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The 4 th  entry in a 10-chapter film saga from Toei,  Big Time Gambling Boss  (1968) shuffles the yakuza deck and deals out its story in a manner unique to the cluttered criminal underworld genre.  There’s still some swordplay and stabbing, but director Kosaku Yamashita emphasizes  internal  conflicts with a surprisingly mature and restrained take on allegiance to the gangster code versus a strong moral compass.  Alternately glorifying and condemning the yakuza lifestyle, the film offers up a complicated character drama that earned high praise from writer / director Paul Schrader who called it an “art house rose blooming from exploitation roots.”  After the leader of the Tenryu clan suffers a debilitating stroke, a plot is hatched from within to push the clan into risky territory involving drugs and foreign contraband.  Senba (Nobuo Kaneko) stirs the pot by pitting several possible successors against one another, including Nakai (Koji Tsuruta) and Matsuda (Tomisaburo Wakayama), sworn b

The horror genre took a dramatic turn after the success of  Rosemary's Baby  (1968).  Suddenly, castles, cobwebs and fangs were about as popular as three-day-old donuts.  Which meant that adaptations of reliable literary authors like Edgar Allan Poe and H.P. Lovecraft needed a fast facelift before hitting theaters.  And that's exactly what AIP attempted with this  rather desperate psychedelic spin on  The Dunwich Horror  (1970). Director Daniel Haller had already taken a semi-successful crack at Lovecraft once with 1965's  Die Monster Die , so he probably seemed as good a choice as any to steer the story of yet another interdimensional incursion by the "Old Ones," this time invited into our world by one Wilbur Whateley (Dean Stockwell) who plans to supernaturally impregnate a naive college girl (Sandra Dee) with the help of the infamous Necronomicon.  After stealing a copy from Miskatonic University, Wilbur heads back to the family farm; but his supernatural antic

The best cinematic martial artists are those who can look convincingly pissed off on camera.  No, really.  Witness the success of Bruce Lee, whose orgasmic anger after every punch made him an international superstar.  Sonny Chiba?  Same angry skill set.  And that’s what makes Angela Mao such a thrill to watch, combining undeniable feminine appeal with a serious case of resting-bitch-face.  No one has  ever  looked more beautiful when they’re angry! Known in the US mostly for her brief role in  Enter the  Dragon (1973), Angelo Mao’s  real  kung-fu coming out party,  Hapkido  (1972), pairs her with up-and-coming fight choreographer Sammo Hung in a non-stop series of fight sequences that proved once and for all it didn’t take a Y-chromosome to kick ass.  It’s paired  with another Mao film from the same year,  Lady Whirlwind  (1972), on a stellar new double-feature set from Arrow Films that blows away the old out of print Shout Factory DVD.   Hapkido  builds off the all-out dojo attack sce

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-apocalyptic conditions o

There were plenty of heir apparents to Bruce Lee’s martial arts crown after his untimely death.  But the one with the most charisma was Sonny Chiba, a former matinee idol who reinvented himself in the ‘70s with and anti-hero attitude and a smoldering stare.  The same year his  Streetfighter  films propelled him to cult stardom, 1974’s  The Executioner  proved his flexibility in the genre, leading a team of  Charlie’s Angels -style criminals into all-out war against foreign drug smugglers.  More spoof than stunt-heavy action pic, the violence is balanced with sexist  Benny Hill  comedy and plenty of jokes at the tough guy’s expense. Koga (Sonny Chiba), trained as a ninja since childhood, is recruited by an underground organization to rid Japan of the criminal element police are unable to handle themselves.   Teamed with an ex-cop turned hitman and comic-relief dojo master, the trio works their way through the best international fighters the Mafia has to offer…with their promised reward

It’s tough to explain movie fandom to a generation raised on the internet.  Prior to the exchange of instantaneous opinions and cliques of like-minded twitter feeds, a personal obsession with horror, sci-fi or comic books guaranteed you a seat at the nerdy lunch table.  I know, because I was one of the official seatwarmers.  And so was director Patrick Read Johnson, whose autobiographical film  5-25-77  (the date  Star Wars  premiered nationwide) was just as much a behind-the-scenes struggle to complete as high school. Struck with the movie bug after a screening of  2001: A Space Odyssey , Patrick (John Francis Daley) spends most of his youth staging elaborate Super 8 sequels to popular films of the day…like turning the backyard swimming pool red to get a shot for  Jaws 2  or creating his own monkey masks for  Requiem for the Planet of the Apes .  But life gets complicated when girls, friends and financial responsibilities force him to choose between pursuing dreams of Hollywood stardo

How deep a dive do you want to take into the horror genre?  Seen all the slashers, torture-porn and creature features?  Slogged your way through the regional roughies and black-and-white classics?  Then maybe you’re ready for  Heartland of Darkness , a student-shot project from a team of Ohio State filmmakers who managed to cast ‘80s horror icon Linnea Quigley in a small role…but never managed to complete the film itself.   An unreleased rarity that rises above most of the shot on video fan films of the day (director Eric Swelstad insisted on 16mm), the project is nevertheless rife with all of the decades’ video store cliches:  bare breasts, bad acting and a dash of satanic panic for good measure. Newly appointed as the editor of a midwestern newspaper, Paul Henson uncovers a dangerous cult lurking beneath the innocuous surface of his adopted small town.  The nefarious figure behind it all is Reverend Donovan who commands his warped followers to dispose of any citizen that threatens hi

Fans have been trying to score some street cred for Bob Clark going on several decades now.  Despite pretty much inventing the American slasher genre with  Black Christmas , the director remains a footnote for only the diligent of horror cinephiles…perhaps because he abandoned the genre to score mainstream success with  Porky’s ,  A Christmas Story  and  Baby Geniuses  (yeah, we all threw up in our mouths a little bit on that last one). But as with a lot of ambitious filmmakers, Clark found early success with a trio of titles –  Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things ,  Deathdream  and the aforementioned  Black Christmas  – that remain highly regarded to this day. Shot in Florida on 35mm, but emulating the thrills of cut-rate zombie drive-in fare,  Children Shouldn’t Play with Dead Things  (1972) is probably only essential viewing for its historical value, both as Clark’s first notable feature  and  a reaction to the undead wave unleashed by Romero’s  Night of the Living Dead .  Clar

Having lived through the Bigfoot-craze of the ‘70s I can tell you that no movie ever quite got it right (although the Bionic Bigfoot in  The Six Million Dollar Man  ranks pretty high up there!)  Ironically, the search for everyone’s favorite bipedal primate was perfect for the found footage format which was more or less how 1972’s  The Legend of Boggy Creek  kicked things off.  Four years later,  Creature from Black Lake  drove back to the swamps for another go, this time using a  Jaws -like approach, keeping the legendary antagonist in the shadows for most of the running time.  Rives and Pahoo (names so ridiculous they have to be spelled out on the back of their shirts) are a couple of Yankee college students making a spectacle of themselves in a small Arkansas town.  Their search for Bigfoot revolves around information from a trapper (Jack Elam) whose partner was a killed by the monster deep in the bayou.  Ignoring local advice – and pressure from law – our boys try to  bring-em-back

A holy-grail of modern found footage horror has finally made its way to Blu-ray!   Ghostwatch  aired on the BBC as a “live event” on Halloween night, 1992, fooling more than a couple of viewers into thinking they were watching the real thing.  Hosted by actual TV personalities who stage an investigation into a haunting in on a quiet London block, director Lesley Manning does a phenomenal job of balancing POV thrills with studio-set talking heads.  This one is  way  ahead of its time! Michael Parkinson, Sarah Greene and Mike Smith all play “themselves” as the supernatural goings-on unfold around a single mother and two children whose home is plagued with cold spots, breaking dishes and constant knocking.  The crew arrives and starts digging into the backstory of the home, with callers dropping clues about a series of undocumented deaths.  Soon the “show” is causing a panic throughout the city as the poltergeist activity becomes more blatant…and more dangerous!   While the acting is some

The next best thing to living through the Italian cinema boom of the ‘70s…is living through the digital restoration and renaissance   we happen to be experiencing  right now !  And writer/director Fernando Di Leo has been fairly well represented, with many of his seminal crime films – like  Milan Caliber 9  – rising from the celluloid graveyard to claim their rightful place among the most influential genre films of the era.  But  Blood and Diamonds  (1977) finds his career, and that of the poliziotteschi in general, on the wane; so much so that the working title was  Rome Caliber 9 , an attempt to grab the attention of fading audience interest.   But Di Leo’s film is certainly interesting enough to stand on its own.     Set in the familiar criminal underworld, Guido Mauri(Claudio Cassinelli)     is a safecracker pinched on the job by an anonymous tip that sends him to prison for five years.     Upon release, his wife is murdered in a roadside ambush that Guido blames on his old boss, R

There are filmmakers content to live off the scraps of Hollywood’s bigger, better and bolder ideas and production values.  Then there is Nico Mastorakis, the Greek writer / director / producer who never let ambition get in the way of a low-budget.   From almost unwatchable early exploitation affairs like  Island of Death  (1976) to action-slasher hybrids like  The Zero Boys  (1986), Mastorakis was always trying to stay ahead of the trends and bully his way into the big leagues.  And  Nightmare at Noon  (1988) is the perfect example of his balls-to-the-wall filmmaking approach, desperately trying to capitalize on the ‘80s action boom with all the showmanship of a Barnam & Bailey huckster. Sheriff Hanks (George Kennedy) really has his hands full.  The citizens of his peaceful town of Moab have turned feral after a secret experiment tainted the water supply.  With the help of a snobby tourist (Wings Hauser), a scandalous ex-cop (Bo Hopkins) and one smokin’ hot deputy (Kimberly Ross) t

Writer / director Eric Pennycoff’s  The Leech  (2022) excels in the art of making its audience uncomfortable.  Mixing comedy, religious angst and (maybe, possibly?) some satanic panic, it’s a film that makes so much of so little you can’t help but root for it to reach that rare cinematic end zone.  But when it finally gets there, all those psychological twists and turns might require further review.  Father David’s flock of parishioners have all but abandoned him.  Making sermons inside an empty church and posting inspirational social media hashtags that no one reads, he finds unlikely inspiration in the form of a vagrant, Terry (Jeremy Gardner), sleeping between the pews.  Invited home as an act of Christian kindness, Terry is quick to take advantage of a good situation, rolling out the red carpet for his now-homeless girlfriend, Lexi (Taylor Zaudtke), to crash the pad as well.  David sees an opportunity to correct their bad behavior – which includes drugs, drinking and S & M – an

Is it even  possible  to have a bad time while watching a Shaw Brothers movie?  Short of being interrupted by a cancer diagnosis or impending nuclear war, I don’t believe so.  Like an early version of the Marvel Universe, this cinematic kung-fu cornucopia shared superstars, spin-offs and spoofs over the course of two-decades, perfecting a formula that never seemed to cut corners when it came to creativity and showmanship.  And Arrow Video’s  Shawscope: Volume 2  offers up another exemplary collection of films that proves just that. Things start off with  The 36 Chamber of Shaolin , perhaps the best of the fighter-in-training films, starring Gordon Liu as a desperate villager who convinces the reclusive monks to share their kung-fu knowledge in hopes of getting revenge against the evil Manchus.  Liu returned for two sequels (both included) that spun off into a comedic direction will just as satisfying results.     From there we move on to  Mad Monkey Kung-Fu , directed by and starring L

Animal House  (1978) and  Caddyshack  (1980) pretty much perfected the “slobs vs snobs” comedy to the point where nothing more need be said.  But with cheap production values and a horny teenage demographic, the sub-genre cluttered movie screens and video store shelves throughout the 1980s with too many titles to mention.   Ski Patrol  (1990) was very late to the game and, with a PG rating, looked to reach youngsters who loved fart jokes and groin shots, but weren’t quite of age to enjoy bad language and T & A. Snowy Peaks resort is a local institution run by Pops (Ray Walston) and his fun-loving ski patrol, a gaggle of multi-cultural misfits who take nothing seriously except their jobs.  But when a real estate developer (Martin Mull) frames them for several safety violations, the gang is put on the chopping block.  Can they save their jobs and the resort while still pulling pranks, winning talents shows and doing bad Rodney Dangerfield impressions?  You bet your *ss they can!   Sk

On a roll with three consecutive  giallo -inspired hits, Spanish director Eloy de la Iglesia shoehorns all the trappings of the genre into a near-future thriller that openly lifts its style from Kubrick’s  A Clockwork Orange , complete with classical music, copycat droogs and a plan to electronically eradicate aberrant behavior.  The result is, as one might expect, a mixed bag of social satire and slasher tropes that proves there are only so many balls a film can juggle at one time. Ana (Sue Lyon) is a trust-fund orphan and respected healthcare worker who moonlights as a serial killer of young men between the ages of 17 and 30.  Her modus operandi involves seducing victims in various disguises, making love, then stabbing them in the chest with a scalpel.  As luck would have it, David (Chris Mitchum), a disgruntled member of the aforementioned droogs, witnesses Ana disposing of a body and follows her home.  His plan to blackmail her sets the stage for class warfare that can only end in

The  Cult of Fulci  most often focuses on the director’s horror output, which peaked in the early ‘80s with titles like  Zombie  and  City of the Living Dead .  But wedged in between those two titles was his sole entry in the  poliiziotteschi  genre,  Contraband  (1980), a scattershot crime movie that delivers the same amount of gore in a different cinematic package. Luca (played by all-purpose Italian hunk Fabio Testi) is a reticent smuggler torn between loyalty to his brother, Enrico, and his wife and young child.  But when Enrico is assassinated, Luca risks everything to get revenge, going head-to-head against a ruthless drug dealer who plans to take over the entire Naples smuggling operation.  Once the power struggle attracts the attention of the “old guard”, the city is soon littered with corpses who each meet their end in gruesome detail.   Although it eschews the supernatural for a  Godfather / French Connection  approach, Fulci’s film fits perfectly in his golden age oeuvre, fu

The legal system doesn’t come up against the supernatural too often.  Outside of the latest  Conjuring  entry, which was based on the real-life case of Arne Johnson, the two genres rarely cross paths.  But Frank De Felitta’s novel  Audrey Rose  (and his follow-up  The Entity ) went out on a limb to challenge that spirituality can be proven in a court of law…or a least pose enough doubt to earn a hefty settlement.  The 1977 film however barely creeps out of the long shadow cast by  The Exorcist. Janice and Bill Templeton’s enviable Park Avenue lifestyle is rudely interrupted by their daughter Ivy’s violent nightmares.  Doctors and psychiatrists can provide no explanation; but Elliot Hoover can.  He claims that Ivy is the reincarnation of his daughter, who died in a fiery car crash, and insists he be allowed to play a part in her life.  The Templeton’s, particularly Bill, suspect some sort of shakedown.  But when Ivy’s mental state continues to deteriorate – and coincidences start to pil

Absurdism is comedy’s red-headed step-child.  It doesn’t take quite as much skill to pull off and often passes for a clever sort of satire…even if its target isn’t quite clear.  Director Wes Anderson has made an entire career out of keeping audiences guessing, buoyed by incredible set design and big-name actors.  Quentin Dupieux, on the other hand, doesn’t have a fraction of the resources, but comes up with something far more effective in  Incredible but True  (1922), a 74-minute spoof of our cultural obsession for eternal youth that plumbs surprising emotional depths.  Alain and Marie, a late middle-aged couple, have finally purchased their first home.  Besides a large master bath and stunning deck, the property has one unique selling point: a manhole-sized opening in the basement that transports you 12 hours in the future…and reverses your age by three days.  Marie quickly becomes obsessed, spending most of her life in another time zone in an attempt to reclaim her youth.   Alain ref

Ken Russell’s  The Devils  (1971) is a bombastic attack on the senses.  It’s also a genuine cinematic masterpiece.  But its subject matter of sex, torture and corruption within the Catholic Church was too much for  any  studio to handle at the time, leaving the film essentially orphaned after an aborted UK and US release, so much so that’s it’s damn near impossible to see  anywhere  outside of a few screenings on Shudder from time to time.  But the seedier side of Russell’s film was a roadmap for exploitation filmmakers to follow, resulting in the creation of an entire subgenre –  nunsploitation -  where sins of the flesh suggestively covered up in a black and white habit. The Nun and the Devil  (1973) is far more reserved than some other entries, reinforcing Russell’s theme of sexual repression with flashes of forbidden hetero and lesbian escapades while a power struggle tears the Saint Arcangelo Convent apart from within.  Sister Julia (Anne Heywood) seizes her opportunity to become

As an example of macho escapism, nothing beats a prison movie.  Except a  futuristic  prison movie!   Escape from New York ,  Fortress ,  Alien 3 , heck, even Vin Diesel broke out of a doozy in  The Chronicles of Riddick .  But for some reason  No Escape  (1994) fell behind the cinematic couch cushions.  Barely even mentioned after the recent unexpected passing of star Ray Liotta, the film ranks right up there as an action-packed vision of our privatized, militarized justice system gone wrong. After murdering his superior in cold blood, Robbins (Liotta) is shipped off to Absalom, a self-sufficient island with a warring population of prisoners:  the savage Outsiders and peace-loving Insiders.  Not anxious to take orders from  either  camp, Robbins eventually proves his worth to the Insiders’ spiritual leader  (Lance Henriksen) and makes a deal that will earn him a seat on the next boat back to the mainland.  But the final battle is just ahead.  And Robbins’ military training might be th

A direct-to-video horror-comedy that feel between the cracks of the Blockbuster era and streaming explosion,  Satan’s Little Helper  (2004) is an offbeat, sometimes sloppy, but never boring take on the Halloween masked killer scenario.  Director Jeff Lieberman gives it a seat-of-your-pants slasher vibe that mixes dark humor and childhood nostalgia for a truly unique bit of B-movie magic. 8-year-old Douglas Whooly has a hard time separating video game violence from the real thing; so much so that he mistakes a masked serial killer for Satan himself, offering to help his “master” complete his nightly chores.  But when Dougie’s new friend seems to be targeting his own family, the fun and games turn deadly, putting his mom and sister in danger of winding up like a pair of smashed pumpkins!   Shot on video in the early days of the digital revolution,  Satan’s Little Helper  feels decidedly low-rent for the first 30 minutes or so.  But when night falls and the color palette turns a lovely sh