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1954's The Mad Magician does a lot of things well. Unfortunately, almost all of them are lifted directly from the previous year's surprise hit House of Wax , both starring Vincent Price as a talented technician out for revenge. In fact, producer Bryan Foy reunited most of the major players in an attempt to replicate the latter film's success, carrying over the 3D gimmick but keeping things in black-and-white. The lack of color isn't so much of a problem; the lack of originality is another story. Don Gallico (Price) is an inventor of magic tricks; not just slight of hand, but elaborate and cumbersome machinery like "The Buzzsaw' and "The Crematorium" designed to wow the audience with high tech illusions. After years of watching other magicians take the credit, Gallico decides to put himself up on stage. But contracts and legalities prevent him from doing so, ending his theatrical career before it even had a chance to begin. Enraged by his...

Stanley Donen's Two for the Road (1967) is the story of a fractured marriage told in an invigoratingly fractured fashion. The director, a big part of the old Hollywood studio system, winds up incorporating the innovative editing style of French New Wave directors like Godard and Truffaut to cut between the highs and lows of a relationship that seemed almost doomed from the start. Mark (Albert Finney) and Joanna (Audrey Hepburn) begin the movie at each other's throat, yet, ironically, enjoying the financial fruits of their success. A respected architect, Mark's life is pulled in too many directions to give his wife the sort of attention and affection she deserves. Joanna longs for the adrenaline rush of their early romance, spent over the course of a weeks vacation in France. Jumping from one clever transition to the next, Two for the Road shows us Mark and Joanna's life from every perspective at once, cutting between road trips and hotel rooms separated by te...

Like most foreign film industries, Japan has struggled to find its place in the world against the Hollywood juggernaut. But inevitably, independent filmmakers fill the nooks and crannies bigger studios leave behind. Instead of competing against Hollywood head-to-head, they embrace what makes their culture unique. And, in director Takashi Miike's case, throwing in some shock appeal only adds to the international attention. Kicking off his career in the seedy, over-the-top "V-Cinema" arena (direct-to-video features that peaked in Japan in the mid-80s), Miike's work took a big leap forward with what's come to be known as The Black Society Trilogy . Set amongst the grim, gritty but sometimes-ridiculous world of the yakuza (Japanese gangsters), the three films balance intense moments of sex and violence with introspective lead characters and social-political commentary. That might sound like a typical indie cinema roadmap, but Miike, who's garnered just a...

In retrospect, it may seem like the only person still making westerns in the late '70s was Clint Eastwood. But director Alan J. Pakula made a major contribution to the genre with 1978's Comes a Horseman , a quiet but simmering story about dueling ranchers and ambitious oil barons fighting over land rights at the tail end of WW2. Starring Jane Fonda, James Caan and Jason Robards, all at the height of the careers, the film is both an elegiac tribute to the cattle drives, cowpunchers and the rough 'n tumble traditions of big sky country mixed with a more modern, subtle and poetic storytelling technique. Fonda plays Ella Conners, a strong-willed but bitter woman determined to work her late-husband's land despite threatening offers to sell-out to J.W. Ewing (Robards), a soft-spoken dictator determined to piece back together his family legacy. Frank (Caan) has already seen what Ewing is willing to do, barely surviving an ambush that killed his partner (Mark Harmon). ...

First, let's acknowledge the elephant in the room: Spielberg's original Poltergeist, which lay smack dab in the middle of an incredible run of success, both behind the camera and behind the scenes. Although director Tobe Hooper's actual contributions have been whitewashed from the get-go, their collaboration resulted in a best-of-both worlds mix of family drama and edgy exploitation effects. It's a near-perfect rollercoaster ride that filmmakers are still insidiously stealing from. Poltergeist 2 and 3....not so much. But after the franchise slipped off Spielberg's radar, the supernatural adventures of the Freeling family and their daughter, Carol Anne, became a playground for other directors eager to make their mark. First up was Brian Gibson with Poltergeist 2: The Other Side (1986), who had the benefit of a completely reunited cast (including JoBeth Williams, Craig T. Nelson and Zelda Rubinstein as the pint-sized psychic, Tangina) and the support of Richa...

Poltergeist 3 (1988) was likely rushed into production before star Heather O'Rourke became too big to fit her footie pajamas. As it is, the actress (who died tragically from complications of an impacted bowel at the age of 12 just after production wrapped) is uncomfortably forced to look years younger in this director Gary Sherman led third installment. Tom Skerritt and Nancy Allen star as relatives who host a visiting Carol Anne in their posh penthouse apartment high atop a fancy Chicago high-rise. But Kane (played by a look-alike in make-up) returns to take Carol Anne, now attending a school for the psychically gifted, back with him to the other side. If the plot is still a tired re-tread, at least the setting opens up new possibilities. And director Gary Sherman, who worked wonders with low-rent thrillers like Raw Meat and Dead & Buried, takes an "Alice Through The Looking Glass" approach, filling the film with elaborate mirror effects performed completely on ...

Cult movie fans have become pretty adept at validating their cinematic tastes. After all, are there really any more moral values on display in the latest Fast and Furious installment than in a Lucio Fulci flick? I think not. But when it comes to the Nazi Exploitation sub-genre there are no excuses; you're either down for some rape, torture and kinky sex mixed with Third Reich iconography...or you're not. Unlike most retro-erotica, which gets a free-pass by virtue of its inherent campiness, Love Camp 7 (1969) is infused with a distasteful blend of sadism and cruelty that makes it awful hard to call "fun." Sent undercover as Jewish prisoners in a Nazi "pleasure camp," Lt. Linda Harman (Maria Lease) and Grace Freeman (Kathy Williams) are charged with contacting a Nazi scientist, also forced into prostitution, who has vital information that could change the course of the war. But earning her trust - and proving their value to the officers and enlisted ...

The story of Father Francis Chisholm, a Scottish missionary sent to China to spread the word of Christianity despite rampant poverty, disinterest, distrust, and civil war, certainly calls for a Gregory Peck "type." Trouble was, they had to find him first! The Keys of the Kingdom (1944) was only Peck's second film, but his stoically earnest performance earned him his first Oscar nomination in this adaptation of A.J. Cronin's novel, a spiritual journey that proves kindness and sacrifice brings its own reward at journeys end. Francis (Peck), who slipped into the priesthood after a failed romance, fits in poorly with the rigors of Catholic bureaucracy. But Father McNabb (Edmund Gwenn) recognizes his potential and sends him off to China, still an exotic mystery in 1847, to spread the word of God far removed from the stuffed shirts in the home office. But the Far East proves to be an even greater challenge that Francis suspected. Arriving to find a ruined church and ...

The flaw inherent in most monster movies is that of underdeveloped characters stalked by a much more interesting central menace. We rarely need (or want ) to know more about the hapless victims, who, depending on the type of creature they're up against, serve no greater purpose than keeping up a body count. But in The Monster (2016), the roles are reversed: a pair of strongly written heroines fight for survival against a rather anonymous "thing" that, despite all its sound and fury, is most memorable in its irrelevance. Lizzy (Ella Ballentine) is a self-sufficient pre-teen who grew up too fast thanks to her irresponsible, alcoholic mother, Kathy (Zoe Kazan). But there's light at the end of the tunnel for their antagonistic and abusive relationship when Kathy agrees to drive her daughter to her father's house for an "extended" visit. On the way, a car accident leaves them stranded on the side of the road during a late-night rainstorm...and leaves...

1954's The Barefoot Contessa treads on some pretty dangerous ground. Not only does writer / director Joseph L. Mankiewicz needle, jab and poke the very people responsible for his career, but the story involves a fiery Spanish dancer-turned-movie star-turned international royal whose sexual tastes never rose out of the gutter. Humphrey Bogart stars in one of his final roles as a washed up film director whose career reboots when he stumbles upon a camera-ready beauty (Ava Gardner) with no taste for fame...only fairy-tale happiness. Harry Dawes (Bogart) is slumming as a hired hack for neophyte millionaire producer Warren Stevens (Kirk Edwards) on a trip to find a "fresh face" in the seedier clubs of Spain when they run across Maria Vargas (Gardner), whose aloof attitude and stunning looks drive every man wild. After a successful screen test, Maria becomes too big even for her producer to control, setting the stage for a battle of wills against a rival silver spoon milli...

Despite his fame (and more recent infamy) I'd guess that most modern multiplex moviegoers have probably never seen a Woody Allen film in its entirety. So they would probably be equally clueless about the self-reflexive celebrity satire on display in Stardust Memories (1980), a rather brutal attack on the director's fanbase and his own foibles. But, as writer Julie Kirgo points out in the Blu-ray liner notes, time has not only improved the film's reputation, it's put enough distance between Allen and the character he plays in the film - neurotic filmmaker Sandy Bates - to make this 8 1/2 - inspired artistic meditation one of the director's most satisfying films. Riding high on the buzz from Manhattan (1979), Allen is still in fine creative rhythm but turning curiously introspective. Things begin as a film within a film as Sandy Bates latest picture, a black-and-white Bergman-esque downer, is eviscerated by studio executives who try to convince the director ...

Harryhausen films usually offer a predictable ratio of tedious talking points interrupted by glorious stop-motion setpieces. Loyal viewers know that their patience will eventually be rewarded with various dinosaurs, mutants and mythological creatures brought to life by the master's hand. But The 3 Worlds of Gulliver is an outlier in Harryhausen's oeuvre, adapting Jonathan Swift's classic story in such a way that his skills for effects work is limited mostly to optical trickery, creating giant and toy-sized versions of his lead actors as they travel to the worlds of Lilliput and Borbdingnag. Simplifying the tale for easy digestion (one could only imagine what someone like Terry Gilliam would do with the right budget and resources), director Jack Sher keeps things decidedly kid-friendly, relying on the effects to hold one's attention. But it's a difficult task, especially for modern audience's who, though they still might marvel at Harryhausen's model wor...

Train to Busan has been building up a surprising head of steam in horror circles. Surprising not because it was made in Korea (horror fans are seek out foreign fare more often than Academy voters) or that it's carrying a cargo full of positive reviews from publications as prestigious as the New York Times, but because it's a zombie movie ! The zombie craze was supposed to have peaked several years back, but like the undead themselves, it's still staggering along. And every now and then, a movie comes along and shows you why. Writer / director Sang-ho Yeon, whose previous work up to this point was in animation, doesn't re-invent the wheel here cinematically. In fact, most of the story, which involves a workaholic dad begrudgingly escorting his daughter to visit his estranged wife, could have been designed by autonomous screenwriting software so predictable are the character arcs and action beats. But in execution , the film comes to life in a way jaded America...

On paper, Jess Franco is one of the most prolific directors who ever picked up a camera. He's shot over a hundred films under various pseudonyms, worked around the world, collaborated with Orson Welles and even picked up a Goya Award, Spain's highest artistic honor, in 2009. But it's the kind of films Franco made that has relegated him to the sidelines when it comes to critical recognition. After all, 50% of his work is made up of soft-focus shots of women's genitalia (the other half is unforced zoom-ins of the the same...I kid!). To most serious cineastes, he's a hack. But to a select few, those with the courage to sift through the dreck and go with the flow of counter-culture headtrips like Venus in Furs , Franco catalog offers a world of obscenely forbidden pleasures. What makes Dorado Films latest release - a double feature presentation of The Silence of the Tomb (1972) and The Sinister Eyes of Dr. Orloff (1973) - so interesting is they catch the di...

If there's anything the modern blockbuster has proven it's that spectacle translates well into any language. Even early all-star disaster epics like The Poseidon Adventure and The Towering Inferno inspired international copycats seeking to make a quick buck using the trendy Hollywood formula. 1975's The Bullet Train was Japan's go-for-broke attempt with a bomb planted aboard the super-sleek mass transit vehicle set to go off if its speed drops below 80-kilometers per hour. Yep, it's Speed on a train...20 years before Speed was even a thing! At 152 minutes, the film certainly drags some extra weight. But it uses the time wisely to expand upon the motivations of the bombers themselves, led by Tetsuo Okita (Ken Takakura) a former small business owner whose failed business and marriage puts him in a destructive funk. His partners hop aboard out of loyalty, politics and profits, planning to punish the government than put them in such a tough spot; but wit...

It's only as we get older that we start to appreciate time spent with family members during their "golden years." Suddenly, all the annoying habits and petty arguments are so much water under the bridge and just spending a couple extra hours together becomes deeply satisfying experience. The same can be said of Phantasm: Ravager , the final entry in a franchise many horror fans grew up with, which concludes with a surprisingly heartfelt meditation on family, friendship and memory wrapped inside a corny direct-to-video shell. One could be forgiven for not keeping tabs on Reggie, Mike and Jody in their fight against the Tall Man (played by the late Angus Scrimm), a dimension-hopping slumlord who steals the bodies of the recently deceased and ships them to another world to provide slave labor. After the homespun success of the first film, subsequent sequels attempted to broaden the scope and fluff the franchise into something more than just a coming-of-age fever dream. ...

Clive Barker was once hailed as “the future of horror” by none other than Stephen King...and coincidently, both authors tried their hand at feature film directing. While Maximum Overdrive is tucked away in some dark corner of Netflix, Clive Barker’s Hellraiser still impresses as a uniquely twisted form of gothic horror story, dabbling in spiritualism, S & M and necrophilia. Of course, his signature demonic creation, Pinhead, has been pimped out for countless sequels, diluting the power of the original with each direct-to-video installment. But Arrow Video's limited edition Scarlet Box, which collects the first three films in the franchise, should resurrect some interest in Barker's directorial debut and the flawed by fascinating sequels that followed. Looking back at the first film – sporting a new 2K restoration – it’s easy to find fault; from the amateur acting of newcomer Ashley Laurence to Barker’s own neophyte directorial decisions (the hobo turns into a skeleton drag...

As a movie Phantasm is almost impossibly hard to describe. More of a coming of age tale with close ties to sci-fi stories like Invaders from Mars and Dune , believe it or not, that didn’t stop it from entering the pantheon of must-see ‘70s horror films right alongside Halloween , The Hills Have Eyes and other drive-in ready shockers. Yet unlike his fellow filmmakers, Phantasm ’s director Don Coscarelli never turned that success into much of a career (unless you count endless repeats of The Beastmaster on TNT). And watching the latest 4K incarnation, Phantasm Remastered , a subtly touched up version shepherded by J.J. Abrams' Bad Robot team, it's easy to see why. Phantasm is a home movie at heart; its flaws obvious but endearing. The cast of amateur actors look and dress like authentic hippies working for free beer and a bag of weed. Not to mention the script, which skips scenes and adds characters with the kind of free-form surrealism borne from budget constraints an...

While Roger Corman gets most of the credit for popularizing the "Women In Prison" genre, producers as far back as the 1930s knew they had a moneymaker on their hands. But it was the end of the Production Code that allowed filmmakers to push these seedy stories to their full potential, overtly wallowing in the sexual tension and brutal torture that previous productions only hinted at. Director Jess Franco pursued this angle in several films throughout his extravagantly creepy career, beginning with 99 Women , which is actually the most polished and professional production of the bunch. Working with frequent collaborator Harry Alan Towers, the pair concoct a relatively classy story about a fortress-like mountain penitentiary lorded over by the diminutive Thelma Diaz (Mercedes McCambridge) with frequent visits from the equally corrupt Governor Santos (Herbert Lom) who runs the men's prison on the other side of the island. The script picks up with the addition of a trio o...

Film doesn't lend itself to the rock 'n roll aesthetic very easily. It's too controlled, too collaborative, and too artificial to have the same kick as Ramones song. But there are a few directors who seem tuned into that musical language and have a rare ability to translate it to film: Martin Scorsese, whose slow motion entrance of Robert DeNiro in Mean Streets set to Jumpin' Jack Flash is a revelatory moment in cinema, is one. Abel Ferrara, whose eclectic career is full of highs, lows and plenty of cinematic filler is another. Ferrara, who only chose film after failing make it as a musician, really made a mark with his second feature, The Driller Killer (1979), which earned a spot on Britain's list of Video Nasties and was banned until 2002. Of course, any attention is good attention when you're a struggling filmmaker and the controversy gave Ferrara enough traction to move on to more polished pictures like Ms. 45 , Bad Lieutenant , and King of ...

Certain movies make a collection complete. We're not talking romantic comedies or dime-a-dozen superhero flicks, although they have their place. There is always a specific case one pulls off the shelf when it's time to impress another jaded collector; and Lone Wolf and Cub is it. Originally released in the U.S as Shogun Assassin , a cut-down version of the first two films in the series, all six original Lone Wolf films are now available from the Criterion Collection in one magnificent box set. Based on Kazuo Koike's Japanese manga series first published in 1970, the films retain the same premise and hyper-realistic visual style accomplished the geysers of blood and flying body parts. Yet somehow none of them ever become a parody of the samurai genre, riding on the stoic shoulders of star Tomisaburo Wakayama as Itto Ogami, a former Shogunate Executioner framed as a traitor who sets out on the "Demon Path to Hell" along with his equally stoic toddler as a ...

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...