#videonomicon

VIDEONOMICON (1988), part 2 (see part 1 here). More stills from Maxim Voronin’s cable TV miniseries about a mysterious AV club using Satanic video test patterns to transform unwitting volunteers into demonic flesh vessels.

As the hypnotic powers of the video patterns begin to warp the consciousness of the volunteers, more is revealed about the mysterious cult behind the strange experiments. Unseen by the research volunteers, the “hosts” communicate to them only through various goat heads mounted throughout the facility. Are the human(?) hosts trying to control the evil powers they’re harnessing? Or are they merely pawns in something much more sinister? The answers will only be found by seeing what is beyond; by releasing the prison of the flesh and plunging deeper into the technological hellscape of… The Videonomicon.

To be continued…

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NOTE: This alternate reality horror story is part of my NightmAIres narrative art series (visit that link for a lot more). NightmAIres are windows into other worlds and alternate histories, conceived/written by me and visualized with synthography and Photoshop.

Runaway Nightmare (1982)

My brain hurts gaaahhhhhhhh.

Tubi just added this gem of a fart in a bottle. 

I remember a few years ago the local boys at Laser Blast played this in Toronto and got that sweet hand draw poster for it. Which was later used on the Videonomicon rerelease.  But I missed that screening but I knew what it was.. but I still wasn’t ready when years later I finally watched it.

Directed and edited in dream logic. Which random over dubs to explain a plot that may or may not have been their in the first place. All skills used to tell a simple story of two dorky guys working as simple worm and snail farmers in the dessert get held hostage by an all girl gang who and setting up in the area  to do a big deal and shakedown with mobsters.  But the girls all talk in nonsensical sentences as if the dorky guys were drugged and hallucinated this. One of them may be a vampire but that’s totally not important.  Shots of other actors seem be be in the shadows cause they were obviously filmed later and edited in. Making the intense and confusion reactions of the other actors all seem surreal. But the surreal nature is not a mistake it happens to often to be just bad film making. Its a stressful train ride into a weird grasp of reality as very little happens except to see fear through the eyes of one of the two main men. Making the gang of women all seem alien or insane. Not surprising the movie is written and directed and edited by that same man Mike Cartel. Seems like that kind of indi passion project film maker that loves 70s exploitation but also deep down wishes he was Woody Allen as he cries a little when he masturbates. 

So bizarre. Many gorgeous girls in this gang / cult, who probably could have had good acting careers but many a casting agent would have been scared away if they found this avante garde masterpiece of confusion and self loathing. One or two of the girls got some more roles, but not many. They are an interest collection of half written characters I would have been interested in seeing them in something else. But this was pretty interesting in its own damn weird way.

 See it just to believe it in a way like Science Craze, yet I feel Science Craze knew more how ridiculous it was then this film. I feel Mike Cartel thought this was high art... and I’m not saying it isn’t. I’m just saying “Wow dude, what is going on and why you all so fucking weird?” Twists and turns and double crossses in the end but wait till after the credits for the post credits scene , maybe have a drink before that scene though just so you can take it in a lubed brain. 

For local friends I have to say Cartel looks and sounds a lot like a guy that used to work as Suspect the old horror themed video store in Toronto, you guys know the guy I mean without me saying it. Funny to me. 

Basically imagine a crime thriller but done by a high school play beatnik that would make a short play by smashing a cell phone on stage while wearing a beret and shout “HISTORY!” then say le fin. 

Available on Blu Ray from Vinegar Syndrome I believe. 

Stills from the 1988 sci-fi horror miniseries VIDEONOMICON, in which a mysterious AV club lures university students into a paid “research program” that isn’t what it seems...

A group of volunteer students, eager for some easy cash in exchange for “providing feedback on a series of audio-video test patterns,” find themselves hypnotized by a bizarre video pattern, becoming addicted to watching it for hours a day under the guidance of a mysterious figure who only speaks through a microphone installed in wall-mounted goat heads. Soon the AV club reveals itself as a front for a demon-worshipping video cult that is using the students as flesh vessels in a Techonocallistic ritual to transfuse demonic spirits through interdimensional video signals, trapping the souls of the students in a netherverse while their bodies become warped meat puppets controlled by demons to conquer earth.

Videonomicon was the first in a series of original films produced for the obscure premium cable network Zolmax that were also written and directed by Zolmax’s eccentric founder, mysterious auteur turned media mogul Maxim Voronin. After having his films rejected by major studios and networks for being too disturbing, Voronin founded Zolmax, pitching it as “Cinemax for the strange.” A mix of curated cult films and original content, Zolmax’s programming was described as “some of the most bizarre and deranged material to ever find its way onto television.” Black magic, devil worship, sexual depravity, and excessive gore were common sights on Zolmax, “painting a picture of a very disturbed man at the helm of this blasphemous sewer of a network,” wrote TV Guide in 1989.

Unphased by criticism, Voronin continued to produce his own films for his network for eight more years, including two sequels to Videonomicon.

To be continued…

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NOTE: This alternate reality horror story is part of my NightmAIres narrative art series (visit that link for a lot more). NightmAIres are windows into other worlds and alternate histories, conceived/written by me and visualized with synthography and Photoshop.

Ogroff (aka Mad Mutilator) (1983) (DVD Review)

Ogroff (aka Mad Mutilator) (1983) (DVD Review) Directed By: Norbert Moutier Starring: Robert Alaux, Françoise Deniel, Pierre Pattin Rated: UR/Region: 1/1:33/Number of disc: 1 Available From Videonomicon

For Ogroff, the mad lumberjack, the war is not over yet. Having suffered trepanation and ablated in one eye during the war Ogroff continues the fight by brutally killing anyone who enters the…

Science Crazed (1991) (DVD Review)

Science Crazed (1991) (DVD Review) Directed By: Ron Switzer Starring: Cameron Klein, Tony Della Ventura, Robin Hartsell Rated: UR/Region: 0/1:33/Number of disc: 1 Available From Videonomicon

Called one of the worst or at least most awkward movies ever made! A mad scientist injects a woman with an untested growth serum. She dies but gives birth to a full-grown monster. Coming to DVD for the…