The American Akira

I swear, this is my news favorite video.

VOTD: The American Akira | /Film

Video Mixtapes mentioned on Family Guy

Peter Mentions that everybody has seen Brian's "compilation tape". Brian's mixtape includes:

1) William Shatner Singing Rocketman
2) Drunk Orson Welles doing the wine commerical
3) Sylvester Stallone in "The Party at Kitty & Stud's"
4) Bill Cosby beating up a midget

Hulu - Family Guy: The Man With Two Brians - Watch the full episode now.

Celluloid Carcass

"In many ways, the work of a critic is easy. We risk very little yet enjoy a position over those who offer up their work and their selves to our judgment. We thrive on negative criticism, which is fun to write and to read. But the bitter truth we critics must face, is that in the grand scheme of things, the average piece of junk is more meaningful than our criticism designating it so. But there are times when a critic truly risks something, and that is in the discovery and defense of the new. The world is often unkind to new talent, new creations, the new needs friends."

                                                               -Anton Ego

Celluloid Carcass is a well-crafted, non stop gore ride.   It's creator (Corpsey) has made something his first time out that stands with the giants as the gore version of retard-o-tron.  I go as far to say that because, this mixtape has a ending that will make horror fans so giddy, they'll feel like they're 5 again.  Corpsey was kind enough to grant us an interview:





Video Mixtape Reviews: Tell us about yourself.

Corpsey: I’m a die-hard horror movie fan that has far exceeded the recommended dosage that is considered healthy viewing. I’ve been watching them for as long as I can remember and don’t intend stopping anytime soon. I’ve also always had to have a creative project or two on the go at any one time to keep my poor brain occupied so I don’t act out the atrocities of the movies I watch on the mundane mainstream society.

Video Mixtape Reviews: What was the inspiration for Celluloid Carcass?

Corpsey: Well, at the start I came across the first episode of Skeleton Farm’s Forbidden Transmissions and totally fell in love with it. I’d never really seen anything like it before and I anxiously awaited each new episode. Then I discovered the Retard-O-Tron and Crazy Dave video mixtapes and the whole world of video mixtapes opened up before me. But what really inspired me to make Celluloid Carcass was that the last few mixtapes I’d seen were really quite amateurly made with boring or poor, overly long choices of clips. I’m sorry for being such a snob and bagging other people’s hard work but I felt like it was lowering the standard and thought that people just coming into mixtapes would be put off by them, so my monstrous ego decided to make one to try to lift the standard back up and make people aware of heritage of video mixtapes.

Video Mixtape Reviews: Do you have any experience editing before making your mixtape?

Corpsey: No, not really. Amongst all the myriad of other things I do at work, they decided that it would be a good way to save some money by bringing all their outsourced video work in-house and bought me a copy of Final Cut Pro, gave me the instruction manual and told me to get cracking! Celluloid Carcass was really my way of teaching myself how to edit. Luckily the afore-mentioned lifetime of movie watching had hardcoded into me the aesthetics of editing. I still have a very long way to go and can still see a lot of flaws in Celluloid Carcass, but on the upside, I was paid to make it

Video Mixtape Reviews: You can tell from the film you have a love for horror, any favorite moments?

Corpsey: I fondly remember being sent to a church youth group night and when all the happy-clappy people went upstairs to play games I nipped across the road and hired The Reanimator on video. They finished their games and came back into the room during the scene where a reanimated, bloody severed head was giving oral pleasure to some girl strapped to a table. They quickly went back upstairs to play more games
There’s a lot of my favorite moments in Celluloid Carcass, but there were also a lot that didn’t make it. Its surprising that when you’re making a mixtape just how many of your favorite scenes just don’t work out of context as stand alone clips. I would of preferred to add more zombies too, but due to their nature, were just too damn slow for the pace I was trying to achieve.

Video Mixtape Reviews: What do you want the people of earth to know?

Corpsey: If you really like a band’s album or a movie then definitely give them some financial love. Don’t be a cheap ass! Support your favorite artists. If you don’t there may come a day when the artists no longer exist because they can’t afford to continue making the art you like.
... oh, and of course ... MAKE YOUR OWN DAMN MIXTAPE!!!

Fallout Bob Interview

Fallout Bob, creator of Video Armageddon and the (shooting for Spring 2009) Video Armageddon 2. He has recently released the widescreen edition of his popular Video Mixtape. Unlike other mixtapes Video Armageddon shoots onto the screen like a shotgun blast from the apocolpyse. I was going to review Video Armageddon for this peice, but Bob does such a good job describing the film, I feel it's best to let his own words speak for him.

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Video Mixtape Reviews: Please describe yourself.

Fallout Bob: Fallout Bob is a fan of obscure genre films with occasionally too much time on his hands.

Video Mixtape Reviews: Do you have a history of video production/editing?

Fallout Bob: Absolutely.. not! One look at Video Armageddon should show you that heh. I actually sat down and spent a lot of time with a variety of video editing packages trying to learn myself the basics while making VA. I actually was about half way done at one point but realized it looked too cheesy (stock transitions, etc it screamed "I used the software that came with my camcorder to make this!") so I got a copy of Premiere and started over. That took hours and hours of extra work but I think it was worth it. Even though I only had minimal previous experience going in, I tried my best to make something that didn't look too amateurish or just hastily thrown together. Hopefully the finished product at least reflects a basic competence.

Video Mixtape Reviews: What intrested you in video mixtapes?

Fallout Bob: Somebody did a mixtape flood a year or so back on one of the usenet groups. Thats how I first ran into Crazy Dave and a few of the others. I'd heard of these tapes back in the 80s of course, but had only seen snippets of a few. The fact that these were back and being traded on the internet fascinated me. I really love the rapid fire "WTF??" nature of these tapes, it's fun not knowing whats coming up next. I also enjoy the just plain strange underground vibe
you get from some of them. Plus they can be quite addicting.

Video Mixtape Reviews: Where do you gather inspiration from?

Fallout Bob: After I saw some of the other tapes I just felt I had to do my own. I have a pretty big video collection (a few thousand films on DVD, VHS and Laserdisc) so I figured I had the library to draw from. Since I'm a big fan of Apocalyptic films I decided to kinda tie it altogether with that as a running theme.

Otherwise I just tried to find the craziest shit I could and go from there. I also tried to not duplicate clips from other tapes (which is becoming increasingly difficult as the number of tapes increases!) but if you notice VA and Retard-o-Tron 2 both have the exact same Sly Stalone Porno clip with the exact same music and everything.. given that we were working on (and released) our tapes at pretty same time it was pure coincidence!

I also tried to concentrate more on the stuff I was personally into (cheesy horror flicks, weird stuff etc) but leave out the stuff I'm not really into (the real autopsy/snuff footage, scat porn etc). I actually added the lesbian porn scenes to offset all the gross out porn in the others. Ive gotten some flack for it, but i dont care i like lesbian porn so deal with it. ;)

Video Mixtape Reviews: There are segements you seem to have filmed yourself. What were the seed for these and can we expect more of the same in future installments?

Fallout Bob: The "Fallout Bob interludes" as it were was totally my way of aping the Crazy Dave tapes. I love his wacked out crazy "pig mask" scenes and definitely wanted to include something like that in my tape. I don't have quite the resources that Dave does apparently, but I tried to add in a few strange "live action" moments. When Video Armageddon 2
rolls around you'll definitely see more. I like to mix in a bit of the bizarre into the tapes to give it that funky eerie 'what the fuck am I watching?' feeling plus some mystery.

Video Mixtape Reviews: What video mixtapes have you seen and liked or disliked?

Fallout Bob: After you make your own mixtape you really start to appreciate the "artistry" of making a good tape. Getting a good flow of clips can be a challenge, especially when you have to keep the clip length short to avoid being tedious. You might have the most awesome clip ever but chances are its only 10-15 seconds. Try filling 70 or 80 minutes 10-15 seconds at a time!

Going by that some of my favorites are of course the Crazy Dave tapes and anything by Skeleton Farm. I thought 'Retard-o-tron II' was much better than the original as well (which was already very good in it's own right). Those tapes have some great obscure clips, great editing and flow very well.

On the downside I'm not a big fan of the tapes that have a lot of the autopsy/real death footage or the clips of japanese people crapping on each other. Those clips aren't very hard to find nor are they "shocking" really. That's not really what I watch mixtapes for. I mean, i'll watch the most fucked up horror/gore film ever because I enjoy the talent and creativity behind making a fake head explode in an interesting way. Showing a clip of some poor russian's head actually exploding doesn't take a lot of skill.. just a russian and a gun. I also hate tapes that have super long clips or clips that last longer than they should. Knowing how hard it is to fill up a tape I see extended clips as 'cheating' or just 'filler', a clip should never be so long as to be boring. Going back over VA myself I see plenty of my own clips that are probably too long!

Video Mixtape Reviews: What do you feel makes a good video mixtape?

Fallout Bob: Awesome obscure clips delivered quickly. You really do want the absolute highest number of "WTF??" moments jammed in per minute. That's what makes a great tape. Anyone can take mainstream movie clips and just loop them into a group with no thought. A really good tape is crafted with care with at least a basic understanding of how to edit video together to preserve some sort of 'flow' so that you keep the audience entertained. It's not rocket science of course, especially with these super easy to use video editing packages out there now.. but it does require more skill than you'd think. So I like to see the tapes that really have some time and thought put into them. I also love seeing weird shit I haven't seen before.

Video Mixtape Reviews: The Video Mixtape has exploded recently, where do you feel it's roots come from?

Fallout Bob: Well obviously mixtapes started in the 1980s with people trading strange videos around. The internet has just sped up the process, you no longer need to seek out people with nth generation VHS tapes you just need access to a torrent site. I think the ease of transferring tapes and the proliferation of cheap editing software has contributed a lot to the recent 'explosion'. Still, this last year really has seen a huge increase in tapes. When I started work on Video Armageddon about a year ago there weren't that many tapes floating around at all, in the last year there's probably been more tapes released than in the last 5 years put together. I'd imagine the popularity of stuff like Crazy Dave, the Skeleton Farm tapes and Retard-o-Tron (and maybe even to a lesser extent Video Armageddon) have really inspired people to get out and make their own tapes which is definitely a positive thing!

Video Mixtape Reviews: Where do you see video mixtapes going?

Fallout Bob: Well, it seems like we're in a flood right now which isn't going to stop anytime soon. I get e-mails all the time from people that enjoyed VA that are trying to get their own tape out. On one hand that's awesome because it means more tapes! On the downside though it means quality might dip a bit. Most of the older tapes have a lot of work into them and it shows. I know I spent on and off about six months making Video Armageddon. While some of these new tapes are really, really good there's a few clunkers in the pile. I saw one the other day that was just thrown together with a bunch of clips from mainstream films that dragged forever. I mean if you’re going to have a clip from fucking Silence of the Lambs don't make me sit through 4 minutes of it. Not that I want to down anyone's tape, we should be supportive but I'd hope that going forward people try to at least put a minimal amount of effort into these tapes so that we don't get flooded with junk as that could cause a backlash on the entire scene.

Video Mixtape Reviews: What do you want to the people of Earth to know?

Fallout Bob: Fuck the mainstream hollywood system, support independent and underground cinema. Call your mom.

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A very special Thanks to Fallout Bob for allowing us into his bomb shelter for a few questions.

The Mondo Film

The Mondo Film - A Proto Video Mixtape

Looking back into the history of film you can see roots for things. Soemthing in the air or something in the water that wasn't clear until after something happened. The Mondo Film could be called the predicessor to the video mixtape. A Mondo Film as defined by Wikipedia is:

A mondo film is a documentary film, sometimes resembling a pseudo-documentary, usually depicting sensational topics, scenes, and situations.

I feel also stylisticly they are also linked. Due to haveing to scrape together enough peices to make a full movie, both genres have a peicemeal quality to them that can either be pleasing or distracting. However, the Mondo Film was always typically trying to slip in titilation under the guise of "documentry" proceedings. A Video Mixtape is what it is. The comparison can be made to similar "frindge efforts" Playboy/Hustler, Rock 'n Roll/Punk, Tradtional Art/Modern Art.

The Mondo Film is the Godfather to the Video Mixtape. The next movement will be unclear. Will youtube's ability to allow people to edit footage and even add text and hyperlinks lead to the next big thing? Or will it be something even more so radical? I for one would love to see pirate televison sations playing whatever people could bring to be boradcast! What about Video Mixtape lounges? We already have people pushing the limits of being a VJay. A movie mixed before your eyes, differnt each time you goto the theater!

A Blind Teabagging Fiasco

Opening with a nice shotgunning of random images A Blind Teabagging Fiasco sets the bar low and then hits it's head on it, but in a wonderful sort of way. A little rough around the edges but a fun effort none the less. It features some classics like the infamous ET Porno, Buffalo Bob from "Silence of the Lambs", and the Evil Dead rape scene. Great clips I had never seen before include a strange Levi commercial, a preview for a giant breast website, and .  Personal favorites include: Cheech Marin's "pussy rant" from "Dusk til Dawn", the beat down from Robocop, and a scene from "Repentrator" (any Joanna Angel, is good Joanna Angel, right?).  As with most mixtapes, there are clips that if your sensitive or don't enjoy being shocked/horrified you can forget watching this one.

David Drop Jr. does a decent job editing, and keeps the fun light and entertaining, never hanging around too long with one subject or clip.  The short film with Chris Parnell runs long, but is very entertaining.  There are a few rough cuts, but nothing that will leave you in terrible pain.  There is one point when the video during the milkman scene where the video kinda went "diagonal".  I don't know if that was intentional or something with my video program.  Lots of good gore/horror clips, the randomness is excellent, and the quality is decent.  It would have been interesting to seem some original content from Mr. Drop seeing how is taste is quite good.  The length is also surprising, clocking in at an hour and twenty mins.  Needless to say, good on a job well done!

Overall: 3.5/5


"Boing, boing, boing."


Poor Chris Parnell just wants to die.



What's this?  Just a fat kid kicking R. Lee Ermey's ass.

UPDATE:  Dpad queried DrDemento456 (aka. David Drop Jr) and sent in this report:



"Yes Milkman was supposed to be like that! I believe it gave it more
atmosphere and overall creepiness. What happened was that I had a flash
to swf program and I saved it fine, but when I pulled it over to
virtual dub it kept saying that the "file has error problems" the first
encode did go through and when I viewed it, the file looked like that.
Strangely I felt this as some sort of sign to put it in my movie like
that, not to make people actually watch the real film, but maybe to
piss them off."

Statement of Purpose

The video mixtape is rising in popularity. This blog will be a place you can expect to find reviews of video mixtapes along with commentary and news. I hope that this blog will help be a hub for the community to share information. Also, if you'd like to point me in the direction of a mixtape or send me one, I'll be more than glad to take a look at it.