About that famous BatCave Club

The Batcave was a nightclub in London, England at Meard Street, Soho. It is considered to be the birthplace of the English goth subculture. As one of the most famous meeting points for early goths, it lent its name to the term Batcaver, used to describe fans of the original gothic rock music. The term Batcave is also still used by Europeansto refer to Gothic music with a prominent Post-Punk sound and spooky atmospheres.

The club opened in July 1982. Originally specialising in New Wave and Glam rock, it later focused on Gothic rock. Ollie Wisdom, the lead singer in the house band,Specimen, ran the club with Specimen's Jon Klein as Art Director, and initially with the assistance of production manager Hugh Jones. Famous regulars at the Batcave included musicians such as Bauhaus, Robert Smith, Siouxsie Sioux, Steve Severin, Foetus, Marc Almond and Nick Cave.

 

"SPECIMEN were a glam horror post-punk band, who became most known for launching the 'Batcave' club in London around 1982 or so. The club became a fertile dark arts club where interesting artists of the time would perform to the nightlife in-crowd. It was just the new hip post-punk scene; only in retrospect tagged 'goth'. "

A diverse array of bands would play at the club, backed up by their resident DJs Hamish 'the paranoid' McDonald and Annie Hogan (Marc Almond band member). The bands involved included electronic leading act Alien Sex Fiend. The host's band Specimen, who took ample influence from 1970s glam rock and Sex Gang Children, is a group that would go on to prove influential in the gothic rock, dark cabaret and deathrock movements. The club also showed 8mm movies in the old theatre and occasionally featured unusual cabaret such as Mr Swing the fakir. Much of the image and fashion used by the subculture can be traced back to the bands who played at the Batcave.

In 1983, a vinyl record entitled The Bat Cave, Young Limbs & Numb Hymns was released on the London recording label. The compilation included Specimen ("Dead Mans Autochop"), Sexbeat ("Sex Beat"), Test Dept. ("Shockwork"), Patti Palladin ("The Nuns New Clothes"), James T. Pursey ("Eyes Shine Killidiscope"), Meat of Youth ("Meat of Youth"), Brilliant ("oming Up For The Downstroke"), Alien Sex Fiend ("R.I.P."), and The Venomettes ("The Dance of Death").

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Dario Argento & Lucio Fulci - Masters Of Horror

For those passionate about horror thriller movies, a post about 2 film directors whose creations are absolutely a must-see..

Dario Argento was born on September 7, 1940 in Rome, Italy. The first born son of famed Italian producer Salvatore Argento and Brazilian fashion model Elda Luxardo. Argento recalls getting his ideas for film making from his close knit family from Italian folk tales told by his parents and other family members including an aunt who told him frighting bedtime stories. Argento based most of his thriller movies on childhood trauma, yet his own, according to him, was a normal one. Along with tales spun by his aunt, Argento was impressed by stories from The Grimm Brothers, Hans Christian Andersen, and Edgar Allan Poe.



[...] Argento then went back to directing the so-called "giallo" thrillers starting with Profondo rosso (1975), a violent mystery-thriller with inspired a number of international directors with the thriller-horror genre. His next work was Suspiria (1977), a surreal horror film about a witch's covenent which was inspired by the Gothic fairy tales of the Grimm Brothers and Andersen which were collaborated by his girlfriend, screenwriter/actress Daria Nicolodi, who acted in "Profondo Rosso" ("Deep Red") and most of Argento's films from then on to the late 1980s. Argento advanced the unfinished trilogy with Inferno (1980), before returning to the "giallo" thrillers with the gory Tenebre (1982), and then with the haunting Phenomena (1985).


Please, DO watch:




Suspiria is a 1977 Italian horror film directed by Dario Argento . The film follows an American ballet student who transfers to a prestigious dance academy in Germany, only to discover that it is controlled by a coven of witches..




Profondo Rosso (Deep Red) is another thriller movie by Argento shot in 1975.A true GIALLO* It tells the story of a musician who witnesses the murder of a famous psychic, and then teams up with a fiesty reporter to find the killer while evading attempts on their lives by the unseen killer bent on keeping a dark secret buried.


*Many of his films are considered to be ‘giallo’. Giallo meaning yellow, which in turn came from the yellow covers of the penny-dreadful horror/thriller paperbacks that were sold in Italy.

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Lucio Fulci, born in Rome in 1927, remains as controversial in death as he was in life. A gifted craftsman with a sharp tongue and a wicked sense of dark humor, Fulci achieved some measure of notoriety for his gore epics of the late 1970s and early 1980s.

 

In 1979, Fulci's filmmaking career hit another high point with him breaking into the international market with Zombi 2 (1979), an in-name-only sequel to George A. Romero's Zombi (1978), which had been released in Italy as 'Zombi'. With its flamboyant imagery, graphic gore and moody atmospherics, the film established Fulci as a gore director par excellence. It was a role he accepted, but with some reservations.

Over the next three years, Fulci plied his trade with finesse and flair, rivaling even the popularity of his "opponent" Dario Argento, with such sanguine classics as City of the Living Dead (1980) and ...E tu vivrai nel terrore! L'aldilà (The Beyond) (1981). High on vivid imagery and pure cinematic style, Fulci's films from this period of the early 1980s represent some of his most popular work in America and abroad, even if they do pale in comparison to his 1972 masterpiece and personal favorite Don't torture a Duckling (1972) (an impossible act to follow, as it happens).

Image from the movie "The Beyond"

 

I personally suggest you to watch:

The Black Cat

A Scotland Yard detective and a nosy American photographer investigate a series of bizarre deaths in a small English village which are connected to a local literacy professor whom has the psychic ability to talk to dead spirits and somehow uses his gift to direct the entities to his pet black cat who becomes his instrument for revenge against those who have wronged him. This movie was inspired by Edgar Allan Poe's omonymous novel.