Clara from Angura Research Center was kind enough to join me for this episode on one of cinema’s greatest surrealists, Shuji Terayama. Poet, writer, master of underground theater (known as angura in Japanese) and experimental cinema, and so much more, Terayama had an incredibly rich, prolific career in many art forms, which blend together influences from classical Japanese theater, pop culture, folklore, deeply personal elements of biography, etc. Consider this episode more of an introduction to Terayama: we break down why he is so important and mainly discuss one of his more accessible films, the beautiful Pastoral: To Die in the Country (1974). We also talk about his influential experimental theater troupe, Tenjo Sajiki, and some of his short films, namely Laura (1974), The Trial (1975), The Cage (1964), and Grass Labyrinth (1979), among a few other titles.

I strongly recommend checking out the Angura Research Center if you want to explore more about Terayama and Tenjo Sajiki. Clara has been doing really important work translating filmed versions of his plays, which you can watch on her YouTube channel, and writing essays on her site that give some really helpful cultural and historical context. The books we mention in the episode are from Carol Sorgenfrei and Steven Ridgely. All the music in the episode is from Terayama’s lifelong collaborator, JA Seazer, and his score to Pastoral. (And if you do a little digging, you can find the majority of Terayama’s short films on YouTube, all scored by Seazer, though beware that the YouTube version of The Trial that I linked to has some other music included.)

The post Eros + Massacre Episode 19: Shuji Terayama’s Pastoral with Angura Research Center appeared first on Cinepunx.

Ditch class, rev your engines, sharpen your switchblades, and roll up some reefer! Extremely patient friend of the show Byron Lueders joined me for this episode that we recorded four score and seven years ago (or at least that’s how long it feels), all about American teenage girl gang films in the 1950s and ’60s. In the episode, we focus primarily on Girl Gang (1954), Teenage Crime Wave (1955), One Way Ticket to Hell (1955), The Violent Years (1956), Teenage Doll (1957), The Delinquents (1957), Live Fast, Die Young (1958), and Teenage Gang Debs (1966). We discuss: the rise of “teenager” culture in postwar America and how many of these films suggest that the America dream is toxic garbage; class warfare; the horrors of the Hays Code; teen partying and drug use on screen; proto-exploitation cinema; directors like Robert Altman, Roger Corman, and Paul Henreid (?!); and of course we have a lot of say about eyeliner, custom biker jackets, and 1950s hairstyles.

Follow Byron on Instagram at @byronlueders and check out his new bootleg shirt shop here!

The post Eros + Massacre Episode 18: Teen Delinquent Hell with Byron Lueders appeared first on Cinepunx.

It’s officially spring, which seems like a fitting time to release the first — but certainly not last — Jess Franco episode of the show. Thanks to Patreon supporter Pat Radke for requesting a series of Jess episodes! Chicago film programmer John Dickson, from the Oscarbate podcast and film collective, joined me for a particularly wild discussion of Jess Franco’s best films featuring his recurring detective character, Al Pereira. Sometimes played by Howard Vernon, Eddie Constantine, Uncle Jess himself, and Antonio Mayans, among others, Pereira is a perverse twist on the standard sleazy private eye character from pulp fiction.

This episode focuses mainly on Death Whistles the Blues (1964), Attack of the Robots (1966), Les ebranlées (1972), Downtown (1975), Night of Open Sex (1983), and Black Boots, Leather Whip (1983). Despite how specific the topic is, I do think it’s a good intro to Jess’s career, because we cover a lot of his recurring themes, his early work, how elements of his personal life appear in the films, etc. And we have a lot to say about our horny exhibitionist queen, Lina Romay. There’s romance, there’s a lot of sex, there’s a fair amount of torture, and even some Nazi gold. I think this goes without saying for most of my episodes, but this one is extremely not work safe. Wait till you get to the song about sperm.

The post Eros + Massacre Episode 17: Jess Franco’s Horny Detective with John Dickson appeared first on Cinepunx.

It’s spring equinox and Eros + Massacre is emerging from hibernation! This first episode of 2025 is a discussion with cinema historian Tom Mes. He’s an international treasure and many of you were likely introduced to some incredible Japanese films due to his exhaustive writing and research and his site Midnight Eye. He just released a new book, Japanese Film and the Challenge of Video, and works with blu-ray companies like Arrow and Radiance as a producer on many of their Japanese cinema releases. Be sure to check out his latest lovechild with Arrow, V-Cinema Essentials: Bullets & Betrayal (for which I was honored to contribute a video essay), and Radiance releases like Elegant Beast and A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness (immense thanks to Tom for hiring me to do the commentary!), among many more.

Needless to say, this episode is all about Japanese V-cinema, a really underrated direct-to-video subgenre that emerged in Japan in the late ’80s and throughout the ’90s and spanned everything from crime and horror films to romances and comedies. I wanted to list out some of the names and titles we talk about in the episode, to make them easier to find. Directors we mention: Yasuharu Hasebe, Toshiharu Ikeda, Shunichi Nagasaki, Sogo Ishii, Kazuhiro Kiuchi, Takashi Miike, Kiyoshi Kurosawa, Banmei Takahashi, Rokurō Mochizuki; also actors Yūsaku Matsuda, Shô Aikawa, and Riki Takeuchi. Some key films/series mentioned: Carlos (1991), Stranger (1991), Crime Hunter (1989), Neo Chinpira: Zoom Goes the Bullet (1990), Suit Yourself or Shoot Yourself series, The King of Minami series, The Outer Way (1998), and Yakuza Taxi (1994).

The post Eros + Massacre Episode 16: Japanese V-Cinema with Tom Mes appeared first on Cinepunx.

We are still in the no man’s land between Christmas and New Year’s Day, so hopefully this second part of my two-part episode on the BBC’s original Ghost Stories for Christmas series with Will Dodson will get you through. As a reminder, in part one we discussed six M.R. James adaptations, mostly from the original series. Part two takes us through the final three episodes, The Signalman (1976), Stigma (1977), and The Ice House (1978), plus two spin off films, The Stone Tape (1972), and Schalcken the Painter (1979), and one last M.R. James television adaptation, Casting the Runes (1979) from ITV Playhouse.

And if you missed Will’s info the first time around, he’s an academic focusing on film and media studies and some of you might know him from his special features work on various blu-rays with Ryan Verril (find a complete list of their work here). He’s also edited a number of film books, namely American Twilight: The Cinema of Tobe Hooper.

Eros + Massacre will be back in 2025! Thank you for all the support this year and thanks always to Cinepunx!

The post Eros + Massacre Episode 15: Ghost Stories for Christmas with Will Dodson, Part 2 appeared first on Cinepunx.

My sweet Yuletide angels, here is the other two-part episode I’m shoehorning into this December. I’ll have the second part up later this week (though it will be on my Patreon earlier) so you all have something to listen to when you’re driving to and fro family holiday events this week. I have been absolutely dying to do an episode on the BBC’s original Ghost Stories for Christmas series. I’m grateful it finally happened because this was such a joy and I was thankful to find a cohost insane enough to agree to watch and discuss everything on my list, Will Dodson.

Will is an academic focusing on film and media studies and some of you might know him from his special features work on various blu-rays with Ryan Verril (find a complete list of their work here). He’s also edited a number of film books, namely American Twilight: The Cinema of Tobe Hooper.

In this first part, we discuss the precursor film, Whistle and I’ll Come to You (1968), as well as the first five official Ghost Stories for Christmas episodes: The Stalls of Barchester (1971), A Warning to the Curious (1972), Lost Hearts (1973), The Treasure of Abbot Thomas (1974), and The Ash Tree (1975). All of these are adaptations of M.R. James stories, so we talk a lot about him as well — ghost stories and folk horror would not be the same without him.

Merry Christmas, happy holidays, and I hope Santa brings you a lot of ghost stories this year!

The post Eros + Massacre Episode 14: Ghost Stories for Christmas with Will Dodson, Part 1 appeared first on Cinepunx.

Here is part two of this journey through Teruo Ishii’s Joys of Torture with Chris Haskell (from the They Live By Film and Punk Vacation podcasts). Part one covered Tokugawa: Women’s Genealogy (1968), Shogun’s Joy of Torture (1968), and Orgies of Edo (1969), and in this episode we packed in Shameless: Abnormal and Abusive Love (1969), Inferno of Torture (1969), Yakuza Law (1969), Love and Crime (1969), and Shogun’s Sadism aka Oxen Split Torturing (1976).

And just a reminder that if you want to watch along but are struggling with where to locate some of these, email me (at [email protected]) and I can help you out! Several of them are on blu-ray from Arrow and they’re currently on sale, in beautiful editions with great special features from the GOATs Tom Mes and Jasper Sharp.

The post Eros + Massacre Episode 13: Teruo Ishii’s Joys of Torture with Chris Haskell, part 2 appeared first on Cinepunx.

After a much needed break, I’m back! I have been DYING to do a few podcast episodes on underrated Japanese master Teruo Ishii and Chris Haskell (from the They Live By Film and Punk Vacation podcasts) was kind enough to agree to my insane demand that we cover all the films in Ishii’s Joys of Torture series. Ishii directed seven films in 1968 and 1969 for Toei that explore torture, sexual obsession, sadism, toxic relationships, crime, and debauchery in a series of movies that are only thematically connected (plus one loose “sequel” made by Yuji Makiguchi in 1976). Some of these are anthology films, others are standalone tales; most are period set, while a few are contemporary. I decided to split this in two parts because we had so much to say, so this first episode is an introduction to the series and Ishii, and covers Tokugawa: Women’s Genealogy (1968), Shogun’s Joy of Torture (1968), and Orgies of Edo (1969). If you want to watch along but are struggling with where to locate some of these, email me at [email protected] and I can help you out.

Thanks as always to Cinepunx and please rate, review, follow, and share! And stay tuned for part 2 of this Ishii episode in just a few days.

The post Eros + Massacre Episode 12: Teruo Ishii’s Joys of Torture with Chris Haskell, part 1 appeared first on Cinepunx.

For the latest Eros + Massacre episode, designer, writer, musician, and jack of all trades Christopher Norris joined me to talk about one of our mutual favorites, Alain Robbe-Grillet, a giant of modern French literature, a genius filmmaker, and an unabashed pervert. We focused on three of his classic films, each from a different decade: Trans-Europ-Express (1966), Le jeu avec le feu (Playing with Fire, 1975), and La belle captive (The Beautiful Prisoner, 1983). And of course the conversation includes everything from Jess Franco and Jacques Rivette to Marguerite Duras and White Chicks, among other things.

You can find Christopher at Steakmtn.com, on Instagram, and on Twitter. His fiction is here at Asterism Books.

Additional notes:

Thanks as always to Cinepunx and please rate, review, follow, and share!

The post Eros + Massacre Episode 11: The Labyrinth of Robbe-Grillet with Christopher Norris appeared first on Cinepunx.

Andrew Nette, my co-editor on Revolution in 35mm, joined me for this rather intense episode about Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers (1966). We talk a lot about the film’s powerful impact, the Algerian struggle for independence from French colonial occupation, the cost and effectiveness of violence, Pontecorvo’s time in the Italian resistance during WWII, his career more broadly, and the use of The Battle of Algiers as a training tool for political radicals.

We also discuss films made around the same time that addressed the war, particularly Youssef Chahine’s incredible Jamila, The Algerian (1958). In addition to being one of the only films in cinema history to focus on a female freedom fighter as central to a battle for independence, it was also one of the only film actually made during the Algerian War and from a North African country. And Jean-Luc Godard’s forgotten and neglected Le petit soldat (1960) also makes an appearance. 

You can find Andrew at @pulpcurry on social media and here on his website! And of course you can find our book here from PM Press. Thanks as always to Cinepunx and please rate, review, follow, and share!

The post Eros + Massacre Episode 10: The Battle of Algiers with Andrew Nette appeared first on Cinepunx.