Third Eye Cinema

04/04/2026

This came up elsewhere, and seems worthy of repeating here.

Someone was despairing of the state of modern horror cinema, saying how there seems to be nothing worth seeing, and paradoxically how much they still enjoy the stuff they came up on, revisiting their old favorites regularly. They actually were wondering what they were missing if anything, and if something was wrong with them, that they found no interest or enthusiasm in what passes for the genre these days.

I feel the same. It's why I had two podcasts and a website that only covered cult film from the talkies through the early 90s.

That timeframe is not coincidental. It was the last gasp of independent, drive in, homegrown cinema, before the major theatrical chains drove the regionals out of business and Hollywood crap took over globally (yes, even places as far afield as Italy and Hong Kong, formerly hotbeds of fun, idiosyncratic cinema, literally gave up and let Hollywood detritus take over, because stupid effects were too expensive to replicate and audiences only wanted that blood and circuses bombast.)

There are, surface level paradoxically, more "backyard Coppola" style independent horror films being made than ever...problem is, they ALSO tend to rely on exactly the problem with Hollywood pictures: soulless, formulaic, empty headed, filled with CG effects, dull, colorless pallettes and what we've increasingly seen since the SOVs of the 90s: an unpleasant focus on grue and worse, "torture p**n" as their main source of appeal.

I had a few folks I'd interviewed or covered material from here sending me stuff that I simply would and could not in any good conscience review: all cheap, nasty minded and ugly looking "torture p**n". I covered (and largely criticized, even when pointedly struggling to be nice about it) one from Ohio that was my personal last straw, if you look back in the review archives you'll figure out my breaking point with giving even the least of space to that s**t.

Meanwhile, the majors keep churning out "safe" PG-13 slasher and ghost/possession/demon junk, all jump scares and bad acting and scripts.

It's gotten so bad I had to stop telling folks I'm a horror fan for the last 15 years or more, because like saying you're into metal when everyone immediately thinks you mean Pantera, there's a HUGE disconnect between classic, atmospheric, oneiric gothic and Eurohorror, the giallo, even Italian zombie films and this s**t flooding the streaming services and such these days.

Look at my collection, anyone would say "horror and cult fan"...if they even recognized any of the titles. But you'll never catch me saying that in public anymore, because they'll think you mean Saw, Hostel and Annabel.

And f**k that.

27/03/2026

Oof. Ross 'the Boss' Friedman of Manowar, Manitoba's Wild Kingdom and the Dictators just passed.

Literally every Manowar album worth hearing bears his imprimatur.

After that, they collapsed into total, even self-parody and got a p**o in his place. Needless to say, f**k all of that.

Hopefully he's among the "mountains", announcing "the party starts now!"

20/03/2026

I've been biting my tongue about this one all morning.

Used to love this guy when he was a mystically minded Bruce Lee wannabe. My father, also a fan back then, took me to see several of his movies as a kid, ending with Code of Silence (though he hated Silent Rage and the later Hero and the Terror.). We even did a show dedicated to the guy (mostly focusing on when he actually mattered) over at Weird Scenes Inside the Goldmine.

https://weirdscenes1.wordpress.com/2019/07/01/week-68-youre-simply-not-tough-enough-for-this-show-the-films-of-chuck-norris/

Unfortunately, his politics and jingoism got the better of him and both I and my father stopped caring about anything he did. The last film either of us enjoyed was the first Missing in Action. Both of us thought Invasion USA was ridiculous and stupid, but at least it was unintentionally funny, which is something.

Kind of fitting he became more known for hucking a Bowflex knockoff and these recent absurdist memes about him than having an actual career post-1985, which he really didn't.

Kind of a cautionary tale about letting reactionary politik take over your entire persona, really.

I will always love his early films, at least through the Octagon if not Forced Vengeance (for all its unnecessary nastiness.) The rest?

Whatever. He kind of died to me over 40 years ago.

Guess he wasn't so tough he couldn't get his ass taken down by Samael. Just like everyone else.

RIP for the second time, Chuck.

11/03/2026

Watching this Wings documentary and boy, is it different from any other Beatles related thing I've ever sat through.

I love the John and Yoko interviews with Dick Cavett, for instance. Actually humanized Yoko and put a finer point on just how important she and social activism really were to John throughout the 70s.

The Let it Be sessions showed a band who'd very much grown apart, but still seemed comfortable working together, being in the same room with each other and their controversial spouses.

Even the DVD on a recent Band on the Run CD release showed a surprisingly vibrant studio session and performance with what had just become a trio of Paul, Linda and Denny Laine.

This? Reminded me why I always felt Paul was a silly ditty writer, filled with half-finished ideas stapled together with scotch tape and a glue gun. Worse, every time someone either in the band (Wings) or outside it (John, Ringo, etc.) appears or speaks to the situation at hand (via archival footage and audio as well as recent interviews,) they all seem to be a lot more together and have a better handle on things than the man himself...who comes off as kind of a dick.

Which is how I always saw him in the first place.

John was a flawed man who aspired to be better, and fight for a better world.

George was a dreamer, perhaps lost in his quest towards alternative spirituality. But seems a decent sort. Ringo is the do**us everyone expects him to be, but a likeable enough fellow (hence his long career of jam sessions with famous "friends.")

Paul? He's just an entitled dick. And for all the hate Yoko gets as a no-talent? Linda is just as bad (if not empty headed and somewhat annoying,) and doesn't exactly rehabilitate herself here.

I still hold to Wings being his only work of note post-Beatles, but boy is it a spotty, bumpy ride outside of his Band on the Run peak.

04/03/2026

Little aside here, though it does bear some measure of applicability to our usual musical focus on metal, punk and goth by their absence and my ultimate point here.

I don't like Corgan, never did. This is also diving into conspiracy theory by the end.

But the fact is, "gangsta" rap barely existed in the 80s, and was openly mocked and frowned upon by insiders, fellow rappers and urban radio DJs and management alike. Schooly D was considered a derisive joke, laughed at by both Mr Magic and DJ Red Alert on their respective weekend shows. Slick Rick was reviled in the press, and faced a withering takedown by Symbolic 3 ("no show", which essentially questioned his manhood: https://youtu.be/y39MiuktwDY?si=ovcrlBawJfDpn2ot)

I think, particularly having heard a WBLS DJ explaining on air back around 89-91 why he wasn't going to play Gang Starr despite call in requests, that they also recognized the core problem in supporting that decidedly debased take on the genre.

It's the same reason scared (white) labels forced it on the general public in a bait and switch around that time: from the more innocuous "party rap" of clever rhymes and braggadocio, rap had turned quite political.

Think about the new school of that era. Tribe Called Quest. Public Enemy. X Clan. Arrested Development. The Edutainment makeover of Boogie Down Productions and KRS-One. Kool Moe Dee getting more openly political. The list goes on, and people were getting nervous, fearing a new black power movement, a resurgence of the Panthers or something of like. Something "had to be done."

So they grabbed the biggest morons, the drug dealing no hope types and the soulless sycophants willing to pretend to be them, and had them LIVE DOWN TO EVERY STEREOTYPE about black culture, "ghettoes" and crime, murder, gang banging, pimps and "hoes", drugs and nihilism.

One may take note that initially, this was not accepted in black communities and rap circles..."gangsta" was mainly targeted at and consumed by middle class WHITE males. Because this was their view of what it means to be black. Living down to stereotype made them a success.

Quite literally flipping the tables from aspiration and achievement to rise above a society and environment that was holding them down? To a nihilistic acceptance of same. We ain't never getting over. This is all we've got, and we might as well excel at it until we get cut down young ourselves.

Having accomplished the deliberate sabotage and murder of political and aspirational rap? It is no real stretch to see this being pushed as a means to eliminate troublesome, artistic and often politically or socially active (especially in the 90s!) rock music as well.

Quite literally dumbing society down with empty headed boasts and nihilistic fantasies of the happily oppressed, never even looking up to the architects of their enforced misery. Just content to MMA and fight club it out amongst themselves, while the rich and corporate maneuver their way into a new Dark Ages of Lords and Kings over the serfs kept placated with these petty tales of violence and hopelessness as something to aspire to, or at least be content with as an invisible ceiling to their potential and possibilities in society.

In that respect? Corgan is right.

And like I've been saying since Gang Starr was a breakout thing?

F**k "gangsta rap" and everyone associated with it, fans, no talent "rappers" with their secret gang codes and industry wogs alike.

18/02/2026

Yeah, he said, shaking his head with a disgusted sigh, I honestly think everyone is tone deaf and just regurgitating press releases nowadays. Everything is the greatest thing since sliced bread, especially if it's aimless, poseur and just plain sucks.

Behold, the latest great white savior of (bulls**t) black metal, some clown from Florida who never even heard of it till the Until the Light Takes Us documentary and thinks it's all about Emperor Magus Caligula-era Dark Funeral and post-Stormblast Dimmu.

The gimmick here (besides psychedelic videos where he holds a sword overhead ad nauseaum) is his bearded buddy in the Dollar Store Dracula Cape (tm) who is supposed to be the second coming of Yngwie or some s**t.

In fact, all he did was swipe one or two Yngwie licks, steal Andy LaRocque's dissonant whammy bar dive trick and insert these exact same two licks N' tricks over...and over...and over again betwixt his aimless atonal noodling. Reminded me of that loser Buckethead, but not even that good and more of a one note joke and one trick pony.

If you can't tell which of the traded off leads is shred hero Marty Friedman (also of Cacophony and Megadeth,) you're an idiot.

Hint: it's the self assured, experimentally melodic parts between the cut and paste xerox and subpar noodling. (If you don't see just how one note this guy is, check out that Louder Sound article on them, there's a video in it with the exact same solo.)

Embarrassing.

Do better, guys. Like Lunar Spells, or Order of Nosferat or Korgonthurus, to name three actual, still active black metal bands worth hearing. Hell, even Sad dropped a real banger recently...

WORM - Witchmoon: The Infernal Masquerade (Feat. Marty Friedman) (OFFICIAL VIDEO)New single “Witchmoon: The Infernal Masquerade (Feat. Marty Friedman)” from ...

30/12/2025

Someone posted this in response to yet another knee jerk bit of cancel culture.

News flash: the only thing I despise more than identitarianism ("identity politics") is cancel culture.

Oh, boo hoo. All our heroes were just as human as you and I. Idols always come with feet of clay.

Grow the f**k up. I celebrate the lives and work of many a person whose eventual politics, views or personal choices I stand in diametrical opposition to. I reject their stances, their statements in support of same or thoughts about contemporary society.

But I still enjoy the hell out of, say, early Woody Allen. Roman Polanski. Stallone. Kelsey Grammar. F**k, I'm the first to admit that the only decent black metal always comes from guys with EXTREMELY oppositional views to mine, spiritually and especially politically. I've interviewed one guy whose metaphysical awareness I respect, but whose interest in, as he put it on the show, "populism" I obviously stand diametrically opposed to.

So when I express my lifelong admiration for Brigitte Bardot, how I found a woman just like her in so many ways, I refer to the natural beauty, the unaffected nature, the primal, animalistic existential authenticity to simply BE, without even knowing (much less bending the knee to) the ridiculous "rules of social engagement" or prudish "societal mores" that ruin people's personal and s*x lives. Bardot in her prime simply WAS, and the fact that this bothered anyone surrounding remained a subject of bafflement and unconcern to her. Know anyone else like that? (Cough)

I by no means refer to, celebrate or even accept the woman she apparently became under the influence of her last husband Bernard d'Ormale. In fact, I choose to ignore the aged Bardot per se. But this was a given, not an expression of acceptance for cancel culture. I often signed off podcasts about flawed figures with a quick caveat of acknowledgement. That Michael Caine became a supporter of Brexit, for example.

Because I've met too many of my musical, televised and cinematic idols to hold anyone in such high regard that I cannot adore what they have given to us in art, what they represented to culture in their day, and the flawed, distasteful human being they have become or may have been all along. Even David Carradine gave us Kung Fu, one of many series that broke through an unshakably white culture to ignite an honest fascination and appreciation of Eastern culture and beliefs (for me personally, as well as to the world per se.)

I present the below commenter's own words in affirmation. And as ever, I fall back on the words of one of my personal heroes, Pontius Pilate. Because the truth is not up for public debate. It simply IS.

"What I have writ, I have writ."

the commenter:

"I truly despise today’s culture because it’s addicted to moral grandstanding, zero-sum thinking, and performative outrage. A public figure dies quietly of old age, and within minutes their entire life is reduced to a purity test run by people who’ve done nothing worth remembering. History is dragged through present-day optics by the most sanctimonious voices in the room, not to understand it, but to posture over it.

If this reflex ever turns back on them, there will be no body of work, no legacy, no contribution to temper the judgment, only a record of sneering, small-minded certainty. That’s the irony they never grasp. They erase others to feel righteous, but there’s nothing about them worth preserving in the first place.

Take, for example, Brigitte Bardot. When people talk about her today, it’s almost always about her controversial statements or accusations of racism. That’s a small part of who she was, but it’s treated like it defines her entire life. What gets ignored is the decades she spent fighting for animal welfare, founding the Brigitte Bardot Foundation, campaigning against seal hunting, animal testing, and cruelty in factory farming, and using her fame to actually make a difference.

Her critics focus on her flaws because it’s easier to tear someone down than to acknowledge the real, lasting good they did. But that good is still there. The shelters, the laws, the awareness she raised, all of that survived her imperfections. And that’s the point: the people who spend their lives pointing fingers often leave nothing worth remembering, while those who take action, even if flawed, leave a mark that lasts."

28/12/2025

https://www.facebook.com/share/p/16fLQt8gpz/

19/10/2025

Looks like they may have a new singer, but... unexpected return of the decade (literally, it's been that long...)

Provided to YouTube by recordJetA New Dawn · KrypteriaA New Dawn℗ 2025 siemons-musicReleased on: 2025-10-16Band: KrypteriaProducer: Christoph SiemonsComposer...

17/10/2025

New Roundup Reviews are here... including a controversial internet lodestone...

Once again, we found ourselves moved to comment on a handful of reviewables, solely based on their sheer merit and/or points of interest…so here we go, enjoy! Sad – Fullmoon Be***al Awa…

30/07/2025

Why are all of Cobra Spell's EPs like, a thousand times better than their sole Na**lm release? And why aren't they on CD?

Yeah, a wildly overpriced version of Venomous Hearts exists, but we're talking rational, here...

29/07/2025

You know...having listened to as much old school French power metal as I have? This is pretty dead on, and a lot more solid than their status as "rehearsal joke song takes" would ever properly convey.

Picture this done by early Nightmare or High Power, and you'll see just how good this really is...

This is just a joke track from the second disc of the Spiritual Healing re-issue.take 2 0:00take 3 3:06take 4 6:13take 5 7:42take 6 9:17