Movieline Online

Once a film sinks into the quicksand of Public Domain, meaning the original copyright owner’s rights have expired, you can pretty much forget about ever seeing a decent copy of it again. Walmart bargain bins are chock full of 20, 30 even 100 movie collections containing pitiful transfers of poor neglected films that are essentially sold into cinematic slavery. Most companies would never bother to remaster and re-release a movie that has already flooded the market with shoddy copies. But Kino Classics does just that with 1940’s The Devil Bat , a PRC title commonly referred to as “poverty row” horror flick starring Bela Lugosi in a mad scientist revenge story. Lugosi, still quite marketable at this point in his career, plays a bitter cosmetics inventor who sold off his interest in the company and never reaped the financial rewards his partners enjoyed. His revenge comes in the form of an oversized bat trained to kill anyone wearing a special aftershave lotion. After the bizarre m...

History has lumped in 1976’s The Eagle Has Landed with a more straightforward war movies like A Bridge Too Far and Midway ; ambitious but rather boring all-star productions that were old-fashioned even when they were made. But in actuality it’s far closer to the alternative-history scenario of Tarantino’s Inglorious Bastards . Hitler doesn’t die in a movie theater, but Winston Churchill does come close to eating a bullet on a veranda. With a ridiculously well-known cast (Michael Caine, Donald Sutherland, Robert Duvall, Donald Pleasance, even Larry Hagman) and just as much talent behind the camera with director John Sturges ( The Great Escape ) and screenwriter Tom Mankiewicz ( Live and Let Die ), there’s almost not enough room on the poster to fit them all in. Based on a novel by Jack Higgins, the challenge of bouncing between so many major and minor characters – not to mention their phony accents – seems too much for the film to handle initially. But as the plot develops, Th...

As decades go, the 1970s was the devil’s playground. At least…on movie screens. Beginning with Rosemary’s Baby in 1968 and continuing with The Exorcist, The Omen and dozens of pea-soup spewing imitators, ‘Ol Scratch was a busy guy right up through the Reagan era, which kicked off with his appearance in The Amityville Horror (1979) and its two sequels, Amityville 2: The Possession (1982) and Amityville 3D (1983). The latter two now premiere on blu-ray for the first time, along with the original, as part of Scream Factory’s The Amityville Horror Trilogy box set. There aren’t many defenders left to stand up for the James Brolin / Margot Kidder adaptation that caused such fuss at the time of its release. Much of the attention the film garnered was due to the “true story” angle posited by Jay Anson’s book which detailed the events that befell the Lutz family after purchasing their dream home…which just happened to be built directly on an Indian burial ground. After suffering throu...

The idea of making a sequel to Psycho would seem misguided, at best. Not to mention potentially embarrassing for all involved. But as Hollywood has proven, there’s no property that’s “untouchable”…even one with the great Alfred Hitchcock’s name attached. With the success of the slasher genre in full swing, particularly Halloween, Universal went ahead with Psycho 2 (1983) a continuation of the story of Norman Bates, now released from psychiatric care and returning home after 22 years. But is he truly “cured” or is the memory of his mother only waiting at the top of the stairs? Directed by Richard Franklin, a Hitchcock devotee and pupil, there’s an obvious – and much appreciated - intent to keep things classy. The script by Tom Holland (Fright Night, Child’s Play) is respectful and sympathetic to Norman (played again by Anthony Perkins), now almost a victim himself and persecuted by Lila Loomis for the death of her sister. Norman’s short-lived job at the local diner introduces h...

Set just a few months later, Psycho 3 (1986) picks up with Norman now a full-tilt loony once again. His fascination with a Marion Crane look-alike (Diana Scarwid) prompts an ill-fated romance that Mother disapproves of…and we all know what happens with women Mother doesn’t like. This time around, Perkin’s himself gets in the director’s chair and does a surprisingly good job. The kill sequences are a bit more modern and not afraid to show some gore. If anything works against him, it’s Perkins’ tendency to include references to the original film. That sort of wink-wink nudge-nudge stuff is exactly what you would have expected out of the first sequel and isn’t really necessary. The script by Charles Edward Pogue (who would reboot The Fly just a year later) works in enough humor and interesting characters all on its own, including a scene-stealing Jeff Fahey as a rock n’ roll drifter. Perkins seems to be aiming for the cheap seats in an attempt to boost Norman’s stature amongst new...

For cinephiles, the first question one asks upon watching The Disappearance (1977) is “why haven’t I seen this…or even heard of it!” Starring Donald Sutherland, David Warner, John Hurt, David Hemmings and Christopher Plummer, the cast alone only deepens the mystery behind the film’s unceremonious shelving by an uninterested distributor which drastically recut and rescored director Stuart Cooper’s existential hitman drama…then let it languish for nearly 35 years. Labeled as too “European” for a mainstream audience, The Disappearance has made a miraculous hi-def reappearance thanks to indie label Twilight Time, whose 3000 copy limited edition premieres a startlingly beautiful 91 minute cut and the full 101 minute director’s cut on standard def. Donald Sutherland made some excellent choices in the ‘70s. Following his famous roles in M.A.S.H. and Klute , the actor chose a number of eccentric projects including Nicolas Roeg’s haunting Don’t Look Now and the best adaptation of Jack Fi...