The 26th edition of the Rock Herk festival didn't step away from its core rule: Rock Herk is and remains a free festival. Spread out over two days now, the first day focuses on dance (headliners were Blackstrobe and Alex Gopher) while the second day is the sort of Saturday one can expect from Rock Herk: as eclectic as it can get.

The headliners were Battles and Roni Size & Reprazent (live) on the main stage and Bane and AmenRa on the second stage. As always, part of the line-up was great for the game "shout if you heard of any of this names", but it remains a festival with a great atmosphere. We also made new enemies: the band The Enemy.

Anyway, for more on Phosphorescent, Battles, Bane, AmenRa, Future of the Left and Cutting Pink With Knives: read on. (Plus, more about the bad people of The Enemy.)

I guess that there’s no need for me to introduce you to the Criterion Collection. Albeit not especially cheap, these DVDs are so full of extras it would be best to describe them as the definitive edition of the movie, sometimes even for DVDs you wouldn’t expect to get such a gigantic release.

Criterion are having a busy month, already they have released Jacques Tati’s Trafic, Paul Schrader’s Mishima: A Life in Four Chapters and the long short (or however you’d describe a movie of 27 minutes) Patriotism by Yukio Mishima.
They’ve also released a Canadian movie I’d never heard of, Mon Oncle Antoine by Claude Jutra, but that is dubbed “the best Canadian movie of all times” by certain critics. Looks promising.
But, as I said, the month isn’t over and Criterion is still going to release a couple of movies.

One is High And Low by acclaimed director Akira Kurosawa, the other is the essential horror classic Vampyr by Carl Theodor Dreyer. Delirium Vault is checking out what you're getting for your money.

Casus Kiran is Turkish for "Spy Smasher", the international title of this 1968 action movie by Yilmaz Atadeniz. Spy Smasher was a comic hero from the 1930s and 1940s. Of course the original Spy Smasher was American (as opposed to Turkish) and fighting the Nazis (as opposed to fighting a local gang of thugs), but Turkish remakes were never known for their accuracy.

In 1942 the Spy Smasher comic was turned into a movie serial. The 12 parts were condensed to 100 minutes and rereleased in 1966, just two years before Casus Kiran saw the light. In an interview (available on the DVD) director Atadeniz confesses he was highly influenced by the serials he saw in the theatres as a kid.
Let it suffice to say that this shows: Casus Kiran plays more like a serial taped together to form a film. That doesn't say anything about the quality of the film: it's just that Casus Kiran often ends up trying to stop another attempt of his nemesis The Mask to rule Turkey and (by extension) the world. 

Casus Kiran was released on DVD by Onar Films, so let's take a closer look at the film.

Hehehehe.... our fellow DV'er Kurt read my lil' review over at the Litterbox, and seemed to think this one was worthy of a go here at DV as well... so who is this lil' Catgirl to argue? Enjoy!!

You know how truly weird the films of Indonesia got waaay back in the late 70's and early 80's..... Well apparently the Philippine movies from that same period also had some seriously strange stuff going on too... as witnessed by this lil' piece of cinematography. Neko found this one totally by accident, and when I found out it had black magic, crazy bad "special" effects, snake women, chubby ol' Satan himself, and a hero who looked like a Mexican heavy from an old episode of "CHIP's" you just know I had to give it a try....

The synopsis for it reads: "The Killing of Satan" is a Filipino-made horror-fantasy movie about a man who is chosen by his dead uncle to battle the forces of evil. He fights a man called "The Prince of Magic," who shoots ray beams from his hands, makes heads spin around and hypnotizes people. Eventually, he finally faces Satan himself and engages him in a battle of magic for the soul of his virgin daughter, the pledged Bride of Darkness."

Yep.... it's got it all.... but is is "Craptacular" enough to join the "So Bad It's Good Club"? Let's all find out.....