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Like many directors now indelibly linked with the horror genre, the late George Romero spent most of his early years trying to dodge the label slapped on him after the success of Night of the Living Dead . Understandable, considering it’s not a genre that commands the sort of professional respect (or golden statuettes) that come to those working in costume dramas, quirky independents or even the odd romantic comedy. When you work in horror, as far as the industry is concerned you’re only good for one thing…making more horror films. But there’s an upside. Horror fans are some of the most enthusiastic folks you’ll ever meet and will typically give almost anything by their favorite contributors to the genre a shot. Case in point, Arrow Video's new box set, Between Night and Dawn , which gathers three Romero films made after NOTLD 's breakout success and before his resurgence on the scene with Dawn of the Dead . While none of them follow the gory template set by the aforeme...

It's been fashionable of late to liberally lift the style and atmosphere of John Carpenter. Despite releasing his last movie in 2010, the director's influence has remained pretty much a constant on the horror genre since Halloween . But Dutch filmmaker Dick Maas got a big head start on everyone back in 1983 with his Carpenter inspired "killer elevator" movie - The Lift - the very same year Christine hit theaters. Called in to investigate a close call involving several passengers who were almost asphyxiated during a ride from the top floor, elevator mechanic Felix Adelaar (Huub Stapel) suspects there's something fundamentally wrong with the system despite finding no technical explanation. And he's proved right when the equipment continues to malfunction, almost seeming to have a mind of its own as it decapitates a security guard and lures more unsuspecting victims into the empty shaft. Joining forces with a pushy journalist (Willeke van Ammelrooy),...

Despite the promise of instant gratification by streaming services, there are thousands of films that will probably never show up on your Roku, bumped to the back of the line by the latest original content and data fillers. Those few companies still involved in the distribution of "physical media" are keenly aware of their audience: collector's who feel the need to own a piece of history and are willing to pay more for a respectable presentation. Beneath the 12 Mile Reef (1953), the second - or possibly third - cinemascope movie ever released is a niche title at best, showcasing the technical merits of a new technology that was still working out the narrative kinks. But it's a perfect example of the reasoning behind Twilight Time's 3000-copy limited edition release business plan, offering the casual, the curious and the die-hard collector a chance to put some Hollywood history on their shelf...even if it doesn't come back down all that often. With a padd...

For those who enjoy the work of Dario Argento but sometimes long for a little more logic, clarity and (let's be kind) narrative cohesion, Sergio Martino might just be the director for you. With sixty-six films to his credit, Martino has made a prolific career of emulating other's artistry, whipping out knock-offs of everything from Jaws (1979's The Great Alligator ) to The Road Warrior (1983's After the Fall of New York ) to Dirty Harry (1973's The Violent Professionals ). But his early work in the Italian giallo is probably his most memorable, using Argento's The Bird with the Crystal Plumage as a template for a series of violent, sexy thrillers that delivered the exploitation goods with no artistic aspirations to weigh them down. Yet, Martino's rough and ready style has its own appeal and offers up as much (or more ) "accidental" artistry as any other genre filmmaker working at the time. Case in point, The Suspicious Death of a Min...

At first glance, Night School (1981) seems to be an elitist slasher film, the sort that attempts to dodge any association with summer camps and spooky holidays, casting 30-somethings instead of 20-somethings and cloaking it all under the guise of a police procedural. Director Ken Hughes, whose last hit was the family-friendly Chitty Chitty Bang Bang in 1968, avoids showing a drop of blood and only chaste amounts of nudity despite being saddled with a story involving a string of decapitations at an all-girls college. Now that's some trick! But what's really amazing is that, upon closer inspection, Night School is even more twisted that most of the slasher franchises earning critical outrage at the time. We're talking not one but two predatory professors, male and female, a kinky tribal body paint shower scene, peeping toms, lesbian seduction and a ruthless leather-clad biker claiming people's heads with a sacrificial blade. When all it said and done, the movi...

You'd be hard pressed to find a more exciting opening scene in any movie from the '80s than The Hidden (1987). And, yes, that includes The Terminator , a film which was quite obviously the inspiration for director Jack Sholder's sci-fi / action hybrid about two aliens hunting each other amidst the teased hair, synthesized tunes and neon-soaked landscape of Los Angeles. From the creepy security camera footage under the opening credits to the ultraviolent car chase that follows, this is a film fueled by burnt rubber and latex monsters, a combination never executed so successfully before... or after! Kyle MacLachlan stars as FBI agent Lloyd Gallagher (three years before taking on the same job description in Twin Peaks ) who recruits reluctant L.A. cop Tom Beck (Michael Nouri) to help him put a stop to a deadly crime spree that kicks off the film. But Beck suspects Gallagher knows more than he lets on, particularly when a new suspect seems to pop up every time they tak...

It goes without saying that for a genre like the western, which pumped out title after title from the silent era through early '70s, the vast majority of its films are just...well, average . Even the studios were looking for an edge to separate themselves from the cinematic herd. And when 3D came into fashion, even the old-fashioned western wasn't immune to cashing in on a quick gimmick. Gun Fury (1953), directed by Raoul Walsh whose eye patch ironically prevented him from experiencing the optical process himself, takes advantage of the more obvious 3D clichés early on...then settles into a sort of classy middle-of-the-road revenge yarn that fits the bill for a lazy Sunday afternoon. Ben and Jennifer (Rock Hudson and Donna Reed) are an exuberantly engaged couple on their way to their quiet California ranch. Traveling via stagecoach with a trio of other passengers. one of the men is revealed to be notorious outlaw Frank Slayton (Philip Carey) who hijacks the stage, kidna...

It's not surprising that the story of the shootout at the OK coral has been told so many times in movies spanning almost every decade. What is surprising is that it's usually told so well . The feud between the Earps and Clantons is a cinematic goldmine of raw mythmaking material that bends to the will of each particular filmmaker, from John Ford's elegiac My Darling Clementine to George P. Cosmatos' action opus Tombstone . Each adaptation adds a few more details, real or imagined, that build upon one of the most oft-repeated tales in western history. But John Sturges' Hour of the Gun (1967) does them all one better, using the shootout as background noise for the opening credits then starting the story proper with the event's aftermath. It's a risky move, relegating the most famous gunfight in history to a cursory preamble. But Sturges had already done a straight version of the story 10 years earlier with Kirk Douglas and Burt Lancaster, Gunf...

Classic western icons like John Wayne and Randolph Scott seem chiseled out of the very rock of Monument Valley itself, like immovable objects of American's manifest destiny. They were men of few words and absolutely zero self-doubt. But time chipped away much of the genre's cinematic statuary to the point where 1971's Lawman , starring the equally hard-as-granite Burt Lancaster, revolves around a hero who lives by a code so rigid and inflexible that the justice he finally delivers feels more like cruel and unusual punishment. Director Michael Winner's film, working from a script by Gerald Wilson that gains more weight as it moves along, was almost certainly a reaction to the Spaghetti westerns that were cutting into Hollywood's bottom line. But the additional sex and violence (apparently a bit more of both exist in the international version) can't be dismissed as meaningless or exploitive. In fact, the stereotypical main street showdown, when it finall...

George Lucas is a convenient scapegoat for those looking to cast blame upon the current state of "revisionist cinema." But, in reality, he was only giving a media obsessed culture more of what they want. There is no "final cut" of a particular film anymore, only a funhouse mirror of infinitely edited variations, cut together whenever inspiration (or marketing necessity) strikes. But Lucas is simply a high-profile target for creationist criticism; in fact, the studios have been suffering from "special edition syndrome" for nearly 50 years now. Case in point, the Extended Cut of Richard Donner's Superman (1978) made its television premiere with over 40-minutes of story added to stretch the debut to a two-night event. Some bits and pieces of this expanded footage has turned up in various incarnations of the film on home video over the years, but we've never had the full 188-minute epic released on hi-def until now. Is it the final say on what ...

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 ...