Death Race, was a controversial video arcade game, released by Exidy in the United States in 1976, inspired by the cult 1975 film Death race 2000. Approximately 500 units of the game were made, making it a rare find. Despite it's primitive blocky black and white graphics, the game was considered too violent. The game was originally entitled Pedestrian, as in the two player game, the goal is to mow down the "pedestrians". Which were renamed as "gremlins", to make the game sound less blood thirsty. Pedestrians or gremlins, they were only vaguely humanoid shaped at best. Once run down the "victims" turn into crude cross-shaped tombstones.

The criticism of the game reached the national media, being featured on video game violence in 60 Minutes and featured on NBC's Weekend news show.

The game also made the pages of the tabloid trash, the National Enquirer, and the National Safety Council denounced the game. 

Such controversy seems laughable today, by the standards of the hyper-realistic gore filled games of today. The game was part of Exidy's chase and crash style arcade games, following the popular Destruction Derby from 1975.

Death Race has gone down in retro gaming history, as the first video game to court controversy, and is considered as one of the most controversial video games of all time.

Calvin Black was a doll maker and backyard folk artist, who lived with his wife Ruby in the Mojave Desert in California. They moved near to Yermo, south of Death Valley in 1953, to open a rock and minerals shop. While Ruby managed the shop, Calvin chose to build dolls, as a way of attracting customers to their shop in the middle of nowhere. The place was called Possum Trot, a southern expression for the shortest distance between two points.

After Calvin's death in 1972, the dolls were abandoned to the harsh desert weather. Calvin wanted the dolls destroyed after his death, but Ruby refused. Ruby died in 1980, and what remained of the dolls were sold off, some making it to museums across the United States. However it was in their original desert context that the dolls were best experienced. Possum Trot the documentary gives viewers an insight into the weird world of the Blacks.

One of the most unusual and rarest games produced for the Atari 2600, in 1983, was Space invaders inspired Pepsi Invaders or otherwise known as Coke Wins! Coca-Cola commissioned Atari to create the game, which was essentially a direct redesign of the Space Invaders ROM. Instead of aliens coming down the screen, they had the word PEPSI. 

Only 125 cartridges were produced, which were packaged unlabelled in plain white disposable packaging, and handed out to delegates at a Coca-Cola convention in Atlanta, along with a Atari 2600 console. When original copies do come up for sale, they can fetch up to $2000 at auction.

The game is thought to be the rarest and most collectible games, in gaming history.

Now there have been a number of attempts to make a good Fantastic Four animated series over the years. All of them have failed. Possibly because the Fantastic Four, just really aren't that "fantastic". There was the 1967 version, 1994 they tried again, and more recently in 2006. But the biggest "fail" of them all has to be the utterly awful 1978 version, entitled The New Fantastic Four, due to the fact that the makers decided to replace the Human Torch with a cute little robot called H.E.R.B.I.E (Humanoid Experimental Robot, B-type, Integrated Electronics). As with many animated series of the period, it (and I find I'm repeating myself with this) only ran for one season of 13 episodes. The show was first aired on NBC

There are rumours abound as to why the Human Torch wasn't included in the series. Which include the wild urban legend that the makers thought that the Human Torch was an inappropriate role-model for kids. That his ability to set himself on fire, may influence kids to try and become a human torch themselves. All complete rubbish. The truth is simply that the rights to use the character had been optioned to Universal Studios, for a possible pilot TV movie and series of the Human Torch. And so the executive decision was made to replace him, not with another wise-cracking superhero, but with a cute robot with no discernible super-powers at all. Now some cynics claim that Stan Lee introduced H.E.R.B.I.E the robot side-kick, as a blatant rip-off of the popular robot side-kicks R2D2 and C3PO from Star Wars, which had been released only a year earlier in 1977.   

The show was briefly revived in the July of 2012, with some major changes. When the Disney company, who originally distributed the show re-cut, edited, and re-dubbed some of the scenes from The New Fantastic Four. They turned them into self-referential and irreverent comical shorts as part of their Disney XD's Marvel Mash-Up shorts for their "Marvel Universe on Disney XD" block of programming. 

One of last month's Cult Film Friday selections wasDer Todesking by German director Jörg Buttgereit. But the director is best known for his earlier controversial film NEKRomantik, which found itself on banned lists around the world. In Britain it made its way onto the infamous Video Nasties list of the 1980s, and wasn't released uncut until 2014.

The film tells the story of a street cleaner, who works for a company that clears up dead bodies found in public. As part of his work he collects the corpse of a dead gardener, killed in a shooting accident and takes it home for his girlfriend. They are both necrophiliacs, and engage in all kinds of depraved acts with the human remains that litter the house. Eventually his girlfriend leaves him, to start a romantic relationship with the corpse. Despondent the man, tries to get over his loss by seeking out a prostitute, who he murders in a cemetery and has sex with the corpse. Discovered laying with the corpse by an old man, he cuts the man's head off with a shovel.

NEKRomantik is a nasty film. The subject matter is disturbing and it is presented in the most disgusting way possible. And that's the point. This is a horror film with arthouse pretensions. Buttgereit is purposely pushing the boundaries of shock film-making. There are more disturbing films, more gory films, more disgusting films. But there aren't many films that have been made that are genuinely something you can simply describe as being "nasty".

Way back in September 2014, there was the Mix-Tape Monday post about the odd little genre of Splatter Platters (or death discs), the quirky and morbid teen tragedy genre of music from the 1950s and 60s. Songs that told stories of lost love, usually through a motor vehicle accident. The genre was at its height during the 50s and early 60s, and faded in popularity soon after. Songs like Jan & Dean's Dead Man's Curve in 1964, and the Shangri-Las Leader Of The Pack also from 1964, were the peak of the genre, that all but disappeared, until artists of the 70s and 80s rediscovered the genre, and began to be inspired by them.

From The Damned's New Rose (1977), with its opening line that is directly lifted from Leader Of The Pack, and Good Riddance's 2003 punk cover of it, to The Bonzo Doo-Dah Band's comedy song Death Cab For Cutie (1967), to the deeply dark and depressing Emma (1983) by The Sisters Of Mercy (itself a cover of the Hot Chocolate song from 1974). There's the wonderful Pearl Jam cover of Last Kiss (2000), originally recorded by Wayne Cochran in 1961. As well as lead singer of The Damned, David Vanian with his band The Phantom Chords covering the British splatter platter Johnny Remember Me, first recorded by Johnny Leyton also in 1961. So download and enjoy.

How better to listen to the Monster Mash by Bobby “Boris” Pickett and the Crypt-Kickers (1962), than with this awesome "monster" speaker, based on Universal's Frankenstein's Monster. A 8" high plastic disembodied cranium of the monster, with a speaker built into the top of his flat head. A perfect piece of ghoulish fun to get any party kicking, originally priced at $5.98, these highly collectible kitsch items of horror memorabilia are selling for high prices on eBay.

Prefect for listening to some campy horror rock, like Screamin Jay Hawkins or Screaming Lord Sutch, however hearing The Beatles singing She Loves You or Please Please Me might have been an odd experience.