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Like many directors now indelibly linked with the horror genre, the late George Romero spent most of his early years trying to dodge the label slapped on him after the success of Night of the Living Dead . Understandable, considering it’s not a genre that commands the sort of professional respect (or golden statuettes) that come to those working in costume dramas, quirky independents or even the odd romantic comedy. When you work in horror, as far as the industry is concerned you’re only good for one thing…making more horror films. But there’s an upside. Horror fans are some of the most enthusiastic folks you’ll ever meet and will typically give almost anything by their favorite contributors to the genre a shot. Case in point, Arrow Video's new box set, Between Night and Dawn , which gathers three Romero films made after NOTLD 's breakout success and before his resurgence on the scene with Dawn of the Dead . While none of them follow the gory template set by the aforeme...

It's been fashionable of late to liberally lift the style and atmosphere of John Carpenter. Despite releasing his last movie in 2010, the director's influence has remained pretty much a constant on the horror genre since Halloween . But Dutch filmmaker Dick Maas got a big head start on everyone back in 1983 with his Carpenter inspired "killer elevator" movie - The Lift - the very same year Christine hit theaters. Called in to investigate a close call involving several passengers who were almost asphyxiated during a ride from the top floor, elevator mechanic Felix Adelaar (Huub Stapel) suspects there's something fundamentally wrong with the system despite finding no technical explanation. And he's proved right when the equipment continues to malfunction, almost seeming to have a mind of its own as it decapitates a security guard and lures more unsuspecting victims into the empty shaft. Joining forces with a pushy journalist (Willeke van Ammelrooy),...

Despite the promise of instant gratification by streaming services, there are thousands of films that will probably never show up on your Roku, bumped to the back of the line by the latest original content and data fillers. Those few companies still involved in the distribution of "physical media" are keenly aware of their audience: collector's who feel the need to own a piece of history and are willing to pay more for a respectable presentation. Beneath the 12 Mile Reef (1953), the second - or possibly third - cinemascope movie ever released is a niche title at best, showcasing the technical merits of a new technology that was still working out the narrative kinks. But it's a perfect example of the reasoning behind Twilight Time's 3000-copy limited edition release business plan, offering the casual, the curious and the die-hard collector a chance to put some Hollywood history on their shelf...even if it doesn't come back down all that often. With a padd...

For those who enjoy the work of Dario Argento but sometimes long for a little more logic, clarity and (let's be kind) narrative cohesion, Sergio Martino might just be the director for you. With sixty-six films to his credit, Martino has made a prolific career of emulating other's artistry, whipping out knock-offs of everything from Jaws (1979's The Great Alligator ) to The Road Warrior (1983's After the Fall of New York ) to Dirty Harry (1973's The Violent Professionals ). But his early work in the Italian giallo is probably his most memorable, using Argento's The Bird with the Crystal Plumage as a template for a series of violent, sexy thrillers that delivered the exploitation goods with no artistic aspirations to weigh them down. Yet, Martino's rough and ready style has its own appeal and offers up as much (or more ) "accidental" artistry as any other genre filmmaker working at the time. Case in point, The Suspicious Death of a Min...

At first glance, Night School (1981) seems to be an elitist slasher film, the sort that attempts to dodge any association with summer camps and spooky holidays, casting 30-somethings instead of 20-somethings and cloaking it all under the guise of a police procedural. Director Ken Hughes, whose last hit was the family-friendly Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in 1968, avoids showing a drop of blood and only chaste amounts of nudity despite being saddled with a story involving a string of decapitations at an all-girls college. Now that's some trick! But what's really amazing is that, upon closer inspection, Night School is even more twisted that most of the slasher franchises earning critical outrage at the time. We're talking not one but two predatory professors, male and female, a kinky tribal body paint shower scene, peeping toms, lesbian seduction and a ruthless leather-clad biker claiming people's heads with a sacrificial blade. When all it said and done, the movi...

You'd be hard pressed to find a more exciting opening scene in any movie from the '80s than The Hidden (1987). And, yes, that includes The Terminator , a film which was quite obviously the inspiration for director Jack Sholder's sci-fi / action hybrid about two aliens hunting each other amidst the teased hair, synthesized tunes and neon-soaked landscape of Los Angeles. From the creepy security camera footage under the opening credits to the ultraviolent car chase that follows, this is a film fueled by burnt rubber and latex monsters, a combination never executed so successfully before... or after! Kyle MacLachlan stars as FBI agent Lloyd Gallagher (three years before taking on the same job description in Twin Peaks ) who recruits reluctant L.A. cop Tom Beck (Michael Nouri) to help him put a stop to a deadly crime spree that kicks off the film. But Beck suspects Gallagher knows more than he lets on, particularly when a new suspect seems to pop up every time they tak...

It goes without saying that for a genre like the western, which pumped out title after title from the silent era through early '70s, the vast majority of its films are just...well, average . Even the studios were looking for an edge to separate themselves from the cinematic herd. And when 3D came into fashion, even the old-fashioned western wasn't immune to cashing in on a quick gimmick. Gun Fury (1953), directed by Raoul Walsh whose eye patch ironically prevented him from experiencing the optical process himself, takes advantage of the more obvious 3D clichés early on...then settles into a sort of classy middle-of-the-road revenge yarn that fits the bill for a lazy Sunday afternoon. Ben and Jennifer (Rock Hudson and Donna Reed) are an exuberantly engaged couple on their way to their quiet California ranch. Traveling via stagecoach with a trio of other passengers. one of the men is revealed to be notorious outlaw Frank Slayton (Philip Carey) who hijacks the stage, kidna...

It's not surprising that the story of the shootout at the OK coral has been told so many times in movies spanning almost every decade. What is surprising is that it's usually told so well . The feud between the Earps and Clantons is a cinematic goldmine of raw mythmaking material that bends to the will of each particular filmmaker, from John Ford's elegiac My Darling Clementine to George P. Cosmatos' action opus Tombstone . Each adaptation adds a few more details, real or imagined, that build upon one of the most oft-repeated tales in western history. But John Sturges' Hour of the Gun (1967) does them all one better, using the shootout as background noise for the opening credits then starting the story proper with the event's aftermath. It's a risky move, relegating the most famous gunfight in history to a cursory preamble. But Sturges had already done a straight version of the story 10 years earlier with Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster, Gunf...

Classic western icons like John Wayne and Randolph Scott seem chiseled out of the very rock of Monument Valley itself, like immovable objects of American's manifest destiny. They were men of few words and absolutely zero self-doubt. But time chipped away much of the genre's cinematic statuary to the point where 1971's Lawman , starring the equally hard-as-granite Burt Lancaster, revolves around a hero who lives by a code so rigid and inflexible that the justice he finally delivers feels more like cruel and unusual punishment. Director Michael Winner's film, working from a script by Gerald Wilson that gains more weight as it moves along, was almost certainly a reaction to the Spaghetti westerns that were cutting into Hollywood's bottom line. But the additional sex and violence (apparently a bit more of both exist in the international version) can't be dismissed as meaningless or exploitive. In fact, the stereotypical main street showdown, when it finall...

George Lucas is a convenient scapegoat for those looking to cast blame upon the current state of "revisionist cinema." But, in reality, he was only giving a media obsessed culture more of what they want. There is no "final cut" of a particular film anymore, only a funhouse mirror of infinitely edited variations, cut together whenever inspiration (or marketing necessity) strikes. But Lucas is simply a high-profile target for creationist criticism; in fact, the studios have been suffering from "special edition syndrome" for nearly 50 years now. Case in point, the Extended Cut of Richard Donner's Superman (1978) made its television premiere with over 40-minutes of story added to stretch the debut to a two-night event. Some bits and pieces of this expanded footage has turned up in various incarnations of the film on home video over the years, but we've never had the full 188-minute epic released on hi-def until now. Is it the final say on what ...