Discussion
My buddy @Username_Here_ASAP is watching a different horror/monster movie every night this week, and I think I'm going to join him.
But I think I'm going to take a slightly different angle and see if I can do something interesting with it.
Let's see!
Oh cool, @ajroach42! I read the book but I didn't know it got the film treatment.
@ddr There are two different fan adaptations (both linked in the thread) and both of them are worth seeing.
And then: https://vod.newellijay.tv/w/2jjikUCPP1WFn4upNSdgf4 (there are three more after that one, all on #NETV and should be linked from @syndication )
This second set is not from the same crew, and they were made a few years prior.
Half of the first episode is the same story from the first film, interleaved with another story. These, together, make up the first two Antimemetics short stories.
Collectively, all of these films are remixes of QNTM's Antimemetics series from SCP. The original stories are available as an ebook novella from the internet archive: https://dn710000.ca.archive.org/0/items/there-is-no-antimemetics-division/There-Is-No-Antimemetics-Division.pdf
They are all licensed CC-BY-SA so they can each be adapted, remixed, and shared freely (as long as you provide appropriate attribution and links.)
The original stories were published in the SCP wiki, and were later adapted into a non-SCP, non-creative-commons licensed novel by the original author, which is a fixup of the above linked book (and, frankly, is an improvement in most major respects.)
So yeah! They are weird, open licensed, independent horror films. They're moody and atmospheric, and at least one of them stars someone you've probably seen on TV or heard in one of those super popular podcasts.
There you go, round one of free/open horror for October.
So what's tonight's horror film going to be? It might end up being another Open License thing, or it might end up being a Public Domain piece, or it might be an international adaptation of an American horror film.
I didn't pre-plan this, I started down this road entirely by accident, so I'm not sure!
But I'm scrolling through jellyfin now and I'll write something tonight or tomorrow.
I decided to go in a weird direction and pulled out my VHS of Mahakaal, AKA Indian Nightmare on Elm Street.
It's on youtube, and torrents are broadly available.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ocQvVxfMVy8
It's fantastic. When I'm done watching it, I might upload a copy with english subtitles somewhere.
Technically this is not an open content film, but it is absolutely a remix.
Indian copyright law in the 1990s was pretty loose about adaptations of international properties, so local producers frequently treated American films as if they were freely available to adapt and remix.
And the upshot is a series of some of the wildest movies ever created.
It's never received an Official US release, and likely can't ever, because it's an unlicensed adaptation, an illegal derivative work, but as a byproduct of that it's also pretty common to find it being shared freely within the US.
I'm watching Spooky Movies for October, and focusing on remixes adaptations and open licensed stuff.
Above, in this thread, I talk about the Antimemetics films and the Indian remake of Nightmare on Elm Street.
Tonight, we're going to talk about one of the most infamous horror films of all time, one that has spawned several sequels, and a full puppet-cast remake.
That's right, it's Manos The Hands of Fate.
(Shockingly, it does not appear that I have Manos: The Hands of Fate currently streaming on any of my video sharing platforms, so I'll fix that now and be back to talk about the movie shortly.)
Alright, it'll take a few minutes to transcode (so if you're reading this right after I posted it, it might not be done transcoding yet) but you can now watch Manos Hands of Fate on New Ellijay Television:
Manos The Hands of Fate is widely regarded as the worst movie of all time, but I think that's unfair. I've seen worse films, and you probably have too.
I often quote this review From 366 Weird Movies ( https://366weirdmovies.com/223-manos-the-hands-of-fate-1966/ )
Manos: the Hands of Fate demonstrates an important lesson: if applied consistently, incompetence can be a style. This narrative feature film was shot with a hand-wound 16 mm camera that could only capture thirty seconds of footage at a time. The camera was probably intended to be used by families making silent vacation films, and the results look exactly like a home movie from 1966, complete with barely adequate, dull coloration and hazy definition. Since the protagonists are lost vacationers, it’s an oddly appropriate, if accidental, visual scheme, almost as if the movie is found documentary footage of a missing family, a la Blair Witch.
Before I go on, please understand that I love this film deeply.
I have a small doll of The Master in my home.
I have the soundtrack on vinyl.
And I was a supporter of several remixes and sequels and related projects over the years.
So, I guess, let's get into that.
First, some background:
Manos The Hands of Fate was shot on a dare, by a cast and crew of complete amateurs, on a camera that could only record 30 seconds at a time, with no on set mic.
All the audio was overdubbed in post.
It's a wild, weird, awkward film (with a surprisingly bangin' jazz-y flute soundtrack).
And because it is somewhat famously in the public domain, it has been the subject of *many* remixes.
Among the most famous of these remixes is the film's inclusion in MST3K: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-1U4JPZHb7Q
But my favorite adaptation of Manos is unquestionably Manos Hands Of Felt, a complete puppet recreation of both the film and the making of the film.
You can see a trailer for it here: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gPhh-1kqu5w
Although I think the film itself is only available on, like, the original DVD (which I have, I think) and Amazon. This is a real shame.
But look! Puppets! Doing Manos: hands of fate!
I started with this version tonight, and it's still great.
Years after the original Manos a bunch of the surviving cast got back together and released a sequel called Manos Returns: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=blS8LqjxTYY
I backed this one on kickstarter, and apparently I thought it was funny to put my name in the credits as Andrew "The Andrew Roach" Roach, which is among the funniest things I've ever done.
The reviews for this indie horror film are predictably bad, but I think that's unfair. This thing is weird and ambitious and honestly, it's better than you're expecting it to be.
This is exactly my bullshit.
A dude in the middle of nowhere says "I can make a movie, it can't be that hard."
and over the subsequent 60 years it has been, sure, subjected to absolute ridicule, but also it has been a source of inspiration and creativity, and that's pretty neat!
And, because this film is in the public domain all of us are free to remix it, to adapt it, to extend it, to use the score, to make cartoons, to turn it into a puppet show, whatever.
This, ultimately is the spirit I'm trying to channel in these October selections.
Horror has been a fundamental part of folklore forever, and I think it is uniquely effective as a collaborative, transformative, remixed media.
All the films I've shared so far (Mahakaal, the 5 Anti-memetics shorts, Manos Hands of Fate, Manos Hands of Felt, Manos Returns) I think are exceptional examples of the spirit of collaboration, and the ways it can extend across time, across continents and cultures, and across mediums.
Anyway, I had a blast revisiting these films tonight. I haven't seen any of them in a long time.
Hands of Felt in particular is a bizarre delight. It is astounding that it exists, and that it is also not bad? Incredible.
If you don't have a deep and abiding love for weird bad movies, tonight's entries are probably not for you (instead see further up thread) but if you do like weird bad movies, add these to your lineup.
So what will I watch tomorrow?
Maybe it will be SAYTAN, the turkish remake of The Exorcist, or DRAKULA İSTANBUL’DA.
Maybe it will be Night of the Living Dead.
Maybe it will be something else entirely.
Maybe I'll do a rundown of Dracula and adaptations thereof in general, there are a lot to talk about.
Or Frankenstein? Perhaps a little less to talk about, but possibly some weirder ones.
My wife wasn't feeling a real spooky movie tonight, and we ended up on the road for a lot of today, so I'm just getting around to Spooky stuff.
I dunno if I'll actually manage to watch anything tonight. We'll see.
I decided to put on Foes.
https://communitymedia.video/w/bBFwUiPH3n1ZFYSJExmcZ8
That's the director's cut, which is the version you want to watch if you want to watch it.
It's a 70s scifi horror film, all atmosphere and style, light on dialog or exposition or plot.
I enjoyed it.
I'm watching it for the second time.
There's nothing explicitly Remix-y about it. It's just a weird low budget 70s movie.
Enjoy.
I don't think I'm going to get to a spooky movie tonight,
I don't feel like watching one. Instead I'm watching the first episode of WCW Saturday Night from 1998.
But I'll talk about remixes for a second.
Dracula is among the most remixed properties of all time.
It was still under copyright when Nosferatu was made as an unlicensed adaptation. Because it was illegal, it was ordered destroyed. It took almost a century for it to be seen again, now it's regarded as a classic.
Decades later in 1931 it was adapted again in English and Spanish at the same time on the same set.The Spanish language edition doesn't get seen enough, but is genuinely incredible. The English language version is, of course, a classic and the foundational pillar of the Universal Horror family.
Both enter the public domain in the US in January, and I'm sure I'll talk a lot about them then.
But the book has been adapted a few dozen times, in a bunch of different ways, and the films have themselves been adapted and remixed a bunch.
I loved, for example, Nic Cage's turn as dracula in Renfield a couple of years ago.
And I know lots of folks really liked the recent Nosferatu remake, which I have not watched.
But the particular remix of Dracula that I want to talk about tonight is Dracula in Istanbul.
I'd pay good money for a good, HD transfer of this film.
But as far as I'm aware none exist so instead you get this: https://archive.org/details/DrakulaIstanbuldadraculaInIstanbul
If you know your vampires well, and you've never seen Dracula in Istanbul, I can't recommend it enough.
If you don't know your vampires well, and you can tolerate some subtitles, allow me to recommend the Spanish language Dracula: https://dn721902.ca.archive.org/0/items/dra-cula.-esp.-mp-4./DR%C3%81CULA.%20ESP.%20MP4..ia.mp4
I don't know if this film is in the public domain in the US right now, officially, although I suspect that it is (because I suspect that, if it was registered that registration was never renewed) but it absolutely will be in the public domain in the US on Jan 1st.
It was shot on the same sets and with the same costumes as the more well known Dracula, at night while Dracula was shot durring the day.
It's excellent.
(edit: link updated to go directly to the video because Mastodon doesn't like links that end in punctuation. Also the above might not have subtitles. I didn't vet it closely. Subtitles are widely available.)
@ajroach42 THIS SAXOPHONIST IS SO LUBED
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So Yesterday, not intending to participate in this event, I watched There Is No Antimemtics Division (We Need To Talk About 55) (2025), and the earlier series of Antimemetics short films.
You can watch along, if you'd like: https://vod.newellijay.tv/w/8HwJRYPX256jrbRjN9chXD
That first one stars Jasiika Nicole (of Fringe and Alice Isn't Dead.)
There Is No Antimemetics Division (2026) - Starring Jasika Nicole