Le code de Doom 3 disponible gratuitement

C'est une nouvelle que les développeurs en herbe et les moddeurs de tout poil sauront apprécier. En effet, ID Software a décidé de livrer en pâture au monde le code source de son jeu phare, Doom 3, et ce, de manière totalement gratuite.

C'est donc le moteur graphique maison (idTech4 ou Doom 3 Engine) qui livrera ses petits secrets aux codeurs du monde entier et ce, de manière complètement libre, puisque le voilà passé sous licence GPL. Attention toutefois, car quelques limitations sont de mise, la première et non des moindres, étant de ne pas s'en servir afin de créer un titre à but lucratif. Pour les intéressés, sachez que vous pouvez vous rendre à cette adresse, afin d'en découvrir plus sur le sujet, d'une part, ainsi que sur les conditions d'utilisation d'autre part.

En attendant de découvrir quelles merveilles pourront bien sortir de cette initiative, et si cela vous a donné envie de réinstaller Doom 3, nous ne pouvons que vous rappeler d'aller jeter un oeil sur la rubrique Mods qui lui est dédié.

· Consulter les Mods de Doom 3
· Télécharger le Code Source de Doom 3
· Forum Doom 3

L'E3 terminé, place au prochain

Après cet E3 relativement pauvre en annonces, on commence déjà à planifier le suivant. Chose logique pour un événement d'une telle ampleur, qui attire plus de 40 000 visiteurs chaque année. Mais le Los Angeles Times signale dans ces colonnes, que le show risque de déménager pour son édition 2013.

En effet, le ESA (syndicat des éditeurs) menace d'organiser sa convention dans une autre ville si le Convention Center se réaménage. Plusieurs travaux sont planifiés pour le site, ce qui empêcherait une organisation de l'E3 optimale l'an prochain.

Pour le moment, le ESA et la ville sont toujours en discussion à ce sujet. L.A. n'a pas intérêt à perdre cet événement majeur pour la ville, générant plus de 4 millions de dollar de dépenses par ses visiteurs, entre l’hôtel, les transports ou la nourriture. D'autres villes comme Chicago, New York, San Francisco ou la Nouvelle-Orléans pourraient accueillir l'E3 dans les années à venir. Mais la cité des anges reste un lieu historique pour l’événement, qui depuis sa naissance en 1995, n'a fait que deux infidélités à la ville.

Los Angeles, Chicago ou Miramas, au final cela n'a pas trop d'importance si l'événement garde toujours cette même ampleur. En tout cas, on espère beaucoup de celui de l'an prochain qui devrait voir l'annonce de la Xbox 720 et la PlayStation 4.

· Lire l'article du L.A. Times

The Elder Scrolls Online Premières informations et premières images

On vous le disait hier, théoriquement ce devait être le magazine américain Game Informer qui allait avoir la primeur des informations concernant The Elder Scrolls Online. Las, l'éditeur a certainement oublié qu'en 2012 la frontière entre le papier et le web est souvent ténue. Ainsi, il n'a pas fallut plus de 24 heures après l'annonce du jeu pour voir arriver sur la toile les scans du magazine américain et les premières images. Voici ce qu'il faut retenir de ce long papier.


Sans surprise, le scénario de The Elder Scrolls Online prendra place 1000 ans avant les évènements de Skyrim. Le continent de Tamirel est alors menacé d'être envahit par une immense force démoniaque. A cela s'ajoute également le fait que des milliers de héros se découvrent une soudaine envie de devenir Empereur, rajoutant encore au bordel ambiant. L'immense continent de Tamriel sera d'ailleurs découpé en trois grandes parties, qui correspondront aux trois factions du jeu. Au Nord-Est on trouvera donc les Nordiques, les Dunmer (les Elfes Noirs de Morrowind) et les Argoniens réunis dans une alliance forcée baptisée Pacte Ebonheart. Le Sud-Est sera quant à lui le territoire des Altmer, des Bosmer et des Khajiit au sein de la Domination Aldmeri. Enfin les Bretons, les Rougegardes et les Orcs se retrouveront dans une sorte de république égalitaire appelée Daggerfall Covenant. Et naturellement ces trois factions se taperont les unes sur les autres sur la province de Cyrodiil pour prendre le contrôle du trône de l'Empereur.


Au niveau du gameplay en lui-même, il faut bien admettre que ce Elder Scrolls Online s'annonce pour l'instant tristement classique. Tout d'abord la vue à la première personne disparaîtra pour laisser place à une traditionnelle vue à la troisième personne. De nombreux éléments de gameplay des anciens épisodes de la série seront conservés. On pourra ainsi toujours rejoindre les trois guildes principales du jeu (Guerriers, Mages et Voleurs), l'exploration sera toujours primordiale et le système de montée de niveaux sera identique à celui vu dans les précédents titres de la série (les signes astrologiques devraient d'ailleurs être de retour). Enfin, contrairement à ce que nous disions hier, les donjons ne devraient pas être instanciés, mais public. Comprenez par là que tous les joueurs pourront rentrer en même temps dans un donjon. Dernière information notable, Bethesda précise qu'il faudra au minimum 120 heures pour atteindre le niveau maximal. Pourquoi pas.


Les premières images issues de l'article se trouvent en dessous de cette actualité. Bethesda a d'ailleurs précisé que le continent de Tamriel ne sera pas entièrement modélisé, notamment pour laisser de l'espace aux inévitables extensions à venir. On sait toutefois que Elsyweyr, le territoire des hommes-chats et Summerser seront de la partie au lancement du jeu. Un lancement prévu, rappelons-le, pour l'année prochaine à la fois sur PC et sur Mac.

Mise à jour : Le premier teaser français est désormais disponible ci-dessous :



· Forum The Elder Scrolls Online

BI - BioShock Infinite dévoile la Sirène

Petit à petit, Irrational Games dévoile les ennemis qui hantent la ville flottante de Columbia. Avec son bestiaire entièrement renouvelé, nul doute que Bioshock : Infinite arrivera à convaincre même les plus blasés d'entre nous. Cette semaine, c'est au tour d'un vilain très spécial de faire son entrée comme on peut le voir dans cette vidéo fraîchement mise en ligne.



Pour ceux qui ne comprendrait pas suffisamment l'anglais, ce carnet de développeur nous présente la Sirène. Contrairement aux Garçons du silence ou aux Patriotes motorisés, elle n'a pas l'air bien méchante. Vous auriez toutefois tort de vous fier à son aspect frêle, puisque c'est sa faculté à communiquer avec le monde des morts qui fait toute la puissance de cette horrible créature. En un seul cri, la miss pourra ramener à la vie tous les ennemis que vous avez eu tant de mal à mettre à terre. Afin de vous défaire de cette plaie hurlante, la solution consiste à lui trouer la caboche avant de vous faire déborder par ses alliés réanimés.

Le temps passe inexorablement et pourtant la sortie parait encore bien loin puisque Bioshock : Infinite ne pointera le bout de son nez que le 19 octobre prochain sur nos PC, Xbox 360 et PS3 (et encore plus tard sur Vita).

· Forum BioShock : Infinite

2012-12-21-140

[Rumour] Nvidia developing x86 CPU?

This is a rumour that has surfaced and died several times, and it hasresurfaced again. However, this time, there is more evidence than usual.Over the last year or two, Nvidia have spent a lot of time and effortinto marketing stream computing. GPUs, or parallel processors, aresignificantly more powerful than their CPU counterparts. However,parallel processors can only process specific instructions, and a CPU isstill required for general processing. So, as much as Nvidia wouldconvince consumers about the benefits of GPU, there is no doubt a GPUwould be useless were it not run together with a CPU.

Recently,Nvidia reportedly presented a CPU+GPU which would make up an "Exascale machine" for 2017. AMD Fusion is all aboutthe same central idea - a GPU and a CPU on one die. Though Intel will bethe first with a GPU and a CPU on one package, they will be ondifferent dies, and the GPU will be a weak Intel IGP anyway. Now,rumours are suggesting Nvidia are keen to not be left behind by theCPU+GPU revolution, and are developing x86 CPUs.

In addition to the rumoured presentation for 2017, Doug Freedman, analyst of research firm Broadpoint AmTech, reports Nvidia has been quietly hiring former employees of Transmeta, a now defunct x86 CPU supplier.

Previously, an Nvidia acquisition of third largest x86 chipmaker, VIA, was heavily rumoured. However, Mr. Freedman now feels an internally developed solution is more likely.

"We believe Nvidia could enter the x86 business," says Doug Freedman.

Of course, designing a CPU could take years, and using the x86 architecture requires a license from giants Intel, who are not quite on the best terms with Nvidia at the moment.

The possibility of an Nvidia CPU on the market is interesting - though it would be likely that Nvidia would sell the CPU only as a CPU+GPU package on one die, rather than an individual CPU. Co-processing power of CPU+GPU being something Nvidia have talked a lot about for the future.

Reference: EETimes

2012-12-21-478

A-Data To Sample DDR2-800 & DDR2-533 FB-DIMM

A-Data will be sampling both DDR2-667 and DDR2-800 modules in March with capacities 256MB, 512MB and 1GB sample modules fully-compliant with the JEDEC standard. ADATA will also start sampling new DDR2-533 unbuffered DIMM at 1GB and 2GB capacities in March. Although the DDR2-800 JEDEC specification is not yet finalized, A-Data is ready to sample its first DDR2-800 module. The first 256MB unbuffered modules will conform with the draft JEDEC specification and be configured with 256Mbit (32x8) DRAMs manufactured on a 90nm process. Next quarter, A-Data is also preparing to release 512MB DDR2-533 FB-DIMM samples. The first FB-DIMM samples from A-Data are expected to be 512MB modules configured with 512Mbit (64x8) DDR2-533 DRAMs.

great halloween movie countdown #8 john carpenter’s “they live”

Okay, I suppose it’s not at all surprising to find a John Carpenter film on our little “Halloween countdown” list, but the fact that it’s not—well, you know—I suppose that may qualify as a bit, just a bit, of a surprise. And yes, the cinematic adventures of Michael M. are indeed great fun to watch at this—or any—time of year, especially the original. But one thing we hate to be here at TFG is too damn obvious. And truth be told, “Halloween” isn’t my favorite Carpenter film. Nor is “The Thing.”

That distinction belongs to 1988′s “They Live.”

Now, wait just a minute before heading over to my house with pitchforks, burning torches, a noose or two, and cries of “blasphemy!” on your lips.

I freely acknowledge that “Halloween,” The Thing,” “Escape from New York” and “Big Trouble in Little China” are all better movies than “They Live.” All I’m saying is that I enjoy this more than any of them.

Why, you might reasonably ask? I mean, after all, this thing stars “Rowdy” Roddy Piper, for Christ’s sake!

Okay, that’s a charge I can’t duck. But in his defense, Piper is pretty good as Nada (how’s that for the most unsubtle character name in movie history?) and in truth it’s the cool concepts that carry this film more than its “stars” or special effects anyway.

On paper the basic idea (adapted pseudonomously by Carpenter under the pen name “Frank Armitage” from? Ray Nelson’s short story “Eight O’Clock in the Morning”) isn’t too terribly different from something you’d find in an old “Twilight Zone” episode — an alien race has secrety taken over the world by disguising themselves as ordinary human beings and maneuvering themselves into the top positions of power in finance, politics, and the media. Along the way they’ve allowed certain select “elite” humans into their globe-spanning secret cabal by promising them a share of the money and power at their disposal, but most of us are just livestock to them, cattle to be worked for all we’re worth before our inevitable slaughter. We are, quite literally, being farmed.

The economy is in ruins with a small slaveholder (not that they call themselves that publicly, mind you) class ruling over the rest of us miserable serfs and hoarding all the planet’s natural resources for their profit while dumping toxins into the atmosphere to replicate the conditions of their homeworld,? leaving for the masses a few meager table scraps on the floor for us to fight over, and keeping us in line with subliminal messages being bombarded at us in our newspapers, books, magazines, movies, and of course, television shows (examples include “obey,” “consume,” “submit,” and perhaps most ominously of all, “marry and reproduce”).

Sound familiar? It should. Except for the fact that the rulers are alien, this is more or less exactly the world we’re living in. There’s nothing too terribly alien about the whole concept apart from the aliens themselves and, as always, subtlety isn’t Carpenter’s strong suit. He’s making his point here with a sledgehammer, and you know what? It works just fine.

There’s one small kink in our Andromedan overlords’ plan, though—a small group of human resistance fighters have developed a special type of sunglasses that allow us to see these interlopes for what they are, as well as the hidden messages they’ve placed all around us and our guy Nada, a down-on-his-luck manual laborer, happens across a box full of these nifty contraptions after the cops raid a resistance meeting at a church near the shantytown where he’s “living” and don’t quite clean up all of the evidence. He puts on the shades and for the very first time (okay, here comes a cliche, sorry) his eyes are opened to the reality of the world around him.

Absurd? Absolutely. But then, is reality itself any less crazy? Think about it for a minute—in the real world we don’t need special sunglasses to tell who these folks are nor to decipher their not-so-secret messages. They operate in broad daylight and go about their business of reducing this planet to a toxic, high-tech plantation largely unmolested. One might be tempted to think, in fact,? that it would all be so much easier? if our rulers really were an evil race from another planet hellbent on our destruction and we could get everyone to rise up if we had some magic device that allowed us to see them as they really are. As it stands, we see them paraded before us every night in both “news” and “entertainment” programming on television and instead of forming angry mobs and going after them, we continue to buy their products, listen to their lies (even those most of us don’t believe them) and vote for them when the time comes.

If all this sounds a bit David Icke, it should be noted that this is one of Icke’s favorite films and personally I think all he did was swap out reptiles for aliens and has made a career out of it ever since.

But, obvious as the message Carpenter is conveying here might be, who can argue with its resonance? Hell, unlike most 1980s horror and science fiction flicks, not only has this thing not become a dated relic, it’s even more relevant now than it was then, as the tentacles of the global (I apologize for using this term, but damn if it doesn’t apply) conspiracy tighten around us all the more.

But mind-numbingly urgent and relevant as the message itself might be, that doesn’t mean this flick isn’t all kinds of fun. In fact, it’s a straight-up blast. We’ve got B-movie genre semi-legends like Keith David and Meg Foster in good supporting roles. Piper himself, as I mentioned before, is entirely (and perhaps surprisingly) adequate. The pacing is tight , the everyman-as-hero archetype just about always works, the dialogue is economical and sharp, there are plenty of good laughs along the way, and rather than roll your eyes at how simple it seems to bring the whole thing down, on the contrary you’ll be wishing it were that simple.

In short, it’s precise and unambiguous social commentary disguised as a throwaway horror/sci-fi/action flick. You can dismiss the whole thing as lightweight, superbly-crafted,? absolutely unpretentious fun while absolutely agreeing with everything it has to say at the same time. It resonates and entertains in equal measure. You don’t have to decide whether or not it’s throwaway entertainment or spot-on allegory because it’s both. I don’t know about you, but in my book that makes it a work of genius, and I don’t use that term lightly. Largely unheralded genius, to be sure, since this is often an overlooked entry in Carpenter’s lengthy oeuvre, but genius nevertheless.

“They Live” is available as a bare-bones bargain DVD and is also playing all this month on FearNet. Check it out if you haven’t and see it again if you have!

“combat shock” tromasterpiece 25th anniversary edition 2-disc set is the year’s best dvd offering

“It was becoming clearer all the time. The war is not over. The battlefield may have changed, but the war is not over.”??????? —Frankie Dunlan, “Combat Shock”

This is the REAL guerrilla filmmaking. Forget today’s “YouTube generation” with their hi-def home video cameras baring their excuses-for-souls in overwrought,? self-important quasi-confessionals that even they won’t care about themselves a week from now. In 1984, armed with nothing but a few thousand bucks and a 16mm camera and lighting equipment borrowed from the film school he was attending (and soon to be teaching at), Buddy Giovinazzo, a guy with nothing more than a couple short films and some music videos done for his own band ( who went by the moniker 2000 A.D. Circus, in case you were wondering)?on his resume?hit the postapocalyptic-looking streets of Staten Island and committed to celluloid something so fearlessly and unforgivingly bleak that even today’s audiences, reared as they are on high-gloss torture porn and million-dollar grime, will find sitting though the whole thing from start to finish hard to endure. That’s because “Combat Shock” is nothing less than a cinematic brass-knuckled punch?to the gut. A movie that spits in your face while you’re down on the ground and dares you to get up again, you disgusting wimp. And just as you start to get your bearings and lift your head, it delivers another body blow and dares you to try that shit with it again, worm.? The world you ignore—the world you want to pretend doesn’t exist—the REALITY that squirms and slithers at the absolute bottom of the trash barrel, underneath the maggot-infested, rotted-meat discards of your SUV-driving, charge card-funded ILLUSION of a life—it’s forcing its way to the top, DEMANDING that you pay attention, no longer allowing you to turn a blind eye to the fact that its horrid dog-eat-dog squalor is the price OTHER people have to pay so that YOU can pretend everything is fine and dandy. “Combat Shock” is a movie that screams at you how much it hates your fucking guts and how richly you’ve earned that hatred—and for that, I love it.

Let’s go back in time for a moment to 1984. Ronald Reagan’s TV commercials are triumphantly declaring that it’s “morning in America,” but the reality on the ground is that all the people enjoying this glorious fiction of a “morning,” complete with its Hollywood sunrise, hoisted flags, and happy children scurrying off to greet the smiling school-bus driver left? one hell of a mess the night before, but guess what?? It’s morning for millions of other folks,? too — the people who weren’t at the party? and won’t be at tonight’s,? either. They’re sifting through the broken beer bottles, soggy cigarette butts, and puked-up food the partiers left in their wake, looking for some way to survive in the hollowed-out shells of once-booming industrial towns the Wall Street fat cats and junk-bond hustlers left behind as “collateral damage”? on their way to Reagan’s bright and shining new dawn.

A lot of those numberless, faceless, voiceless, hopeless “left-behinds” are veterans. Guys who put it all on the line, risking the one and only thing they truly had—their lives— in the jungles of Viet Nam while the daddy warbuckses of the world made billions standing in a pool of their blood and atop a makeshift hill of their severed limbs. Some came back so shellshocked, so physically broken and/or psychologically and spiritually tunneled-out, that from where they were standing, limping, crawling, or lying down, the guys who died, the guys who didn’t have to come back and try to eke out some kind of gutter-level existence on the table leavings of the same assholes who profited from their sacrifice and were now enjoying Ronnie’s new morning, were starting to look pretty lucky.

One such discarded veteran is Frankie Dunlan.? When we join Frankie’s story, he’s already at rock bottom, and while the shiny, happy people will tell him there’s nowhere to go but up, we all know that’s bullshit.? “Morning in America” for Frankie means, like every other morning for the past four months,? he doesn’t have a job to go to. His overbearing wife and horribly deformed (thanks to Frankie’s exposure to agent orange) baby are starving. He can’t make the rent on his calling-it-a-shithole-would-be-a-compliment apartment in the economically bombed-out ruins of Staten Island. There’s no water. The toilet’s backed up (note for the squeamish: while some movies have backed-up toilets, and lots of movies smell they came out of backed-up toilets,? “Combat Shock” points the camera lens inside the backed-up toilet). The train line runs right outside their window. His clothes are stained and torn to shreds. And just to add insult to injury,? his frayed shoelaces snap on him when he’s tying them in preparation to head out to another day in the unemployment line.

That doesn’t prove to be an easy trip, though.? Local “debt collectors” he had to turn to in order to make last month’s rent are looking for him and don’t much care at this point if he pays them back in cash or blood. A junkie pal of his is so strung out he doesn’t even recognize him at first and tries to hold him up for cash he doesn’t have. His mind is is riddled with waking fever-dreams of Viet Nam—both of the war atrocities he committed there and those perpetrated upon him when he was captured.

And of course, when he does finally get there (warning to those with short attention spans: “Combat Shock” is not exactly a fast -paced flick) the line goes around the block, it takes hours to get in, and there’s no work, anyway. And Frankie’s long meander home isn’t much easier—when he tries to prevent a little girl who can’t be more than 10 or 11 years old from beating up her kid sister, he’s attacked by—get your vomit-bags handy—her pimp, who says Frankie needs to fork over 50 bucks if he wants to keep talking to her, proving only that even when he tries to do the right thing, it’s absolutely hopeless. “Combat Shock” is many things, but a “feel-good” movie isn’t one of them.

Suffice to say, there’s only one way Frankie’s story can end, and of course it ain’t pretty. You see it coming five minutes into the movie, but even so,? when it happens it’s still nerve-wracking. Hell, I’ve seen this movie a dozen times at least and it still gets? no easier to take it all in with? subsequent viewings. How many movies can you say that about?

And while too many “B”-type films than you can mention are hindered by their low budgets, in “Combat Shock”‘s case—for the most part, with an exception or two I’ll detail in a minute–the fact that it was made for nothing is actually a key reason for its success. Frankie is played by Ricky Giovinazzo, writer-director Buddy’s brother. Ricky’s a musician by trade (he also provides the frenetic and bizarre, so-incongruous-it-actually works score to the film) and not at all what you’d call an Oscar-caliber actor. Hell, it doesn’t even feel like he’s actually acting at all. Combined with the film’s completely non-stylized, absolutely direct camerawork (Giovinazzo and company never had any filming permits and shot the whole thing “on the fly,” quite often having to settle for getting things in one take and moving quickly to the next scene) this gives the proceedings an absolutely naturalistic, almost documentary-type feel and eliminates much of the “comfortable distance” between viewer and subject found is most cinematic fiction.? “Combat Shock” is a story that lives beneath gutter-level, and its raw, amateur, unpolished technical quality is exactly right for it.? the word we’re looking for here is AUTHENTIC–completely, agonizingly, harrowingly AUTHENTIC.

So what doesn’t work? Well, as you can see above,? Frankie’s baby, a puppet-type construct whipped up by effects man Ralph Cordero for $140, is a little too “Eraserhead”-influenced to really work in the context of the story (and to be honest, the influence of David Lynch’s indie surrealist masterpiece—which, in Giovinazzo’s defense, was a very popular thing to ape in the outside-of-Hollywood film world at the time and would eventually even find its way inside the movie capitol’s less-than-hallowed-halls—? is glaringly obvious in a few other notable instances as well, such as the occasional close-up of the vapor-spewing humidifier in Frankie’s hovel and some truly Lynchian dialogue on the part of his case worker at the unemployment office, interrupted as it is with Buddy G himself popping his head inside the guy’s door and asking to borrow a veg-o-matic, a complete non-sequiter that would feel right at home in (the admittedly later, but? it’s still Lynch so I’m straining the comparison in that direction on moral grounds alone, chronology be damned)”Twin Peaks”). The “Viet Nam” flashback scenes are, it’s? painfully obvious,? shot on Staten Island, with, it’s painfully obvious, non-Vietnamese actors (one of whom, a woman gunned down by Frankie, was actually Giovinazzo’s wife at the time). The woman playing the nurse at Frankie’s VA hospital-bedside (in another series of flashbacks) is Vernoica Stork, the same actress who plays his starving-and-therefore-understandably-nagging wife, in a black, curly wig. I know, I know—it’s a zero-budget flick and Giovinazzo was doing the absolute best he could given the circumstances, but these no-way-to-be-avoided shortcomings really do detract from the overall aura of (here’s that word again) authenticity that the film otherwise conveys so brilliantly (even if only by dint of complete practical necessity).

Now, “Combat Shock” had a very brief theatrical run on New York City’s grindhouse circuit in 1984 under its original title, “American Nightmares.” Buddy G had always envisioned that what he was making here was an arthouse flick, but its raw and brutal violence and uncompromisingly grim overall worldview and aesthetic scared the self-appointed film “sophisticates” away in droves at test screenings, and to the notorious streets of “The Deuce” it went.? Somehow, I suppose,? it’s only right that a gutter story filmed in a gutter style should play in the cinematic gutter — poetic justice indeed. I’m sure many of the people who saw this film knew the world it showed— hell, the world it lived in—as intimately as one can. Some folks know street-level genius when they see it, though, and fortunately for Giovinazzo the folks at Troma picked up his little opus for re-release in theaters and (later) on VHS in 1986.? They got together with Buddy at that point and fitted it out with its new “Combat Shock” title,? redid the opening and closing credits sequences, tinkered a bit with some of the sound and gore effects (another area, it must be said, where the lack of budget well and truly heightened the—word for the day, kids—authenticity of the film, as the blood n’ guts effects really work marvelously), trimmed eight minutes of? some of the more relentless brutality off the? runtime (mostly from the ending, although even in edited form it’s still a pretty tough slog) in order to get an “R” rating from the MPAA, and outfitted it with a completely-incongruous (though still pretty cool in its own way, it must be said) “Rambo”-style poster and ad campaign.? And the end result? 25 years later, we’re still talking about it, and it’s still reducing new audiences to the same levels of shellshocked trauma that Frankie himself would understand so well.

All of which brings me (go ahead, I know you’re dying to scream out “Finally!”) to the new 25th anniversary edition 2-disc set from Troma, the fourth entry in their “Tromasterpiece” collection. What do we get here that we didn’t have in the original release? Well, for one, there’s new and vastly more appropriate-to-its-subject packaging (although I miss the original artwork, myself). There’s a great? liner notes essay inside by “Shock Cinema” editor Steven Puchalski. We get both versions of the film—the 100-minute “American Nightmares” cut (available on DVD for the first time and? struck from the very first 16 mm answer print, complete with original opening and closing credits sequences and sound and visual effects), and the 92-minute “Combat Shock” cut (which also features the absolutely terrific commentary track with Buddy G and “Nekromantik” director Jorg Buttgereit, recorded in Berlin, where Buddy now occasionally works directing television, that first appeared on the earlier single-disc edition). There’s a new trailer made especially for the “Tromasterpiece” DVD. We get a wide and intriguing selection of Giovinazzo’s short films, both pre-and post-”Combat Shock” (including “Mr. Robbie,” aka “Maniac 2,” starring the original “Maniac” himself, Joe Spinell, which also features on the “Tromasterpiece” DVD release of “The Last Horror Film”) in addition to a sampling of his 2000 A.D. Circus music video work.? There are no less than four very good interviews with the brothers Giovinazzo, three with Buddy (one of which has, again, Buttgereit along for the proceedings) and one with Rick, which marks his first ever on-camera discussion about his role in the film ( and I must say he couldn’t be any more different, personally,? to the character he portrays in the film). The original theatrical trailer is on hand for good measure. There’s a fascinating short look at the Staten Island locations as they appear today. And finally, best of all, there’s a new 30-minute documentary, “An American Nightmare,” a detailed look not only at the making of the film, but its distribution history,? its rediscovery in the “cult” cinema underground, and its impact on both contemporary and subsequent independent moviemaking, including reflections from such notables as “Deadbeat at Dawn” and “The Manson Family” director Jim VanBeber” (“Combat Shock” was an obvious influence on “Deadbeat”, although admittedly it’s a whole lot grimmer and grimier) “Henry:Portrait Of? Serial Killer” director John McNaughton (“Henry”? probably was, and remains the closest thing around to “Combat Shock” in terms of style and tone), “Maniac” director Bill Lustig, “Evil Dead 2″ screenwriter and “Intruder” director Scott Spiegel, “Hardware” and “Dust Devil” director Richard Stanley, and “Document of the Dead” director and “Street Trash” writer-producer Roy Frumkes. Definitely one of the most informative and insightful–not to mention interesting—”behind-the-scenes”-type DVD extras in some time.

So yeah—this is the total package. If you already own the original Troma release, you can throw it in the trash or try to get three bucks for it on eBay. This is the version you need to own. And that goes double if you don’t have it already. I had mentioned in a post last week that I thought this would figure to be the must-own DVD release of the year, and my prognostication was, even if I do only say so myself, exactly correct.

Is “Combat Shock” for everyone? Is the Pope a Presbyterian? If, however, you want a cinematic experience you seriously will never forget (even if you’d like?to)— if Hollywood “coming-home-from- ‘Nam fare like “Born on the Fourth of July” or even Cimino’s excellent “The Deer Hunter” left you feeling like the ugliest side of the story of these vets had been glossed over—if you genuinely enjoy being challenged to keep going through something you feel like? you might not want to see thorugh but know, deep down inside, that you must—and yes, if you can forgive a few necessary foibles of amateurism in service to the greater good that very same amateurism provides—then “Combat Shock” is a film that if you haven’t seen you absolutely need to see, and see very soon. But be warned—it leaves a stain inside that can’t be washed away, and there’s no Spray-n’-Wash for the human soul.

“blood freak” — a turkey in more ways than one

Sometimes, dear reader, your friendly neighborhood TFG is truly at a loss for words. It doesn’t happen too often, mind you, and not nearly as frequently as many who know me wish it would, but when trying to describe the wigged-out WTF-ness that is the 1971 cinematic absurdity known as “Blood Freak,” I’m afraid the English language just plain fails me (or perhaps I fail it). This, you see, is an exercise in (I’m assuming) accidental cinematic bizarreness so complete—and so confounding—that mere words simply cannot convey the nature of this particularly fetid celluloid swamp.

“Blood Freak” is the “brain”child of? Brad Grinter (“Flesh Feast”) and wanna-be Johnny Weismuller Steve Hawkes, who had starred in one low-budget Tarzan flick and was destined to do one more. The two of them wrote, produced, and directed thing thing together, and each “star” in it as well, Hawkes portraying the hero of the story, Viet Nam vet-turned-freewheeling-biker Herschell, and Grinter playing the film’s chain-smoking narrator. Evidently they’re pretty proud of the fact that Hawkes is in it, too, since? “starring Steve Hawkes”? appears not once, but twice, during the opening credits.

Our story begins when Herschell encounters a pretty young lady named Angel having (unspecified) car troubles along the Florida turnpike. Herschell gets her car working again and she invites him over to her place for a party her swinging sister Ann is having. Why she’d invite him, though, is a mystery since Angel and Ann are polar opposites, Angel being a Bible-quoting Jesus-freak of the first order and Ann being a swinging sixties (errr—-make that seventies) “let it all hang out” -kinda chick who’s into sex, drugs, rock and roll—but mostly drugs, and the party is full of Ann’s friends, of whom Angel clearly does not approve. Anyway, invite him into this den of debauchery she does, and while Herschell makes it clear that he’s more on the Angel side of the fence as far as the sex and drugs scene is concerned, Ann takes a shine to the muscle-bound lunkhead regardless and crafts a plan to lure him into her web of vice together with the help of her drug dealer, Guy, who supplies her with some super-pot that’s sure to turn Herschell, he assures her, into a raving addict in no time.

Herschell splits the scene to attend a Bible study group with Angel, where he meets a kindly old-timer who sets him up with a job at his poultry ranch. He’s got a week to kill before the job starts and nowhere to go, though, and that’s when his troubles begin. Angel offers to put him up at her and Ann’s place, and Ann quickly dares Herschell into trying her “super-pot” by insinuating that he’s a coward if he doesn’t. Sure enough, half a joint later our guy Herschell is a raving, lunatic pot-addict and Ann has gotten him into bed.

When he starts his gig at the turkey farm, Herschell is offered a way to make a few extra bucks on the side by a couple of unscrupulous scientists who work there and are experimenting on drugging turkey meat (for reasons completely unknown). They even offer him a little grass on the side in addition to money if he’ll help them out. After his first day on the job, Herschell comes home in a medical state I have never seen before or since that can only be described, I guess, as “marijuana withdrawal,” and he completely freaks out back at the pad. After getting high, though, it’s all good again, and he’s ready for work the next day. His scientist buddies set him up with a fork, a knife, and a whole frigging turkey, and Herschell chows down. But wait! Something strange is happening! The drugged turnkey causes Herschell to go into convulsive fits, and the scientists, after finding him writhing on the ground, whisk him away to a secluded ditch and leave him for dead. But our guy Herschell isn’t dead, and soon he returns home—but he’s not the same man. Herschell’s head has been replaced by the head of a giant turkey—a giant turkey that soon finds he needs the blood of drug addicts to survive!

So there you have it—this film is about a giant, blood-drinking, turkey-man. Really. With a European “star” (Hawkes) who can barely utter a sentence in English. And a chain-smoking narrator who cuts into the “action” by reading from a script on his desk (in fairness, though, he’s not the only actor in this fim who appears to be reading from a script,? the two scientists are at least as bad and they even stumble over their lines, as well).

What is this movie, then? Bad monster flick? Anti-drug scare film? Christian exploitation cinema? Low-budget mishmash or bad ideas? In truth, “Blood Freak” is all that and more. A bastard offspring of Herschel Gordon Lewis (and I must say some of the blood and gore effects in this film, particularly one where a guy gets his leg sawed off, are surprisingly effective given the utter incompetence of everything else on display) and Ron Ormond,? “Blood Freak” is unlike anything else that’s ever been made—or ever will be made. And that’s probably (okay, certainly) a good thing. But it’s definitely “must-see” stuff for the seasoned aficionado of exploitation fare.

“Blood Freak” is available on DVD from the fine people at Something Weird Video. The video quality is superb (considering how rare prints of this title probably are to obtain), and while the sound quality is hit-and-miss, overall it’s certainly passable. The DVD is loaded with cool previews and several shorts that encompass the various “themes” of the main feature. Highly recommended.

Oh, and Steve Hawkes made the news for a minute in late 2004 when one of the pet tigers he keeps on his Florida compund escaped and was shot by the cops. Really.