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Dismissed upon release as a "porn movie without the sex," 1972's Toys Are Not for Children certainly matches that description often enough, built around shag carpet, noisy wallpaper and painted ladies. Shot on the cheap, director Stanley H. Brassloff's film isn't pretty to look at; but that ugliness is a good match for the psychological baggage carried around by its main character, Jamie, whose childhood fixation on her absent father has left her a frigid mess, unable to consummate her marriage and obsessed with the toys of her youth. As the twisted melodrama careens towards a tragic conclusion, Jamie's friendship with a prostitute pushes her naively into the same career, turning tricks for men who see her daddy issues as nothing more than a kinky turn-on. But Jamie's emotional issues run deep, and Brassloff's film isn't afraid to go where you think it shouldn't. The sexual component, however, is never overt. And Toys is obviousl...

Beating Friday the 13th 's disfigured-man-child-stalking-the-woods routine by a good three years (depending on who you ask) 1980's The Prey has all the conceits of a routine slasher. But creative team Edwin and Summer Brown, whose previous experience was confined to pornographic features, deliver something decidedly left of center. Following three couples on an overnight camping trip who stumble into the hunting grounds of a monstrous gypsy burned in a forest fire, the film pads its short running time (in the theatrical cut) with Nat Geo-style nature footage of birds, raccoons and insects. Combine that with an often improvisational feel from the cast and The Prey sets an unusually soothing tone for a movie with the tagline "It's not human....and it has an axe!" It's a sleeper in more way than one. Fans raised on the more intense pace of '80s slashers are in for a snooze. But there's something so unique and likeable about this little-known k...

It's hard to keep a good Django down...or even a dead one, for that matter. Director Sergio Garrone's 1969 film might not be a direct sequel to the Franco Nero classic, but it's still better than almost anything else the character's name has been slapped onto, including Tarantino's re-imagining. Drifting into town like a vengeful spirit, which he just might be, Django (Anthony Steffen) hunts down the men responsible for abandoning their posts during a military attack. The opening sequence, shot with the stylized atmosphere of a horror film, sets expectations high. And even if the rest of Garrone's film can't match it, Django the Bastard is still well above the spaghetti western curve. Steffen's deadpan performance (he also co-wrote the script) is perfect here and manages to never spoil the surprise his character's supernatural origin. In that respect, the film is an obvious influence on Clint Eastwood's High Plains Drifter ...a...

From a filmmaker's standpoint, sequels are both a blessing and a curse. On the positive side of things, somebody already laid most of the groundwork ahead of time: building characters, arranging plot points, maybe even hinting where future stories could go. In the case of Wes Craven's The Hills Have Eyes Part II (1984), the task should have been even simpler, since it was Craven himself who came up with the idea of a family of radioactive cannibals traumatizing any poor sap who wandered into their desert domain. But with seven long years between films, the writer / director seems uninterested in the after-lives of his iconic creations, saddling them with a blasé busload of second-rate victims who are barely worth setting the buffet. On the way to a motocross competition, some twenty-something take an ill-advised shortcut into the open desert and find themselves hunted by Pluto and The Reaper, surviving members of Jupiter's clan of cannibals, who've now taken res...

For all the claims of homophobia and outright fear mongering laid against Cruising (1980), its problems don't lie (entirely) within its admittedly dim view of one particular gay lifestyle. The flaws in director William Friedkin's film are much less scandalous than that; think script, editing, pacing, etc. And for all its attempts to shock the audience with hard-R scenes of lubed-up party boys seducing a wide-eyed Al Pacino, the biggest shock, ultimately, is that it lacks the courage of its convictions. In an attempt to catch the "homo killer," beat cop Steve Burns (Al Pacino) is sent undercover into New York City's underground gay club scene, a hedonistic world of casual sex and kinky fashion. Initially out of his element, Steve hunts down a few likely suspects while trying to maintain his "straight" relationship to Nancy (Karen Allen) on the side. But the perils of the job begin to take their toll, pushing Steve to take chances that will end the ...

In many ways, Klute (1971) is the logical result of a broken studio system attempting to create a new formula. The thriller aspects of director Alan J. Pakula's production, liberally lifted from latter Hitchcock films and Italian giallo copycats, offers up the seedy inspiration for '80s thrillers like Basic Instinct where both heroes and heroines are only a few moral notches away from the psychos they pursue. But with the new Hollywood ethos in play, Klute is allowed make up its own rules, explore (or in some cases ignore ) its characters, and linger where its inspirations could not. A New York call girl with theatrical aspirations, Bree Daniels (Jane Fonda) becomes a "person-of-interest" in the disappearance of a buttoned-down family man connected by a series of pornographic letters. John Klute (Donald Sutherland) is the private investigator with a vested interest in the case who also takes a romantic interest in his chief witness. As the pair track down le...

Cinema may combine the best aspects of art, literature and music...but it also has a healthy dose of vaudeville too. After all, putting on a show for those who can't afford (or appreciate) a night at the opera is what Hollywood was built around! So movies like Mother Wore Tights (1947) translate the vaudeville experience particularly well, rushing through various musical numbers while stringing together just enough narrative complications to fit the new playbill. Narrated via flashback by Mikie, the youngest daughter in a traveling troupe of family performers, she tells the meet-cut story of Mother (Betty Grable) and Daddy (Dan Dailey), a successful dancing duo whose stage lives become hopelessly complicated after they have children. Iris, the eldest, begins to resent her upbringing and enrolls in a prestigious prep school. But when Mom and Dad book a show nearby, resent turns to embarrassment, and the family business becomes a skeleton she'd rather keep in the closet. T...

A mismatched romance that takes a dodgy turn into crime thriller territory, Hussy (1980) obviously sold itself on the performance (clothed and unclothed) of Helen Mirren who'd proven herself game for any cinematic challenge. But director Matthew Chapman's film retains an aura of '70s respectability, investing her character with a flawed, blue-collar gravitas that turns exploitation into a sort of working girl expose. Beaty Simons (Mirren) turns tricks at a London nightclub, dreaming of a life in the country where she can leave the business behind and raise her ten-year-old son. And her relationship with Emory (John Shea), a soft-spoken widower, provides hope for just that. But Beaty finds old habits are hard to break. And when an ex-lover fresh out of prison turns up on their doorstep, things go from bad to worse for all of them. Hussy sells sex, but it's a stealth character study at heart. Chapman's film makes sure we realize Beaty's job is anyt...

Movies shot in the snow should always get extra credit. Not only does it involve cast and crew working under less than optimal conditions, but the logistics of shooting when the temperatures drop below freezing add a new level of difficulty. Plus it all looks awesome on camera! So The Chill Factor (1993), despite its community theater acting and Cabin in the Woods cliches, gets a gold star just for trying to pull off a supernatural slasher set in northern Wisconsin. After a snowmobile race gone wrong, Jeannie and her five friends hunker down in an abandoned hunting cabin while a winter storm rages outside. A quick exploration of the premises uncovers a satanic back-story involving human sacrifice, demonic possession and missing kids. And by the time morning rolls around, Jeannie might just be the only human left alive! Produced by Windsor Lake Studios, a regional company also responsible for Arrow Video's other recent release Trapped Alive , The Chill Factor (release i...

The essay included in Blue Underground's 3-Disc Limited Edition of Lucio Fulci's The New York Ripper boldly proclaims, "This is the type of horror film our mother's warned us about!" And that statement couldn't be more correct. This is a film that wallows in sex, sleaze, and gore in a way that, even by Italian standards, pushes the boundaries of bad taste. And yet, perhaps because it's so artfully shot while being fearlessly inappropriate, it's more compelling than almost any other exploitation film out there. Sometimes it takes a foreign director to uncover the hidden beauty (or dark underbelly) of locations we all take for granted. The maestro of Italian gore, Fulci had several nauseating set pieces to his credit already in the early '80s. But he gets the most out of his visit to New York this time around, with surprisingly effective use of famous iconography, including a beautifully filthy 42nd steet contrasted with the stunning NYC...

The modern home invasion genre has its roots in Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange , wherein Alex and his droogs torture and rape a well-to-do-couple while crooning along to "Singing in the Rain." It's still an unsettling scene 47 years later, in part because, despite Kubrick's penchant for elegantly composed shots, this particular scene is crudely handheld, forcing the viewer to become unwilling accomplices to the psychological carnage. It's just one of the lessons German director Michael Haneke lifts for his own self-aware take on the genre, 1997's Funny Games . Arriving at their lake house, Anna, George and their young son have their vacation rudely interrupted by a pair of well-dressed hooligans - Peter and Paul - who take them hostage and stage a series of games to amuse themselves. As the sadistic evening continues, Anna and George realize that there's no reasoning with their captors and a fight for their family's survival ensues. ...

Westerns recycle better than any other genre, repurposing old plots, sets, scenery, even actors in such a way that each new production seems, if not quite "fresh," then at least a few weeks away from its "use by" date. 1959's Warlock isn't adding anything particularly new with its story of a community desperately in search of a lawman to handle a herd of out of control cowboys (in fact, Blazing Saddles would lift the entire scenario wholesale 15 years later). But the characters presented here are far from stereotypical; and director Edward Dmytryk's film is anything but a spoof. The town of Warlock has gone through more than its fair share of deputies, all either killed or run out of town by Abe McQuown (Tom Drake) and his gang of rowdy cattle-rustlers, which includes one soft-spoken conscientious objector, Johnny Gannon (Richard Widmark), who thinks things have gone too far. In a last ditch effort, civic leaders hire on Clay Blaisedell (Henry Fo...

Although it's grandfather of modern outbreak movies, 1971's The Andromeda Strain feels more like a reaction to the technological tsunami of 2001: A Space Odyssey than a trendsetter in its own right. Based on Michael Crichton's novel, this is a film that has an endless amount of enthusiasm for the scientific method and emergency quarantine procedures; it's the cinematic equivalent of a TV disclaimer announcement, listing possible side effects and health warnings. Suffice to say, the thrills are few and far between. But director Robert Wise brings some signature style to this story of an alien organism that wipes out a small New Mexico town...and threatens to destroy the world. Dr. Jeremy Stone (Arthur Hill) and his team of academic all-stars are rushed to an underground government facility called Wildfire, specifically designed to handle extraterrestrial threats of the microbiological sort. After working their way through several levels of decontamination proc...

The term film noir gets stretched awfully thin at times, including movies produced at the height of the then unnamed and unrecognized genre's popularity and those that took their inspiration long after. The Big Clock (1948) was released right in the thick of post-war pessimism and certainly shares a good amount of cinematic DNA, yet never really looks the part. Director John Farrow's thriller is a bit bland visually, but compensates with a crackerjack concept that was good enough to inspire a Kevin Costner remake ( No Way Out ) in 1987. George Stroud (Ray Milland) is a workaholic magazine editor who specializes in locating missing people. Pushed to the breaking point by Mr. Janoth, his merciless boss (Charles Laughton), Stroud misses his family vacation and winds up spending the evening with a beautiful woman...who just so happens to be Janoth's mistress. Furious at her indiscretion, Janoth murders her and relies on a business associate to cover up the crime, blamin...

Clint Eastwood’s squint in Sergio Leone’s Dollars trilogy established him as superstar. But Lee Van Cleef, a prolific character actor who spent most of the ‘50s and ‘60s appearing on one TV show after another (seriously, his IMDB resume looks like a substitute teacher’s schedule), enjoyed a career resurgence just by association. After playing opposite the Man With No Name in For a Few Dollars More and The Good, The Bad and The Ugly , Van Cleef became a hot commodity among European producers who wanted a bit of that Leone mojo…but on a budget they could afford. The Grand Duel (1972) doesn’t offer the actor much of a stretch performance-wise – his character’s clothes, dialogue and demeanor are much the same as Angel Eyes from Good, Bad & Ugly – but a nifty role reversal casts him as sage gunslinger helping an outlaw framed for murder to clear his family name. The script (by mystery specialist Ernesto Gastaldi) lifts more than a few elements from Once Upon a Time in the West ...

The cardinal rule of horror and sci-fi filmmaking is easy to remember: Never Be Boring . While art films and Oscar winners can lure you in with emotional pathos and pregnant pauses, genre movies need to keep their foot on the gas more often than not. A filmmaking philosophy which works in favor of Terra Formars (2016), a live-action adaptation of the Japanese manga phenomenon that gave director Takashi Miike ( Ichi the Killer ) a chance to one-up his favorite Hollywood action pic, Starship Troopers . Centuries in the future, on an Earth that ironically still models itself after Blade Runner , overpopulation has inspired a terraforming project on Mars that's close to supporting human life. Trouble is, the cockroaches sent along as part of the initial seeding project have rapidly evolved into humanoid pro-wrestlers who have claimed the planet for their own. In response, the government sends an expeditionary force of unwanted criminals to take down the bug army, mixing their DN...

For today's generation, the name Charles Bronson is probably nothing more than an IMDB trivia search to find out who starred in Death Wish before Bruce Willis....if that. But in the early '70s, the actor was the embodiment of gritty a new wave of action stars transitioning from the saddle to a more urban frontier. With Once Upon a Time in the West proving he could eclipse an ensemble cast, Europe came calling with a quick burst of starring roles, proving that in the right hands, Bronson could be much more than a not-so-pretty face. In fact, Rider on the Rain (1970), a Hitchcockian thriller directed by Rene Clement, may very well be the best film in the actor's overstuffed career. After being raped by a stranger who breaks into her home, Melancolie (Marlene Jobert) kills the man and hides his body out shame and embarrassment. But her clumsy cover is blown almost immediately by Harry Dobbs (Bronson), a mysterious investigator who's been tracking the man for hi...

Edward G. Robinson gets a chance to prove his tough-guy persona is all make-believe in The Whole Town's Talking (1935), breezy little mistaken-identity comedy that casts the actor in two roles: Arthur Ferguson Jones, an unassuming law clerk with a secret crush on his co-worker (Jean Arthur), and "Killer" Manion, a notorious criminal whose face is plastered on every newspaper. But it turns out both men share the same face. And after the police arrest Arthur, he becomes an overnight celebrity, attracting the attention of Manion himself who sees an opportunity to use his doppelganger to get revenge. Although his films always featured plenty of comedic elements, director John Ford was never known for cracking-wise (cracking skulls? Maybe.) But he handles the body-swapping humor of The Whole Town's Talking with an exceptionally light touch, bolstering Robinson's showy dual role with a supporting cast that's more than up to the challenge (although more Jean...

It took nearly two decades, but the Quentin Tarantino stamp of approval is now pretty much worthless. Not only is QT himself less relevant on the pop culture scene - throwing hissy fits about leaked scripts and threatening retirement - but his liberal championing of dozens of films, while an admirable mission to educate the masses, has oversaturated the market. The Street Fighter series was on his agenda early, even popping up in his screenplay for True Romance . And while the Sonny Chiba trilogy is more than worth kung fu fans attention, it never broke big like Jackie Chan's back catalog. Perhaps because Jackie never pulled off a man's testicles with his bare hands! Built around a character who's more sociopath than anti-hero, The Street Fighter, Return of the Street Fighter and The Street Fighter's Last Revenge (all shot in 1974) have been essentially MIA on home video despite being released domestically by New Line Cinema as one of their earliest acquisiti...

Edgar G. Ulmer's Detour (1945) wasn't exactly a lost film, but every remaining print was in such bad shape, it might as well have been. Anyone who caught the infrequent screenings on Turner Classic Movies could attest that it looked like 10-miles of rough road, with dirt, splices and a warped soundtrack distracting from what those-in-the-know claimed was an unheralded masterpiece of film noir. Well, thanks to a massive restoration by the Criterion Collection, this piece of poverty row history is finally getting its due. Hitchhiking cross country to reunite with his fiancé, Tom (Al Roberts) is a talented pianist who life has hit its own rough patch; and things get rougher when the talkative fellow who picks him up keels over on a lonely stretch of road. Fearing the police will blame him, Tom drives off in the man's car and clothes, assuming his identity just long enough to get to California. But the plan is interrupted by Vera (Ann Savage), a femme fatale who's wis...

Oliver Stone has never been much for subtlety. Perhaps that's what makes him a perfect match for Talk Radio (1988), based on Eric Bogosian's in-your-face play about Barry Champlain, a celebrity shock jock whose on-air crisis of conscience threatens to sabotage the show just before it goes into national syndication. Stone's film takes as much pleasure in crucifying its egotistical protagonist as it does condemning the American public that deified him in the first place. Barry (Bogosian) hosts a successful late-night program, relishing his role as the man everyone loves to hate and prodding callers to extremes of social, political and racial bigotry. And his personal life is equally messy, with life-in girlfriend and sympathetic ex-wife (Ellen Greene) who acts as a life preserver amidst the on-air chaos. Meanwhile, his boss (Alec Baldwin) sweats over each provocative phone call and phony bomb threat in hopes that they'll survive to climb the corporate ladder. ...

Sonny Chiba's Street Fighter films combined the elegant style of Bruce Lee with the ugly grittiness of Charles Bronsan. The success of that grindhouse aesthetic probably brought Chiba the closest of competitors to inheriting the kung fu crown. But Toei Studios weren't taking any chances; the film became a franchise that very same year with Sister Street Fighter (1974), pushing protégé Etsuko Shiomi into the spotlight, with Chiba along for the ride for the sake of continuity. A spin-off in name only - Chiba plays an entirely different character here - Sister Street Fighter has a breakneck pace, stuffing in enough hand-to-hand combat to fill two or three films. There's a semblance of a plot (one that is repeated almost verbatim on each sequel) that introduces us to Koryu (Shiomi), a cute but deadly martial arts student whose brother has been kidnapped by drug smugglers. Teaming up with members of a local kempo school, she must defeat a rogue's gallery of villain...

In 1957, television was still public enemy number one as far as Hollywood was concerned. And while the two industries would learn to co-exist eventually, there were still a few good-natured shots fired over the bow now and then. Will Success Spoil Rock Hunter? gets in a few good licks on its small-screen rival and the absurdities of the advertising industry, populated by a bevy of booze-soaked, upwardly mobile hacks desperate to save their jobs at all costs (pot...meet kettle). Rockwell Hunter (Tony Randall), however, is a man of integrity, raising his teenage niece, dating a sensible girl and sweating over the creative details of every important account...all with no recognition or respect. But that changes when his pitch for a new ad campaign starring Hollywood bombshell Rita Marlowe (Jayne Mansfield) catapults him into the ranks of the executive elite. Not only that, but Marlowe uses him as a promotional boyfriend - "Loverman" - to spite an old boyfriend and keep h...

A fresh-out-of-film-school production, Kolobos (1999) certainly wasn't the launching pad it cast and crew expected it to be. But its early skewering of MTV's Real World clichés and pre-torture porn slashers like Saw make it a bit more worthwhile for forgiving lovers of the genre. There are plenty of clever homages to Italian horror, but you have to be willing to put up with roommates with weak back stories and bad acting habits to get there. Responding to an ad for participants to shack up in a fully-wired rental home and allow their daily lives to be recorded 24/7, five ambitious 20-somethings wind up under lockdown with a serial killer who has rigged up laser-beam deathtraps throughout the property. The weakest link seems to be Kyra (Amy Weber, now best known as a WWE diva!) whose visions of a mutilated madman make the rest of the group suspect she's partly to blame. But as the finger-pointing increases so does the body count and it's likely they all will ...