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It may be a hot mess of ideas, imagery and endless exposition, but I’m still glad I live in a world where David Lynch’s version of   Dune   exists.     Adapted from Frank Herbert’s novel (still the best example of world-building in literary science-fiction), trying to condense the story into a feature-length film was probably the first mistake producer Dino DeLaurentiis made.     And selling it as a   Star Wars -style adventure was certainly the kiss of death. Let’s face it,  Dune  was never going to be an easy sell.  Heck, even the novel needs an appended dictionary just to keep track of all the characters and invented cultural slang.  But moments of pure Lynchian weirdness break through all the political sabotage and messianic madness.  And it’s those moments that make this tragically flawed 1984 adaptation so memorably unique.   Garbage bag clad guild members mopping the floor like elephant keepers after ...

Small coastal towns have been luring people to their deaths since the days of Lovecraft.  And director Gary Sherman’s  Dead & Buried  (1981) makes for a great double feature with John Carpenter’s  The Fog , both relying on a misty atmosphere and a secret conspiracy that spells doom for anyone who chooses the wrong day to book an overnight stay.   Dan Gillis is overqualified for his role as sheriff in the small village of Potters Bluff, but his forensic background comes in handy when a string of unexplained murders claim a series of tourists.  The perpetrators of the crimes seem to be the villagers themselves, who carefully document the victims’ demise with professional film equipment, then stage the scene as an accident.  The bodies wind up in the care of William G. Dobbs, the eccentric undertaker, who takes such pride in his work that he’s loathe see his creations wind up six feet under.   With a screenplay that credits the wor...

Although they were responsible for kick starting the genre when it was in decline, spaghetti westerns themselves can get ridiculously repetitive.  After all, Italian filmmakers were notable for beating a good idea to death in  any  genre, be it thriller, sex comedy or post-apocalyptic zombie cannibals.  So it’s a huge relief that Arrow’s new box set,  Vengeance Trails , features four lesser-known titles that go out of their way to think outside of the corral. Massacre Time  (1966) will likely garner the most attention since it’s helmed by Lucio Fulci and features spaghetti stars Franco Nero and George Hilton as estranged brothers who come together to win back their family estate.  Fulci lays on the sadism here pretty thick for a guy who’d only directed comedies up to this point in his career.   Massacre Time  is an action-packed precursor to his gory horror titles with a memorable “whip duel” and plenty of bullet holes. ...

It’s always been a bit surprising to me that the  Godzilla  series was such a big hit in the U.S.  Despite being based on the Atomic Age sci-fi monstrosities already on display in theaters (particularly  The Beast from 20,000 Fathoms ) there were so many peculiar Japanese cultural hurdles to overcome.  The language was easy enough to dub, but the mysticism, models and (most of all) man-in-suit special effects seemed like a big pill to swallow, even for desperate-to-be-entertained kids.  But apparently the onscreen destruction was universal enough to cross all cinematic barriers. That wasn’t the case with the  Daimajin  films, a kaiju-samurai combo set in feudal Japan featuring a stone mountain god than stomps on any army that gets out of line.  Likely due to the period setting and rare appearances by the titular monster, the trilogy rarely turned up in syndication packages and wasn’t even on the radar for most Western audi...