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On paper, Jess Franco is one of the most prolific directors who ever picked up a camera. He's shot over a hundred films under various pseudonyms, worked around the world, collaborated with Orson Welles and even picked up a Goya Award, Spain's highest artistic honor, in 2009. But it's the kind of films Franco made that has relegated him to the sidelines when it comes to critical recognition. After all, 50% of his work is made up of soft-focus shots of women's genitalia (the other half is unforced zoom-ins of the the same...I kid!). To most serious cineastes, he's a hack. But to a select few, those with the courage to sift through the dreck and go with the flow of counter-culture headtrips like Venus in Furs , Franco catalog offers a world of obscenely forbidden pleasures. What makes Dorado Films latest release - a double feature presentation of The Silence of the Tomb (1972) and The Sinister Eyes of Dr. Orloff (1973) - so interesting is they catch the di...

If there's anything the modern blockbuster has proven it's that spectacle translates well into any language. Even early all-star disaster epics like The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno inspired international copycats seeking to make a quick buck using the trendy Hollywood formula. 1975's The Bullet Train was Japan's go-for-broke attempt with a bomb planted aboard the super-sleek mass transit vehicle set to go off if its speed drops below 80-kilometers per hour. Yep, it's Speed on a train...20 years before Speed was even a thing! At 152 minutes, the film certainly drags some extra weight. But it uses the time wisely to expand upon the motivations of the bombers themselves, led by Tetsuo Okita (Ken Takakura) a former small business owner whose failed business and marriage puts him in a destructive funk. His partners hop aboard out of loyalty, politics and profits, planning to punish the government than put them in such a tough spot; but wit...

It's only as we get older that we start to appreciate time spent with family members during their "golden years." Suddenly, all the annoying habits and petty arguments are so much water under the bridge and just spending a couple extra hours together becomes deeply satisfying experience. The same can be said of Phantasm: Ravager , the final entry in a franchise many horror fans grew up with, which concludes with a surprisingly heartfelt meditation on family, friendship and memory wrapped inside a corny direct-to-video shell. One could be forgiven for not keeping tabs on Reggie, Mike and Jody in their fight against the Tall Man (played by the late Angus Scrimm), a dimension-hopping slumlord who steals the bodies of the recently deceased and ships them to another world to provide slave labor. After the homespun success of the first film, subsequent sequels attempted to broaden the scope and fluff the franchise into something more than just a coming-of-age fever dream. ...

Clive Barker was once hailed as “the future of horror” by none other than Stephen King...and coincidently, both authors tried their hand at feature film directing. While Maximum Overdrive is tucked away in some dark corner of Netflix, Clive Barker’s Hellraiser still impresses as a uniquely twisted form of gothic horror story, dabbling in spiritualism, S & M and necrophilia. Of course, his signature demonic creation, Pinhead, has been pimped out for countless sequels, diluting the power of the original with each direct-to-video installment. But Arrow Video's limited edition Scarlet Box, which collects the first three films in the franchise, should resurrect some interest in Barker's directorial debut and the flawed by fascinating sequels that followed. Looking back at the first film – sporting a new 2K restoration – it’s easy to find fault; from the amateur acting of newcomer Ashley Laurence to Barker’s own neophyte directorial decisions (the hobo turns into a skeleton drag...

As a movie Phantasm is almost impossibly hard to describe. More of a coming of age tale with close ties to sci-fi stories like Invaders from Mars and Dune , believe it or not, that didn’t stop it from entering the pantheon of must-see ‘70s horror films right alongside Halloween , The Hills Have Eyes and other drive-in ready shockers. Yet unlike his fellow filmmakers, Phantasm ’s director Don Coscarelli never turned that success into much of a career (unless you count endless repeats of The Beastmaster on TNT). And watching the latest 4K incarnation, Phantasm Remastered , a subtly touched up version shepherded by J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot team, it's easy to see why. Phantasm is a home movie at heart; its flaws obvious but endearing. The cast of amateur actors look and dress like authentic hippies working for free beer and a bag of weed. Not to mention the script, which skips scenes and adds characters with the kind of free-form surrealism borne from budget constraints an...

While Roger Corman gets most of the credit for popularizing the "Women In Prison" genre, producers as far back as the 1930s knew they had a moneymaker on their hands. But it was the end of the Production Code that allowed filmmakers to push these seedy stories to their full potential, overtly wallowing in the sexual tension and brutal torture that previous productions only hinted at. Director Jess Franco pursued this angle in several films throughout his extravagantly creepy career, beginning with 99 Women , which is actually the most polished and professional production of the bunch. Working with frequent collaborator Harry Alan Towers, the pair concoct a relatively classy story about a fortress-like mountain penitentiary lorded over by the diminutive Thelma Diaz (Mercedes McCambridge) with frequent visits from the equally corrupt Governor Santos (Herbert Lom) who runs the men's prison on the other side of the island. The script picks up with the addition of a trio o...

Film doesn't lend itself to the rock 'n roll aesthetic very easily. It's too controlled, too collaborative, and too artificial to have the same kick as Ramones song. But there are a few directors who seem tuned into that musical language and have a rare ability to translate it to film: Martin Scorsese, whose slow motion entrance of Robert DeNiro in Mean Streets set to Jumpin' Jack Flash is a revelatory moment in cinema, is one. Abel Ferrara, whose eclectic career is full of highs, lows and plenty of cinematic filler is another. Ferrara, who only chose film after failing make it as a musician, really made a mark with his second feature, The Driller Killer (1979), which earned a spot on Britain's list of Video Nasties and was banned until 2002. Of course, any attention is good attention when you're a struggling filmmaker and the controversy gave Ferrara enough traction to move on to more polished pictures like Ms. 45 , Bad Lieutenant , and King of ...

Certain movies make a collection complete. We're not talking romantic comedies or dime-a-dozen superhero flicks, although they have their place. There is always a specific case one pulls off the shelf when it's time to impress another jaded collector; and Lone Wolf and Cub is it. Originally released in the U.S as Shogun Assassin , a cut-down version of the first two films in the series, all six original Lone Wolf films are now available from the Criterion Collection in one magnificent box set. Based on Kazuo Koike's Japanese manga series first published in 1970, the films retain the same premise and hyper-realistic visual style accomplished the geysers of blood and flying body parts. Yet somehow none of them ever become a parody of the samurai genre, riding on the stoic shoulders of star Tomisaburo Wakayama as Itto Ogami, a former Shogunate Executioner framed as a traitor who sets out on the "Demon Path to Hell" along with his equally stoic toddler as a ...

A near perfect highlight reel of Stephen King's storytelling skills and George Romero's homegrown horror approach, Creepshow was definitely a hard act to follow. Perhaps that why both men pulled back a bit from the sequel produced five years later, Creepshow 2 (1987), with Romero adapting three lesser King tales and passing off directing duties to his longtime cinematographer, Michael Gornick. The film can't help but suffer by comparison, so it's best to stack it up against Romero's other horror anthology series, Tales from the Darkside , which beat HBO's Tales from the Crypt to the punch by a good seven years, mining the same E.C. Comics aesthetic of ghastly goings-on with a darkly humorous moral lesson. With fewer stories and a cast of virtual unknowns, Creepshow 2 feels much more like a small screen production; and from that perspective, it's a fairly successful one. Old Chief Wood'nhead is a golem-type revenge story with a cigar-sto...

An ambitious Canadian "tax-shelter" production from 1973, The Neptune Factor keeps its underwater adventure story relatively classy with a cast that includes the always convincing Ernest Borgnine, the ethereally beautiful Yvette Mimieux and a hunky young Ben Gazzara. Set aboard an experimental submarine on a rescue mission to save the survivors aboard a deep-sea habitat in distress, the crew descends to unexplored depths only to find....a salt-water aquarium? Divers "Mack" MacKay (Borgnine) and Adrian Blake (Gazzara) are headed topside when a quake sends their advanced underwater lab - and three crew members - tumbling into a bottomless abyss. Desperate for help, their prayers are answered when the Neptune arrives on a test run and its skipper agrees to scout for the wreck before life support runs out. But a deep-water current pulls them into a cavern filled with monstrous fish, pushing the sub to the limit and threatening their very survival. No matter how sc...

A big-screen spin-off of the little-known BBC TV series, Doomwatch (1972) ditches most of the original cast and proceeds with a new environmental thriller involving the residents of a Scottish Isle undergoing a strange transformation. An unexpected combination of Nigel Kneale ( Quatermass ) conspiracies with an anti-pollution agenda, the film is an odd duck to be sure, but one that curious genre fans will likely enjoy for that very reason. The titular Doomwatch organization is charged with investigating environmental threats to the realm, and it seems that Dr. Del Shaw (Ian Bannen) has sniffed one out on the island of Balfe. Visiting to check-up on the aftereffects of a recent oil spill, he finds the residents a cold and unwelcoming bunch, even the visiting schoolteacher (Judy Geeson) who refuses to risk losing their trust by helping Shaw investigate their odd behavior. But a pair of dead bodies and two or three death threats later, the pair team up to prove there's something d...

A follow-up to the surprise success of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? - which paired two of Hollywood's most powerful leading ladies, Bette Davis and Joan Crawford - Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964) began filming with the same duo in front of the camera and the same director behind it. But with Davis elevated to an uncredited associate producer status, the actress gleefully took revenge on Crawford, who eventually left the picture for (supposed) health reasons. Olivia de Havillland stepped into the vacated role, providing a more stable working relationship for this "spiritual sequel" which swings from a grand 'ol Gothic horror story to a gory true-crime expose. Opening with a shocking prologue in which John Mayhew (Bruce Dern) has his head and hand chopped off by an unseen murderer, the guilty party is believed to be Charlotte Hollis (Davis), whose extramarital affair with Mayhew was frowned upon by her father. But the charges fail to stick, and Charlotte...

Part of the Depression era fad inspired by the success of Bonnie and Clyde , Boxcar Bertha (1972) would have faded into obscurity long ago if not for the simple fact that it was directed by Martin Scorsese. Early works by legendary filmmakers, no matter how inconsequential, are rarely discarded; they're dissected for hints of greatness to come. But one would be hard-pressed to find much to brag about in this Roger Corman-produced road movie based on the pseudo-autobiographical account of the fictional character (I'm as lost as you are) Bertha Thompson, a sexually-liberated, revolutionary-minded woman of her time who falls in with a gang of ne'er do wells hoping to outfox the nation's economic disaster. The plot meanders through a cast of colorful characters: Big Bill Shelly (David Carradine), a union man whose principals are put to the test when it comes to making a living. Rake Brown (Barry Primus), a card shark with a distaste for violence. And Von Morton (B...

As Cannon Films' bid for mainstream success and critical appeal, Runaway Train (1985) was a rousing success, earning three Oscar nominations and a healthy amount of cash at the box office. Based on a shelved screenplay from Akira Kurosawa and helmed by Russian director Andrei Konchalovsky, the film was a far cry from typical Cannon release ( Death Wish 3 and Invasion U.S.A. were their other big films on the docket that year) and proved the producers Golan - Globus could keep things classy if the mood struck them, a lesson co- producer Harvey Weinstein would take to the bank. But the film couldn't completely shake the Cannon exploitation aesthetic, resulting in a schizophrenic bit of inspired and insipid filmmaking that, like most of the studio's output, remains compellingly watchable. Legendary prisoner "Manny" Manheim (Jon Voight) stages yet another escape from a maximum security Alaskan prison with help from a motor-mouthed fellow inmate, Buck (Eric Robe...

One of the most common techniques used in horror is the "exploding frog" effect. Just like juvenile delinquents stuffing a frog full of firecrackers and admiring the show, much of the genre is built around that kind of shock and awe approach. And director David Cronenberg is no exception. In fact, the famous "head-popping" scene from Scanners might be the most celebrated splatter effect in history. But what differentiates Cronenberg is his clinical fascination with the result, a meticulous cataloging of each bit of gore as if the audience is witness to an important scientific experiment rather than a low-budget piece of exploitation filmmaking. And what's more amazing is that sort of clinical approach was there right from the very beginning. As a follow-up to his incredible feature-film debut, Shivers, Cronenberg didn't fall far from the venereal horror tree with Rabid (1977), this time casting porn star Marilyn Chambers as a Canadian "Typhoid...

Thanks to cable TV, C.H.U.D. (1984) quickly evolved from forgettable creature feature to a ubiquitous pop-culture acronym. One could very well pick your friends based on whether or not they could translate the full title into Cannibalistic Underground Humanoid Dwellers . The British thriller Raw Meat (1972) got to the idea of sewer dwellers first (and better), but C.H.U.D. 's dumbed-down, direct to video approach - and surprisingly strong cast - was a perfect fit for the latex creature creation craze of the '80s. It's still a mediocre movie, but there are plenty worse pop culture touchstones to kill time with on a Saturday night. Captain Bosch (Christopher Curry) is facing a string of disappearances in his precinct, including his own wife who vanished while walking the dog on a city street. Defying pressure from up top to keep things quiet, Bosch teams up "Reverend" Shepherd (Daniel Stern), who runs a local soup kitchen, to try and get some answers. Meanw...

By cinematic standards The Chase (1966) is a bit of a bait and switch. The title, the cast and the behind-the-scene pedigree all suggest a semi-escapist prison break story, a manhunt complete with murder, deceit, bullets and blood. But the film directed by Arthur Penn - who would provide all that and more for Bonnie and Clyde just a year later - flips those expectations quite strategically, making a hero out of its troubled convict Bubber Reeves (Robert Redford) and despicable villains out of the residents of the small Texas town that raised this unfortunate son. Bubber's breakout is the match that finally sets ablaze a bonfire of simmering resentments, lies and violence. Sheriff Calder (Marlon Brando) is ostensibly the man in charge, but he owes his position to Val Rogers (E.G. Marshall), a well-meaning but spineless oilman whose own son, Jake, would trade all their wealth and privilege for a life of poor contentment with his mistress, Anna Reeves (Jane Fonda)...who just hap...

When 9 to 5 was first released in 1980, women in the workplace, while not exactly a novelty, was still a fresh enough concept to provide plenty of satirical fodder for a generation just graduating from the struggles of woman's lib. The message was pretty simple: We're all driving down the same road, but men continue to zip by in the carpool lane. The film fed us revenge fantasies mixed with a feminist can-do attitude. And it all seemed quite amusing at the time...until you realize that 35 years later, almost nothing has changed. In that respect 9 to 5 is tragically prescient in a way that stings just as much as it tickles. Judy, Violet and Doralee (Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton respectively) all work under the thumb of incompetent middle manager Franklin Hart (Dabney Coleman) whose ineptitude is only matched by his overtly misogynistic attitude. Any way you cut it, the guy is an asshole. So much so, that when the girls kidnap him and take over the office fo...

Much like concerned citizens adopt a lonely stretch of highway to keep clean, horror fans are prone to adopt particular slasher films out of the goodness of their heart. The biggies like Halloween and Friday the 13th don't need much tending, but lesser-known, homegrown outings like The Mutilator and Happy Birthday to Me require a good amount of effort to appreciate; and perhaps that's what makes them all the more likable. 1984's The Initiation fits the bill perfectly, with a perpetual puppy-dog expression from star Daphne Zuniga, a supporting cast of likable Texas locals as cannon fodder and a soap opera twist that's just as enjoyable the 10th time you watch it as the 1st. As part of a pledge week prank, Kelly Fairchild (Zuniga in her first leading role) and some of her follow sorority members sneak into the local mall after hours. But the double-dare turns deadly when a killer begins to stalk them through the stores, picking them off with arrows, axes and a...

The modern zombie film may have been invented in America, but its real evolution took place in Italy. While the undead were still shambling around shopping malls in the states, Italian zombies were wielding machine guns ( Nightmare City ), battling sharks ( Zombie ) and laying siege to castles with battering rams in copycat quickies like Andrea Bianchi's Burial Ground (1980), a pasty-faced piece of exploitation filmmaking made all the more notorious by a tasteless bit of oedipal violence that still has the power to trigger your gag reflex! Vacationing at a family estate, a wealthy host and his guests are trapped inside after an archeological dig resurrects the angry remnants of the local peasant population. But locked doors and barred windows won't keep out this horde of vengeful corpses! Despite their rotting frames, these zombies use a wide array of tools, weaponry and good 'ol undead ingenuity to break in and extract their pound of raw flesh. Using Lucio Fulci...

Cannon Films didn't launch too many careers, but they certainly extended quite a few of them. The prolific producing team of Golan-Globus made the most out of their small budgets by featuring not-ready-for-prime-time players like Chuck Norris and past -their-prime action stars like Charles Bronson who likely would have been put out to pasture by the major studios. Even the behind-the-camera talent was full of wily veterans who knew who to crank out a movie with minimal fuss. That the final product was mediocre was really beside the point; Cannon always seemed to have an endless supply of B-movie ammunition ready to reload and try again. Murphy's Law (1986) is one of the more bland pictures to come out of the Cannon factory, starring Bronson as a recently divorced, perpetually drunk cop who gets framed for gunning down his ex-wife. While in a holding cell, he stages a breakout with a foul-mouthed, female prisoner in tow (literally...they're handcuffed together!), s...

To call Charles Bronson a "one-note actor" isn't necessarily an insult. After all, a talented musician can make beautiful music out of the simplest of instruments. And Bronson used his talents wisely, playing within his admittedly limited range of tough guys and flawed heroes, never failing to keep the audience on the edge of their seat. He was the sort of actor who could carry an entire picture with a few words and a thoughtful squint. And he was rarely asked to do anything more. But From Noon Till Three (1976) has Bronson singing am entirely different tune as Graham Dorsey, a wayward bank-robbing romantic who falls hard for lonely debutante Amanda Starbuck (Jill Ireland) living in on a desolate piece of prairie. During their short three-hour window of time before Graham's partners are due to arrive, the pair fall into an ecstatic affair that, ironically, begins with an attempted rape and culminates in a black-tie ballroom soiree. But Graham's partners ...

Produced just as the exploitation market was winding down, Manhattan Baby (1982) also finds director Lucio Fulci at the tail end of his collaboration with writer / producer combo, Dardano Sacchetti and Fabrizio De Angelis, the same team was responsible for a string of gore-heavy Fulci classics like The Beyond and House by the Cemetery . But here the pendulum swings towards ancient mysticism and optical effects, bypassing the usual blood and guts in favor of exotic curses and Egyptian tombs. It might be a bit of an adjustment for Fulci's more rabid fans, but the execution still bears all the marks of his indelible cinematic signature. Archeologist George Hacker (Christopher Connelly) and his family return from Egypt with a deadly curse in tow. George himself has been blinded by a sacred amulet - the very same one that has now taken possession of his daughter's soul - causing several deadly accidents to those who attempt to dispose of it. The victims are sent into paralle...

In Hollywood, as in life, timing is everything. Perhaps if the whimsically entertaining Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins , based on the more serious-minded series of Destroyer novels by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir, had been made today it would bear a much closer resemblance to the source material, with its "blue-collar Bond" mimicking the ruthless attitudes of modern action stars like Bourne, John Wick and 007 himself. But in 1985, Bond was still played mostly for laughs and a movie about a hired assassin, despite working for the good guys, had to play by the same rules. Recruited and re-named, against his wishes, by a secret organization that answers only to the President, former cop Remo Williams (Fred Ward) is trained in the ancient - and imaginary - art of Sinanju by his aged, but still exceedingly capable, tutor Chiun (Joel Grey) for the purpose of eliminating certain threats to national security. This time around, that threat is embodied by a greedy arms de...

1981's Eye of the Needle was the last notable starring role for Donald Sutherland, whose suspiciously angular features and heavy-lidded stare made him a perfect leading man for the morally questionable '70s. The actor was adept at playing both sides, luring in an audience with slovenly sincerity ( M.A.S.H. ) then chilling them with unexpected emotional aloofness ( The Disappearance ). It's a gift that has kept his career going far past the normal expiration date, and a perfect fit for the role of Heinrich "The Needle" Faber, a Nazi spy who jeopardizes his mission by falling for a lonely housewife on a stormy British isle. The movie begins with Faber on the run from British Intelligence who've finally got a positive ID and a witness to go with it. But Faber, whose weapon of choice is a switchblade stiletto, evades capture again, carrying along vital information about the impending Allied invasion. But his attempt to rendezvous with a German U-boat resu...

In an age when boutique labels are blessing some of the worst B-movies ever made with outrageous special editions, does anyone even bother with the bargain bins anymore? There was a time when public domain horror and sci-fi titles were overflowing from their wire-domain holding tanks, plastered with corny new cover art in an attempt to pass them off as current releases. Now fans know better. Even the most obscure title is likely to turn up on a better disc someday. It just depends on how long one is willing to wait! In the case of The Giant Gila Monster and The Killer Shrews , a classic drive-in double-feature shot back-to-back in 1959 just outside Dallas, Texas, there might be some light at the end of the tunnel in the form of Bayview Entertainment and Retromedia's new DVD release. Sporting the first widescreen 16 X 9 anamorphic transfers, it's certainly the best looking presentation to date for the pair that seemed condemned to public domain purgatory. But The films...

Horror-comedies were like the peanut butter-n-chocolate of the '80s: packaged for easy consumption, the two genres were a good match for a decade more interested generating laughs than genuine scares. An American Werewolf in London, Night of the Creeps , even the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre was sequelized (quite successfully) as a black comedy rather than a bleak slasher. Lost in the shuffle was Vamp (1986), produced under Roger Corman's New World banner, which took an almost impossibly puerile set-up - college kids, vampires and strippers - and whipped up something cutesy, colorful and unique. Prospective fraternity members AJ and Keith (Robert Rusler and Chris Makepeace) head into a sketchy part of downtown L.A. to hire a stripper for an upcoming soiree, catching a ride with wealthy dork (Gedde Watanabe) who hires their friendship for the week. They quickly identify the club's main attraction, Katrina (Grace Jones), as their first choice. But Katrina and th...

A Canadian-produced horror film shot in the small town of Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, The Pit (1981) is an outlier amongst the usual slasher and body-horror flicks Canucks were producing at the time. Combining mental illness, pubescent hormones, evil teddy bears and flesh-eating cavemen, the kitchen-sink approach often feels creatively cramped and unintentional campy. But there are some disturbing ideas underneath it all that discerning (or maybe forgiving ) horror fans might find by scratching the surface. 12-year-old Jamie Benjamin (Sammy Snyders) is a bit on the odd side. Shunned by his parents and unable to make friends, Jamie has an unhealthy obsession with the opposite sex, which makes him even more unappealing to the teachers at his new school. But babysitter Sandy O'Reilly (Jeannie Elias) is willing to give it a shot. Taking care of Jamie while his parents are away, she finds herself sympathizing with him and trying to temper his hormonal impulses. But unfortunately the ...

There's a fine line between misleading an audience for effect and tricking them out of spite. M. Knight Shyamalan lost most of his credibility for the latter, but he's not the only filmmaker desperate to pull a fast one on jaded genre fans who think they can second-guess every twist and turn. The Conjuring and Insidious franchises both make a habit out of playing a cinematic shell game involving demonic possession with surprisingly good results. But Hong-jin Na's The Wailing (2016) does them all one better, shuffling angels, demons, sinners and saints until the audience is just as supernaturally suspicious as the characters in the film. When the residents of a small South Korean village begin killing each other - and themselves - the local police are in way over their heads, particularly Sgt. Jong-goo (Kwak Do-won) whose general laziness and lack of ambition make the murders more of an inconvenience than a challenge. Rumors begin to spread about a Japanese newcome...

The '80s were a pretty forgiving era for horror movies. Computer graphics hadn't really made an impact yet so slimy prosthetics and latex molds lent everything a tangibly gooey fan appeal than resulted in some classic creatures features ( The Thing, Tremors ) and a whole lot of guilty pleasures. Slugs (1988) certainly falls in the latter category, built around a classic nature-run-amok scenario that isn't so far removed from enjoyable schlock like The Killer Shrews or The Food of the Gods . Director Juan Piquer Simon ( Pieces ) works from the novel by Shaun Hutson, providing some ridiculously squishy set piece scenes surrounded by standard small-town hysteria straight out of a '50s drive-in double-feature. Health Inspector Mike Brady (Michael Garfield) begins to suspect that something isn't right in his quiet community after a number of bodies turn up completely stripped down to the bone. When he gets nowhere with the mayor, who's focused on a big r...