Movieline Online

When it comes to the serial killer genre, there’s not much left to say (or show) that will shock an audience. We’ve seen elegant cannibals, ingenious tricksters and mindless hulks who strip your skin and wear it like a cheap suit. Been there, done that. So to squeeze something new out of the conventions, you have to tell the story in a different way. Which is exactly what A Horrible Way To Die does. Shy, skittish and borderline paranoid, Sarah (Amy Seimetz) is struggling through her AA meetings and trying to rebuild her life. From what? We’re not sure yet. But as the film cuts to the escape of famous serial killer Garrick Turrell - whose Facebook friend count is disgustingly high - we begin to get the idea that there’s a history between the two. And that history is going to repeat itself. Shot in the casual docu-style of an Office episode, we follow Sarah on dates with her new boyfriend as she begins to open up again. Meanwhile Garrick is coping with his own sick and tw...

Most movies try their best to disguise they era in which they were created. But Brian DePalma’s Scarface embraces the decadence and self-destruction of the 80’s as the backdrop for a re-imagining of the gangster classic with Al Pacino as the dangerously ambitious Cuban immigrant Tony Montana. At the time of its release, Pacino’s over-the-top performance was about the only thing that attracted positive reviews. Oliver Stone’s brutal, profanity laced script hit the screen after fighting its way past an X-rating, only to do moderate business at the box office. But from these humble beginnings a cult film was born. Embraced by the modern gangster culture, almost every rapper’s crib has a shrine dedicated to Tony Montana and his extravagant lifestyle (apparently they missed the none-too-subtle roadsigns of a quick, violent death). DePalma (The Untouchables, Mission: Impossible) reigns in his trademark visuals, but makes the most of the violent set-pieces he has to work with. Tony’s final bl...

Before she became a Blaxploitation queen, and long before Quentin Tarantino tried to resurrect her career in Jackie Brown , Pam Grier was sent to prison by none other than Roger Corman. Always on the lookout to save a buck, Roger produced three “Women In Prison” films in quick succession in 1971 in the Philippines: The Big Doll House, The Big Bird Cage and Women in Cages . Essentially the same movie with actors swapping parts, Pam Grier was the obvious standout in each production. So much so that she was elevated to top-name status in films like Coffy and Foxy Brown not two years later. Not so much for her acting ability, but her charisma . This is a woman who knows how to shoot a machine gun! The man behind these low-rent but highly entertaining exploitation adventures, director Jack Hill ( Doll House & Bird House ) covers all the obligatories: 1) Naked women in the shower. 2) Women wrestling in mud. 3) Women being tortured. But despite that litany of lurid, misog...

Buddy cops share a special bond: whether it’s reminiscing over that last car chase or seeing how pissed off the Captain is after your last report, it’s a cinematic relationship with roots deeper than most cinematic marriages . So the homo-erotic undertones in Live Like A Cop, Die Like A Man are mostly likely unintentional. After all, these guys are locked, loaded and taking names on the mean streets of Rome. And when they’re not hunting down the bad guys as part of their super-secret undercover police squad, they’re interrogating female witnesses with the sort of macho vigor that only exists in “pizza guy” porn movies. So who cares if they sleep in the same apartment and ride the same motorcycle to work? Directed by gore specialist Ruggero Deodato (from a script by Italian crime specialist Fernando Di Leo), with a title like Live Like A Cop, Die Like A Man you’ve got a lot of testosterone to live up to. And the film surprisingly meets expectations, constructing a fast-paced F...