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By 1973, the venerable Hammer Film studio was headed for disaster. Their patented brand of gothic horror was fast going out of style against more modern films like The Exorcist . It seemed no matter how much blood, how many boobs or how high the budget, nothing would turn the tide. Which probably sealed the theatrical fate of a movie like The Asphyx (1973), which worked within Hammer’s well-defined conventions (science and the supernatural run amok in a Victorian setting) but didn’t have the benefit of a Christopher Lee or Peter Cushing to put on their poster. Yet, as it turns out, the film’s relative obscurity and un conventional menace actually works its favor some 40 years after its release. The asphyx itself is an invisible spirit (brought to life in the film through a combination of practical puppetry and optical effects) that carries away a person’s soul at the time of death. When a pair of scientists discover a way to capture the little bugger and lock it up in a sealed ...

When director Robert Zemeckis decided to shoot both of his Back to the Future sequels back-to-back, industry spin played it up as a risky and revolutionary idea. Risky, maybe ( Part 2 ’s only reason for existence is that cool hoverboard), but revolutionary: hardly. In fact, Demetrius and the Gladiators , the sequel to 1953’s biblical epic The Robe, was shot before its predecessor had even wrapped up production in order to take advantage of the enormous sets and elaborate costumes. The irony is, even though it was a seat-of-your-pants production, Demetrius is a far more entertaining film. Victor Mature plays Demetrius, an original Christian charged with the safekeeping of the robe Jesus wore on the cross. But fate tosses him into the Roman arena where his Christian vows of “Thou shalt not kill” are put to a very serious test. Meanwhile, his beliefs attract the attention of Messalina (Susan Hayward), a morally corrupt temptress who takes pleasure in leading our hero astray and in...

Vampire movies typically fall into three categories: traditional gothic (think cobwebs and capes), modern twists ( Twilight or Lost Boys if you’re old school) and erotic lesbians. No joke, the lesbian vampire film has a long and storied history, about on par with the Nazi zombie sub-genre (what…you’ve never heard of that either? Sheesh!). Yet the work of French director Jean Rollin defies all categorization. Early on you can probably credit that to a lack of filmmaking talent in general. But as his work evolved so did the man behind the camera, leaving behind a catalog of films that exist outside of any typical horror film structure, but resonate in your mind like a half-remembered dream. Dream-like is the term probably most often thrown at Rollin’s work. And Redemption Films and Kino Lorber have put out a dreamy series of five Blu-ray Rollin titles. The Nude Vampire is rough going. Provocative title aside, it’s simply too clumsily made to overlook its faults. But it do...

Whether it’s a sign of the times or a passing fad, staging the end of the world has become de rigueur for all fashionable filmmakers these days. Typically at the hands of some sort of undead zombie horde (see above). But writer / director Cornel Wilde’s No Blade of Grass (1970) is much more environmentally-minded, laying the blame in humanity’s own lap by overdosing the atmosphere with pollutants that destroy most of the plant life on earth. Without the ability to grow food, every country in the world descends into chaos and anarchy. Even in jolly old England, the bloom of civilization fades quickly as citizens arm themselves to survive. Leading his family towards a secret sanctuary, John Custance (Nigel Davenport) must elude soldiers, roving bands of thugs and his own descent into irredeemable savagery. It all sounds much more exciting that it is. No Blade of Grass is the kind of film where the end of the world happens mostly off-screen. That means, other than a few mob sce...

A Darryl F. Zanuck production of a John Huston film - with Errol Flynn in his last significant role – The Roots of Heaven is yet another example of the popular Hollywood expression “the story behind the film is more interesting than the film itself.” Shot in Chad over the course of six months, the perpetual heat and diseases took their toll on cast and crew, requiring a constant stream of replacements. Both Zanuck and Huston’s biographies feature anecdotes about the experience and Flynn’s excessive drinking (the actor would die a year later). How could any fictional movie compete with that sensationalist reality? Roots does have its strong points, but they’re a long time coming. Trevor Howard plays an idealistic elephant defender who uses guerilla tactics to defend the continent’s dwindling herds. A famous media personality (quick cameo by Orson Welles) turns him into an international celebrity and his cause is co-opted by other indigenous revolutionaries who use him for their ...

Last House on the Left , director Wes Craven’s debut feature, made such a stink in 1972 that he was spit on by strangers offended by the film’s overt sadomasochism. But that spit was actually a compliment. In the exploitation game, anything that can generate a reaction - especially outrage or disgust - means big money. And rival producers quick to spot a trend saw lots of potential in Craven’s down and dirty plot. Night Train Murders (1975) takes the same torture porn scenario but adds a few levels of dramatic and technical sophistication that House lacked, making it the superior film…but arriving three years too late to earn the same exploitation immortality. Margaret and Lisa hop a train to spend Christmas vacation with Lisa’s parents in Italy. But during the trip they run afoul of two thugs and a perverse older woman who revels in their sexual degradation. Like Last House, Night Train Murders is not a pleasant film to watch. Its goal is to make you extremely uncomforta...

Whatever ideas you have about DRIVE, I can almost guarantee you won’t get the film you’re expecting. Sure, the synopsis sounds like a typical genre action pic: mechanic / stunt man Ryan Gosling, who moonlights as a getaway driver, takes on a job to help out his next door neighbor (Carey Mulligan). When said job goes bad, Gosling and the girl come under fire from some angry underworld types (Ron Perlman, Albert Brooks) who want to cover their tracks. But director Nicolas Winding Refn doesn’t ever let his movie take the predictable route…for good or bad. From the opening hot pink ‘80s font and corny keyboard score, to the jarring moments of extreme violence, right down to refusing to give his lead character a first or last name; DRIVE is essentially a big middle finger to the Hollywood establishment. And that fits right in with Gosling’s post- Notebook career, which seems to be equal amounts Marlon Brando eccentricity and Steve McQueen cool. Gosling has a chip on his shoulder,...

If you’re interested you can follow Fulci’s trail of blood right on into The House by the Cemetery . Released just a year after The Shining , Fulci’s film lifts many of the same spook house ingredients: blank-faced kid with psychic visions, creepy ghost girls, and (due to budgetary constraints, I’m sure) a small stream of blood rather than a service elevator. I’ll try for a synopsis, but early ‘80s Italian horror paid about as much attention to their plots as a five-year-old in advanced algebra class. It’s not that narrative logic was beyond him, but Fulci seemed to be competing toe-to-toe with rival Dario Argento ( Suspiria ) to see who could make the most non-sensical horror film. House comes awful close to winning the prize; blending ghosts, zombies and mad-scientists with several set-piece gross out effects. An over-the-top bat attack shows exactly how entertaining poor dubbing, rubber wings and gallons of fake blood can be! Blue Underground’s new Blu-ray edition is so scrubb...

Fulci Lives! Never heard the expression? Attend any horror convention across the country you’ll see more T-shirts with this slogan than mullets at a rodeo. That’s because Lucio Fulci, the Italian director behind Zombie, really knows how to impale an eyeball. Zombie is, if not the director’s most accomplished film, certainly his most bankable thanks to the pseudo-sequel tie-in with Romero’s Dawn of the Dead. Fulci, though, doesn’t waste his time with social satire or dark comedy but gets right down the bloody business of loosing his zombie horde on the world (or at least, the parts he can afford the location costs). The film opens with a very effective Nosferatu image of an abandoned sailboat drifting into New York harbor. Well, almost abandoned. On board is a decomposing but dangerous zombie escapee from a mysterious South Seas island. This discovery prompts a couple of amateur sleuths – actors Tisa Farrow (Mia’s sister) and Ian McCulloch (not the Echo and Bunnymen singer) – to track d...

OK, I’ll admit it. A 100-foot-tall, firebreathing Japanese turtle isn’t really scary by anyone’s standards. But you’ll be surprised just how effective director Shuseke Kaneko’s ‘90s Gamera trilogy is at realistically staging Godzilla-scale destruction without all the unintentional humor. Particularly the third film, Revenge of Iris , which focuses on the real emotional aftermath of all that monster mashing. A young girl whose parents were killed during one of Gamera’s previous battles finds and raises an orphaned monster with the intent on getting revenge. Very rarely does a kaiju film (Japanese for “monster movie”) even acknowledge that its creatures are responsible for the deaths of thousands of innocent people, let alone build an entire script around the idea. Iris does this with such skill you almost forget you’re watching men in rubber suits. All three films are now out in a handsome Blu-ray box set that you can get on the cheap.

For years, I’ve been telling anyone who’ll listen that Evil Dead 2 (1987) is one of the most influential movies of the last 30 years. Like Citizen Kane (yep, I just went there) it showed an entire generation of filmmakers that they could do anything with a movie camera. No tripod, no problem! Just tape the darn thing down on a plank of wood and start shooting. Sam Raimi’s film proved that in the videotape era, the rules of traditional Hollywood filmmaking no longer applied. No one learned that lesson better than Peter Jackson, starting with his underground New Zealand horror productions and culminating with his most unlikely Academy Award sweep in 2004. Dead Alive (his third feature) is a variant on the Evil Dead horror-comedy formula, only with an emphasis on gore and special effects that makes Raimi’s film look like an episode of Yo Gabba Gabba . And it’s most certainly not for everyone. It’s easy to spot Jackson’s talent; he gives the camera free reign to swoop, spin...

Although his career is now Hollywood limbo, you have to give M. Knight Shyamalan credit for delivering the most original ghost story is the past 20 years. It’s easy to scare folks with loud noises and cheap gags, but The Sixth Sense got under your skin with its mix of the supernatural and the spiritual . Which is exactly what The Presence attempts to do, it its own misguided way. Mira Sorvino plays a psychologically scarred writer who isolates herself in a cabin to work on her book deal with her own childhood trauma. But - as the audience is made aware of in the first shot - she shares this space with an uncommunicative spirit (Shane West) who seems equally trapped in his own depressing after-life. Director Tom Provost takes the risky (but ultimately rewarding) approach of shooting his ghost as if he’s just another character in the room. Which makes it all the more jarring when another spirit arrives, one that seems to be whispering nasty thoughts into our heroine’s ear. The P...

As John Carpenter tells it, he was up all night in front of a typewriter trying to come up with some ideas for the contractually obligated sequel to his super successful slasher movie, Halloween . Several hours and half a bottle of whisky later, Laurie Strode was revealed to be Michael Meyers’ sister , explaining exactly why she seemed to be the target of on his homicidal bender through Haddonfield. Carpenter would be the first to admit the whole thing was scarier without an explanation (see Rob Zombie’s horrendous remakes if you need further clarification), but his slightly inebriated plot point works as well as any. The director didn’t return, but Jamie Lee Curtis, Donald Pleasance and director of photography Dean Cundey did , which means the films looks and feels like a direct continuation of Carpenter’s work. The spooky suburban streets, however, are soon replaced by the sterile corridors of Haddonfield Memorial Hospital where Laurie is admitted as the only survivor of the Mic...

It ironic how much effort Scream 4 puts into critiquing the irrelevancy of all the remakes, re-imaginings and rip-offs of horror classics in recent years, when the franchise itself has been irrelevant for more than a decade. The Wes Craven / Kevin Williamson creation was never as smart as it thought it was to begin with. It’s a lot tougher to make something scary than it is to mock something that’s not. And yet there’s something oddly reassuring about this fourth chapter, which attempts to comment on Facebook (“I don’t want friends, I want fans ,” confesses the killer when finally revealed), Twitter, and an entire generation so out of touch with reality that a live streaming feed is the closest they get to a personal interaction. There’s plenty of material to work with, but the film’s formula remains predictably routine: clever intro, smart-ass teenagers, prank calls, several red herrings and that corny Ghostface mask. But it’s great to see time spent on Courtney Cox and David ...

Hammer Films was single-handedly responsible for the return of classic horror icons in the ‘50s and ‘60s. Their gory, full-color reboots of the Dracula and Frankenstein franchises made all the old gothic haunts bankable again. But the studio also dabbled in comedies, action and suspense thrillers like Hysteria , a sub-Hitchcockian story of an amnesiac who tries to piece together the circumstances behind the car crash that was responsible for his fragile mental condition. It’s obvious upfront that there’s some sort of conspiracy afoot, so the chief viewing pleasure is trying to sort out exactly who is responsible: the innocent nurse, concerned psychiatrist, mysterious femme fatale…or all three? Director Freddie Francis is responsible for some of the most visually sumptuous films ever made. This isn’t one of them. Hysteria is a perfectly flat and dull looking affair, that really only comes alive when bit player Maurice Denham enters the story as a surprisingly street smart priva...

Roger Corman has been responsible for somewhere in the neighborhood of 300 films as a writer, director or producer. Little wonder Shout Factory has resorted to packaging his films as a Quadruple Feature in their latest release Vampires, Mummies & Monsters . This 2-disc special edition sports some pretty obscure titles picked for release by Roger when he started his own company – New World – in the early ‘70s. Lady Frankenstein (1972) is the most interesting, with a classy Hammer Films approach that mixes gothic horror with sex, sadism and necrophilia. Carrying on her father’s work, Tania Frankenstein (Rosalba Neri) takes things to a whole new level of deceiptful depravity, crafting a creature not just out of scientific curiousity, but also to satisfy her physical desires. The Velvet Vampire (1971) has a good time exploring the dark side of the free-love generation’s loose morals, with a young married couple seduced by a swinging vampiress. A good deal of unintentional hum...

It might have been hard to be a Charlton Heston fan at the tail end of his career: polyester and politics will sully almost anyone’s reputation. But during the late ‘50s, he was a close as a movie star could get to God…literally. After playing Moses in The Ten Commandments , Heston followed up his Biblical performance with another religious epic, Ben Hur , the most expensive movie ever produced at the time. Director William Wyler’s film wound up winning eleven Academy Awards (a record that still holds today, tied with Titanic and The Return of the King ) and cementing Heston’s reputation as the go-to guy for studio tent-pole pictures. But Ben Hur is far from a creaky historical record of Hollywood’s golden years; it’s an action-packed, monumental cinematic achievement that served as the model for filmmakers half a century later. The Chariot Sequence alone is the stuff of legend. Utilizing multiple cameras and taking over five weeks to film, the stunts still pack a punch, all ...

After Bernard Goetz shot four muggers in an NYC subway in 1984, most of the life went out of the vigilante movies. It was much more fun to fantasize about old pros like Charles Bronsan punishing criminals with extreme prejudice than to swallow the idea of Goetz - a nerdy, bespectacled milquetoast - as a defender of justice. Reality, and the surrounding controversy, threw cold water in the face of what had been a cinematic hot topic. But The Exterminator (1980) was prescient in at least one respect: its hero (or anti -hero) is just as harmless and frumpy looking as Goetz. John Eastland (Robert Ginty) looks about as dangerous as a high-school English teacher, but after his buddy from the ‘Nam is viciously mugged he tracks down the punks responsible and makes them pay. Not content to stop there, John metes out justice to a whole lineup of gangsters, perverts and street punks, becoming a media sensation. The Exterminator was a staple on the shelf of every “mom & pop” video s...

Low-budget horror hit a peak in the 70’s with films like Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Wes Craven’s The Hills Have Eyes breaking the barriers of good taste and the heretofore predictable rules of scary movies audiences came to expect. These were the pioneers of the “anti-Hollywood” horror movie. Despite its rabid cult following, Hills isn’t the most accomplished film of Wes Craven’s career. The editing is clumsy, the acting is weak and the make-up is corny (actor Michael Berryman’s misshapen bald skull makes him the only convincing inbred hick in the bunch). At best, Hills is a jury-rigged minor masterpiece, held together by sheer brute force and an overwhelming sense of dread. The film feeds off the momentum of its stripped down story about a family of whitebread vacationers fighting for survival in the desert against a family of cannibalistic madmen (and women). The set-piece scene - and the one that likely earned the film its reputation - is a disturbingly violent at...

When it comes to the serial killer genre, there’s not much left to say (or show) that will shock an audience. We’ve seen elegant cannibals, ingenious tricksters and mindless hulks who strip your skin and wear it like a cheap suit. Been there, done that. So to squeeze something new out of the conventions, you have to tell the story in a different way. Which is exactly what A Horrible Way To Die does. Shy, skittish and borderline paranoid, Sarah (Amy Seimetz) is struggling through her AA meetings and trying to rebuild her life. From what? We’re not sure yet. But as the film cuts to the escape of famous serial killer Garrick Turrell - whose Facebook friend count is disgustingly high - we begin to get the idea that there’s a history between the two. And that history is going to repeat itself. Shot in the casual docu-style of an Office episode, we follow Sarah on dates with her new boyfriend as she begins to open up again. Meanwhile Garrick is coping with his own sick and tw...

Most movies try their best to disguise they era in which they were created. But Brian DePalma’s Scarface embraces the decadence and self-destruction of the 80’s as the backdrop for a re-imagining of the gangster classic with Al Pacino as the dangerously ambitious Cuban immigrant Tony Montana. At the time of its release, Pacino’s over-the-top performance was about the only thing that attracted positive reviews. Oliver Stone’s brutal, profanity laced script hit the screen after fighting its way past an X-rating, only to do moderate business at the box office. But from these humble beginnings a cult film was born. Embraced by the modern gangster culture, almost every rapper’s crib has a shrine dedicated to Tony Montana and his extravagant lifestyle (apparently they missed the none-too-subtle roadsigns of a quick, violent death). DePalma (The Untouchables, Mission: Impossible) reigns in his trademark visuals, but makes the most of the violent set-pieces he has to work with. Tony’s final bl...

Before she became a Blaxploitation queen, and long before Quentin Tarantino tried to resurrect her career in Jackie Brown , Pam Grier was sent to prison by none other than Roger Corman. Always on the lookout to save a buck, Roger produced three “Women In Prison” films in quick succession in 1971 in the Philippines: The Big Doll House, The Big Bird Cage and Women in Cages . Essentially the same movie with actors swapping parts, Pam Grier was the obvious standout in each production. So much so that she was elevated to top-name status in films like Coffy and Foxy Brown not two years later. Not so much for her acting ability, but her charisma . This is a woman who knows how to shoot a machine gun! The man behind these low-rent but highly entertaining exploitation adventures, director Jack Hill ( Doll House & Bird House ) covers all the obligatories: 1) Naked women in the shower. 2) Women wrestling in mud. 3) Women being tortured. But despite that litany of lurid, misog...

Buddy cops share a special bond: whether it’s reminiscing over that last car chase or seeing how pissed off the Captain is after your last report, it’s a cinematic relationship with roots deeper than most cinematic marriages . So the homo-erotic undertones in Live Like A Cop, Die Like A Man are mostly likely unintentional. After all, these guys are locked, loaded and taking names on the mean streets of Rome. And when they’re not hunting down the bad guys as part of their super-secret undercover police squad, they’re interrogating female witnesses with the sort of macho vigor that only exists in “pizza guy” porn movies. So who cares if they sleep in the same apartment and ride the same motorcycle to work? Directed by gore specialist Ruggero Deodato (from a script by Italian crime specialist Fernando Di Leo), with a title like Live Like A Cop, Die Like A Man you’ve got a lot of testosterone to live up to. And the film surprisingly meets expectations, constructing a fast-paced F...

What if Bobby and Cindy Brady were actually homicidal maniacs? That’s essentially the premise behind Bloody Birthday , a 1981 slasher shot with all the style of a Sherwood Schwartz sitcom. Three kids are born at the same time, in the same hospital during a solar eclipse. If you keep up with your horoscopes you’ll know that means they’re destined to be born without a conscience; little Ted Bundys with taped glasses and church pants. For no particular reason they start off-ing horny teenagers, then move on to any family members who become suspicious. Bloody Birthday sports a few recognizable faces, including an extended striptease from ex-MTV personality Julie Brown and Elizabeth Hoy (perhaps better known as the little girl John Belushi offers to “buy” during the restaurant sequence in The Blues Brothers ) as one of the murderous kids. And even with its flat, unflattering look, the movie has a certain late ‘70s appeal, trying desperately to capture just a little of that leftover ...

Prison movies like The Shawshank Redemption always seem to feature men reaching down deep within themselves to persevere in the face of injustice. Meanwhile, women in prison movies are typically just an excuse to provide some T & A. With that in mind let’s go over the top three signs you know you’re watching a women in prison movie: 1) The warden’s office has a hot tub. 2) Instead of drab prison uniforms each inmate is assigned a slinky negligee. 3) In case of emergency the prison bars can substitute for stripper poles! You’ll find all that and more in the Women In Prison Triple Feature , gathering three titles from the ‘80s (two of which spotlight Exorcist child star Linda Blair) for an enjoyably sleazy marathon. Chained Heat (1983) is the raunchiest of the bunch and also the most ridiculous. How seriously can you take a movie when the aforementioned warden not only has a hot tub, but a stuffed cougar with glowing eyes? Baby-faced Linda Blair is the perfect naïve pin...

Cinematography has often been described as “painting with light.” And few films can lay claim to achieving this goal better than Barry Lyndon , director Stanley Kubrick’s 1975 period piece that follows an ambitious cad (played by real-life cad Ryan O’Neal) who Gump ’s his way from humble Irish beginnings to a life of wealth and privilege…at the expense of almost everyone around him. While the film has been buried in Kubrick’s canon of work in comparison to revivals and reissues of 2001 and The Shining , it’s finally getting critical reappraisal and recognition for being more than just “that movie they shot using real candlelight.” Cinematographer Jon Alcott’s ability to capture motion picture images using only natural flame - thereby recreating the true sense of 18th century life – won him an Academy Award. But it’s Kubrick’s painterly compositions throughout the rest of the film that make it more than a simple technical achievement. Few directors can compare with Kubrick’s eye f...

John Wayne only “acted” in two films in his career: Red River and The Searchers . In his hundred-plus other onscreen appearances he was simply playing the “role” of John Wayne as he saw fit. It was only when threatened or challenged that Wayne really brought something new to the table. The Comancheros (1961) finds him at his most comfortable as a Texas Ranger escorting a suave criminal (Stuart Whitman) for extradition. However, the journey tosses both men into the same boat against a massing army of Comanche Indians supported by a gang of opportunistic white men looking to make a buck. Infiltrating the compound, Wayne and Whitman join forces to beat back the drunken, savage red-skinned horde! Yep, it’s that kind of Western. It’s just as unfair to criticize The Comancheros for its depiction of Native Americans as it would be to judge the USSR based on watching Red Dawn . It’s a movie of its time, and a damn entertaining one, bolstered by a rousing score from Elmer Bernstein a...

Since the TV industry has a lock on the phrase “jumping the shark” to describe a show past its prime, perhaps we should consider adopting “launched into orbit” to explain a horror franchise in the same situation. After all, Jason X , which continued serial killer Jason Vorhees’ adventures where no man had gone before, is the epitome of desperate studio executive brainstorming. And yet Hellraiser: Bloodline (part 4 in the series and the last to be released theatrically) finds a clever way to expand the demonic mythology of Pinhead, serving as both a prequel and a sequel, while staging a dramatic change in venue for the opening and closing scenes. As a crude robot manipulates the infamous puzzle box, we’re introduced to the distant relative of the man who invented the darn thing, kicking off three different family histories beginning in Victorian England and ending up on an isolated space station where Doctor Paul Merchant (Bruce Ramsay) plans to destroy the evil once and for all....

Can you name three “killer pig” movies without resorting to the internet? If so, then Chawz is right up your alley…but for God’s sake don’t list that as one of your 27 levels of compatibility on eHarmony, alright?! A Korean import that mirrors (in a smudgy sort of way) the plot for Spielberg’s classic monster shark flick, Chawz is both better than you’d expect and worse than it should be. In the plus column, the movie goes for quirky right off the bat, set in a Twin Peak sian mountain town populated by the Korean equivalent of Log Ladies and dancing dwarves. But even in his more obtuse moments, David Lynch never had the cajones to introduce a 3000 pound man-eating boar! Chawz never manages to incorporate the oversized swine into the story smoothly either. There are some typical “kill scenes” where random characters are munched offscreen and even a false ending or two. But there’s just not enough bacon on display. As much as I appreciate a well-written character or two, I...

Although it wears all the accoutrements of a Clint Eastwood spaghetti western, El Topo is cut from another cloth entirely. Writer / director / star Alejandro Jodorowsky’s mind-bending, gender-bending, genre-bending experimental art film was the first certified midnight movie phenomenon, blazing a trail for the work of other outré auteur to come. Even 40 years later, its images are striking, its metaphors are mysterious and its ultimate purpose a bit bewildering. At the time of release, El Topo ’s violence, sexual perversions and sacrilegious leanings were enough to guarantee controversy. While their impact has lessened over the years, Jodorowsky’s film remains a bizarre free-for-all of politically incorrect imagery and impenetrable (but often amusing) iconography. A cowboy with a foot fetish caresses his collection of high heels. A female gunslinger amorously peels a luscious fruit. A cave full of physically deformed incest victims descends upon the spiritually deformed citize...

It’s funny what movies stick with you when you’re a kid. I remember watching The Last Dinosaur in 1977, a made-for-TV movie designed to compete with the Godzilla craze, and being more scared of star Richard Boone than any of the rubber monsters on display. As the actual “dinosaur” of the title, Boone is a loud-mouthed, hulking misogynist billionaire who longs to put a T-Rex on his trophy wall. His chance comes when his oil drill breaks through into a prehistoric world, populated by the same man-in-suit monsters seen in similar fare like At The Earth’s Core and The Land Time Forgot . While primitive, the effects are charmingly effective and photographed with more creativity than usual (a boneyard T-Rex / Triceritops fight is most impressive). But it’s Boone you remember; his bloated features and gruff voice perfect for a man who’s more at home in a cave than a mansion. While the script and acting in general will make you cringe if you haven’t seen it since it’s small screen debu...

The beauty of the double-feature drive-in movie experience was that you doubled your chances of seeing something worthwhile. And no one knew how to entertain the drive-in crowd better than Roger Corman. The mid-‘70s exploded with car culture pictures featuring stunts, sex and vehicular destruction all across America’s highways. Shout Factory’s Action Packed Collection cherry-picks three titles: Georgia Peaches , a TV pilot released theatrically overseas starring Dirk Benedict and Tanya Tucker in a Dukes of Hazzard -type scenario. Smokey Bites The Dust , with former child-star Jimmy McNichol (Kristi’s brother) as a good-natured car thief. And the top pick of the set, The Great Texas Dynamite Chase , starring 1970’s Playmate of the Year Claudia Jennings as a bankrobber who picks up another female partner and proceed to blow their way through the Lone Star State. There’s a whole lotta Thelma and Louise in Dynamite ’s DNA, but director Michael Pressman (a prolific but non-descrip...

The Brazilian boogeyman, Jose Mojica Marins and his on-screen alter-ego Coffin Joe, return from a 30 year absence in Embodiment of Evil , a thoroughly sick, sadistic (yet somehow old-fashioned) and thoroughly unexpected third entry in the Coffin Joe series. Flashing back to his films in the ‘60s, Coffin Joe is tortured by black-and-white visitations from his victims. But that doesn’t stop him from pursing his all-consuming quest to find the perfect woman with which to mate and conceive a child (why he doesn’t just strap on some beer-goggles and head to Bennigan’s is anyone’s guess). With fingernails longer than the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills plus top hat and cape, Marins character is a reincarnated fashion faux pas. And for a while one expects the film to simply provide an aging horror star the opportunity for one last classy swan song. But Marins is one sick puppy, and Embodiment of Evil will be a rough slap in the face for anyone unfamiliar with his twisted state of mind...

While the giallo itself (Italy’s brand name for sexy, gory thrillers) was a played-out inbred mess by 1980, there are still plenty of gems waiting to be polished from the early ‘70s when the genre was full of new blood. The Perfume of the Lady in Black may not even fit the genre conventions quite right – no black gloved killer, no overt violence (more on that later) and no central murder mystery – leaning more towards a Hitchcockian psychotic meltdown than an Argento exercise in excess. Mimsy Farmer plays Sylvia, a fragile young woman haunted by visions of a childhood trauma. These visions begin to intrude on reality, taking the form of a young version of herself that Sylvia is both consoled and terrified by. But are these visions real, imagined or a supernatural conspiracy dreamed up by those around her? Director Franceso Barilli’s approach is elegantly restrained and avoids almost every crass exploitation opportunity (besides the surprisingly gory finale), complemented by a ...

The cult of Dario Argento admirers was once a pretty exclusive club. But boutique labels like Blue Underground changed all that by not only making the Italian director’s films readily available on various digital formats, but giving them the sort of treatment you couldn’t imagine back in the bootleg VHS days. Now it’s Argento overload! Even a casual message board scan inevitably turns up a dozen debates as to which of his films ranks highest. Inferno always is one of the top vote getters. And one glimpse of this new Blu-ray edition you can see why. The Suspiria sequel boasts the same oversaturated color scheme – red, green and blue practically bleeding off the screen – and numerous set-piece murder sequences. But Inferno doesn’t even pretend to adhere to a plot. There’s a continuing story structure involving the book The Three Mothers which details the secrets of a witch’s coven spread across the globe (trust me, checking that sucker out of the library gets you in more tro...

FERNANDO DI LEO CRIME COLLECTION: The films of Quentin Tarantino are a melting pot of b-movie inspirations and outright cinematic thievery. But at least the guy is honest about it! By lending his stamp of approval to this new 4-movie set from Raro Video, he’s paying back one of the filmmakers who helped to shape his career. Like most Italian director’s working in the gangster genre, Di Leo’s films are anything but subtle. Yet there’s a heavy political subtext and enough double and triple crosses to keep even the most experienced genre veteran guessing. The Italian Connection has a chase scene to rival anything put on the screen and a black / white hitman combo that will seem more than a little familiar to Pulp Fiction fans. Caliber 9 makes the most of its hulking anti-hero (Gaston Moschin) and the luscious Barbara Bouchet. The Boss plays off star Henry Silva, whose cold shark-eyes are put to good use as an ambitious hitman. While Rulers of the City twists the genre conv...

Go ahead, get out your tiny violins. I’m so tired of watching movies! I understand the idea of complaining about reviewing movies (even as a side-job) isn’t apt to get much pity. But quite honestly, Sundance can be an exhausting experience. It can also be an inspiring, fascinating and exhilarating one. Which, of course, is why we keep going. Even 30 years into its history, Robert Redford’s annual celebration of indie film is still the pick of the litter when it comes to US film festivals. It has up and down years, but so does the film industry in general. So how does 2011 stack up? Let’s run through the 15 films I managed to cover in 4 days…it’s only a snapshot but that’s the best one man and a shuttle bus can accomplish in that amount of time. THE PREMIERES: RED STATE was the hottest ticket at the fast for a few reasons. Director Kevin Smith was synonymous with Sundance ever since Clerks made him a success. But rumor was this was a bit of a departure from the guy who t...