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Sometimes a movie is made for all the wrong reasons. And that seems to be the case with Suddenly, Last Summer (1959), Joseph L Mankiewicz's film adaptation of the Tennessee Williams one-act play. After the early cinematic success of Streetcar and more recent revival of Cat on a Hot Tin Roof , it probably seemed like any Williams’s property was a hot one. Toss in a big name cast including Elizabeth Taylor, Montgomery Clift, and Katharine Hepburn along with a script by Gore Vidal that all-but thumbed its nose at the aging Production Code and you've got a sure-fire success! Actually, that's true. The film made a tidy profit, scared up some scandals and even earned Oscar nominations for Taylor and Hepburn (who both lost to Simone Signoret, by the way). But from a modern perspective the film is as contrived as any recent superhero saga, pre-manufactured with an insultingly obvious bric-a-brac collection of high profile talent delivering showy monologues so longwinded...

Children of the Corn (1984) is not a good film. Even Stephen King was smart enough to keep the original down to a short story...and this from a guy who regularly puts out novels you can use as a coffee table! But there's something about the idea that's hard to resist: a small Midwest corn town overrun by killer kids who've murdered their parents and worship an unseen entity called "He Who Walks Behind the Rows." As written, there's a Twilight Zone episode worth of material at best. But that didn't stop producers from expanding the characters and mythology to accommodate six sequels, some of which are actually superior to the original now out in a Blu-ray special edition courtesy of Arrow Video. Burt and Vicky (played by a pre- Thirtysomething Peter Horton and pre- Terminator Linda Hamilton) are traveling cross-country for Burt's new med school internship when they run into trouble - literally - in the town of Gatlin, Nebraska. After acc...

In 1973's Theater of Blood Vincent Price plays a hammy Shakespearean actor who silences his critics in the most violent and permane nt way possible. Despite his rather extreme methods, the argument is sound: who are they to criticize all the blood, sweat and tears spent creating something from nothing? Which brings us to 8 Heads in a Duffel Bag (1997), writer / director Tom Schulman's monumentally unfunny comedy starring Joe Pesci as a mafia deliveryman who mistakenly swaps luggage with an innocent med school student. Here is a film so misguided not a single joke lands in 90 minutes, despite Herculean efforts from a grab-bag cast. Schulman might get an "A" for effort, but the rest of his film is flat-out rotten. Toting the physical "evidence" of a recent mafia hit to his boss on the West Coast, Tommy (Pesci) hops on a plane out of New Jersey and winds up sitting next to Charlie (Andy Comeau), a nervous grad student headed to Mexico to meet his girl...

It's only natural to be intimidated of a movie as steeped in historical minutia as The Emperor in August (2015). Not only does it propose to dissect the Japanese decision to surrender to the Allies at the end of WWII, but does so from the Japanese perspective; a complex system of centuries-old traditions and cultural expectations that make the very concept of defeat grounds for ritual suicide. And yet Emperor Hirohito pushed for a peaceful end to the conflict to save his country from total destruction...while the army was planning a coup to save face. Director Masato Harada's film has a bit of a learning curve as we're introduced to the major historical players. Retired politician Kantaro Suzuki is talked out of retirement to become Prime Minister, handpicked by the Emperor to shepherd the war to a respectable resolution. But there are still those hungry for a "Decisive Battle," confident that a national kamikaze mission would ensure victory. Even Colone...

It's easy to take a film like The Long, Hot Summer (1958) for granted. After all, it has a wealth of talent onscreen and off, an impeccable literary pedigree and Paul Newman's steely blue eyes in its corner. But there are plenty of high profile studio productions from the same era that don't do half as much with their raw material as this one. Director Martin Ritt, in the first of five collaborations with Newman, tackles the Southern story of seduction, corruption, resentment and redemption with a minimal amount of melodrama and an unquestionable touch of class. Running away from a reputation as a "barn burner," Ben Quick's (Newman) arrival stirs up the sleepy town of Frenchmen's Bend, Mississippi, which is owned lock, stock and barrel by entrepreneur Will Varner (Orson Welles). Varner runs his family like he runs his business: with an expectation of return on investment. In this case, that return includes grandchildren who will pass on the fa...

With a voracious audience of cinema lovers at home and successful international distribution, the Italian film industry was always quick to spot a trend or rip-off a hit. So, although his name is most closely associated with horror, Mario Bava, like most Italian directors, was fluent in many genres, dutifully cranking out whatever was "hot" at the moment. And after The Vikings (1958) - starring Kirk Douglas and Tony Curtis - raked in a hefty worldwide profit, Bava was charged with coming up with his own sword-and-sandal epic to duplicate the original's success...on a fraction of the budget, of course. Erik the Conqueror (1961) plots the same course of violent battle scenes, political betrayal and strained family ties but shuffles the deck and adds some signature Bava visual panache to boot. The film kicks off with the death of King Lotar on the shores of Britain as his fellow Vikings stumble to the sea in retreat. The King's young sons are separated during t...

Comedy is often a matter of taste...or lack thereof. John Cleese was an innovator in bad taste as part of Monty Python, brilliantly mixing rude humor with polite British wit. But as the decades passed, humor caught up with his genius, even surpassing it in terms of lowbrow laughs with BBC shows like The Young Ones . As timeless as Python's sketch material was, it just didn't feel fresh anymore. But the unexpected success of A Fish Called Wanda (1988) proved that clever comedy and vulgarity could still co-exist; in fact, they felt fresher than ever. Cleese plays Archie Leach, a sad sack of a British barrister stuck in a loveless marriage, whose life is re-invigorated by the appearance of Wanda (Jamie Lee Curtis), an American law student who finds him inexplicably attractive. Wanda's motives, however, are professional not personal. As part of the jewel heist that kicks off the film, she's milking Archie for information about his client - and her lover - Georges Th...

Elvis movies are a genre unto themselves. But unlike, say, the 007 franchise which gives each actor a breather when the formula grows stale (or they age out of the role), Elvis was never allowed to leave the building. This "lather-rinse-repeat" cycle produced 31 films of varying degrees of quality, most designed around a complement of hit singles shoehorned into the story. The King's interest waned from project to project and his few attempts at real acting (like 1960's Flaming Star ) never seemed to click with his loyal fanbase. So it's a real treat to see him actually enjoying himself in Kid Galahad (1962), a fresh, fun change-of-venue set in the world of boxing that makes the most of Elvis' musical talent and challenges him as an actor too. Fresh out of the service and desperate for work, Walter (Presley) wanders back to his hometown of Cream Valley, New York, hoping to land a job as a mechanic. Instead, he's paid a quick five-bucks to se...

The evolution of home video extras probably deserves its own documentary by now. From polished studio Making Ofs to the candid talkfests on cult titles, there's a delicate balance of photos, interviews and narration that separates truly special features from just a pile of promotional fluff. But The Creep Behind the Camera (2014) takes things to a whole new level. Ostensibly a profile of one-time-director A. J. Savage (aka Vic Savage) whose 1964 sci-fi flick The Creeping Terror is on the ever growing list of "worst movies ever made," in this case the Making Of is actually the main feature, composed of re-enactments from Nelson's life along with sound bites from crew and critics...while The Creeping Terror itself is relegated to supporting extra status. Minus the interviews, writer / director Pete Schuermann's film is set-up just like a narrative feature with A.J. Nelson (played with Bill Paxton-ish relish by Josh Phillips) arriving in Hollywood determin...

A cult item at best in the U.S., the five films that make up director Kinji Fukasaku's Battles Without Honor and Humanity series were a big success in their native Japan, using a ripped from the headlines approach to the yakuza genre and establishing star Bunta Sugawara as a template for the ice-cold gangster emerging unscathed (mostly) from the constant internal power struggles. In fact, the series was so successful that Toei studios kicked off another round of films just a few months later. Fukasaku's New Battles Without Honor and Humanity aren't direct sequels, but star many of the same actors - including Sugawara - in roles similar enough that they're sequels in spirit...if not quite as spirited as the originals. The first film, given the masthead title New Battles Without Honor and Humanity , is the most complex in scope, following Miyoshi (Sugawara) upon his release from prison after a failed hit on a rival boss. Aoki, an ambitious gang member pushing ...

Movies about mental illness are inherently depressing...no pun intended. And the most effective sort, like Martin Scorsese's Taxi Driver , makes you feel a little unbalanced yourself. Director Gareth Tunley, a British comedian making his debut feature, goes for a pitch-black mind bender with The Ghoul (2016), spiraling around the fragile psyche of its lead character, an undercover cop pretending to be crazy...or a crazy person pretending to be an undercover cop. The frustratingly ambiguous film lets you take your pick. Things kick off with a crime scene investigation as Chris (Tom Meeten) is called in to solve the mystery behind a shooting that left two victims dead...but not before they remained alive and mobile for an unnaturally long time. A clue points to the property manager who was a psychotherapy patient. Chris makes an appointment and puts on an "act" to learn more, only his lies become mixed with the truth. His clinical depression cover story bleeds into ...

H.P. Lovecraft never had much literary success when he was alive; and his dense mythology of inter-dimensional monstrosities lurking just outside of our fragile reality proved difficult to translate cinematically as well. In fact, the very first movie adaptation, Roger Corman's The Haunted Palace (1963), disguised itself as part of the director's popular Edgar Allan Poe series, when the actual source material was loosely based on Lovecraft's story The Case of Charles Dexter Ward . But the breakout success of Re-Animator (1985) on home video twenty years later proved without a doubt that the author wasn't box-office poison after all...and filmmakers decided to give the tale of Charles Dexter Ward another go under yet another title: The Resurrected . With a modern day setting - 1991 at the time of filming - the story adds a private investigator to the mix, John March (John Terry), hired by Claire Ward (Jane Sibbett) to snoop out an explanation for her husband...

With all due respect to recent musical efforts like La La Land , there's simply nothing like the resources and talent involved in films made during the studio era, even waning years that produced 1962's remake of Rodger's and Hammerstein's State Fair , an eager-to-please extravaganza that does its best to update the aw-shucks appeal of the original with a fresh and modern approach courtesy of sex kitten Ann-Margret. Like the rest of the state of Texas, the Frake family's life seems to revolve around their annual trip to the state fair. Patriarch Abel Frank (Tom Ewell) is pampering his prize hog in hopes of winning Best in Show; eldest son Wayne (played by straight-arrow crooner Pat Boone) is racing his custom hot rod against some stiff competition; daughter Margy is waiting for a grown-up whirlwind romance while level-headed mom Melissa Frake (Alice Faye) is the glue holding them all together. And from that first day on the midway, this year's trip promi...

Rarely are foreign filmmakers able to beat Hollywood at their own game. But 1988's Amsterdamned , produced at the tail end of the slasher genre and height of the action film, manages to cram in the best aspects of both. Directed by Dick Maas ( The Lift ) with a flair for black humor, memorable characters and one-of-a-kind stunts, his film is so ridiculously entertaining that it's almost criminal there was no way to see properly until now. Bear in mind, even the most generous plot synopsis makes Maas' film sound like an ill-conceived mess; which makes it's spot-on execution all the more satisfying. Detective Eric Visser (Hube Stapel) is one of Amsterdam's top cops, but even he is hard up for an explanation in a series of gruesome murders all committed near the city's famous canals. One witness describes a "monster" crawling out of the polluted water. But it's not long before Visser narrows the possibilities down to a sociopathic scuba ...

Difficult to categorize and even harder to see since its release in 1982, The Slayer is a psychological slasher film with a pre- Nightmare on Elm Street killer that stalks its victims' dreams. Director J.S. Cardone doesn't do as much with the concept as Wes Craven managed to a few years later, but his approach is just different enough to make this one a square peg in the round hole of '80s horror. Kay (Sarah Kendall) is an artist whose recent abstract work is caused by a series of nightmares that have kept her mentally and emotionally on edge. Her husband, David (Alan McRae) suggests tagging along on a trip with her brother and his wife to an isolated island retreat. But their arrival only makes Kay more uneasy as their vacation home seems eerily similar to the landscape of her dreams. Sure enough, David and the others are soon in danger from an unseen force that roams the island, sealing their fate in exactly the same manner Kay predicted. Their survival, and he...

Art always has an agenda, even if it's simply to entertain. But the films of Sam Fuller are a bit more transparent. 1959's The Crimson Kimono offers up a paper-thin detective story that disguises a melodramatic interracial love triangle that certainly wasn't business as usual for audiences at the time. But Fuller's film never sensationalizes. In fact, the real scandal behind Joe Kojaku, a Japanese cop, falling for a witness who happens to be white, is that he steals her away from his Caucasian partner, Det. Charlie Bancroft. Investigating the case of a stripper shot dead on an L.A. street, Joe (James Shigeta) and Charlie (Glenn Corbett) follow a lead into the Japanese quarter of Los Angeles where they come upon a witness, Christine (Victoria Shaw), who draws a sketch of the suspected killer. But her skills as an artist soon put her in jeopardy and a failed attempt on her life forces Christine to move in with Joe and Charlie to their cozy apartment. A romant...

Working comfortably in his "silly" period, Woody Allen's 1972 sketch comedy adaptation of the best-selling sex manual Everything You Always Wanted to Know about Sex* (*But were afraid to ask) is unapologetically absurd. Made up of seven short segments starring him and a cast of guest stars (Gene Wilder, Burt Reynolds and Tony Randall among them), Allen uses the format to bounce between genre spoofs and his own brand of self-deprecating humor. Mel Brooks would hit pay dirt with the same concept a few years later ( Blazing Saddles, Young Frankenstein ), but here Allen concocts an early version of Saturday Night Live ...with about the same ratio of comedic highs and lows. Title cards introduce each story like a chapter heading, beginning with Do Aphrodisiacs Work? - a medieval spoof starring Allen as a failed court jester trying to woo the queen out of her vintage chastity belt - and culminating with What Happens during Ejaculation? - a Fantastic Voyage send up with the ...

Although it's not a Disney film, 1973's musical adaptation of Tom Sawyer has all the earmarks of that studio's live-action output of the era including a script and songbook from Richard and Robert Sherman, the legendary composers behind classics like The Jungle Book and Mary Poppins . And while it lacks that certain extravagance the mouse house is known for, director Don Taylor's film has a loosely episodic style that works well for the material, even if Mark Twain's original story (like those reprinted by presenting sponsor Reader's Digest ) is condensed and sanitized for family friendly consumption. A precocious kid with a good soul, Tom Sawyer (played by red-headed child star Johnny Whitaker) aspires to nothing more than enjoying himself every day. Unfortunately, the strict guidelines of an education and his Aunt Polly's house rules often get in the way of goofing off with his pal Huckleberry Finn (Jeff East) and colorful local characters like ...

The Japanese film industry provided a much-needed enema for the horror genre in the new millennium. With an emphasis on old-school supernatural scares and a sense of Y2K technology dread, films like Hideo Nakata's Ringu and Kiyoshi Kurosawa's Pulse (2001) swept through the fan community to provide an underground terror experience that the major studios weren't interested in providing. The huge success of Gore Verbinski's Ring remake changed that awful fast, and soon screens were filled with pale ghost kids capitalizing on a new sub-genre that Hollywood would soon bleed dry. But something was lost in the translation. Looking back at Kurosawa's Pulse , now on blu-ray courtesy of Arrow Video, there's an experimental edge that no American director outside of David Lynch would be willing to try. A 2006 remake by Wes Crave took the general plot synopsis - ghosts invade our world through the internet - and cleared away the clutter. But Kurosawa's fil...

The creators of Re-Animator are spot-on when they attribute their film’s success to the video boom of the ‘80s – that magical era when underage kids across the country could walk into a “mom n’ pop” rental store and ogle shelf after shelf of temptingly lurid cover art, all of it promising the sort of illicit sex and gore only the new unrated video market could offer. Stuart Gordon’s debut feature, a wildly loose adaptation of a series of H.P. Lovecraft stories that combined dead-pan humor with outlandish amounts of blood, is anchored by a star-making performance from Jeffery Combs (that unjustly never turned him into a star), making Re-Animator one of the few films that lived up to the advertising on its box, pushing the limits of bad taste to the point of no return. After an over-the-top intro that expertly sets the tone for the rest of the film, Herbert West (Combs) enrolls at Miskatonic University where he rents a room from fellow med student, Dan (Bruce Abbott), who just happens to...

The western genre provides cinephiles with an almost endless amount of material to mine in search of auteurist tendencies . And at the height of its popularity, directors like John Ford, Howard Hawks, Anthony Mann and Sergio Leone offered plenty of evidence for a consistently recognizable style, tone and theme. But the studio system isn't build to support many unique visions, and Joseph H. Lewis, whose noirish thrillers Gun Crazy (1950) and The Big Combo (1955) are triumphs of style over substance, does his best to elevate the B-movie gunslinger flick Terror in a Texas Town , an otherwise clumsy western revenge story penned by none of than blacklisted screenwriter Dalton Trumbo. Hired by a gluttonous businessman, McNeil, ( Family Affair 's Sebastian Cabot) to clear off squatters from oil rich land, has-been gunslinger Johnny Crale (Nedrick Young) makes an example of out of Swedish farmer Sven Hansen, shooting him down in hopes of scaring off the other rabble-rousers. But ...

Part of a wave of WW2 epics released in the late '60s and early '70s that wound up as perfect Sunday afternoon "Dad-movies" for at least a decade longer, The Bridge at Remagen (1969) rarely gets mentioned in the same breath as better known titles like The Longest Day or The Dirty Dozen . But director John Guillermin's film certainly delivers the requisite amount of action and destruction - at one point leveling an entire town without the aid of models or computer effects - and even pushes an early anti-war message that must have tied in well with the current state of affairs in Vietnam. Producer David L. Wolper, who would change the face of television with mini-series events like Roots and The Thorn Birds , pulls together a competent cast who, though they may lack marquee appeal, serve the story well. George Segal leads the charge as Lt. Phil Hartman, a jaded survivor who knows the war is winding down and resents any order that puts his men in jeopardy. ...

Released just a few months after The Godfather , Dino De Laurentis' own mafia origin story, The Valachi Papers (1972) had the same literary pedigree with the added bonus of a being based on the true account of Joe Valachi, a mob family foot soldier whose testimony before the U.S. Senate revealed many of the secrets and rituals of the infamous Costa Nostra organization. But where Coppola's film provided a richly romantic view of loyalty, honor and the twisted American dream, director Terence Young takes a "tell-all" approach, starting with Valachi's early days as a two-bit burglar, his rise through the ranks and a lengthy prison term that makes him a sitting duck for a lifetime worth of enemies. The film begins with Joe Valachi (Charles Bronson) as a sixty-something federal inmate dodging one murder attempt after another, each orchestrated by Don Vito Genovese (Lino Ventura) who believes him to be a dangerous informant. Ironically, it's that very situat...

Director Dario Argento’s body of work is not unlike that of horror-rockabilly icons The Cramps, who’d been performing minor variations of the same song since 1982. If you own one Cramps album, you essentially own them all. Ditto for Argento’s films, which, more often that not, revolve around the witness to some horrific crime who spends the entire movie trying to recall one crucial piece of evidence before falling victim to a black-gloved killer. After 1970’s The Bird With The Crystal Plumage, it would be easy to write Argento off as a one-shot auteur (which defies the very definition of the word), but like The Cramps, there is a certain genius in the minute variations; as if the creators are perfecting their craft, chipping away at a masterpiece that is as yet unfinished. The Stendhal Syndrome is not that masterpiece. But it is the director’s most mature and professional work in the modern era (I’m talking anything post-Opera), anchored by a challenging performance from his own daught...

Japanese culture is complicated enough on its own. So when a movie starts lifting elements of Hollywood genres and pop culture iconography, it can be flat-out frustrating to try and make sense out of who's stealing what from whom! Luckily, a film like Doberman Cop (1977) doesn't require a whole lot of critical analysis. Sonny Chiba stars as Kano, a backwards island cop on loan to the Tokyo police force to help identify a dead body. Initially dismissed as a country bumpkin, Kano soon steals the show in pursuit of a serial killer whose next target looks to be the rising star of a national singing competition. While his Battles Without Honor and Humanity series was a huge hit, director Kinji Fukasaku was sweating out the demise of the yakuza genre along with several other studios whose endless series of sequels seemed to have finally played out. Doberman Cop is an obvious franchise attempt - based on a popular manga - that never got off the ground. But even as a one-off...

The expression "find a need then fill it" is a reliable business model for anyone looking to begin a career. And the most successful ideas actually create a need that wasn't there in the first place. Case in point, movie producers were desperate to fill the financial and creative void left after the death of Bruce Lee, parading a dozen or so candidates under ridiculously convenient pseudonyms (Bruce Lei? Really?!) in an attempt to keep the money flowing. One of those suitors to the kung fu crown was Jackie Chan, who actually worked with Lee on small roles in The Chinese Connection and Enter the Dragon . Despite his physical skills, Chan wound up as just another also-ran, a square peg in the round hole left by Lee's irreplaceable charisma. But 1978's Snake in the Eagle's Shadow and Drunken Master showcased Chan's abilities not just as a fighter, but as a gifted physical comedian whose goal was to get a laugh...not just crush a larynx. Kung f...

There's no shortage of larger than life figures involved in the production of Hell and High Water (1954), a submarine movie that ticks off all the boxes one might expect in a Cold War thriller and adds a few new items not usually on the menu. Producer Daryl F. Zanuck recruited director Samuel Fuller, who brought along regular collaborator Richard Widmark, to make a Cinemascope spectacle out of a script that took place almost entirely in the cramped quarters of a refitted Japanese sub. And if that wasn't challenge enough, Zanuck insisted that his mistress, Bella Darvi, be cast as the female lead. The film opens with a mushroom cloud and ominous narration describing a mysterious nuclear explosion near the Arctic Circle. The circumstances surrounding that blast - and the foreign plot to frame the United States for starting WW3 - revolve around Captain Adam Jones (Widmark) who's been hired by a clandestine group of private citizens to chaperone two scientists to a sus...

The giallo didn’t begin with Dario Argento, but his directorial debut, The Bird with the Crystal Plumage, is a signpost most critics and fans recognize as the defining moment which inspired the Italian film industry to flood the market with copycat productions featuring black-gloved killers, vapid victims and ridiculously obtuse titles. Argento himself participated in the process, considerably upping the gore and downsizing the plot with each new entry. But in 1970, Bird served as his calling card to the international film industry, and as such the director crafted a film much more reserved and “professional” than his later work, which suffered glorious highs (Deep Red, Suspiria) and embarrassing lows (Trauma, Phantom of the Opera). Bird is a roadmap to the genre before it became muddied with the footprints of countless producers looking for a quick buck. And while it may lack the visceral punch it once had, it retains the cinematic integrity lacking in most of the films it inspired. S...