p e n g u i n d e v i l

In my current minor project of expanding/updating my Blue Oyster Cult collection, I picked up a copy of Secret Treaties. This is their third LP (1974) and is one that I haven’t heard anything off of before, so I didn’t know what to expect. Well, I’ve only heard part of it so far (with the little miss yelling at me from the backseat), but it didn’t jump right out at me, as did their recently acquired first album, Blue Oyster Cult (featuring Transmaniacon MC and, of course, Cities On Flame With Rock And Roll), but it certainly has something going for it!

Inside the case are liner notes and photos, which feature two of the most awesome photos in rock n roll…

Awesomely bad…

And just plain awesome

Now if those aren’t worth 8 bucks, I don’t know what is…

But aside from that, since we were on the Dan O’Bannon subject (remember Lifeforce), I had to watch one of his good films. A film that is, in fact, one of the great punkrock comedy horror films of all time, Return of the Living Dead!

Everyone probably knows the story already, but it is worth telling again. Years ago, canisters of chemically contaminated corpses (“remains of the true life story that was the inspiration for night of the living dead”) got accidentally dropped off at a little medical supply firm. In the present day, Frank (the ever wonderful James Karen) decides to show-off one of the corpses to the new punker kid they have working there. Of course, one should be more careful with things like that. As everything proceeds to go from bad to worse, they get their boss and the embalmer next door (Burt and Ernie) involved in an attempt to clean up the mess (aka, running corpse). As one would expect, they proceed to make everything worse, over and over again. As one might imagine, having the corpses that “inspired Night of the Living Dead” stored in a warehouse right next door to a cemetery is a recipe for bad news, especially for the merry gang of punkers in the graveyard.

Those great movies punkers…

After a few more missteps, we end up with, well, some more zombies. And these aren’t your average dumb zombies… They talk, they run, they impersonate people, they set traps and they are looking for fresh brains to ease their pains!

Similar in a lot of ways to Re-animator (released the same year, man, those were the days), this is a not-that-scary, not-that-gory, non-stop and no-holds barred action zombie movie, filled with fun characters (well, the punkers characters are pretty lame, though “Trash” [Linnea Quigley!] and “Suicide” are fun), lots of screaming and what seemed like, when it was released, a killer punk soundtrack, including The Cramps and the famous 45 Grave, “Do you wanna party? It’s partytime” scene… This doesn’t seem to pack quite the same wallop as it did when it came out, but it is still fun and it brings back memories.

One thing I like about it, though it may seem silly. Is that the characters in these tend to be dumb teens and , while this does include dumb teens, the main characters are three middle aged men, Frank, Burt and Ernie. Who are easily the most fun and engaging characters in the film…

burt and ernie, takin’ care of business…

the business…