Movieline Online

Screenwriter Lem Dobbs sums up the significance of Elvis’ performance in Flaming Star (1960) quite succinctly as “the path not taken.” Rather than coast by on his good looks and a rousing theme song, Presley was determined to change the course of his acting career in this his first movie role after returning from the Army. Playing the “half-breed” younger son in a frontier family, the character of Pacer Burton afforded him the opportunity to actually emote alongside his fellow actors rather than just shake his hips. Unfortunately, that wasn’t the sort of performance audience’s had in mind for the King of Rock n’ Roll. Directed by Don Siegel, one of the few noteworthy directors Presley ever worked with, Flaming Star deals with the uncomfortable issue of racism packaged in a comfortable western format. The Burton family’s idyllic Texas range life is torn apart when a savage attack by a Kiowa Indian tribe upon their neighbors stirs up bad blood. Pacer and his full-blooded Kiowa mot...

Call it bad luck, bad karma or just bad timing; some folks never get the credit they deserve. Arch Oboler began his career with a breakout success on the 1936 radio program Lights Out , a weekly horror play that aired on NBC at midnight which allowed for much more edgy content. Oboler parlayed that success into a career in Hollywood and hit the jackpot again in 1952 with Bwana Devil , the first color 3D film that unleashed a tidal wave of imitators. But these accomplishments never made Oboler a household name, despite the fact that many of those inspired by his ideas and innovations (Rod Serling and Stephen King among them) did just that. Perhaps because Oboler, although quick to spot a trend, never took full advantage of the film medium. 1966’s The Bubble is a perfect example, shot with a new 3D technology that allowed for much simpler filmmaking techniques (and set the standard for every 3D film for the next 30 years), but burdened with a storyline that is a poor match for the ...

The Vanishing (1993) was blasted right out of the gate for simply attempting to replicate the eerie appeal of the original 1988 Dutch version, even though both films were directed by the same man, George Sluizer, who restages the story with a big-name cast, one major new character and a Hollywood ending that had critics crying foul. With a couple of decades of perspective, one can afford to be a bit more unbiased. And the truth is, the American version isn’t just bad by comparison, it’s bad all by itself. After a lover’s spat, Jeff (Kiefer Sutherland) and Rita (Sandra Bullock) pull in to a busy truck stop to refuel for their road trip. Rita, however, never comes back to the car. Years later, Jeff is still racked with guilt about her disappearance and obsessed with getting closure. His loyalty (and haggard appearance) wins the sympathy of a pretty waitress, Rita (Nancy Travis), who soon becomes his first follow-up relationship. Meanwhile, the film introduces us to Barney Cousin...

After debuting Demons and Demons 2 on Blu-ray in an exclusive steelbook format, Synapse Films has released a slightly less collectible but equally spectacular looking pair of stand-alone editions that epitomize the gonzo ‘80s Italian horror aesthetic. Produced by Dario Argento ( Suspiria ) and directed by Lamberto Bava (son of Mario), you won’t find a more silly, sick and visually slick double feature of Euro-splatter anywhere! Just don’t expect it to make any sense. At this point in his career Argento had drifted into a pattern of disconnected imagery tied with the loosest of narrative threads, designed more like Fangoria photoplays than linear stories. And apparently he developed Demons and its sequel along the same lines, packaging both films with a prefabricated heavy metal soundtrack built around some outstanding make-up effects by Sergio Stivaletti. There’s a screenplay in here somewhere, but it’s practically non-essential. Demons begins with a disfigured servant of Sa...

Shock Waves has been lying undiscovered in the cult movie ocean for decades, much like the undead Nazi soldiers in the film itself. Even Blue Underground’s original 2003 release on DVD didn’t generate the sort of attention the film deserved for creating a fever-dream atmosphere quite unlike any zombie film before or since. But with zombies still firmly in command of our movies, TV and video games, director Ken Wiederhorn’s prune-faced corpses are rising from the depths in a brand-new Blu-ray edition that’s destined to win over new fans. Shipwrecked on a small island off the Florida Keys, a group of tour boat passengers and her crew search for shelter in an abandoned hotel only to be greeted by a former German SS commander (Peter Cushing) who tries to scare them off. His warning, however, comes too late as some sort of natural disaster has awoken his troop of super soldiers just offshore. Now these unstoppable killing machines are stalking everyone on the island, intent on draggi...

In the ‘80s movies were bit like top-40 radio, you got a little of everything. Oscar bait such as Gandhi and Out of Africa existed in a comfortable box-office balance with escapist summer fare like Return of the Jedi …much the same way Casey Kasem could play Lionel Richie and Men At Work back to back without missing a beat. But even in this glorious melting pot of an environment, a film like Under Fire was probably out of touch with what audience’s were willing to pay for. With CNN broadcasting about the chaos and corruption in Central America 24 hours a day, the story of a trio of journalists caught up in those same explosions and petty politics probably felt more like “bad news” than a good time at the movies. In the film’s defense, Under Fire does a fine job of making the situation understandable and personal . Nick Nolte, whose disheveled-look was working in his favor here, plays Russell Price, a hardcore news photographer who specializes in getting the shots no one else ...

Satan worshippers have been a literary and cinematic standby for ages. But in the real world could all those demonic conspiracies really operate undiscovered? Think about it; if the finale of Breaking Bad can’t be kept on the down low for 24 hours, what chance does Lucifer have of quietly conquering the world?! Which just goes to show that one’s suspension of disbelief is severely put to the test in The Believers (1987), starring Martin Sheen as a police therapist whose family is targeted by a rogue cult with connections reaching into some of the highest levels of corporate America. Mark Frost’s script – based on a novel by Nicholas Conde – makes no bones about his condemnation of the rich and powerful, characterizing the lot as ruthless elitists willing to exchange their first born for a golden ticket to the 1% club. It’s a timely criticism (then and now ) exaggerated to almost comic effect. But it’s also a predictable one that never colors outside the lines, despite having a...

If imitation is the sincerest form of flattery then Jennifer (1978) is practically drooling over Brian De Palma’s Carrie . The details are tweaked just enough to avoid a lawsuit, but the story follows the same general trajectory: mousy outsider is teased relentlessly by a gang of mean girls at an elite prep school until a psychic powered rampage evens the score. Only this time, the telekinetic connection is between a girl and her snakes ! Despite the copycat plot, Jennifer works remarkably well until the big finale. Actress Lisa Pelikan has the same sort of timid appeal as Sissy Spacek (and even manages a Southern accent) while the cast of bullies, led by Amy Johnston, is wonderfully despicable. There’s a reason so many films rely on the tortures of high school social status: because no matter how ridiculous the hazing gets, it’s still sickeningly believable. There’s no pig’s blood here, but Jennifer suffers from plenty of nasty frame-ups, dead pets and even nude photos of her...

The late ‘80s was a great time to be a cinematic serial killer. Not only were you a menace to society when you were alive , but you were even more dangerous after you were dead ! Part of a natural progression of the slasher genre, Shocker and The Horror Show both introduced villains who returned from the grave with supernatural powers to continue their bloody business. Peter Jackson’s The Frighteners (1996) eventually took the whole thing to a big-budget extreme, but wedged somewhere in between is The First Power (1990), starring Lou Diamond Phillips as an L.A. cop who has to catch the bad guy again after his spirit returns for a post-mortem rampage. More action movie than straight-up horror, the film gets a ton of mileage out of actor Jeff Kober as Patrick Channing, the Pentagram Killer, who believes his status as one of the devil’s favorite disciples will grant him “the first power:” resurrection. And, what do you know, it does! Which leads to him body swapping all over t...

Not every antique is worth money. And not every black-and-white film is a classic. In fact, early Hollywood pumped out scads of films that weren’t worth the celluloid they were printed on. Which is why it’s such a pleasant surprise to discover an uncut gem like 1932’s The Death Kiss amongst all that costume jewelry. Carrying over much of the cast from the previous year’s Dracula - including Bela Lugosi in a small but important role as an executive at a movie studio whose big star is gunned down on the set of his latest picture - The Death Kiss is a fun little murder mystery set against the backdrop of the burgeoning Hollywood system. David Manners plays the smart-mouth screenwriter who stays one step ahead of the police in an attempt to keep his leading lady (Adrienne Ames) out of trouble while Lugosi leads a parade of possible suspects that includes the head gaffer, penny-pinching producer, and the director himself (Edward Van Sloan, aka Abraham Van Helsing). The Death Kiss ...

While one might think that professional film critics (of which there are but a handful remaining who earn a full-time paycheck) take an unofficial oath to be impartial, objective observers of the cinematic arts, nothing could be further from the truth. The late Roger Ebert, arguably the most transparent and relatable critic of his time, fawned over some of the most frowned upon genre fare out there…and even wrote some pop trash of his own ( Beyond the Valley of the Dolls ). People who watch movies for a living sometimes fall in love with them just like you do…and often have an equally hard time justifying why. With a film like My Darling Clementine (1946), justifying one’s admiration is easy. Not a decade has gone by that John Ford’s sentimental retelling of the gunfight at the OK Corral hasn’t landed in the top five Westerns of all time…usually fighting for space with the director’s other masterpiece, The Searchers . And while Clementine saddles up same western clichés, it doe...

Unless you’re a 6 year-old girl, there’s nothing particularly terrifying about worms. So as a late entry in the Nature Strikes Back genre that kicked off in the post- Birds era - including Food of the Gods and the giant mutant bunnies from Night of the Lepus – writer / director Jeff Lieberman really has his work cut out for him with Squirm (1976). Working with a cast of New York unknowns and non-actors hired on location in Georgia, the films’ real star is a swarm of flesh-eating earthworms brought up to the surface by downed electrical wires. In the extras on Scream Factory’s new collector’s edition Blu-ray, Lieberman claims he had a tongue-in-cheek approach in mind from the very beginning. But most of the humor is of the unintentional variety, the sort that winds up featured on MST3K (in fact, Squirm was roasted by the ‘bots in episode 12 of Season Ten), headlined by some atrocious acting from the local yokels who wind up as part of the slimy buffet line. Mick (Don Scardin...

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969) paired two of America’s most handsome and profitable stars and became the template for buddy-action-comedies everywhere. Meanwhile, the Italian film industry, always quick to cash in on a trend, released Companeros (1970) the very next year, teaming up their hottest homegrown western stars - Franco Nero and Tomas Milian – for a similarly playful adventure set amidst the chaos of the Mexican Revolution. Actually, Companeros lifts a lot of material from a lot of different movies, especially the political-minded Spaghetti Westerns of Damiano Damiani like A Bullet for the General . Heck, it even recreates the slow-motion machine gun finale from The Wild Bunch not once but twice ! But even though it’s built from a lot of spare parts, director Sergio Corbucci’s film seems to have only stolen from the best. Which makes for a familiar but always entertaining collection of greatest hits. Drifting into the middle of a war zone between a capita...

Character actors do most of the heavy lifting in Hollywood. A little more rough-around-the edges than the primped and pampered leads, their job is to provide detail without distraction. So it’s rare to find one elevated above their station like James Woods is in Salvador (1986), Oliver Stone’s pre- Platoon dramatic thriller set against a Reagan-era backdrop even more politically confusing than the situation in Vietnam. To be fair, Woods was on quite a roll in the ‘80s. Despite a face one would never call traditionally handsome (or maybe because of it), he was cast as the flawed protagonist in several critically acclaimed productions including Videodrome , Once Upon a Time in America and True Believer . Like a lot of character actors, Woods never seemed to be acting at all …he simply blended in like a pre-existing cinematic condition. But Salvador gave him the chance to lay it all on the table with a character unlikable enough to be the villain in almost any other movie. A pe...

Frederick Forsyth’s The Dogs of War (1974) was not so much as novel as a “how-to” guide for aspiring mercenaries, detailing the complicated minutia of planning, staging and executing a corporate-financed coup d’état in the fictional African country of Zangaro; its characters roughly sketched stand-ins moving around the globe like chess pieces waiting to make their strategic moves. As compelling as that process can be on the page, a movie adaptation demanded a few changes, most notably in the lead character of Jamie Shannon, played by Christopher Walken, whose unique and magnetic presence gives weight to a role that’s still underwritten. Opening with an explosively dramatic escape from an African airfield, Shannon and his team make it back to civilization and part ways waiting for their next job. It comes in the form of a mysterious executive-type who hires them to replace a brutal dictator with a more amenable leader of their own choosing. Although the reasons aren’t made quite cl...

Catalog releases of studio classics have officially become a niche product. So where does that leave titles like The Killer Elite (1975), which, despite being directed by Sam Peckinpah, don’t qualify for the sort of classic status that would demand a hi-def release of any kind? It’s actually a perfect fit for Twilight Time’s limited edition business model, delivering 3000 copies into the hands of collector’s and then gifting them with a true rarity in the form Peckinpah’s Noon Wine , a 1966 TV production never before available on any home video format. The Killer Elite fits nicely amongst the covert conspiracy films that seemed to propagate in the post-Watergate era. But the complicated plot, which involves a CIA shadow company hired to protect defecting foreign diplomats while on American soil, is so much smoke and mirrors. The only narrative thread that matters is the one involving Mike Locken (James Caan) and George Hansen (Robert Duvall), former agents and partners now pla...

For a bio-pic about the meteoric rise and tragic death of Ritchie Valens, it’s curious that La Bamba (1987) chooses to shift the focus to a different tragedy altogether. Lou Diamond Phillips makes for a charismatic – if a tad too squeaky clean – leading man. But it’s co-star Esai Morales who has the more compelling role as his brother Bob, a tortured, alcoholic trouble-maker who sinks even further into despair when Ritchie hits it big. Unlike its companion piece, The Buddy Holly Story (1978), La Bamba isn’t really about the music. Writer / director Luis Valdez emphasizes the broken families and harsh conditions that kept Latinos trapped in their basement barrios with little hope of moving up and out. It’s not subtle, but it gets its point across. Ritchie bears the burden of everyone’s dream for a better car, a better home and a better life. Everyone except Bob, that is, who resents his brother’s success and favored status in the family. Morales’ portrayal of the conflicted pr...

The sneaky truth about most ghost stories is they’re more concerned with the hauntees than the haunters . The supernatural seems to have more influence over those who are already a bit disturbed to begin with. Which describes the heroine of 1961’s The Innocents , based on Henry James classic The Turn of the Screw , to a tee. Miss Giddens is a sheltered pastor’s daughter who secures her first position as governess for a pair of precocious children, Flora and Miles, on an isolated country estate. From her very first day strange occurrences begin to peek through the idyllic façade: whispered voices, pale figures and odd behavior by her two young students. A bit of detective work reveals that the previous governess met an unfortunate end…right after her lover, the estate’s valet, did the same. And Miss Giddens begins to suspect that the children were not only under their evil influence when they were alive , but even more so now that they’re dead . The Innocents is a perfect ghos...

As the disaster movie phase of the ‘70s was winding down and the sci-fi craze was just heating up, someone finally came up with the peanut-butter and chocolate inspired idea of putting both together in the form of Meteor (1979), starring Sean Connery and a supporting cast of aging studio stars as they attempt to nuke an asteroid hurtling towards earth. It’s a good idea that was recycled (twice!) in 1998 when Armageddon and Deep Impact battled for box-office supremacy. Meteor delivers more political scuffles than worldwide destruction, though, in a film that seems to have had little budget left for special effects after writing all those zeroes on Connery’s check. But it might have been worth it. Connery’s permanently pissed-off expression is the most dramatic thing about the movie. As Paul Bradley, an ex-NASA scientist whose armed Hercules satellite and its Russian counterpart is mankind’s only hope, the former 007 manages to make the extinction-level threat seem convincing ev...

Italian horror director Michele Soavi is a third generation copy, the recipient of a symbolic torch passed from Mario Bava ( Black Sunday ) to Dario Argento ( Suspiria ) to himself. So it’s not necessarily his fault if the torch was getting a little dim by this point. Italian horror itself had run the giallo into the ground and been trumped by the profuse amount of copycat American slashers. Soavi, an actor who worked his way behind the camera, gleaned just enough from his mentors to make Stage Fright (1987) a cut above similar titles of the day…but not enough to top the films that inspired him. Set amongst a bickering troupe of stage actors rehearsing for an upcoming show, the murder of a crewmember changes the course of the production, with the dictatorial director locking the cast inside for an all-night rewrite session. Unfortunately, the killer is locked inside with them ; a psychotic actor with 16 deaths already on his resume who dons an oversized owl mask and starts makin...

It goes without saying that not every film is a classic. In fact, most are pretty routine. But even amidst a formulaic thriller or a teenage melodrama there are moments of cinematic inspiration than peek out of the mediocrity. The Secret of Santa Vittoria (1969) is a better than average studio picture made in an era when studios were struggling to find their place. Weighed down with romantic subplots and a manufactured sense of Hollywood cheer, it nevertheless captures one glorious moment that makes the entire film a worthwhile viewing experience. That tide turning moment comes about halfway through a picture that struggles to find its footing. Anthony Quinn stars as Bombolini, the resident drunk of a quiet Italian village on the brink of German occupation during the end of WW2. With a cellar full of more than a million bottles of wine, Santa Vittoria’s supply is sure to be stolen by the Germans unless a plan can be hatched at the last minute. But with Bombolini elected mayor ...

Director Paul Lynch gives star Jamie Lee Curtis 75% of the credit for Prom Night ’s success. And he’s not being overly generous. After Halloween , which became one of the largest grossing independents ever, having Curtis’ name attached to another film in the horror genre was like winning the lottery. And Prom Night (1980) got the most out of her girl-next-door image as a masked killer stalks the students of Hamilton High during their disco-themed special night. A prologue introduces us to young Nick, Wendy, Kelly and Jude who accidently push one of their playmates from a three-story plate glass window. They take a vow of silence to never reveal what they did. But fast forward six years later to senior prom: someone knows who was responsible for the tragedy and is making sure they pay the price. Prom Night is more of a mystery than a slasher per se. There are no on-camera kills until the final 30 minutes and even those are relatively tame by later standards (with one notable...

When it came to his adventures on the big screen, Elvis Presley was at the mercy of forces largely beyond his control. He was a “performer,” not an actor. And nearly every project he appeared in was manufactured to reinforce a well-established image. But sometimes the right material comes along at just the right time. Such is the case with Follow t hat Dream , the 1962 musical which takes a detour from the traditional Elvis formula, blessed with a amusingly laconic performance from Presley with no hip-shaking required. In fact, the King is pretty darn sedentary as Toby Kwimper, one member of an adopted family of modern-day pioneers who run out of gas on a new stretch of Florida highway. When government officials try to run them off, Pop Kwimper (Arthur O’Connell) decides to homestead the land, building a rudimentary house, malfunctioning privy and successful start-up charter fishing business. Their success lures other opportunistic folks hoping to take advantage of the loophole i...

One could view Gary Busey as a casualty of today’s celebrity obsessed culture or a shrewd manipulator of the same. Like a reality TV star, his fame springs from a twisted version of his own personality. Just how twisted is the question. A motorcycle accident in 1988 left him with serious brain damage and his eccentricities began to define him more than the roles themselves. So much so that popular culture has almost wiped his best performance, as Buddy Holly in The Buddy Holly Story (1978), from its collective consciousness. Rebounding from a cancelled project that had cast him Holly’s drummer, the actor lost 33 pounds to take on the lead role as the rock and roll phenomenon who died in a tragic plane crash at the age of 22. The film’s most energetic scenes feature Busey performing several of Holly’s songs live in various settings. No lip-synching, no back-up tracks, just Busey and his fellow actor / musicians (Don Stroud and Charles Martin Smith) belting out raucous versions ...

Despite good intentions and decent box-office returns, the latest American attempt to reboot Godzilla (2014) was a self-important dud. Director Gareth Edwards got the monster right, but saddled him with human sub-plots that were worse than just about any film in the series to date. Even the 1998 Matthew Broderick version at least cracked a smile now and then. Almost forgotten in the annals of Godzilla history is Godzilla: 2000 (or Godzilla: Millennium in Japan), the big guy’s onscreen comeback that kicked off a new series of releases in his native country before he officially “retired” in 2004. Part of Sony’s hi-def Toho Godzilla Collection, the film gets a spiffy new blu-ray edition that includes both the longer Japanese cut and the re-edited, re-jiggered American version which made its way into a limited theatrical release across the U.S. Neither version of the film manages to elevate the material above average, but it’s a treat to see both edits finally pop up…on hi-def, no ...

There’s something wildly exciting about watching a Brian De Palma movie. Of all the USC gang to emerge from the 1970s – including Spielberg, Lucas and Scorsese – his early films were the most revolutionary and counter-culture connected. But it wasn’t until he gave into his show-off Hitchcock obsessions that audiences began to take notice. After his attention getting thriller Sisters , the director moved on to a long gestating project, Phantom of the Paradise (1974), which was his last real middle finger to Hollywood before embracing the industry with open arms. Winslow Leach (William Finley) is a sheltered composer who passes along his life’s work to a diminutive but larger-than-life record producer, Swan (Paul Williams), who promptly passes off the material as his own. In an attempt to get revenge, Winslow is horribly disfigured and sabotages the grand opening of Swan’s new musical venue, The Paradise. But in a Faustian twist, he makes a new deal with the devilish producer to...

In the extras for Synapse Films’ new blu-ray special edition of Curtains , actress Lesleh Donaldson describes the Canadian slasher - filmed in 1980 but reshot, recut and finally released three years later - as an “endearing mess.” The same could be said for a lot of horror movies of that era, but Curtains is a true melting pot of old-school melodrama, art house aesthetics and typical teenagers in peril. The fact that there’s no possible way to make sense of it all only sweetens the deal. Samantha Eggar ( The Brood) plays an accomplished actress who has herself committed to an insane asylum as research for an upcoming role. But the film’s director (John Vernon) leaves her on the inside, staging an invite-only casting call at his snowy northern estate for six other actresses instead. Only five arrive, the other falling victim to a masked psycho accompanied by a creepy doll who seem intent on crashing the party…and killing off the competition. Shot with a surprising amount of panac...

Oh, Blue Underground, where have you been?! There are only a handful of independent home video companies that have weathered the digital dust-up of the last few years. And the very idea of collecting movies seems to be going the way of vinyl, consisting of either die-hard film aficionados or newly converted hipsters who snatch up collectible covers and limited editions with a gleeful giddiness that rivals the laserdisc era. Blue Underground was one of the first to bring Italian horror obscurities to the masses, but things had gotten pretty quite for a while there. So the blood-soaked Blu-ray double feature Hell of the Living Dead and Rats: Night of Terror is like a siren call to those who seek out bad cinema with the best presentation possible. Although both films credit director Vincent Dawn, the man behind the camera is actually Bruno Mattei, the Italian filmmaker also responsible for Women’s Prison Massacre and a slew of other genre knock-offs. His pseudonym was supposedly...

“What I really want to do is direct!” It’s a quote attributed to pretty much everyone in the film industry, from screenwriters to extras to craft services employees. But after creating the visual effects for Aliens and Predator back to back, Stan Winston actually earned his shot in director’s chair with Pumpkinhead (1988) . Truth be told, Winston had nothing to prove and a lot to lose, especially considering he was working in C-movie territory with no stars and a low budget. But his little under-the-radar horror movie shows he had skills that went beyond the latex workshop that made him an industry legend. Somewhere in the deep South (which looks conspicuously like California), Ed Harley (Lance Henriksen) is a humble country grocer who ekes out a living with his young son running a roadside stand. Their peace is interrupted by a noisy group of vacationers on their way to a family cabin. As fate would have it, Harley’s son winds up dead and he begins a quest for vengeance that...

Even though he doesn’t have much name recognition outside of the field, Richard Matheson was a giant in the supernatural, fantasy and science-fiction genre, having been responsible for some of the most memorable Twilight Zone episodes in the ‘50s, the Vincent Price / Edgar Allen Poe films in the ‘60s, Steven Spielberg’s Duel and Somewhere in Time in the ‘70s, not to mention the myriad attempts to adapt his novel I Am Legend to the screen. And if you still need some convincing, he was also one of the few novelists Hollywood-savvy enough to bring his own work to the screen on a regular basis. Such is the case with his screenplay for The Legend of Hell House (1973), based on his own novel published two years prior. Like much of Matheson’s work, the supernatural elements of the story are mixed with a modern approach, sending a scientific team of ghost hunters into the “Mt. Everest of haunted houses” with the goal of proving life after death. For their troubles an eccentric millio...

It’s sad that we live in a world where one feels obliged to apologize for enjoying a John Wayne movie. Political correctness seems to demand an acknowledgment of all the Duke’s sins before admitting such a thing. But Wayne remains a towering figure in Hollywood history and, in most cases, deservedly so. Only a few of the nearly two hundred films on his resume called for him to step out of his comfort zone, but even the roles Wayne made look easy, he never phoned in a performance. Such is the case with Brannigan (1975), one of the actor’s final films and a last ditch effort to keep the actor relevant to an audience that had tired of playing cowboys and Indians. Working from a French Connection / Dirty Harry formula, Wayne plays the titular Chicago cop sent over to London to extradite a criminal kingpin (played by Animal House ’s John Vernon) who has a personal vendetta against our big Irish fish-out-of-water. But just as Brannigan is ready to slap on the cuffs, the bad guy himsel...

On paper puberty is terrifying: bleeding, cramps, hormonal impulses, tufts of hair sprouting in strange places. Without parental guidance, one might be actually convinced that it was all part of some Cronenbergian transformation into an entirely different organism. Which is in fact exactly what happens in Ginger Snaps (2001), a clever Canadian horror / satire which walks the same black comedy high school halls as Heathers but with a bit more maturity. Ginger (Katharine Isabelle) and Brigette (Emily Perkins) are pair of morbid sisters who relish their role as social outcasts, swearing a lifelong suicide pact if things ever get too hairy. And they do when Ginger is attacked by a werewolf in their suburban neighborhood. This comes on the heels of Ginger’s “monthly visitor” which she gets for the first time, changing her from a mousey misfit into a sultry seductress tempting the hottest guys in school. Almost overnight, the sisters’ relationship sours as Brigette is left to determi...

Throughout his career director David Cronenberg has earned the horror / sci-fi genre some much needed critical legitimacy. Although his films were full of the same exploitation elements that popped up in Roger Corman quickies, there was a grand design behind it all, an almost scientific fascination that peeled back layer after cinematic layer. Cronenberg’s films weren’t simply drive-in fare. They were genuinely disturbing drive-in fare. After trying his hand at “safe” commercial success with the car race film Fast Company , the director dove back into his particular brand of weirdness with Scanners (1981), the story of rival mutant telepaths created and recruited by shadow corporations to be used as human weapons for the purpose of international espionage. Cameron Vale (Stephen Lack) is brought into the fold and taught to control his powers for the greater good. Darryl Revok (Michael Ironside), however, refuses to be manipulated and lashes out in a most dramatic fashion, leadin...

A chip off the old block of filmmakers like John Ford, Sam Peckinpah and John Milius, the work of director Walter Hill is so full of testosterone watching one of his movies is akin to having hormone replacement therapy. His characters are pumped up men of action who survive in a world that eats its own young. They understand what it takes to survive and rarely lend a hand to those who don’t share their worldview, which – far from being black and white – is one endless shade of grey. That’s pretty deep for a guy who made Eddie Murphy a comedic superstar in 48 Hrs (although truth be told Eddie really stole the movie from top billed Nick Nolte). But Hill’s shout-outs to revisionist Westerns and the savagery versus civilization theme pop up in just about every flick he makes, none more so than Southern Comfort (1981), which also works well as a Vietnam allegory despite his comments to the contrary. A National Guard squad on backcountry exercises in bayou country runs afoul of some l...