This is one of three boxes.

I have The Matrix and Big Lebowski on VHS tape! Lots of other tapes in the other 2 boxes. Clearly buying movies at horror conventions, making trades and eBaying has resulted in an overload of movies I can never watch anymore.

I need suggestions and ideas on what to do. Where is your VHS collection?

Categories: horror trades, horror trading lists, straight to video, vhs

The Legend of Red Room

Sometimes an underground film becomes legendary becomes it avalanches into something more.

During Insano Steve and myself's heyday of looking for the most fucked up films to watch, we'd have to make contact with horror traders to get our fix. I documented this in a post about Horror Trading circa 2002. It was a weird time and the standard protocol was this:

• You'd dub a movie on VHS in SP mode and make sure to tell your trading counterpart the quality (1st generation dub, 2nd, 3rd, etc)
• You'd trade lists and each person would choose what they wanted (this would entail 1 for 1's, 2 for 2's and sometimes 5 for 5's)
• Send it out as quickly as possible

Of course there were bad traders that burned you (you'd send them stuff but they wouldn't or take their sweet fuckin time to send the tapes to you), but your reputation grew on news groups and message boards if you were a prolific trader. HIGHLY RECOMMENDED was a term you wanted.

But this brings us to how we got two Japanese films called Red Room and Red Room 2. After searching for this movie at horror conventions, we met up up with a one GoreMaggot (a legendary trader) at Chiller. After getting his trading list, many trades were initiated. But I believe Insano Steve initiated a trade for the Red Room double.

Trade for a fucked up Japanese film we've never heard of? Yes we want that! The fact we traded for a movie with no subs and was only in Japanese made it exciting.

Here was my original review from my trading list:

you want underground mofo? this is it. straight from the motherland of sick shit...Japan. holy depravity batman! let's start off by saying this flick had no english subs, no dubbed version...just straight Japanese language. so this negates what i know of the real plot. the movie starts off with an extreme closeup of 2 women french kissing while a guy watches and you know what. anyway 4 people (3 girls and a guy) are trapped in a "red room" and seemingly are talking, arguing and playing a card game. the game consists of 4 cards 3 of which are numbered 1,2, and 3 and the 4th has a crown on it. they each pick a card. the person who selects the crown card gets to order 2 participants to do very sexual and depraved shit to each other. this is where we enter guinea pig territory.

***SPOILERS AHEAD!!!***

a woman is twirled on a chair until she blows chunks, a man has a hair dryer inserted into his mouth and hot air blows into his brain, the man inserts a screwdriver and bulb into a woman's ummm...well you know. guy beats the crap out of a woman and then rapes her. mr. wang gets separated from mr. rapist guy. and more fucked up shit then imaginably possible.

downright disturbing. totally fucked up. sicko perverted atrocities. the insanity of a movie with no morals. lowest common denominator appeal. underground, bootleg, cancerous disgusting. this is it. guinea pig is still the pinnacle but red room has its moments.

This was one of the movies that had THIS company send me a cease and desist e-mail! After I got this movie I had added it to my horror trading list which led to some bullshit copyright crap. In any case, the legend of Red Room was born.

A ridiculous Japanese gore movie, a horror trade, watching a movie without subs and a cease and desist letter. That is the Legend of Red Room.

Intrigued by this movie? Well here is the trailer and now you'll know why we had to see it!





Isn't that just uber fucked up?

Categories: gore, horror trades, japanese, japanese atrocities, japanese exploitation, japanese gore, japanese horror, red room, splatter, underground horror, underground horror movies, underground splatter

5 websites that inspired the jaded viewer

I started the jaded viewer in 2006. But really Insano Steve and I kind of started searching for underground horror back in 2002 or so. The internet had just started bursting with horror websites and we were Yahoo-ing sites (yes Yahoo was the big search engine back then) for some movies that could totally blow us away (via shock value and pure gore and splatter).

There were barely any horror blogs back then but there were plenty of websites that were devoted to horror with an emphasis on hard to find films. Most people created their websites on Angelfire or Geocities (both are now defunct). Some horror fans created their own websites from scratch (domain name and page layout). You just had to search real hard to find these sites.

Of course back then horror trading was rampant as Napster downloading. So most horror fans could be found in horror forums and Google newsgroups. This is where I spent most of my days talking about horror.

So when I decided to make my own site, I drew inspiration from those early websites that introduced me to so many of those fucked up movies I now share with you. So here are just a few of the websites that led to the creation of what is now the jaded viewer.

Thanks to the Internet Wayback Machine Archive, you can see them as they were circa early 2000s. These guys were the true pioneers of what we now call the horror blogosphere. Without these guys, my site and probably others wouldn't exist.

1.) Aylmer's Grisly Grimey Page of Unspeakable Horror

I wrote reviews for Aylmer's Grisley Grimey Page of Unspeakable Horror. The 2 reviews on here are Darkness and Luther the Geek. It had lots of guest reviews (people would submit reviews and they would be posted up) and had a wide collection of movies that I never even heard of. Good stuff, good reviews. A "Who's Who" feature was very educational for noobs like myself back then.

2.) Losman's Lair of Horror

Easily the most influential horror website I ever came across during the early days of my horror education. Insano Steve made it our mission to see every movie on his list (and we actually accomplished this with some tales to tell). His Disturbing Movies and Truly Great Horror were the definitive list of what I needed to see. And he introduced Insano Steve and I to cannibal movies. 100% good stuff here.

3.) Vidjunkie

From 1995 to 2005, this site blurb reviewed some great titles. From Euro to Asian cinema, the massive movie database here was unbelievable. Introductions to Fulci, Naschy, Bava, Argento and countless others were pivotal in my cult movie schooling. The reviews are hilarious as well.

4.) Kung Fu Cult Cinema

If there was one site I had to go to know what's the what in Chinese, Japanese, Korean and Thai movies, I went here. They knew their stuff inside and out and their reviews were must reads. Without KFC Cinema, I would have not seen the j-horror originals that inspired their American counterparts. The site had a massive following and their forums were pretty solid too.

5.) Luminous Film and Video Works

It's the only site that still exists from the 5 websites on this list. It was an Amazon site for hard to find sleaze titles. Checking back here weekly, I would know what was coming to DVD. The first of its kind to sell some underground shit.

Honorable Mentions (most of these sites are alive and well) : Teleport City, HK Flix, BadMovies.org, Midnight Eye, Mobius Home Video Forum, Monsters at Play, Maggot Video.

************************************************

I wish some of these sites were still around. They would have enjoyed where the horror community has taken itself since the inception of the web. Thanks to these sites, the jaded viewer exists and is part of a very awesome horror blogosphere.

So what sites influenced your blog or site? (if you say the jaded viewer, thanks!! :-P) Everybody has an origin story for their little corner of the web. What's yours?

Categories: horror trades, horror trading lists, jadedviewer, jadedviewer.com, the jaded viewer

Quick Spinkick Reviews (from the jaded viewer archives)

I've got a back log of old reviews I've never posted, so I figure I'd post a few today and throughout the week. Most of these reviews are from Insano Steve and myself and from our old trading list circa 2002.

These were quick hit reviews, nothing fancy schmancy. No WTF moments or nudipedias. Just quick plot glimpses and funny randomness.

Enjoy!

Categories: horror trades, horror trading lists, jadedviewer, jadedviewer.com, the jaded viewer

Rewind: Trading horror movies circa 2002

First some history.

jadedviewer.com actually didn't start in January 2007. It actually began as Jaded Viewer Productions in 2002 on my other site called leftoverthoughts. My friend I traded horror movies on the internet through Google news groups, horror forums and e-mail.

To make trading easier, I posted my list on my site, gave a brief and humorous descriptions of each movie and listed 50-100 movies I was willing to trade.

It could be a 1 for 1, 3 for 3 or even 5 for 5.

Below is the disclaimer as originally written:

Jaded Viewer Productions Horror List 2002

"We will offend you! Guaranteed!"

BUY, SELL OR TRADE

If you want to buy any of the movies below, all movies are $7.00 + $2 Shipping. If you want to trade for any of the movies listed below please e-mail us your horror list and we can negotiate a trade of equal or lesser value (yes! we would be willing to trade for less!)

All movies are recorded on SP mode, NTSC format only. No Box art is included. All movies are dubbed or have English subtitles unless otherwise noted.

The reason I bring this up is because I found an old blog post I wrote up after I received a CEASE AND DESIST e-mail from a company gobbling up copyrights for some very obscure movies.

I thought it was unfair at the time and I still think it is today. Remember this was circa 2002. It was pre-YouTube, infancy of eBay and message boards were rampant.

If you were part of this community, let me know. It's a bit of nostalgia down underground horror lane.

Enjoy!

[first posted on leftoverthoughts.com on 12/30/02]

**
Monday, December 30, 2002

8th generation dub

I'm still sketchy on this whole bootleg thing. Reason why I bring this up is because recently I was informed that I can't buy or sell or trade any of my underground horror flicks anymore. Here's the deal.

I recently got an e-mail stating I was in violation of copyright laws of North America by an unnamed source. This source threatended legal action and I freakin quote:

Were rather upset and were debating on turning you over to the MPAA for copyright violations. IF our films are not taken off in the next 48 hours we will retaliate harshly. Looking at your list I see most of the films your illegally duplicating are owned by North American companies. We will also contact these companies letting them know what is going on so It would become a mess for you.

If said source is reading this, I have a few things to say for the record. Jaded Viewer Productions is a 2 man operation run out of a basement. Like most underground traders, we are poor. Like eating Ramen noodles poor. The list the said source is talking about can be found here. The list was only and I repeat only a means to initiate trades. Hence, is trading movies illegal? I don't think so. That of course is me being totally biased.

I am fully aware that the unauthorized duplication of movies is illegal without the consent of Major League Baseball and the New York Mets....wait I mean without the consent of the studio...yada yada yada. So am I suppose to be a good American and wait until somebody gets the rights to the foriegn flicks I wanna see so that I can buy them on as a legal copy that will be on DVD or VHS. And why in God's name are you charging $23?!? I mean seriously. It's not like it's Pulp Fiction or something. These are barely flicks that need to be watched once then get passed along to others so they can derive enjoyment out of them. I mean solidifying a market on horror films via copyright is a itsy bitsy piece of the freakin puzzle. It's like claiming 3/4 of a penny. Why would you want to do this?

For goodness sake Kim's Video sells bootlegs!!! It's such a retarded fart of a joke.

Ebay is loaded with these bootlegging motherfuckers. And they got good stuff so I don't complain. I'm not sure how much money they are costing these "companies" but shouldn't they all be prosecuted and castrated to the full extent of the law? Shouldn't they?

Here is my opinion. Bootlegging like any vice crime doesn't hurt anyone. Physically or mentally. When it's financially I don't give a shit. Yeah so a few people don't get some monetary reparations...big fuckin deal.

Most underground horror flicks are seen by people who've initiated trades, bid on Ebay, bought from a dealer at a convention or bought online. The underground is so fuckin small. And we are mostly poor bastards. When you make a trade...you're in a sense building a small village of horror fans that you can communicate with.

The reason we exist is because we don't or don't try to conform to the economics of mainstream movies purchasing conglomerate. The movies are sorta shared...only a few will have seen particular flicks. You feel lucky if somehow you've seen a really rare flick. You've secretly entered into a cult. You've made it. Give youself a pat on the back Tonto.

Bootlegging underground horror is like file sharing on Kazaa or Morpheus. Like downloading mp3s from the now defunct Napster. Like buying flicks from the street peddler on the corner. Like buying tickets from the scalper in front of the arena. Like munching on free food from a party you were not invited to. Like propositioning a prostitute. Like stealing cable. Like hacking into a Direct TV H card. Like downloading a hacked version of Photoshop. Like copying HTML code. Like moving to the good seats at a baseball game. Like leaving for work really early. Like getting to work really late. Like taking a 2 hour lunch. Like expensing a trip to Vegas on the corporate credit card. Like cheating on your taxes. Like sneaking into a movie. Like getting free refills. Like smoking pot. Like sleeping until noon. Like stealing a Playboy. And like tipping off at the gas station.

WE ALL FUCKIN DO IT.

Bill Gates monopolized IE browsers. Of course he did. Because big fuckin money was involved. By monopolozing horror movies...less people will be able to see the flicks you oh so desperately want people to see.

Watching a horror/exploitation/cult film on an underground, imported, no cover art, mislabeled VHS tape in your slowly decaying VCR is an unbelievable feeling. The picture is kinda grainy after the 8th generation dub. The sound is kinda off. Volume goes from high to low. You try to fix the tracking. That doesn't do shit. And you watch.

Then towards the end something mysterious happens. The dude you bought or traded this flick from just taped over midget porn and you see the tale end of it. Or he's used a tape where all his old cartoons were on.

It's oh so magically delicious. This is where bootlegging becomes special. Where you feel like your part of the mainstream. The mainstream of the underground.

Be proud. Welcome to our little club.

Klaatu Barrada Nikto.

**

Tags:
bootlegging horror movies 2002, horror movie trades , horror movie trading , dubbing, jadedviewer, , leftoverthoughts, kazaa, horror trades,

Categories: bootlegging movies, box art, dubbing, horror trades, horror trading lists, jaded viewer productions, kazaa