Movieline Online

Art imitates life in gruesomely entertaining fashion in 1973's Theater of Blood , starring Vincent Price as failed Shakespearean actor Edward Lionheart, whose overblown performances are dismissed as the work of a professional "ham sandwich" by London's theater critics. But after his apparent suicide, Lionheart returns to claim his pound of flesh from each and every member of the critics circle, exacting his revenge in elaborate fashion by restaging the murders from the Bard's most famous plays. On the surface, director Douglas Hickox's film isn't so different from Price's other early '70s franchise, The Abominable Dr. Phibes . But the self-reflexivity of having him play a performer whose career is disparaged as one big melodramatic sham hits awful close to the bone. After all, as beloved as the as actor was to fans of the horror genre, his theatrical style was quickly falling out of fashion (as evidenced by director Michael Reeves' ...

The phrase "You had to be there" applies quite well to the '80s 3D boom, which produced such a startlingly bad crop of movies it's surprising Hollywood ever tried the gimmick again. Several struggling franchises were on their third installments, which meant that Amityville, Friday the 13th and Jaws all got the 3D treatment (and 3D in the titles), leaving room for some lesser-known independents to take advantage of the enhanced theatrical presentation. Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared Syn was actually producer/director Charles Band's second 3D film, following Parasite , which provided an early leading role of Demi Moore. Bought up by Universal to fill the gap in their 3D library, the film is a bald-faced Road Warrior rip-off, complete with a leather clad hero cruising the wasteland in his custom ride searching for a renegade warlord...who just happens to be played by Road Warrior veteran Michael Preston. In Metalstorm 's defense, Mad Max ...

If Brian De Palma had worked during the era of internet bloggers instead of professional film critics, his career might have been altogether different. While a few journalists back in the day rallied in defense of the director's grandiose visual style (most notably Pauline Kael), the majority dismissed his work as "Hitchcock-lite;" entertaining enough for the masses but still just a pale imitation of films like Psycho and Vertigo , two of De Palma's biggest creative touchstones. But in the blogosphere, where nostalgia and top-ten lists take priority, De Palma is a full-fledged hero. Take for example Raising Cain , just released on Blu-ray by genre specialists Scream Factory, which features a director's cut in which the director had no actual involvement. Instead, this alternate version was created by a film student - Peet Gelderblom of the Netherlands - whose leaked internet essay caused such a stir that De Palma gave it his blessing. Rearranging scenes to m...

In the annals of horror sequel history, 1972's Beware ! The Blob (or Son of Blob as it was originally titled) had a reputation as one of the goofiest afterthoughts ever. Directed by Larry Hagman ( I Dream of Jeannie, Dallas ) with an eclectic cast of Malibu neighbors and friends, the film is a largely improvised series of sketch comedy situations pitting the hippie generation up against aging authority figures while a surviving piece of the Blob feeds on them both indiscriminately. As a follow-up to the Steve McQueen original, it's an amateurish mess. As a piece of post- Easy Rider trash cinema, it's a treasure. Thawed out by a worker who brings a sample home from the Alaskan pipeline, the Blob begins its all-you-can-eat buffet by snacking on houseflies and kittens before working its way up to human-size portions. Artists Lisa and Bobby (Gwynne Gilford and Robert Walker, Jr.) barely escape being gobbled up themselves and spend the rest of the movie trying to conv...

Stand-up comedian Jackie Cooper may have performed in thousands of nightclubs across the country and appeared on dozens of late-night talk shows, including regular gigs on Ed Sullivan and The Tonight Show , but if today's generation knows him at all it's as the voice of Frosty the Snowman in a series of Rankin Bass holiday specials. His signature soft-spoken delivery and self-deprecating style were a perfect fit for the lovable cartoon character. That's why it's almost sacrilegious to hear him spout lines like, "I'm so hungry, I could eat a whore!" in 1983's Microwave Massacre , a spoofy cannibal comedy built around Cooper's corny sense of humor and copious T & A horror clichés. Shot in the late '70s but released five years later, the script was originally written with Rodney Dangerfield in mind, which probably would have provided a bit more bite (sorry, I'm just preparing you). But as it stands, Microwave Massacre is an ...

Although it was produced at the height of Italy's giallo boom, 1971's The Bloodstained Butterfly is remarkable not so much for its similarities to popular titles of the time as for its differences . With a focus on forensic science and courtroom drama, the film leans closer to Hitchcock's The Wrong Man than anything in Dario Argento's oeuvre. And, even though it all leads up to a remarkable twist, there's a surprising lack of sex and violence: two of the prime ingredients in the most memorable gialli . But it's director Duccio Tessari's tendency to take the road less traveled that actually makes Butterfly a stand-out in a genre filled with films that were only too happy to follow in one another's footsteps. Opening with a confusing series of title cards introducing the main characters, the film segues into its opening murder: the brutal stabbing of a student whose body rolls into a crowded park. Witnesses identify a local sports reporte...

Women-in-Prison movies occupy a particularly seedy corner of the exploitation universe, seemingly serving no other purpose than to titillate, torture and shock. From perverse Nazi prison camps to sweaty Filipino cages, the settings may change but the ingredients are largely the same: rape, beatings, showers and lesbian sex. Even for cult film aficionados, WIP movies are a hard genre to justify let alone openly enjoy. But the Female Prisoner Scorpion series is one of the genre's rare stabs at respectability. Based on a popular manga, the first film - Female Prisoner #701: Scorpion - introduces Nami Matsushima (Meiko Kaji) who winds up behind bars after being seduced and double-crossed by her lover, a dirty cop with Yakuza ties. Vowing revenge, Nami suffers through the worst punishments the sadistic guards can dish out while her reputation and fame make her a target for other prisoners. She avoids one attack in the shower (blinding the warden in one eye in the process), sc...

It's become a cliche for filmmakers to describe a movie's setting as a character unto itself. But in the case of The Panic in Needle Park (1971), which uses New York City as its urban jungle background, that's most definitely not a case of artistic hyperbole. As shot by cinematographer Adam Holender (who'd had lots of practice on Midnight Cowboy ), Manhattan becomes a physical reflection of lead characters Bobby and Helen, two junkies who fall in love and fall through the cracks of the era's middle-class society. Needle Park is actually Sherman Square, a rough area on the upper west side populated by addicts and hookers living day to day in the decaying hotels and coffee shops. Bobby (Al Pacino) is an ambitious heroin supplier who's also hooked on his own merchandise. Helen is a fish-out-of-water from Fort Wayne, Indiana, sliding deeper into trouble after being talked into an abortion by her artist boyfriend (Raul Julia). She and Bobby have an immed...

DVD/ Blu-ray extras have evolved from a couple of trailers and radio spots to full-fledged documentaries that almost warrant a theatrical release in their own right. In fact, with collectors demanding more and more special features on nearly every title, including those that have been re-issued several times in the past, it seems like extras now carry more weight than the feature film itself. That being the case, it seems like the perfect time for Synapse to release Just Desserts: The Making of Creepshow , which actually did appear on a pair of UK special edition releases, but was left off of Warner's domestic release of Creepshow , the 1982 George Romero / Stephen King collaboration. It goes without saying that if one has no interest in Creepshow itself, then Just Desserts is nothing more than self-congratulatory fluff. But, really, who doesn't love Creepshow ?! A near-perfect recreation of the E.C. Comics horror brand, consisting of five stories and an animated wra...

Kathleen Turner's slow disappearance from the big screen after burning it up with Body Heat and Romancing the Stone is almost inexplicable. Like most actresses she was unfairly judged by her looks, her weight and her fading sex appeal, but it seemed like it all ended far too soon. Or maybe she just never aspired to be an empty Hollywood starlet, forever in the shadow of her Lauren Bacall-esque image. To judge by her role in Crimes of Passion , Ken Russell's 1984 twisted relationship drama, in which her character rapes a police officer with his own nightstick, it's safe to say Turner had her own career path in mind. Joanna Crane (Turner) is a designer by day and a dirty whore by night. Working under the alias China Blue, complete with platinum wig, crotchless panties and a purse full of sex toys, Joanna keeps a room at a sleazy motel and lords over her loyal clientele. But her secret identity is revealed by a part-time private investigator, Bobby (John Laughlin),...

Since the 1980s, loglines have been all the rage in Hollywood. Essentially a one-sentence hook used by screenwriters to pitch their ideas, it works best when comparing one movie to another; such as the ubiquitous Die Hard on a Bus scenarios that produced a slew of action rip-offs like Speed . But it's also an effective selling point for a film that hangs on a premise so preposterous that anything longer than one-sentence risks ruining the fun. So try this on for size: A man checks into a hotel for unmatched singles with only 45 days to find a romantic partner, at which point if he is still unattached, he will be turned into a lobster. There's your logline for The Lobster (2015), an amusingly outré comedy starring Colin Farrell as David, a sad-sack divorcee mingling with an equally quirky group of romantically-challenged candidates who hope to find an approved companion before they're changed into the animal of their choice. Director Yorgos Lanthimos, a Greek di...