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In the early days of Universal, the studio made a killing combining their catalog of monsters: Dracula, the Wolf Man, Frankenstein’s Monster. They were all tossed in the ring like a cinematic cage match, satisfactorily vanquished and then resurrected again for another round. By 1983, most of the classic movie monsters had faded away. But the men who played them were still available. Which explains the all-star cast of House of the Long Shadows , director Pete Walker’s final film, which gathers Vincent Price, Peter Cushing, Christopher Lee and John Carradine for an old-fashioned thriller set in a comfortably spooky old house where everyone has gathered for a family reunion. Only the guest list includes one family member who is out for bloody revenge! After betting his publisher he can knock out a book in 24 hours, writer Kenneth Magee (Desi Arnaz Jr.) sets up shop in an isolated country estate. But his plans are interrupted by a series of unexpected guests - the elderly members...

What George Romero did with zombies in Dawn of the Dead , director Marco Ferreri does with food in La Grande Bouff e (1973), a seriously satirical indictment of our culture of excess represented by four men at the top of their profession who make a suicide pact of the most unusual sort: death by overindulgence! Played by a quartet of Europe’s most well known actors at the time (Marcello Mastroianni, Michel Piccoli, Philippe Noiret, and Ugo Tognazzi), the characters gather in a decaying mansion to eat, drink and screw themselves to death. Their funereal celebration expands to include a trio of prostitutes and one chubby schoolteacher, Andrea, who accepts their invitation to dinner. As the days and nights pass, the constant parade of meats, soufflés and sex begins to take a toll on their physical and mental states. And, surprisingly enough, it’s the innocent Andrea who cheers them on towards their despairingly gluttonous demise. Ferreri’s film, which caused a stir at its Cannes pr...

For next generation cinephiles, Samuel Fuller is somewhat of an unknown, despite being the subject of study and praise by the Spielberg and Scorsese set. Likely because his films, while always profitable, were too disconcerting at the time of release to garner the sort of beloved popular attention that ensures multiple re-releases and TV air play. It wasn’t until the auteur theory broke big that Fuller’s films started to separate themselves from the pack. And House of Bamboo (1955) might be the best example of what the director was capable of accomplishing within the studio system, a reengineered remake of 1948’s The Street with No Name transposed to a post-war Japan still reeling from an influx of American GIs and a simmering culture clash. Charged with infiltrating a gang of ex-enlisted men who’ve staged a series of daring robberies in Tokyo, an army investigator (Robert Stack) takes on the false identity of one Eddie Spanier to earn the trust of the gang’s mastermind, Sandy (Ro...

No one stays on top forever. And the rise and fall of Hammer Films, one of England’s most prominent and profitable film production companies, has been well documented. There was plenty of blame to pass around for their eventual demise, but the most common excuse is the studio’s slow-moving Gothic horrors couldn’t compete with the modern excesses of films like The Exorcist . Great Britain was just too damn polite to wallow in pea soup! Jimmy Sangster should get as much credit as anyone for Hammer’s early success, with winning screenplay adaptations for all the early classics like Horror of Dracula and The Curse of Frankenstein as well as a slew of Psycho rip-offs. But even he wasn’t immune to getting stuck in a rut, if, by example, one is to use his script for 1978’s The Legacy , an outdated drawing room horror flick that seems to have been filmed 20 years too late. Pete and Margaret (played by real-life couple Sam Elliott and Katharine Ross) are lured to jolly old England for ...

The devil got blamed for everything in the ‘70s: impregnating newlyweds ( Rosemary’s Baby ), spinning heads ( The Exorcist ), baby swapping ( The Omen ), even chasing campers around Texas in a beat-up RV ( Ride with the Devil ). So creating a new scenario was almost as simple as shuffling a deck of cards and rearranging the plot points. At least, The Sentinel (1977) certainly feels like a film inspired by the satanic cinema trends that came before it, although the book by Jeffrey Konvitz was written several years earlier. (Spoilers ahead…browse carefully) Here our vulnerable fashion model protagonist, Alison (Cristina Raines), rents a brownstone apartment to prove her independence from longtime lawyer boyfriend, Michael (Chris Sarandon). Her neighbors are a motley crue of misfits, eccentrics and perverts, only too eager to get chummy with the new resident. But when Alison complains to the real estate agent (Ava Gardner), she’s told the entire building is completely empty …exc...

Criticized for its style over substance approach upon release, what most critics failed to predict about Tony Scott’s, The Hunger (1983), at the time was that it would worm its way like a virus into the very core of Hollywood filmmaking. Not only that, but truth be told, his music video aesthetic was a perfect match for the story of club-hopping, debutante vampires existing at the tippy-top of New York society. It may not be as well rounded or artistic as it pretends to be, but compared to other mainstream films from the era, The Hunger looks positively cutting edge. Opening with an exhilaratingly edited seduction sequence intercut with a performance of Bela Lugosi is Dead from the Goth-group Bauhaus , Miriam and John Blaylock (Catherine Deneuve and David Bowie) feed on their latest victims after luring them to their palatial apartment. But the fresh blood does nothing to rejuvenate John, who, at 200 years old, is finally beginning to show his age. Like the rest of Miriam’s longt...

I’m sure nearly every review of Police Story: Lockdown (2013) will comment on the advancing age of Jackie Chan, who, along with the other old school ‘80s action heroes, seem to be treating fans to one last gasp of authentic, smash mouth cinema before going quietly into the night. While Stallone and Schwarzenegger try to squeeze into their now ill-fitting iconic roles, Jackie rolls with the punches, delivering just enough of his familiar (but still amazing ) stunt work balanced in moderation with a more serious, subdued performance. In short, the guy still has the moves…just not as much endurance. Almost all the Police Story films, starting with the original in 1985, are stand-alone stories, bouncing from serious drama to comedic spy-kitsch. But Lockdown is perhaps the darkest of the bunch, with a Rasho mon -style flashback structure used to add some depth what would otherwise be a fairly derivative Die Hard rip-off (we haven’t seen one of those in a while!) with Jackie cast as...

Although he hasn’t made a film since 2003’s Basic and spent a year behind bars on a perjury conviction, director John McTiernan can still brag about stringing together one of the hottest hat tricks in Hollywood history: Predator, Die Hard and The Hunt for Red October . Produced back to back, it’s an astonishing cinematic accomplishment that essentially set the tone for modern action movies. But just one year before he was sweating it out in the jungle with Arnold, McTiernan was writing and directing a small supernatural thriller – Nomads (1986) – with Pierce Brosnan as a French anthropologist who discovers that the punk rockers stalking around his neighborhood are much more (and less ) than they appear to be. A recent AFI graduate, McTiernan’s debut is a showy mess of flashbacks and flash-forwards, purposefully pretentious in a film school sort of way. But for all its flaws, Nomads is a uniquely engrossing experience, making great use of Bill Conti’s keyboard and guitar music s...

Even if most fans won’t admit it, it’s getting harder and harder to defend some of the broadcast TV creature features many of us grew up with. Re-watching 1950s “monster on the loose” flicks with fresh eyes (and a discriminating child or two) one begins to notice the plodding pace, rampant sexism and (gasp!) half-baked special effects. We still collect them, treasure them, study them and display them. But do we really enjoy them? In the case of The Monster that Challenged the Word (1957): absolutely! Closely mirroring the plot of Them! (the 1954 classic about atom-age ants that tunnel their way towards Los Angeles), this time around it’s radioactive snails that emerge beneath the Salton Sea and slither their way into the irrigation canal system. The usual military bigwigs and put-upon scientists must come up with a plan to eradicate the oversized threat before the sea slugs reach civilization and spread their eggs across the globe! The Monster That Challenged the World d...

Sally Field makes a habit of playing underestimated characters. From Norma Rae to Steel Magnolias , even her part as the runaway bride in Smokey and the Bandit rose above a typical love-interest to become a full-on partner in crime. But no role gave her more to work with than Edna Spalding from Places in the Heart , writer/director Robert Benton’s autobiographical story of a central Texas family destroyed by tragedy and rebuilt by sheer force of will. Set during the Depression, the film introduces Edna as a woman who defers most responsibilities to her husband, the local sheriff. But his accidental death at the hands of a young black boy puts her in the precarious position of disciplining the kids, repairing the home and - most importantly - paying the bills all on her own. With the large sum due at the bank in a few short months, Edna takes a chance on partnering with Moze (Danny Glover), a wandering thief who claims they can grow cotton quick enough to pay back the loan. The...

The World of Henry Orient (1964) is an embarrassingly enjoyable coming-of-age story set against the backdrop of a charmingly naïve New York City. Manhattan serves as the world’s biggest playground for a pair of 14 year old girls, Marian and Valarie, who pursue (or in the more criminal vernacular: stalk ) a layabout, lothario of a pianist - the titular Henry Orient - as part of their imaginary adventures. Dated in some ways, timeless in others, director George Roy Hill’s film biggest accomplishment is capturing the quirky appeal of its two main characters in loving detail. Only a year or two away from discovering the truth about true love , Marian and Valarie (played so unpretentiously by unknowns Merrie Spaeth and Tippy Walker) are still entertained by fantasies and friendship, despite the emotional turmoil of their respective broken families. Marian has no father, but a loving home. While Valarie is caught in the midst of her parents’ failing marriage, brought on by her mother’s...