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In the ‘80s movies were bit like top-40 radio, you got a little of everything. Oscar bait such as Gandhi and Out of Africa existed in a comfortable box-office balance with escapist summer fare like Return of the Jedi …much the same way Casey Kasem could play Lionel Richie and Men At Work back to back without missing a beat. But even in this glorious melting pot of an environment, a film like Under Fire was probably out of touch with what audience’s were willing to pay for. With CNN broadcasting about the chaos and corruption in Central America 24 hours a day, the story of a trio of journalists caught up in those same explosions and petty politics probably felt more like “bad news” than a good time at the movies. In the film’s defense, Under Fire does a fine job of making the situation understandable and personal . Nick Nolte, whose disheveled-look was working in his favor here, plays Russell Price, a hardcore news photographer who specializes in getting the shots no one else ...

Satan worshippers have been a literary and cinematic standby for ages. But in the real world could all those demonic conspiracies really operate undiscovered? Think about it; if the finale of Breaking Bad can’t be kept on the down low for 24 hours, what chance does Lucifer have of quietly conquering the world?! Which just goes to show that one’s suspension of disbelief is severely put to the test in The Believers (1987), starring Martin Sheen as a police therapist whose family is targeted by a rogue cult with connections reaching into some of the highest levels of corporate America. Mark Frost’s script – based on a novel by Nicholas Conde – makes no bones about his condemnation of the rich and powerful, characterizing the lot as ruthless elitists willing to exchange their first born for a golden ticket to the 1% club. It’s a timely criticism (then and now ) exaggerated to almost comic effect. But it’s also a predictable one that never colors outside the lines, despite having a...

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery then Jennifer (1978) is practically drooling over Brian De Palma’s Carrie . The details are tweaked just enough to avoid a lawsuit, but the story follows the same general trajectory: mousy outsider is teased relentlessly by a gang of mean girls at an elite prep school until a psychic powered rampage evens the score. Only this time, the telekinetic connection is between a girl and her snakes ! Despite the copycat plot, Jennifer works remarkably well until the big finale. Actress Lisa Pelikan has the same sort of timid appeal as Sissy Spacek (and even manages a Southern accent) while the cast of bullies, led by Amy Johnston, is wonderfully despicable. There’s a reason so many films rely on the tortures of high school social status: because no matter how ridiculous the hazing gets, it’s still sickeningly believable. There’s no pig’s blood here, but Jennifer suffers from plenty of nasty frame-ups, dead pets and even nude photos of her...

The late ‘80s was a great time to be a cinematic serial killer. Not only were you a menace to society when you were alive , but you were even more dangerous after you were dead ! Part of a natural progression of the slasher genre, Shocker and The Horror Show both introduced villains who returned from the grave with supernatural powers to continue their bloody business. Peter Jackson’s The Frighteners (1996) eventually took the whole thing to a big-budget extreme, but wedged somewhere in between is The First Power (1990), starring Lou Diamond Phillips as an L.A. cop who has to catch the bad guy again after his spirit returns for a post-mortem rampage. More action movie than straight-up horror, the film gets a ton of mileage out of actor Jeff Kober as Patrick Channing, the Pentagram Killer, who believes his status as one of the devil’s favorite disciples will grant him “the first power:” resurrection. And, what do you know, it does! Which leads to him body swapping all over t...

Not every antique is worth money. And not every black-and-white film is a classic. In fact, early Hollywood pumped out scads of films that weren’t worth the celluloid they were printed on. Which is why it’s such a pleasant surprise to discover an uncut gem like 1932’s The Death Kiss amongst all that costume jewelry. Carrying over much of the cast from the previous year’s Dracula - including Bela Lugosi in a small but important role as an executive at a movie studio whose big star is gunned down on the set of his latest picture - The Death Kiss is a fun little murder mystery set against the backdrop of the burgeoning Hollywood system. David Manners plays the smart-mouth screenwriter who stays one step ahead of the police in an attempt to keep his leading lady (Adrienne Ames) out of trouble while Lugosi leads a parade of possible suspects that includes the head gaffer, penny-pinching producer, and the director himself (Edward Van Sloan, aka Abraham Van Helsing). The Death Kiss ...

While one might think that professional film critics (of which there are but a handful remaining who earn a full-time paycheck) take an unofficial oath to be impartial, objective observers of the cinematic arts, nothing could be further from the truth. The late Roger Ebert, arguably the most transparent and relatable critic of his time, fawned over some of the most frowned upon genre fare out there…and even wrote some pop trash of his own ( Beyond the Valley of the Dolls ). People who watch movies for a living sometimes fall in love with them just like you do…and often have an equally hard time justifying why. With a film like My Darling Clementine (1946), justifying one’s admiration is easy. Not a decade has gone by that John Ford’s sentimental retelling of the gunfight at the OK Corral hasn’t landed in the top five Westerns of all time…usually fighting for space with the director’s other masterpiece, The Searchers . And while Clementine saddles up same western clichés, it doe...

Unless you’re a 6 year-old girl, there’s nothing particularly terrifying about worms. So as a late entry in the Nature Strikes Back genre that kicked off in the post- Birds era - including Food of the Gods and the giant mutant bunnies from Night of the Lepus – writer / director Jeff Lieberman really has his work cut out for him with Squirm (1976). Working with a cast of New York unknowns and non-actors hired on location in Georgia, the films’ real star is a swarm of flesh-eating earthworms brought up to the surface by downed electrical wires. In the extras on Scream Factory’s new collector’s edition Blu-ray, Lieberman claims he had a tongue-in-cheek approach in mind from the very beginning. But most of the humor is of the unintentional variety, the sort that winds up featured on MST3K (in fact, Squirm was roasted by the ‘bots in episode 12 of Season Ten), headlined by some atrocious acting from the local yokels who wind up as part of the slimy buffet line. Mick (Don Scardin...

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) paired two of America’s most handsome and profitable stars and became the template for buddy-action-comedies everywhere. Meanwhile, the Italian film industry, always quick to cash in on a trend, released Companeros (1970) the very next year, teaming up their hottest homegrown western stars - Franco Nero and Tomas Milian – for a similarly playful adventure set amidst the chaos of the Mexican Revolution. Actually, Companeros lifts a lot of material from a lot of different movies, especially the political-minded Spaghetti Westerns of Damiano Damiani like A Bullet for the General . Heck, it even recreates the slow-motion machine gun finale from The Wild Bunch not once but twice ! But even though it’s built from a lot of spare parts, director Sergio Corbucci’s film seems to have only stolen from the best. Which makes for a familiar but always entertaining collection of greatest hits. Drifting into the middle of a war zone between a capita...