Wednesday, March 16, 2011

Update Your Bookmarks and Links

A lot of changes are coming up for us here at Gravediggers Local 16.

First off, as of April 01, we will no longer be using the blogger site (gravediggerslocal.blogspot.com) but moving completely over to our current locale, http://www.gravediggerslocal.com/. For those of you who still view the blogger location, please update your bookmarks and links.

The new site will still be renovated while we bring you new content each week. We should have everything fixed and settled over the next handful of months.

With the new format and features, we want to make it easier for you to read and share what we write here at GdL16. You'll notice on the regular site that each new article has a button for all your social media sharing needs. We would be most appreciated if you took the few seconds to click one or more to tell your friends about what we do here.

If you've followed us on twitter (@GdL16) you've seen that we're starting up a podcast. On April 01, we will release the first episode of 6'+, a free podcast of music and more. Every two weeks, a new episode of 6'+ ('six foot plus') will be made available for you to download.

The goal of 6'+ is to provide an entertaining program of music while showcasing some of the music groups, both new and old, that we think you should know about. One of our next renovations is to put more info up under the 6'+ button you see above (on the regular site.)

We're not entirely sure what 6'+ will include but like all things we do, we'll start digging and see what we come up with.

There are plans to increase the content on this website. Strange Jason has actually been roused from his hibernation. We've gotten back into the swing of doing Tuesday uEtsy. N. Oremac has been seen lurking around the shadows. So rest uneasily knowing that the minds of Gravedigger's Local 16 are busy at work.

Remember, you can follow @GdL16, @WeirdJon and @StrangeJason on Twitter. You can also follow 6'+ over at @6ftpls. N. Oremac hopes you don't follow him so he can get away with murder.

Wednesday, March 9, 2011

The Worst of Troma?

While reading through the Wikipedia entry for Croaked: Frog Monster from Hell (aka Rana: The Legend of Shadow Lake under a new title), I noticed the following comment:

"In his book All I Need to Know about Filmmaking I Learned from the Toxic Avenger, Troma president Lloyd Kaufman lists this film as one of the five worst Troma films ever made (along with The Capture of Bigfoot, also directed by Bill Rebane)." Searching for "worst" in the Amazon preview for the book even backed up this claim. Intrigued, I decided to see if I could find the other four.

It was pretty easy to find Curse of the Cannibal Confederates, also known as The Curse of the Screaming Dead. It's also known as being a gored-up remake of the worst movie ever made, A Night of Horror. Although he doesn't flat-out say that it's one of the "big five," Lloyd Kaufman's numerous comments regarding Big Gus, What's the Fuss? make it very easy to tell that it is.

But after that discovery, the online trail went cold. Troma fans apparently think that Fortress of Amerikkka is the worst, but I could not find anything that indicated Mr. Kaufman felt the same way. Although his comments that The Girl Who Returned is "boring" and that "if you put two monkeys in a room with movie cameras they will make The Girl Who Returned in twelve days" seem to indicate it is one of the worst, his later comment that it's one of the Troma library's "overlooked stars" shoots that theory to hell.

So what is the final film in the list of Troma's "bottom five?" I wish I could say that I knew the answer. Hopefully one of our loyal readers will give me the answer. It will be interesting to see if it was actually made by Troma or if it was an outside production that they bought the rights to (like the first three titles I discovered).

Thursday, March 3, 2011

Ghost Provokers

Ghost hunting shows are ripe for parody, so it was only a matter of time before someone created a comedy series on the subject. Ghost Provokers offers a humorous look at one group's unique method of dealing with the dead. My personal favorite is the three-part Halloween special set aboard the RMS Queen Mary, which also features music by the Midnight Syndicate. But enough talk, here it is, direct from the show's official channel: