Zeder / Revenge of the Dead (1983)

Pupi Avati’s Zeder has been an odd enigma of an Italian horror film to me. I’m not really sure what it is trying to do, but its mystique and mismatched place in the genre are part of what make it special. While watching it, I usually wonder what it is we are looking for or what the lead character is so obsessed and serious about, and yet I can't help always feeling drawn in. It’s a movie searching for something deep and menacing, and it does eventually find it, but the journey along the way is a challenging, unsettling, and memorable one with an impressively creepy payoff and a serious lead performance from Deep Red’s (1975) Gabriele Lavia. I also like the way it alludes to a kind of sinister underbelly to the city in a way that is similar to Perfume of the Lady in Black (1974). 

What I buy most about Zeder is the academic and research side, fixating on knowing and overcoming death. The scientific field approach, with shady occultist researchers and their cameras and experimental equipment is pivotal to one of the best scenes. 

Stefano’s (Lavia) investigations become a paranoid obsession that he never really lets up on once he starts on it. Being a writer and a college student (overdue for graduation it seems), his focus feels like a thesis from hell.

The Dunwich Horror (1970)

Before AIP’s The Dunwich Horror, a 1970 film adaptation of H.P. Lovecraft’s horror novella The Dunwich Horror from 1929, not a whole lot had been done yet to try and bring Lovecraft to the screen. The Haunted Palace from 1963 is partially based on The Case of Charles Dexter Ward; Die, Monster, Die! from 1965 is a loose adaptation of The Color out of Space; The Shuttered Room from 1967 is an adaptation of August Derleth's story of the same name that was inspired by Lovecraft, and The Crimson Cult from 1969 only takes mild inspiration from Dreams in the Witch House. As far as I can tell, The Dunwich Horror is the first film to be a faithful attempt at a direct title adaptation of an HP Lovecraft story. Not surprisingly some liberties were taken with this film, such as updating it for the late '60s, early '70s, but that’s always to be expected. I do think the The Dunwich Horror movie, for its era, does do Lovecraft justice, even if it doesn’t quite live up to the novella.

It was filmed in Mendocino California, a small coastal community that kind of passes for a New England looking town. I don’t think there was any kind of ocean near Dunwich in the original story, but the seaside connection is suitably Lovecraftian and serves the film well, as it’s usually filmed at night to look dark and ominous with unseen horrors.

The stylish occult and satanic animated intro credits set to the classical and catchy main theme by Les Baxter is a great start that gets you into both a ‘70s and a Lovecraft mood. It has a cartoony and imaginative way of painting the ceremonial birth of the main character Wilbur Whateley on Sentinel Hill. Even the film's detractors agree that this animated segment is terrific.

City of the Living Dead / The Gates of Hell (1980)

City of the Living Dead is part of a high point in Lucio Fulci’s career that would make him synonymous with gore, zombies, and splatter and also cause him to be more generally regarded as a horror director, despite having worked in numerous other film genres. Being the first film in what has become known as The Gates of Hell trilogy, which also includes The Beyond (1981) and House by the Cemetery (1981), City feels a little rough around the edges, a step down from the previous Zombi 2 (1979) but at the same time a stepping stone or prototype to The Beyond, a film that masterfully embodies a dreadful but surreal atmospheric ascetic that I like to call nightmarish horror, which abandons logic to create a sense that anything can happen, usually something bad involving the eyes.

While there is an interesting Lovecraftian story (co-written by Fulci and Dardano Sacchetti) and plenty of dialogue and characters to fill it, City feels a bit like a compendium of gore scenes and set pieces, most of which exemplify Fulci in top form. It has its flaws and issues, yet it’s one of those films where you can talk just as much about what’s wrong with it as you can about what’s right with it, and what’s right is pleasing enough to supersede what’s wrong.

Despite having a dodgy narrative, a few silly moments, and somewhat shallow characters, who have grown on me with time, such as Bob (Giovanni Lombardo Radice), the film is quite a macabre experience that has become known for its top-notch ambiance and gore FX (by Gino De Rossi), as well as succeeding as a horror film overall. It’s like a product of low quality that nonetheless continually hits the sweet spot throughout its runtime so that you just can’t help loving it. It’s almost the masterpiece The Beyond is.

Lord of Tears (2013)

Lord of Tears is the first co-production between Hex Media and Dark Dunes. It is an attempt at making a different type of horror film and revitalizing the classic, supernatural chiller style of the British Hammer horror that played an influence on Lord of Tears director Lawrie Brewster. It is also rich in Pagan influenced mythos, providing an avenue of research for its protagonist, giving it a Lovecraftian feel.

Lord of Tears just recently (a few days ago) won two awards at the 2013 Bram Stoker International Film Festival: 1) The Audience Award and 2) Best Female Lead. My congratulations go out to the production, cast, and crew. I had a feeling it was going to be good, but Lord of Tears just turned out to be incredible.

The story concerns a school teacher's, Jamie's (Euan Douglas), vague nightmares and unsettling childhood memories and his drive to uncover the mystery behind these visions at his inherited estate. Despite a warning letter from his recently deceased mother, Flora (Nancy Joy Page), he’s driven back to his childhood house, which seems to be the site of a past traumatic incident for Jamie, one he does not seem to clearly remember. An entity seemingly related to his past trauma, a tall figure with long arms, the head of an owl, Victorian clothing, and intimidating talons, manifests at times in front of Jamie. As nightmares take further hold on him, he begins to wonder if he’s gone mad. All isn’t entirely bad, though, thanks to a young, lovely lady employed in the area, Evie (Lexy Hulme), who Jamie starts feeling a romantic connection to as she aids him in uncovering the mystery behind the Baldurrock House.

Cthulhu (2007)

Cthulhu probably stands as one of the more controversial attempts at bringing the Cthulhu mythos to the screen, exploring certain themes completely absent from H.P. Lovecraft’s fictional writing. It’s a totally modern take on the novella The Shadow over Innsmouth that, at its core, still ends up feeling like a very true embodiment of Lovecraft horror.

Taking the more suggestive and indescribable approach, not much is seen yet much is insinuated. Hearing the radio news reporting on wild polar bears going extinct and the oceans rising, amongst others, suggests a kind of world that is falling apart, an uneasy feeling of an approaching end. Blending this with an emphasis on a beautiful but ominous dark ocean, it really feels like Cthulhu might be rising very soon and the Old Ones will be claiming what is rightfully theirs. The East Coast New England settings fans of the author are more in tune with have been transferred over to the West Coast in Astoria Oregon, and the setting is an interesting and fitting shift that doesn’t feel disagreeable at all. There’s just something about seaside towns that work so well for the Lovecraft sensibility. Why, after all, cannot the Old Ones haunt a port town on the other side of the country?

The Beyond (1981)

I’ve always considered Lucio Fulci’s The Beyond to be the definitive Italian horror experience, and it’s the one I’d recommend most, even over Suspiria, if anyone ever asked me what a real good Italian horror is. No one ever has, though, and most anyone remotely familiar with Italian horror already knows about The Beyond. When I first saw it, this gross, gory but beautifully nightmarish picture had awoken something in me that completely turned my attention to Italian horror, with an unwaning interest, and it changed my previous negative opinion of Fulci’s Zombi 2 into an entirely positive one.

Presently I can’t figure out why, but I had loathed Zombi 2 for quite some time, so when a local theater that specialized in cult and independent cinema advertised a screening of an old Zombie film, Lucio Fulci’s The Beyond, I immediately recognized the director and thought, “oh no, not that guy” (I was severely of the uninitiated at the time). But, since I regularly attended the weekly midnight screenings at this theater, I thought it’d be fun to go and watch this movie in a dark room full of strangers and observe the general response. Despite numerous riffing and laughter from the audience, there was something about the film that entertained and terrified me. Those moments with the grieving widow in the morgue and every time someone went into room 36 were real intense for me, and the scene with the blind ghost girl, Emily, surrounded by the zombies from Hell gave me a nightmare that night. The characteristics of The Beyond reminded me of Zombi 2, in a good way, and the gore, as indicated by the screams and waves of laughter in the audience, was a real crowd pleaser.

From Beyond (1986)

While Stuart Gordon’s From Beyond is known as an adaptation to H.P. Lovecraft’s short story of the same name, the movie is nonetheless its own beast, with the original literature being more like a seed to what Gordon and his team developed in this FX heavy, gory ‘80s shocker. The pre-credits intro is more or less the component that is primarily adapted from Lovecraft’s ultra-short, seven page story, while the rest of the film continues on as an imagining of what could’ve happened had the original story not ended so abruptly. Whether or not Gordon got it spot-on is arguable, but Lovecraft’s ideas in From Beyond did have a lot of unexplored potential, and Gordon took liberties to explore this potential and, at the same time, do things his way, by including those far-out sexual elements á la Re-Animator (the Barbara Crampton escapades), some of the coolest grotesque interdimensional creatures and transformations since John Carpenter’s The Thing, and a face full of the good ol’ nauseating gore; most of which didn’t make it past the censors at the time of its initial release.

Due to the success of Re-Animator, Gordon wanted to do another Lovecraft film, and he wanted to reuse the key actors from Re-Animator, Jeffrey Combs and Barbara Crampton, who all ended up being extremely successful and welcome returns. However, I remember really wanting to see this when I found out that Ken Foree was in it, my favorite zombie killer (Dawn of the Dead). Here, Foree still has that likability he had as Peter in Romero’s film, but his character in From Beyond just wasn’t as skilled with handling interdimensional creatures, as Peter was with zombies, to make it all the way through this one.

The Spider Labyrinth (1988)

Though, perhaps, a bit sluggish in some places, there’s still something compelling about the way The Spider Labyrinth attempts to unnerve viewers with the threat of a perpetual, unexplainable horror, as we are taken along with the young Professor Alan Whitmore (Roland Wybenga) on his travel assignment to Budapest to investigate the sudden silence from an important collaborator on an international project. What lies in wait for the protagonist in a little niche hidden from the rest of the world is a series of weird and deadly occurrences with Lovecraftian origins.

This is a wholly dark and wicked Italian Horror that lacks any kind of sense of humor and is just as keen on exciting Lovecraft and Argento fans as it is at trying to disturb them. The horror set pieces and visual effects by Sergio Stivaletti, which if used in any other movie would’ve screamed campy ‘80s, are creepy and, at times, capable of stimulating a freaked-out experience, more so than expected. While the horror sequences themselves are exceptional, it’s the demented tone of the film that makes them work in a manner that penetrates the psych in unsettling ways.

The film score consists of a lounge cue and a bevy of traditional orchestral pieces that while making the film less quirky, nonetheless, distinguishes it from the more rock/synth laden soundtracks of its Italian horror contemporaries. The sound effects used to represent the snarling and growling from the spider-witch in the film was probably a bit much, sounding a lot like an agitated critter, but still nonetheless contributed to one of the more brutally insane killer witches (wickedly and quite energetically played by Margareta von Krauss) I’ve seen on screen.

The Sect / La setta (1991)

Beautiful dreams turn into pulse pounding nightmares in Michele Soavi’s highly intricate cult-conspiracy masterpiece, THE SECT (aka THE DEVIL'S DAUGHTER).  

Soavi is the type of director that seems to make every movie as if it was his last, taking the chance to squeeze in as many ideas, symbolism, and set pieces as possible. The result is eclectic and convoluted but also spellbinding, as in THE SECT and CEMETERY MAN, with the former being the more ominous and downbeat of the two, likely the result of everyone working to appease the boss-man, Dario Argento. 

Part of the reason for the intricacy is because THE SECT is a product of three different writers, Argento, Soavi, and Gianni Romoli,* all of whom seemed to have their own visions. The production of the movie started with a screenplay for an unrealized movie called CATACOMBS by Romoli, and Argento took it and added his input, which included references to The Rolling Stones (he’s a huge fan).* Soavi further incorporated a script from an unrealized movie of his, THE WELL, and layered it with esotericism and Celtic symbolism, and the seemingly independent ideas from three different heads was further refined and finalized by Romoli* into one hellava movie.

Nevertheless, the convoluted nature of the film has harmed it for a large fraction of viewers, making it difficult to follow and giving it an underlining annoyance that the movie may not be going anywhere. Therefore, the recommended way to view this is to just concern oneself with what is taking place at hand without worrying about where the story is leading to. It’s best to enjoy the individual segments for what they’re worth, and being that there’s a lot of gold here, they’re worth a lot.

The Whisperer in Darkness (2011)

THE WHISPERER IN DARKNESS is one of the creepier and tenser short stories from H.P. Lovecraft. Readers are given enough hints to know all too well that something bad is going on as the story’s protagonist, despite his academic intelligence, seems too clueless and too stubbornly grounded in his notion of the realistic world to realize that he’s heading to a perilous destination. Journeying along with this character, Professor Albert Wilmarth, into an unnatural and creepy situation written in a first person perspective is largely what I think makes this short story work so well. In the first half there’s a lot of tension that is built up from the letter exchange correspondence between Albert and another character, Henry Akeley, whose farm is seemingly being invaded by alien monsters. However, nothing really ends up being truly conclusive with a lot being left to suggestion or just being the possible result of some weird and unexplainable phenomena or coincidences.

While I don’t think that it reaches the same high tension found in Lovecraft’s original story, the film adaptation by The H.P. Lovecraft Historical Society (HPLHS) does an exceptional job at taking the liberty of filling in a lot of blanks by rounding out the story with much more definite events and including a third act that contains some new surprises that don’t disgrace the original story in the least. Though the narrative is understandably tweaked a bit to be more suitable for film, this still feels like one of the most faithful and near-perfect Lovecraft adaptations since the HPLHS’s CALL OF CTHULHU from 2005, though I honestly enjoyed THE WHISPERER IN DARKNESS a bit more.

Messiah of Evil (1973)

MESSIAH OF EVIL is an unusual and artistic low-budget American horror film with a fanciful script that results in a surreal and nightmarish sensibility that feels more like ‘70s Euro-horror, causing it to be either fondly remembered or easily forgotten, depending on the viewer’s taste. Willard Huyck and Gloria Katz’s (the couple that brought us HOWARD THE DUCK and scripted AMERICAN GRAFFITI) ode to madness is probably not everyone’s cup of tea, but with its odd nature and unique horror sequences, the easy to find, but still relatively unknown or unloved, MESSIAH OF EVIL just begs to be blogged about. 

The start almost feels like some sort of one minute film project tacked on at the beginning. The scene of a man running from something unexplained and into a homicidal little girl with a razor blade seemed misleading and unnecessary and ends up being completely forgotten later on since it really has no connection to anything. Things get more interesting quickly, after a short sub-credit sequence, with a shot of a blurry asylum hallway and a woman’s obscure figure walking towards us, slowly, as if she is sleep walking. A woman’s unstable voice, no-doubt crazy from what we are in for, openly narrates a coming threat, calmly at first and slowly builds up to a maddening crescendo. Whether she is talking to herself or narrating to the viewers is unclear, but much like the film, this part is open to interpretation and starts things off beautifully, unlike the tacky throat slashing that occurred before. 

After that terrific intro, we move to Arletty, played by Marianna Hill, driving to the seaside town of Pointe Dune where her father resides. She is concerned about his recent silence and increasingly drastic letters. When she arrives, her father is missing and she is left to ponder the strange situation with journal entries and letters left behind by her father in his bizarre and necrotic house by the sea. 

Night of the Seagulls (1976)

The Templar zombies in the Blind Dead films are a good example of a simple idea that really hits the mark. They’ve been fondly remembered for decades by fans and still have an onscreen impact that is just as powerful today as it was in the 70s. Their iconic doom-laden theme music by Antón Garcia Abril enhances the believability of the creeping-death that is Amando De Ossorio’s blind dead. 

The opening to NIGHT OF THE SEAGULLS of a woman being brutally sacrificed by the not-yet-undead Knights Templar is effective but not surprising to those already familiar with Ossorio’s films. During the sacrifice ritual while these evil men stand around observing the terrible act, I found myself shouting aloud “don’t you guys have anything better to do than torment, stab, and eat this poor young lady?!”. It truly is a disgusting scene that was still very well done. Afterwards, the poor mangled and severed body is left to the crabs in a chilling sequence that I primarily remember this film for. 

The shock and unpleasant feeling from the opening is shifted to a more melancholic vibe when the story transitions to present day while a mood setting synthesizer plays over the introduction of the two main characters, Dr. Henry Stein and his wife Joan Stein, played by Victor Petit and the always welcome Spanish horror regular Maria Kosty. The seaside village they’ve arrived at doesn’t feel like present day, in fact the film feels like an era piece, but Joan’s mall fashion wardrobe as well as the car they arrive in serves as a reminder that we are still in modern day Spain, just in a village that time forgot. 

Lucio Fulci's The House by the Cemetery (1981)

Oh glorious haunted New England mansion…. A supreme visual brought to life with the sound of Gothic CASTLEVANIA-esque theme music by Walter Rizzati, tombstones, and leafless winter trees. What splendid grandeur and majesty you emit against the daytime sky and how even more beautiful you are at night… What evil cosmic secrets do you hold? How I’d love to see what fate would befall a family that was to all of a sudden move in and inhabit you. What’s that you say? I can? In a film called HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY. 

It’s been blogged about a thousand times and reviewed to death, but I still feel that Lucio Fulci’s HOUSE BY THE CEMETERY deserves all of the love it can get. The film primarily concerns the Boyle family who are played by the likeable Fulci fan favorite Catriona MacColl, who has to be one of the best female screamers ever (consider the intro scream from THE GATES OF HELL), as Lucy, Paolo Malco as Norman, and Giovanni Frezza as little Bob (who it seems was dubbed by a woman, which ends up being just as awkward as it is creepy). These poor souls unknowingly mortgage their lives when they move into a quiet and isolated house in the woods next to a cemetery. The thought of a husband and wife moving into an isolated house with their creepy kid and into a deadly scenario may have THE SHINING written all over it, but the overall ordeal shares no similarities to that film. 

There is a memorable and fairly iconic relation between the son and a nineteenth century ghost girl that haunts the area, named Mae. The encounters between these two kids possess a childlike innocence that blurs the motive for why Mae is contacting Bob from beyond. The end result of their friendship is confusing but so fascinating and endearing that it’s no wonder that former kid actors Giovanni Frezza and Silvia Collatina’s Facebook pages are constantly bombarded with friend requests by loving fans (myself included). We may not know them personally, we may not be actual friends, but we would still like to know how poor Bob is fairing after the traumatic events that transpired in the evil basement of that damned house. And who doesn’t have a desire to express admiration to Mae, the cool Gothic ghost girl, for saving Bob from a fate worse than death in a satisfying heartwarming ending that makes the viewer want to run off and buy Fulci’s other films (me 10 years ago) and ultimately become a hardcore lover of Italian Horror? And what great sports those two are for friending so many fans. 

Colour from the Dark (2008)

Ivan Zuccon’s COLOUR FROM THE DARK is an adaptation to my favorite and in my opinion most frightening H.P. Lovecraft story, THE COLOUR OUT OF SPACE. Zuccon’s film runs its own unique ideas alongside Lovecraft’s story fairly smoothly, helping it to be more than just a mere retelling. The outcome of how the characters are affected by a life draining contamination on a farm is similar in both tales, but the means is much more demonic and supernatural in Zuccon’s, while that in Lovecraft’s is something alien and chronically hazardous that feels realistic and not all together unlike a nuclear fallout. 

The most interesting original idea introduced in the film is the character of Alice (Marysia Kay), a mute childish woman, who despite being around 22 years old, is very much a portrait of a young and easily frightened child. She has a fear of the stairway in her home and when passing through it an anxiety generates in her that causes her to rush down the stairs afraid of something unseen and unknown. This easily reminds me of that same fear we felt as children all alone late at night in the hallways of our own homes, afraid of something not there, with an impulse to run through the hallway and back into bed under the secure blankets after a late night trip to the bathroom. Alice has a tendency to rely on her doll for security from the perceived hidden threats that lurk in the dark. Wandering around late at night, she covers one hand over her eyes while looking though her fingers and holding her doll out in front of her as if the doll is her protector, watching and letting her know if it is safe ahead. This introduction to Alice at the beginning of the film made me feel that I was in store for something pretty interesting with that surreal sensibility one can expect from Zuccon. 

Out of Mind: The Stories of H.P. Lovecraft (1998)

One can only dream of having the privilege to meet and converse face to face with significant figures in history, to live the same events as our ancestors, or to reach out through time and take possession of the bodies of descendants in the future and never have to succumb to death. If such a book contained the key to making this possible, it would likely be best kept forbidden and locked away forever, lest we find ourselves in danger from our own ancestors clawing away at our souls, trying to take possession of our lives. If you, like the main character in tonight’s film review, often find yourself dreaming that you are someone else in an entirely different time period, then it’s possible you may have been cursed from someone high above you in your own family tree that wants your life very much. 

By the way, all of this talk about taking the lives of descendants is the theme to H.P. Lovecraft’s THE CASE OF CHARLES DEXTER WARD, which is the basis for Raymond Saint-Jean’s 56-minute long, made for TV film, OUT OF MIND: THE STORIES OF H.P. LOVECRAFT. As the title suggests, the film also contains familiar scenarios from a few other Lovecraft tales that fans will likely enjoy noticing. However, the film’s main highlight is that it actually includes a very convincing H.P. Lovecraft played with stellar acting by Christopher Heyerdahl, who teaches us how CTHULHU is really pronounced. A pronunciation I’m unable to duplicate myself despite multiple attempts.  

House of Black Wings (2010)

Hello everyone and welcome back!  I just want to start out this time by expressing my appreciation to everyone who has checked out my blog “At the Mansion of Madness”. It has been a blast so far, and I look forward to posting many more reviews for your reading pleasure. “Thank you” to everyone who has taken the time to visit and to all who have followed me on my blog and on Twitter. 

Today I write to you about a tale of friendship, ghostly possession, and cosmic horror, from a movie written, directed, and produced by David Schmidt of “Sword & Cloak Productions”. HOUSE OF BLACK WINGS is a film that I personally believe to be quite an achievement that really goes a long way given the modest resources available to the filmmakers. One of this film’s major strengths is the development that occurs between two interesting and unique lead characters. These being ex rock star Kate Stone, played very convincingly by Leah Myette, and her friend Robyn Huck, a very cute and likable gothic artsy type, portrayed by Katherine Herrera. Needless to say, I developed an attachment to both of these lovely ladies, and I’m sure others have/will as well. 

These two happen to be old college roommates with a strong connection based on a long term friendship they’ve had since before Kate’s brief stint of fame as a musician. An unfortunate incident has resulted in a career downfall that has left Kate completely bitter about her rock star past. She now wants nothing more than to forget everything and start anew with the support and company of her good friend Robyn. With her music career over and nowhere else to turn to, Kate arrives to stay at the Blackwood apartment complex, owned and maintained by Robyn, who inherited the place from her father. While trying to rebuild her life, Kate learns that past demons aren’t so easily forgotten, and to make matters worse, something else is impeding her recovery, something demonic with black wings that seems to come from nightmares that exist between time and space….

Dark Waters (1994), Lovecraftian Terror with Italian Horror Flair

I’m a sucker for a good atmospheric Lovecraftian horror film, and I’m even more thrilled when it happens to be an Italian horror film, because then you know it’s going to be overflowing with unique style and excess. Filmed in the Ukraine, director Mariano Baino’s “DARK WATERS” is a stellar example of the nightmarish gem that can result when Lovecraft and Italian horror are fused as one. Just like in Lucio Fulci’s masterpiece “THE BEYOND”, those grandiose and gory gross out death scenes are on full display, and the film contains characters whose eyes have gone white from being blinded after witnessing the threatening evil presence in all of its supernatural glory. There’s even a little bit of Dario Argento’s “SUSPIRIA” thrown in, with an unsuspecting main character arriving to stay at an architecture that is ruled by a threatening, all female, presence and a couple other moments characteristic of “SUSPIRIA, that fans will no doubt notice. As far as I could observe, the H.P. Lovecraft influence is mostly “THE CALL OF CTHULHU” with an ending climax that shares a resemblance to a plot device from “THE DUNWICH HORROR”. I didn’t notice the resemblance to “THE DUNWICH HORROR” the first time I viewed this film, but if you think about it, you’ll see it. I don’t want to give it away, so I’ll hint at it. It involves 2 offspring from some otherworldly creature, with one resembling the parent more than the other! 

Starting out strong with style and mysticism, the first part of the movie is presented in a dialogue-free fashion, amongst a sea side monastery, dark threatening waters, creepy religious imagery, and candle lit subterranean caverns. In fact, the beginning of the film happens to be the only part of the story that consists of an attack from actual dark waters, with the film’s monster not even coming from the sea, which is opposite of what I was led to believe given the movie’s title. Not a big deal at all though, because just like a movie called "TROLL 2" that has no Trolls in it, this movie is still great and is deserving of a new found popularity. That way, Mariano Baino can inflict many more films on us like he said he would do in the director’s introduction to the film (the release from No Shame).