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A near perfect highlight reel of Stephen King's storytelling skills and George Romero's homegrown horror approach, Creepshow was definitely a hard act to follow. Perhaps that why both men pulled back a bit from the sequel produced five years later, Creepshow 2 (1987), with Romero adapting three lesser King tales and passing off directing duties to his longtime cinematographer, Michael Gornick. The film can't help but suffer by comparison, so it's best to stack it up against Romero's other horror anthology series, Tales from the Darkside , which beat HBO's Tales from the Crypt to the punch by a good seven years, mining the same E.C. Comics aesthetic of ghastly goings-on with a darkly humorous moral lesson. With fewer stories and a cast of virtual unknowns, Creepshow 2 feels much more like a small screen production; and from that perspective, it's a fairly successful one. Old Chief Wood'nhead is a golem-type revenge story with a cigar-sto...

An ambitious Canadian "tax-shelter" production from 1973, The Neptune Factor keeps its underwater adventure story relatively classy with a cast that includes the always convincing Ernest Borgnine, the ethereally beautiful Yvette Mimieux and a hunky young Ben Gazzara. Set aboard an experimental submarine on a rescue mission to save the survivors aboard a deep-sea habitat in distress, the crew descends to unexplored depths only to find....a salt-water aquarium? Divers "Mack" MacKay (Borgnine) and Adrian Blake (Gazzara) are headed topside when a quake sends their advanced underwater lab - and three crew members - tumbling into a bottomless abyss. Desperate for help, their prayers are answered when the Neptune arrives on a test run and its skipper agrees to scout for the wreck before life support runs out. But a deep-water current pulls them into a cavern filled with monstrous fish, pushing the sub to the limit and threatening their very survival. No matter how sc...

A big-screen spin-off of the little-known BBC TV series, Doomwatch (1972) ditches most of the original cast and proceeds with a new environmental thriller involving the residents of a Scottish Isle undergoing a strange transformation. An unexpected combination of Nigel Kneale ( Quatermass ) conspiracies with an anti-pollution agenda, the film is an odd duck to be sure, but one that curious genre fans will likely enjoy for that very reason. The titular Doomwatch organization is charged with investigating environmental threats to the realm, and it seems that Dr. Del Shaw (Ian Bannen) has sniffed one out on the island of Balfe. Visiting to check-up on the aftereffects of a recent oil spill, he finds the residents a cold and unwelcoming bunch, even the visiting schoolteacher (Judy Geeson) who refuses to risk losing their trust by helping Shaw investigate their odd behavior. But a pair of dead bodies and two or three death threats later, the pair team up to prove there's something d...

A follow-up to the surprise success of Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? - which paired two of Hollywood's most powerful leading ladies, Bette Davis and Joan Crawford - Hush...Hush, Sweet Charlotte (1964) began filming with the same duo in front of the camera and the same director behind it. But with Davis elevated to an uncredited associate producer status, the actress gleefully took revenge on Crawford, who eventually left the picture for (supposed) health reasons. Olivia de Havillland stepped into the vacated role, providing a more stable working relationship for this "spiritual sequel" which swings from a grand 'ol Gothic horror story to a gory true-crime expose. Opening with a shocking prologue in which John Mayhew (Bruce Dern) has his head and hand chopped off by an unseen murderer, the guilty party is believed to be Charlotte Hollis (Davis), whose extramarital affair with Mayhew was frowned upon by her father. But the charges fail to stick, and Charlotte...

Part of the Depression era fad inspired by the success of Bonnie and Clyde , Boxcar Bertha (1972) would have faded into obscurity long ago if not for the simple fact that it was directed by Martin Scorsese. Early works by legendary filmmakers, no matter how inconsequential, are rarely discarded; they're dissected for hints of greatness to come. But one would be hard-pressed to find much to brag about in this Roger Corman-produced road movie based on the pseudo-autobiographical account of the fictional character (I'm as lost as you are) Bertha Thompson, a sexually-liberated, revolutionary-minded woman of her time who falls in with a gang of ne'er do wells hoping to outfox the nation's economic disaster. The plot meanders through a cast of colorful characters: Big Bill Shelly (David Carradine), a union man whose principals are put to the test when it comes to making a living. Rake Brown (Barry Primus), a card shark with a distaste for violence. And Von Morton (B...

As Cannon Films' bid for mainstream success and critical appeal, Runaway Train (1985) was a rousing success, earning three Oscar nominations and a healthy amount of cash at the box office. Based on a shelved screenplay from Akira Kurosawa and helmed by Russian director Andrei Konchalovsky, the film was a far cry from typical Cannon release ( Death Wish 3 and Invasion U.S.A. were their other big films on the docket that year) and proved the producers Golan - Globus could keep things classy if the mood struck them, a lesson co- producer Harvey Weinstein would take to the bank. But the film couldn't completely shake the Cannon exploitation aesthetic, resulting in a schizophrenic bit of inspired and insipid filmmaking that, like most of the studio's output, remains compellingly watchable. Legendary prisoner "Manny" Manheim (Jon Voight) stages yet another escape from a maximum security Alaskan prison with help from a motor-mouthed fellow inmate, Buck (Eric Robe...

One of the most common techniques used in horror is the "exploding frog" effect. Just like juvenile delinquents stuffing a frog full of firecrackers and admiring the show, much of the genre is built around that kind of shock and awe approach. And director David Cronenberg is no exception. In fact, the famous "head-popping" scene from Scanners might be the most celebrated splatter effect in history. But what differentiates Cronenberg is his clinical fascination with the result, a meticulous cataloging of each bit of gore as if the audience is witness to an important scientific experiment rather than a low-budget piece of exploitation filmmaking. And what's more amazing is that sort of clinical approach was there right from the very beginning. As a follow-up to his incredible feature-film debut, Shivers, Cronenberg didn't fall far from the venereal horror tree with Rabid (1977), this time casting porn star Marilyn Chambers as a Canadian "Typhoid...

Thanks to cable TV, C.H.U.D. (1984) quickly evolved from forgettable creature feature to a ubiquitous pop-culture acronym. One could very well pick your friends based on whether or not they could translate the full title into Cannibalistic Underground Humanoid Dwellers . The British thriller Raw Meat (1972) got to the idea of sewer dwellers first (and better), but C.H.U.D. 's dumbed-down, direct to video approach - and surprisingly strong cast - was a perfect fit for the latex creature creation craze of the '80s. It's still a mediocre movie, but there are plenty worse pop culture touchstones to kill time with on a Saturday night. Captain Bosch (Christopher Curry) is facing a string of disappearances in his precinct, including his own wife who vanished while walking the dog on a city street. Defying pressure from up top to keep things quiet, Bosch teams up "Reverend" Shepherd (Daniel Stern), who runs a local soup kitchen, to try and get some answers. Meanw...

By cinematic standards The Chase (1966) is a bit of a bait and switch. The title, the cast and the behind-the-scene pedigree all suggest a semi-escapist prison break story, a manhunt complete with murder, deceit, bullets and blood. But the film directed by Arthur Penn - who would provide all that and more for Bonnie and Clyde just a year later - flips those expectations quite strategically, making a hero out of its troubled convict Bubber Reeves (Robert Redford) and despicable villains out of the residents of the small Texas town that raised this unfortunate son. Bubber's breakout is the match that finally sets ablaze a bonfire of simmering resentments, lies and violence. Sheriff Calder (Marlon Brando) is ostensibly the man in charge, but he owes his position to Val Rogers (E.G. Marshall), a well-meaning but spineless oilman whose own son, Jake, would trade all their wealth and privilege for a life of poor contentment with his mistress, Anna Reeves (Jane Fonda)...who just hap...

When 9 to 5 was first released in 1980, women in the workplace, while not exactly a novelty, was still a fresh enough concept to provide plenty of satirical fodder for a generation just graduating from the struggles of woman's lib. The message was pretty simple: We're all driving down the same road, but men continue to zip by in the carpool lane. The film fed us revenge fantasies mixed with a feminist can-do attitude. And it all seemed quite amusing at the time...until you realize that 35 years later, almost nothing has changed. In that respect 9 to 5 is tragically prescient in a way that stings just as much as it tickles. Judy, Violet and Doralee (Jane Fonda, Lily Tomlin and Dolly Parton respectively) all work under the thumb of incompetent middle manager Franklin Hart (Dabney Coleman) whose ineptitude is only matched by his overtly misogynistic attitude. Any way you cut it, the guy is an asshole. So much so, that when the girls kidnap him and take over the office fo...

Much like concerned citizens adopt a lonely stretch of highway to keep clean, horror fans are prone to adopt particular slasher films out of the goodness of their heart. The biggies like Halloween and Friday the 13th don't need much tending, but lesser-known, homegrown outings like The Mutilator and Happy Birthday to Me require a good amount of effort to appreciate; and perhaps that's what makes them all the more likable. 1984's The Initiation fits the bill perfectly, with a perpetual puppy-dog expression from star Daphne Zuniga, a supporting cast of likable Texas locals as cannon fodder and a soap opera twist that's just as enjoyable the 10th time you watch it as the 1st. As part of a pledge week prank, Kelly Fairchild (Zuniga in her first leading role) and some of her follow sorority members sneak into the local mall after hours. But the double-dare turns deadly when a killer begins to stalk them through the stores, picking them off with arrows, axes and a...

The modern zombie film may have been invented in America, but its real evolution took place in Italy. While the undead were still shambling around shopping malls in the states, Italian zombies were wielding machine guns ( Nightmare City ), battling sharks ( Zombie ) and laying siege to castles with battering rams in copycat quickies like Andrea Bianchi's Burial Ground (1980), a pasty-faced piece of exploitation filmmaking made all the more notorious by a tasteless bit of oedipal violence that still has the power to trigger your gag reflex! Vacationing at a family estate, a wealthy host and his guests are trapped inside after an archeological dig resurrects the angry remnants of the local peasant population. But locked doors and barred windows won't keep out this horde of vengeful corpses! Despite their rotting frames, these zombies use a wide array of tools, weaponry and good 'ol undead ingenuity to break in and extract their pound of raw flesh. Using Lucio Fulci...

Cannon Films didn't launch too many careers, but they certainly extended quite a few of them. The prolific producing team of Golan-Globus made the most out of their small budgets by featuring not-ready-for-prime-time players like Chuck Norris and past -their-prime action stars like Charles Bronson who likely would have been put out to pasture by the major studios. Even the behind-the-camera talent was full of wily veterans who knew who to crank out a movie with minimal fuss. That the final product was mediocre was really beside the point; Cannon always seemed to have an endless supply of B-movie ammunition ready to reload and try again. Murphy's Law (1986) is one of the more bland pictures to come out of the Cannon factory, starring Bronson as a recently divorced, perpetually drunk cop who gets framed for gunning down his ex-wife. While in a holding cell, he stages a breakout with a foul-mouthed, female prisoner in tow (literally...they're handcuffed together!), s...

To call Charles Bronson a "one-note actor" isn't necessarily an insult. After all, a talented musician can make beautiful music out of the simplest of instruments. And Bronson used his talents wisely, playing within his admittedly limited range of tough guys and flawed heroes, never failing to keep the audience on the edge of their seat. He was the sort of actor who could carry an entire picture with a few words and a thoughtful squint. And he was rarely asked to do anything more. But From Noon Till Three (1976) has Bronson singing am entirely different tune as Graham Dorsey, a wayward bank-robbing romantic who falls hard for lonely debutante Amanda Starbuck (Jill Ireland) living in on a desolate piece of prairie. During their short three-hour window of time before Graham's partners are due to arrive, the pair fall into an ecstatic affair that, ironically, begins with an attempted rape and culminates in a black-tie ballroom soiree. But Graham's partners ...

Produced just as the exploitation market was winding down, Manhattan Baby (1982) also finds director Lucio Fulci at the tail end of his collaboration with writer / producer combo, Dardano Sacchetti and Fabrizio De Angelis, the same team was responsible for a string of gore-heavy Fulci classics like The Beyond and House by the Cemetery . But here the pendulum swings towards ancient mysticism and optical effects, bypassing the usual blood and guts in favor of exotic curses and Egyptian tombs. It might be a bit of an adjustment for Fulci's more rabid fans, but the execution still bears all the marks of his indelible cinematic signature. Archeologist George Hacker (Christopher Connelly) and his family return from Egypt with a deadly curse in tow. George himself has been blinded by a sacred amulet - the very same one that has now taken possession of his daughter's soul - causing several deadly accidents to those who attempt to dispose of it. The victims are sent into paralle...

In Hollywood, as in life, timing is everything. Perhaps if the whimsically entertaining Remo Williams: The Adventure Begins , based on the more serious-minded series of Destroyer novels by Warren Murphy and Richard Sapir, had been made today it would bear a much closer resemblance to the source material, with its "blue-collar Bond" mimicking the ruthless attitudes of modern action stars like Bourne, John Wick and 007 himself. But in 1985, Bond was still played mostly for laughs and a movie about a hired assassin, despite working for the good guys, had to play by the same rules. Recruited and re-named, against his wishes, by a secret organization that answers only to the President, former cop Remo Williams (Fred Ward) is trained in the ancient - and imaginary - art of Sinanju by his aged, but still exceedingly capable, tutor Chiun (Joel Grey) for the purpose of eliminating certain threats to national security. This time around, that threat is embodied by a greedy arms de...

1981's Eye of the Needle was the last notable starring role for Donald Sutherland, whose suspiciously angular features and heavy-lidded stare made him a perfect leading man for the morally questionable '70s. The actor was adept at playing both sides, luring in an audience with slovenly sincerity ( M.A.S.H. ) then chilling them with unexpected emotional aloofness ( The Disappearance ). It's a gift that has kept his career going far past the normal expiration date, and a perfect fit for the role of Heinrich "The Needle" Faber, a Nazi spy who jeopardizes his mission by falling for a lonely housewife on a stormy British isle. The movie begins with Faber on the run from British Intelligence who've finally got a positive ID and a witness to go with it. But Faber, whose weapon of choice is a switchblade stiletto, evades capture again, carrying along vital information about the impending Allied invasion. But his attempt to rendezvous with a German U-boat resu...

In an age when boutique labels are blessing some of the worst B-movies ever made with outrageous special editions, does anyone even bother with the bargain bins anymore? There was a time when public domain horror and sci-fi titles were overflowing from their wire-domain holding tanks, plastered with corny new cover art in an attempt to pass them off as current releases. Now fans know better. Even the most obscure title is likely to turn up on a better disc someday. It just depends on how long one is willing to wait! In the case of The Giant Gila Monster and The Killer Shrews , a classic drive-in double-feature shot back-to-back in 1959 just outside Dallas, Texas, there might be some light at the end of the tunnel in the form of Bayview Entertainment and Retromedia's new DVD release. Sporting the first widescreen 16 X 9 anamorphic transfers, it's certainly the best looking presentation to date for the pair that seemed condemned to public domain purgatory. But The films...

Horror-comedies were like the peanut butter-n-chocolate of the '80s: packaged for easy consumption, the two genres were a good match for a decade more interested generating laughs than genuine scares. An American Werewolf in London, Night of the Creeps , even the original Texas Chainsaw Massacre was sequelized (quite successfully) as a black comedy rather than a bleak slasher. Lost in the shuffle was Vamp (1986), produced under Roger Corman's New World banner, which took an almost impossibly puerile set-up - college kids, vampires and strippers - and whipped up something cutesy, colorful and unique. Prospective fraternity members AJ and Keith (Robert Rusler and Chris Makepeace) head into a sketchy part of downtown L.A. to hire a stripper for an upcoming soiree, catching a ride with wealthy dork (Gedde Watanabe) who hires their friendship for the week. They quickly identify the club's main attraction, Katrina (Grace Jones), as their first choice. But Katrina and th...

A Canadian-produced horror film shot in the small town of Beaver Dam, Wisconsin, The Pit (1981) is an outlier amongst the usual slasher and body-horror flicks Canucks were producing at the time. Combining mental illness, pubescent hormones, evil teddy bears and flesh-eating cavemen, the kitchen-sink approach often feels creatively cramped and unintentional campy. But there are some disturbing ideas underneath it all that discerning (or maybe forgiving ) horror fans might find by scratching the surface. 12-year-old Jamie Benjamin (Sammy Snyders) is a bit on the odd side. Shunned by his parents and unable to make friends, Jamie has an unhealthy obsession with the opposite sex, which makes him even more unappealing to the teachers at his new school. But babysitter Sandy O'Reilly (Jeannie Elias) is willing to give it a shot. Taking care of Jamie while his parents are away, she finds herself sympathizing with him and trying to temper his hormonal impulses. But unfortunately the ...

There's a fine line between misleading an audience for effect and tricking them out of spite. M. Knight Shyamalan lost most of his credibility for the latter, but he's not the only filmmaker desperate to pull a fast one on jaded genre fans who think they can second-guess every twist and turn. The Conjuring and Insidious franchises both make a habit out of playing a cinematic shell game involving demonic possession with surprisingly good results. But Hong-jin Na's The Wailing (2016) does them all one better, shuffling angels, demons, sinners and saints until the audience is just as supernaturally suspicious as the characters in the film. When the residents of a small South Korean village begin killing each other - and themselves - the local police are in way over their heads, particularly Sgt. Jong-goo (Kwak Do-won) whose general laziness and lack of ambition make the murders more of an inconvenience than a challenge. Rumors begin to spread about a Japanese newcome...

The '80s were a pretty forgiving era for horror movies. Computer graphics hadn't really made an impact yet so slimy prosthetics and latex molds lent everything a tangibly gooey fan appeal than resulted in some classic creatures features ( The Thing, Tremors ) and a whole lot of guilty pleasures. Slugs (1988) certainly falls in the latter category, built around a classic nature-run-amok scenario that isn't so far removed from enjoyable schlock like The Killer Shrews or The Food of the Gods . Director Juan Piquer Simon ( Pieces ) works from the novel by Shaun Hutson, providing some ridiculously squishy set piece scenes surrounded by standard small-town hysteria straight out of a '50s drive-in double-feature. Health Inspector Mike Brady (Michael Garfield) begins to suspect that something isn't right in his quiet community after a number of bodies turn up completely stripped down to the bone. When he gets nowhere with the mayor, who's focused on a big r...

In many ways, Nighthawks (1981) is the perfect transitional film from the more character-driven cop thrillers of the '70s to the shoot-first-ask-questions-later ideology of the '80s. In fact, the stated theme of the film - "Violence can only be fought with greater violence" - was embraced by an entire decade of filmmakers and action icons who molded the action movie into its current energetically excessive incarnation. And at the heart of it all is Sylvester Stallone who took over the troubled shoot after clashing with the original director and created a movie in his own image. Originally meant to focus on real-life international terrorist Carlos the Jackal, studio execs, fearful of theater bombings in reprisal, shifted the script to focus on a fictional Aryan substitute: Wulfgar Reinhardt (Rutger Hauer), so ruthless even his own organization has disowned him. Chased out of London, Wulfgar plans on making a big bang in New York where press coverage of his exploi...

James Cameron's The Abyss might be only a footnote in the director's career, wedged between installments of the Terminator and his record-breaking run with Titanic , but the short-lived buzz around its production inspired several other "underwater monster" flicks that rushed to beat it to the screen. And the crazy thing is, they did ! Thanks to the Abyss' 140-day shooting schedule and legendary production delays, movies like Leviathan and Deepstar Six were first into cinemas. And although they don't share much in common with Cameron's first-contact thriller, these quickie creature features have earned their fare share of fans since 1989. One year late to the party was The Rift (aka Endless Descent ), which was released straight-to-video in 1990, starring Jack Scalia as the designer of a sunken supersub who joins a rescue mission on its sister ship to retrieve the black box and find out what happened to the crew. But the rescue team soon find...

Low-budget horror hit a peak in the 70’s with films like Tobe Hooper’s Texas Chainsaw Massacre and Wes Craven’s The Last House on the Left, 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. While Hooper peaked with brief mainstream success as a director-for-hire on Spielberg's Poltergeist, Craven took the long road eventually getting his due with the Elm Street and Scream franchises. But he could never recapture the exploitation zeitgeist of his early work, especially The Hills Have Eyes, which tapped into an ugly mirror image of the American family that the director carried with him the rest of his career. The Carter family takes an ill-advised shortcut through an atomic test zone and winds up stranded in the middle of the desert. Their presence attracts the attention of a different sort of family altogether, inbred mutants who survive on human flesh and a...

There are robots and there are ro butts . That difference in pronunciation is quite profound within in the sci-fi genre; it's the difference between the childish escapism of Lost in Space and the complex social commentary of Star Trek , between the clunky metallic servants of Forbidden Planet and the rebellious cyborg slaves of Blade Runner . Simply put, ro- butts is a signifier of that innocent '50s take on the future when all humanity had to look forward to were matching jumpsuits and technology about as advanced as a Ford Pinto. So when it comes to The Shape of Things to Come , a sci-fi stinker from 1979, trust me when I say you can smell the butt coming a mile away! Ostensibly based on H.G. Well's novel of the same name, already adapted in eye-catching fashion once before in 1936 by William Cameron Menzies ( Invaders from Mars ), this version drifts out of the original material's orbit pretty quickly, aiming for a Star Wars escapist approach involving a ...

Blood Simple is easy to write-off as a calling card film. In fact, that's exactly what critic J. Hoberman of the Village Voice said in 1984, praising the film's style while dismissing it as a whole for being nothing more than a cinematic resume. He's right, of course, in recognizing the Coen brothers' ambition to kick-start their careers, raising money from private investors (a model their friend Sam Raimi used to finance The Evil Dead ) and shooting their low-budget noir thriller on the cheap in hopes of attracting some Hollywood attention. But dismissing the result of their efforts was a miscalculation as Blood Simple established a template that took the Coens all the way to the top of their profession. If that's just a resume, it's one hell of a good one! Ray and Abby (John Getz & Frances McDormand) are having an affair. To complicate the situation, Abby's husband, Marty (Dan Hedaya), is Ray's boss at a neon-soaked Texas honky-tonk. A...

With Arrow Video's release of Dead End Drive-In , we finally have director Brian Trenchard-Smith's most polished, professional film project on home video...only it's not actually Dead End Drive-In. Instead, it's a documentary short produced in 1978 as part of a public service campaign entitled Hospital's Don't Burn Down included as a bonus feature on Arrow's Blu-ray / DVD combo. No disrespect to the main feature, which Quentin Tarantino has anointed his favorite of the director's work, but in this case it's the extras which really make this collector's edition a must-buy. Set in a dystopian near future, Dead End Drive-In (1986) plays out in a Mad Max -style landscape where crime and unemployment have led to the imprisonment of youthful "undesirables" inside makeshift concentration camps created within a chain of drive-ins across the country. Crabs (Ned Manning) and Carmen (Natalie McCurry) are lured in and locked up with ...

Art imitates life in gruesomely entertaining fashion in 1973's Theater of Blood , starring Vincent Price as failed Shakespearean actor Edward Lionheart, whose overblown performances are dismissed as the work of a professional "ham sandwich" by London's theater critics. But after his apparent suicide, Lionheart returns to claim his pound of flesh from each and every member of the critics circle, exacting his revenge in elaborate fashion by restaging the murders from the Bard's most famous plays. On the surface, director Douglas Hickox's film isn't so different from Price's other early '70s franchise, The Abominable Dr. Phibes . But the self-reflexivity of having him play a performer whose career is disparaged as one big melodramatic sham hits awful close to the bone. After all, as beloved as the as actor was to fans of the horror genre, his theatrical style was quickly falling out of fashion (as evidenced by director Michael Reeves' ...

The phrase "You had to be there" applies quite well to the '80s 3D boom, which produced such a startlingly bad crop of movies it's surprising Hollywood ever tried the gimmick again. Several struggling franchises were on their third installments, which meant that Amityville, Friday the 13th and Jaws all got the 3D treatment (and 3D in the titles), leaving room for some lesser-known independents to take advantage of the enhanced theatrical presentation. Metalstorm: The Destruction of Jared Syn was actually producer/director Charles Band's second 3D film, following Parasite , which provided an early leading role of Demi Moore. Bought up by Universal to fill the gap in their 3D library, the film is a bald-faced Road Warrior rip-off, complete with a leather clad hero cruising the wasteland in his custom ride searching for a renegade warlord...who just happens to be played by Road Warrior veteran Michael Preston. In Metalstorm 's defense, Mad Max ...