The Music Banter Members' Journals Monthly Update Thread

[Trollheart]

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Bah! Last time I try to computerise the intro! Now that we're up and running, let's see what's shakin' down at Journaltown...

Looks like it's Black Francis who gets us underway with more George Harrison in http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...l-journey.html

while taking a break from the darkroom, Frownland goes back to being http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...wnapilago.html where he's writing a story he “wrote in outer space”? Um, yeah...

innerspaceboy is getting back to basics with some “modern music” in http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...nnerspace.html

and http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...is-arcade.html continues to gather momentum and create debate, as he speaks of the wonders of Bajo Kazooie and Banjo Tooie as well as, um, Goat Simulator, and a lot more. Not neglecting his other journal though, in http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...nal-music.html he's wrapping up Post Rock Month, talking about the new collaboration between Franz Ferdinand and Sparks, asking if Megaedeth are “Worth the hype?” and still has time to listen to some Alesana.

Oriphiel has chapter ten of http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...rgy-story.html this week (aliens, assassins, pizza?) and is also back http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...ck-garage.html going through Hell thanks to Clive Barker as he reviews Hellraiser. Ugh. Love Barker's written work, but man is it gory onscreen!


and Pet_Sounds is listing off his favourite bands as he climbs around http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...crap-heap.html

As I near the end of the discography of Tom Waits, there's a review of Real gone in http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...d-journal.html while Star Trek Month is beginning to wind down in http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...-emporium.html, with a few more best and worst episodes, more “Women of Star Trek”, the pilot for Voyager reviewed, as well as the last few before we find out what is my top Trek theme. Oh I'm so excited! Bah. Other journals getting a good kicking back into life this week include http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...gy-legend.html, where there's information on Beowulf, Bellerophon and the Sirens among others, while http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...ive-metal.html jumps off into 1968 with albums from The Mothers of Invention, The United States of America, Floyd and Family, and there's a short return for http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...ver-heard.html, with the debut from The Cars. Finally, reviewed in http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...i-reviews.html this week are albums from Plastic Violins of Darkness and The Divine Comedy.

There's glam metal in http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...y-history.html as Icon's s/t takes the number eight spot, and more Toto in http://www.musicbanter.com/members-j...78-2015-a.html from Anteater and Unknown Soldier (Unknown Anteater?) with a review of Turn Back.


goes to Oriphiel this week for his deeply disturbing but extremely in-depth, some might almost say Trollheartesque (!), review of Hellraiser, below.

Originally Posted by Oriphiel

I decided to do something different for a change, and look at a movie rather than an album. Of course, being a fan of weird music, it's no surprise that i'm also a fan of weird flicks! Specifically, I've always had an affinity for the genres of horror, science fiction, and comedy, with some of my favorite movies having a mix of all three. I'll start off with a movie that truly is the perfect incarnation of the phrase "Love it or hate it"...





From the introduction to the very last scene, Hellraiser is an incredibly odd and at times non-traditional horror movie. Rather than focus on the standard battle between "good" and "evil", where young twenty-somethings with a deus ex machina defeat some ancient and wicked force, Hellraiser is at it's heart a story about the role of pleasure and pain in the human psyche. Of course, while one of the characters is eventually pegged as the "hero" whom the audience is supposed to root for, the movie actually spends most of it's run time examining the relationship between the two characters who become "the villains". In fact, you get the feeling that Clive Barker (the director, and author of the novel from which the movie was based) was constantly pressured by the studio and producers to make the film more simple and clear-cut then he wanted it to be. Everything from the scenes (which were edited to appease the MPAA) to the title of the movie became issues. Originally named "The Hellbound Heart" (after the novel), the studio asked for a change, citing that it was too "romantic" sounding. They asked for new ideas; Clive jokingly came up with the overly-literal "Sadomasochists From Beyond the Grave", and an elderly woman in the film crew apparently offered the joke suggestion "What a Woman Will Do For a Good ****". Needless to say, the studio rejected the titles, and eventually everyone settled on "Hellraiser".


Hellraiser is mostly the story of these two characters: a middle-aged woman who no longer loves her husband, and the living corpse of her husband's brother (who, in life, had an affair with her)

The difficulties of the movie didn't end with the road-bumps during it's creation. After it was released, viewers and critics alike had no idea what to make of what they had just seen. It isn't hard to see why people were confused and in disdain; the movie constantly tries to accomplish too many things in it's run-time, and this creates odd inconsistencies. For example, the first half of the movie relies mostly on suspense (and the dialogue between the characters) to affect the audience, however the second half features many cheap jump scares and the "cat and mouse" cliche that audiences were fairly tired of. The movie was at times a very tasteful and suspenseful work of horror, which many people thought didn't mesh well with the heavy scenes of (what they claimed was "tasteless") gore. Also, most of the movie centers around the idea that humans are always driven to do what brings them pleasure, forming morality after the fact to try and justify their inclinations, while also examining our odd fascination with danger and pain, trying to find the blurry (or maybe non-existent) line where the sensation of pleasure becomes pain. The first two thirds of the movie shy away from the labels of "good" and "evil", portraying the humans and demons without clearly defining any heroes or villains (making it hard to truly hate any character, since they're all mostly given motives for their actions). However, the final part of the movie throws the moral neutrality out the window, and becomes a generic battle between a human and demons. These odd dualities left a bad impression on audiences, causing half of the audience to absolutely hate the movie, and the other half to love it to the point of making it a cult classic. The critics were just as divided: while some praised the movie for it's merits, others were not at all impressed. As Roger Ebert himself put it: "This is a movie without wit, style or reason, and the true horror is that actors were made to portray, and technicians to realize, its bankruptcy of imagination."


The Cenobites, demons who care only for exploring the limits of pleasure and pain.

Part two follows...