Movieline Online

Horror and exploitation fans are blessed with a massive library of genre titles to choose from in just about every decade.  So much so that regional filmmakers like William Grefe, whose mostly Florida shot shockers were relegated to the drive-in circuit during the '60s and '70s, went unnoticed if not completely unappreciated by most home video distributors.  But Arrow Video picks up the baton dropped by niche outfit Something Weird Video and collects seven of Grefe's eclectic features, plus an extended cut of the definitive documentary about his career packaged up in  He Came from the Swamp: The William Grefe Collection. Make no mistake, most of Grefe's work is seat-of-your-pants filmmaking that builds upon whatever trend was popular at the time.   Sting of Death  (1966) is a hilariously entertaining take on the beach party monster movie, pitting bikini-clad teens and heroic scientists against a bubble-headed were-jellyfish that stalks the Florida...

The lurid history of Elizabeth Bathory seems ready-made for cinematic exploitation artists looking to add a little class to their sex and violence.  And  Daughters of Darkness  (1971) pulls off the trick better than almost any other film before or since, picking up with the nocturnal activities of the Countess (Dephine Seyring) and her sexy secretary, Ilona (Andrea Rau), in the nearly abandoned seaside town of Ostend, Belgium, where a pair of newlyweds fall under their spell.  Director Harry Kumel's film is gorgeous from top to bottom, with a flair for the fantastic and a kinky sexual subtext that exemplifies Euro-horror at its finest. Married for only three days after a whirlwind courtship, Stefan and Valerie are already struggling to sort out their relationship.  Stefan seems afraid of introducing her to his family and instead suggests they spend time at a nearly empty resort.  But the delay proves deadly when Countess Bathory and Ilon...

You simply can’t overstate how much Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey revolutionized science fiction cinema.   Almost overnight, a new bar was raised not only for achievement in special effects but for narrative and thematic maturity.   And when the marketing department stumbled upon “the ultimate trip” tagline, an entirely new audience of 18 to 24 year olds under the influence of mind altering substances found a complementary celluloid experience.   So it was probably just a natural evolution to hand the reigns over to special effects supervisor Douglas Trumbull for a follow-up, 1972’s Silent Running , an environmentally aware sci-fi opus that, despite an earnest performance from Bruce Dern, lays on the counter-culture message a bit too thick. Drifting through the solar system in an oversized terrarium, the crew of the SS Valley Forge is part of an ambitious - but now nearly forgotten - effort to preserve Earth’s forests for a future re-seeding when the post-apo...