This week we talk about Luigi Cozzi's deeply, committedly deranged 1989 hallucination The Black Cat. The Black Cat is an unofficial sequel to Dario Argento's Suspiria and Inferno and, more importantly, an inescapable vortex of gobsmacking gore logic, unrepentant fake-outs and guitar-instruction-VHS metal. 

This week: two psychodramas about the world of sex work, each demented in distinct directions. Astrid discusses the subtext of Crimes of Passion while Sean is somehow still talking about irish television. Then we discover that Guilty Of Romance has much better politics than you'd expect from something one could plausibly describe as "a timid housewife's wild plunge into the world of sexwork...and murder!" Crimes of Passion - 1984 - Ken Russell Guilty Of Romance - 2011 - Sion Sono

This week we cover three deeply grisly short films from Japan, listed below, that fall roughly into the Ero Guro category. What kind of transgressiveness links these films? What is a satisfying definition of Ero Guro in the first place, aside from the basic "Erotic Grotesque Nonsense"? Have you ever owned art you were reluctant to cross international borders with? What was revealed by watching a copy of A Garden Without Birds with subtitles when it seems to be commonly watched without them? How is the least explicit film the best fit for the category? Why did we watch Lucky Sky Diamond? Seriously, it was the longest one and it was terrible? Answers to all these questions and more this week.   Lucky Sky Diamond - 1989 - Izo Hashimoto The First Love -1989 - Mari Terashima A Garden Without Birds - 1992 -Akira Nobi

This week we discuss Kamikaze Hearts. Juliet Bashore’s fauxumentary essays the eventual disintegration of a romance between two porn performers, Tigr and  Sharon Mitchell, on the set of a porn version of Carmen, filmed as their real life relationship was taking a similar trajectory. What counts as reality in a porn set and in a relationship? Can truth ever be reflected in a documentary? And how much will you enjoy this film if you fundamentally don't care? 

This week we cover James B. Harris' Cop (1988), an adaptation of James Ellroy's Blood On The Moon. We talk about how they managed wring such an incredible film out of such terrible source material and the ways in which the film functions as an essay on what Ellroy would become. 

This week we cover SOV lesbian hesher vampire romance Red Lips, directed by Donald Farmer and released in 1995, discuss how it connects to Jean Rollin and name a lot of bands sure to alienate our younger listeners. 

We survey the currents in feminist discourse thru rape/revenge & exploitation film from 1974 to 2011. Content warning: detailed discussion of sexual assault, both specific incidents and the conditions surrounding it, throughout.  Films and supporting material: https://letterboxd.com/hastapura/list/live-at-the-death-factory-episode-one-dead/ Films Featured: Rape Squad - 1974 - Bob Kelljan Lipstick - 1976 - Lamont Johnson Ladies Club - 1986 - Janet Greek Baise Moi - 2000 - Virginie Despentes, Coralie Trinh Thi Twilight Portrait - 2011 - Angelina Nikonova

"You realize that to experience projected figures on the movie theater screen as life-size involves the reduction of your own body to the size of a doll, while with television, conversely, you must mentally blow yourself up to the size of a giant to account for the minuscule scale of figures on the small screen" - Mike Kelley

An episode of Sean's old podcast during which he and Astrid spoke about three genre films from the early 80s that thrum with deep-seated disgust and fear of sex. This kind of thing often goes unaddressed in genre fiction criticism, aside from a “woah, weird!“ The three films are Scream For Help, Butcher Baker Nightmare Maker and Incubus

Astrid and Sean reviewing Panos Cosmatos' Mandy (2018) on one of Sean's old podcasts.