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Retro Movie of the Month: DECODER (1984)

Sam HaiNe — Thu, 10 Jul 2025 12:05:12 +0000

RETRO MOVIE of the Month :

DECODER (1984) directed by Muscha & starring: FM Einhert a.k.a. Mufti (Einstürzende Neubauten), Bill Rice (The Offenders (1980), The Big Blue (1988), Manhattan Love Suicides 1985, Coffee&Cigarettes), Christiane F., Genesis P-Orridge (Throbbing Gristle, Psychic-TV) and featuring William S. Burroughs (Naked Lunch, Junkie, Queer, Drugstore Cowboy, Dead City Radio) whose writing was an inspiration for the film.
* The film featured this month is very avant-garde, subversive and punk-af. It is not meant for children under the age of 18 years of age and contains images of nudity, drug use, chaos magick, surgical footage, sexual situations and ideas of delinquency and anti-authoritarian themes.
Language: German with Spanish subtitles.

In 1970 the collection of essays by Beatnik and Underground art icon William Burrough was published. In it Burroughs meditates on the written word and its evolution into the spoken. That language is something unique to the Human experience as it can exist both in image and sound. That the written language can enable the writer to cheat time and space and project thoughts, ideas, emotions, through time and affect readers in the future. Language regardless if it’s written on a medium or spoken has power; it is magick; no different from the sigils in a magician’s grimoire or the crystal ball, energized and imbued with power. How with the write configuration of words, images, sounds and their meaning can influence, control, infect and gestate inside the psyche very much like a virus.

Decoder is a 1984 West German cyberpunk film that you’ve probably never heard of. I was fortunate to find it one late night while in one of my insomnia periods.

The story follows FM as he works for a fast food chain to make ends meet but, spends his evenings making compositions of abrasive industrial music. When FM starts noticing how passive and docile the customers at his Burger joint are when the Muzak playlist is cycling over the speakers. He figures that perhaps there might be something in the Muzak that’s making people compliant. That it’s the muzak that’s lulling people into submission in a world where visceral reality is almost a cheap thrill (a kink), something you tuck under your mattress when the relatives come home; a world where we just accept subjugation into an authoritarian corpo system where fascism bridges the gap between military and corporate corruption. FM also spends his free time with his girlfriend (Christiane) a peep show girl that works in the red-light district.

One night while working on music, FM starts to manipulate one of Christiane’s frogs and records the screams. FM realizes that he can use abrasive sound to instigate destructive impulses in people that listen to his music and cancel out the corporate muzak. He strategically places tape recorders, like sonic I.E.D.’s, at different well-known fast food establishments armed with his music. These subversive recordings cause riots, destruction of property, violence and social upheaval. After sometime these terrorist incidents earn the attention of the corporate overlords who hire an assassin (Bill Rice) to find who is creating these tapes and execute him. Bill Rice’s character a weary hitman more preoccupied with haunting the red light district and infatuated with a peep show girl who just happens to be FM’s girlfriend.

DECODER is low-budget, analog, cyberpunk with a Cold War edge to it. Lush lighting and a noir dread drip heavily here. The soundtrack features SoftCell, Psychic-TV, THE THE and Einstürzende Neubauten. The basic plot of the film is summarized here in this review so all you have to do is follow the visuals and vibe. Not suitable viewing for anyone under-the-age of 18.

Stay dangerous, stay underground, stay out of sight, stay away from bootlickers, magahats, democrats and anyone that tows the company line, puts blinders on, shuts up and takes it right up in there deeply (and without even a kiss or dinner to eat), drinking the government kool-aid. Stay aware, stay armed and get angry and keep your G*ddamn finger on the REWIND button.

Movie:

https://youtu.be/vdCXssmZLdw?si=PDidB4yL53XRVpXv

Bonus: Soft Cell – Seedy Films (Official Video Release HD)

RETRO MOVIE OF THE MONTH – Masamune Shirow’s Dominion: TANK POLICE (1988)

Sam HaiNe — Mon, 29 Jan 2024 12:30:31 +0000

Dominion (ドミニオン, Dominion) is a Japanese manga written and illustrated by Masamune Shirow. Set in the fictional city of Newport, Japan, in a future in which bacteria as well as air pollution have become so severe that people must wear gas masks when outdoors, the series follows a police squadron that uses military-style tanks.

Dominion has been adapted into three original video animation series: the first, Dominion Tank Police, was released in 1988, the second, New Dominion Tank Police (特捜戦車隊ドミニオン, Tokusō Sensha Tai Dominion) in 1993, and the third, Tank Police Team TANK S.W.A.T. 01 (警察戦車隊ＴＡＮＫＳ．Ｗ．Ａ．Ｔ．０１, Keisatsu Sensha Tai TANK S.W.A.T. 01) in 2006. The 1988 OVA is four episodes long and animated by Agent 21, the 1993 OVA is six episodes long and animated by J.C.Staff, while TANK S.W.A.T. is one episode long and was animated by DOGA Productions. The manga was published by Hakusensha, Kodansha and later by Seishinsha. It has been published in English by Dark Horse Comics. The anime has been released in English translation in the United Kingdom and Australia by Manga Entertainment and in the United States by Central Park Media, under their U.S. Manga Corps division.

Cyberpunk from the land of the rising sun. Masamune Shirow’s precursor to his magnum opus Ghost in the Shell. Tank Police is retro-futuristic camp, as cheesy as you would imagine a love child of the Kerberos Panzer Cops and the Police Academy films.

First aired in the States on the Sci-fi Channel in it’s first years during Saturday Anime in the 90’s.
Get connected. Enjoy the ride and tune into a channel under a dead sky and get jacked into my nostalgic drip.

Stay off the drugs, stay strapped, stay dangerous, don’t forget your burner, wetware and ballistic hardware and always keep your finger on the REWIND button.

-HaiNe

REMEMBER THIS… #4 [Rated MA]

JimBootstrap — Thu, 13 Nov 2014 16:30:00 +0000

Remember This…?

Episode #4: The
lost art of VHS or the ways analog has programmed my thinking patterns.

It’s
that time to Remember This… and continue the stroll down memory lane while
examining the current theme loosely revolving around that wonderful black box you
had in your living room; the one with the warm slit and the dust cover just
begging you to insert some rigid plastic rectangular VHS tapes inside it. Push
play here.

“The Homecoming Queen’s
Got a Gun” is a 1984 song by
American singer–comedian Julie Brown parodying 1950s’ “teen tragedy”
songs.

Instead
of romancing those dirty things filled with more random data than a mnemonic
courier, let’s talk about what we actually recorded on them. The smut, the MTV,
the sporting events, the aerobic shows, political speeches [yeah sure] and
whatever else you could cram into your TDK. Let’s focus on the smut first.

This
was before the internet and chances are if you never saw it then you might
never get the chance. Remember feeling curious on those days your parents
weren’t home and you started rummaging through their personal drawers and
closets? Didn’t you feel like Indiana Jones? The fixed cable box if you had one
never quite worked after a while and all you had was that fuzzy scrambled
signal and the hint of nudity just behind the static line. Sometimes you had
friends and when you had them, you might even trade tapes and watch them with
the sound off. Those were the days, the days when biological functions were
both science fiction and a circus sideshow. You had them unmarked, or scratched
in some way, so you could recognize them. They were hidden behind your drawer,
in your closet, inside a shoe box or in the garage. If you didn’t want to watch
a scene you had to sit there and fast forward or rewind. Two hour tapes became
six hour tapes and so one. Scenes were cut and paste together like a William
Burroughs production; fake tits and cocaine pricks that were only overshadowed
by the wooden acting and Aqua Net hair. Those weren’t skeletons in your closet;
they were the stains of youth after dark.

Remember
Public Access television? Before podcasts or whatever the new thing is nowadays we
had a set of channels (free channels) on our televisions where anyone could get
a half or an hour long show on the rotation. It didn’t matter if you had talent or
not because we all know most Americans don’t. Anything you could imagine was on
it and people took advantage of it with ease. Because you favorite custom VHS
tapes were in a way a microcosm of what Public Access was (some cases still
is). It was low budget but entertaining. While your family watched Dallas, you
were watching random insanity and self-exploitation. And it was beautiful as it
happened.

Here are some examples
of the insanity I am talking about. I am going to make you
experience the thinking process and patterns of a tape head… an insomniac tape
head. I’m going to take you on a journey through my mind and my youth. You’ll
recognize some of the places and some of the things but in here they are sexy
and mutilated and without guilt. TALK HARD.

–Sam Haine.

– Viewer Discretion Advised Then Dies.

(left) MIDNIGHT BLUE –
The infamous almost X-rated show that ran for nearly 30 years on Manhattan cable. This is part 1 of an interview between the late publisher and pornographer Al Goldstein with Otto & George, the adult-themed comedy team composed of comedian Otto Sol Petersen (July 29, 1960 –
April 13, 2014) and his dummy George.

CONCRETE
TV– Concrete
TV is a NYC-based public access show that aired on Channel 67 combining sex,
violence and art into video collages set to music. This half hour program is
produced by Ron Rocheleau, known as Concrete Ron. It is shown Friday
nights at 1:30 AM. Episodes are heavily thematically based in 1980s video,
hearkening back to the early MTV days, in a mash-up art style.

The Dangers of the live cable access program

“New York Hot Tracks” [with retro commercials] – A syndicated music television series which aired from 1983 to 1989, and
achieved the number one music variety show spot in the United States.

SANDY KANE BLEW SHOW – Ex-stone age stripper turned AA qualifier turned cable icon who sings song parodies and lights her inverted nipples on fire while exchanging banter with her vibrator.

That concludes this session of Remember this, Retro Lovers. And until the next time keep your finger on the rewind button. Or call 555- KVETCH.

Sleepless and Retro-Minded in Rambles.

JimBootstrap — Thu, 02 Oct 2014 14:09:00 +0000

3:23am

It’s late night and leading into early morning; this
year’s October has just begun. The cold sniffles have got me by the balls and I’m
trying to make this into an interesting thread before the sun catches me awake past
my deserved bedtime. The days are getting shorter with age. The memories
are still burning but the lighter is gathering some rust and needs maintenance.
I’m halfway through choosing my third movie of the evening. I’d decided to have
a retro cyberpunk binge viewing session; beginning with Blade Runner (1982),
followed by AKIRA (1988). The last selection of my trilogy isn’t even retro, it’s
a recent release called Who Am I – No System is Safe (Kein System ist sicher) a
German thriller about a hacker group grinding on the road to infamy. It’s the
closest I’ll get to a Hackers remake.

3:30am

Well that was futile. I couldn’t even find the damn
flick. I’ve been hunched back into my leather chair listening to my 80’s
playlist of songs and staring at my Hunter S. Thompson poster for five minutes;
why did I ever buy Where the Buffalo Roam (1980) on DVD?

Mindlessly chopping away at the keys, typing in
whatever random thoughts turn over from the deck of my subconscious. It’s
perfect because this is when the carnival starts, the merry-go-round in my
brain, no different from the one in the LOST BOYS (1987). Spinning in circles
with gaudy decals and out dated bulbs… Let’s see where my fingers take me.
Clicking through my playlists and double backing like a screwed and chopped
sleuth. I took another listen to Trevor Something’s – Trevor Something Does Not
Exist album. Then I give Timecop1983’s new album a good listen and it results in
my immediate enjoyment. Before I know it the blue haze is creeping up outside
my window and I have forgotten most of the ideas I initially had a few minutes
ago.

5:45am

After, finally removing my boots I can feel it
coming. Sleep is almost here. I ended up drinking some chilled Modelo’s and
instant chatted with a vaporwave artist from Ontario, Canada named SYLLABUS (facebook/vaporwave.is.dead) about his
recent release. We kept jonesing about childhood like a deleted scene from a high
school reunion on how cool it once was to leave your house and go to the store
to pick up cassette tapes at the local music shop. Remember Cassingles? We even
agreed that Return of the Living Dead (1985) zombies could kick the asses of the
walkers on a certain cable shows. “Good people”, is all I can say.

6:14am

I made a nice little Cyberpunk themed playlist for
myself called Blade Runner Nights with some bits from different artists; a few
NRW and some from elsewhere or yesteryear. The title could’ve been better but
the carnival is slowing down. Writer’s block has me in her grip these past
couple of days. All I can do is wait and
tease these syllables a little bit here and there. Probably put on some Joe
Frank monologues or something before bed. UP ALL NIGHT is down for the count
again. A head full of cold sickness and a napkin stuffed up my decommissioned Charlie
snout. Maybe I’ll have a dream like a Michael Mann film. Maybe, I’ll dream of
women with crimped hair, maybe not. Maybe I won’t dream at all and just fade.
Maybe but I hope not. Only thing left to do is just lay back and close my eyes
and fall into it. Before, I become just another internal monologue from a
sleepless flashback artist and lo-fi delinquent.

– Sam Haine

(Above photo courtesy of Hainesville)