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Horror has always been ahead of the curve.     Its adaptability and profitability make it an ideal proving ground for fresh voices and new ideas.     And despite the historical lack of female representation, the genre seems to be making up for lost time with a surprising number of women getting behind the camera (enough for an entire   category   on the streaming service Shudder at least).     Adapted from her own 2016 short, Jill Gevargizian’s   The Stylist   (2020) pulls its inspiration from character-driven subgenres (most obviously Bill Lustig’s   Maniac   and the more mainstream   Single White Female ) that don’t rely on hashtags or social movements to prove its unapologetically gory point. Claire (Najarra Townsend) is a talented hair stylist with a loyal client base.  But it’s the drop-ins who’re in real danger.  Their anonymous confessions inspire Claire to punish them for their transgressions, s...

Cinematic evolution is rarely a slow, methodical process. Its history is dotted with mutant outliers whose success inspired copycat productions that multiplied like celluloid viruses, changing the business in fits and starts rather than planned genetic engineering.     In the case of the Western, it took 1964’s   A Fistful of Dollars   to kickstart a new approach to the genre.     But what if Leone’s film never made it the screen?     Who would have filled in the evolutionary gap?     The smart money is probably on Sam Peckinpah, whose   Ride the High Country   (1962) already served as a nostalgic send-off   and  fitfully revolutionary rebirth.     But it was 1965’s   Major Dundee   that put his real potential – and self-destructive habits – on display. Hollywood stalwart Charlton Heston stars as Major Amos Dundee, an arrogant disciplinarian with a chip on his shoulder who takes it upon himself to ...

Ever since the decline of traditional studio home video departments, niche companies like Blue Underground have cultivated their   own   fanbases built around consumers’ tastes.     It’s a symbiotic relationship based upon the idea that these films are in the hands of people who actually   love   the films they’re releasing.     And in BU’s case, there’s probably no better example of that than   The Final Countdown   (1980) which (if memory serves) was the company’s flagship release on the Blu-ray format and now comes early in their UHD upgrade agenda. Kirk Douglas gets top billing as the skipper of the USS Nimitz, a tricked out Naval aircraft carrier that gets sucked into a time warp and whisked back to April 6 th , 1941…”A day that will live in infamy.”  So now the million-dollar-question is, does the crew take advantage of their superior firepower to wipe out the Japanese attack force and save Pearl Harbor…or should history ...

Movies have always walked a fine line between art and corporate investment.     No matter how personal the story or culturally significant the subtext, films are designed to make money…plain and simple.     The “art” often lies in the ability to disguise that fact.     In the case of writer / director / producer Bill Rebane, whose Wisconsin-based low-budget genre pictures thrive on rubber-suited monsters and wardrobe malfunctions, there’s not much pretense involved.     These are movies designed to turn a profit; any resemblance to art is completely accidental. Starting with 1965’s  Monster a Go-Go  (with supplementary footage and editing by the legendary H.G. Lewis), Rebane’s inspirations seemed to be whatever trendy and cheap.  A space capsule returns to Earth with a radioactive creature – played by 7 foot 6 inch actor Henry Hite – leaving a trail of scalded victims.  Just as flat and lifeless as the contemporary mo...

While 1950s America was an era of capitalistic furor and 9-to-5 excess, Yasuzo Masumura’s  Giants and Toys  (1958) paints an equally desperate picture of Japanese workers’ devotion to their corporations…and the lengths they would go to stay one step ahead of the competition. World, Apollo and Giant Confectionary make up the three-headed monster of candy company rivals, all planning a new campaign to go head-to-head at the upcoming exposition.  To go along with an outer space theme, the executives at World cultivate an unlikely teen model: Kyoko, a rotten-toothed but exuberant cab driver who becomes an overnight sensation. Her cooperation revolves around her infatuation with a young executive, Nishi, who seems immune to her charms; and, in fact, is beginning to resent his company’s winner-take-all business practices.   Essentially kicking off the “business genre” in Japanese cinema,  Giants and Toys  is alternately charming, depressing, joyful and ...

The opening scene of   A Serbian Film   (2010) features a young boy staring in open-mouthed awe at a pornographic movie he stumbled upon by accident.     The suggestion by director Srdjan Spasojevic seems to be that some things, once seen, simply cannot be unseen.     And it’s an apt metaphor, considering that his film will leave just as many scars on its audience.   Banned in several countries and censored in almost every other,  A Serbian Film  is the latest word-of-mouth record holder for the most “extreme” piece of cinematic exploitation, a notorious distinction of dishonor previously held by films like Last House on the Left, Pink Flamingos  or  Martyrs .  Spasojevic’s film is without a doubt the most competently made…and also the most morally repugnant.   Milos is a retired porn actor struggling to stay on the straight and narrow and provide an income for his family.  So when an offer comes in to shoot...

Movies don’t get much more scattershot than writer / director Nico Mastorakis’  Death Has Blue Eyes  (1976), a title which suggests a giallo-tinged thriller, but actually delivers soft-core sex, cornball comedy and a telekinetic heroine who can make people spontaneously combust or prematurely ejaculate with equal skill.  It’s a quite a gift. Dashing Vietnam vet Robert Kowalski and his best friend – gigolo, karate-master Ches Gilford – become embroiled in a international sting to capture a mother-daughter duo, Christine and Geraldine Steinwetz, who were witness to a political assassination.  Taking on the job to protect them, our heroes can’t help but notice Christine’s ability to read minds and control people at will, an ability that makes her both the hunter  and  the hunted in this game populated by covert agents and intrigue.   A series of car chases, shootouts and uncomfortable threesomes lead toward climax that’s surprising in ...

A Ghost Waits   (2020) is one of those concepts that should have made director / co-writer Adam Stovall a hot property in Hollywood.     A meet-cute rom-com between a lonely handyman who refuses to be scared away by the female ghost haunting one of his properties is just the sort of high-concept idea that used to start a good old fashioned bidding war.     But rather than tweak the script to fit producers’ expectations, Stovall went ahead and made the movie himself.     And it’s an admirable effort, full of cleverness and warmth.     But one that could have benefitted with a bit more time and resources. Temporarily homeless and sleeping on the floor in a vacant house he’s been assigned to assess, Jack is a people pleasing property manager who doesn’t scare easy.  In fact, when Muriel, the ghost who’s been assigned to  haunt  said property, fails to send him running, she faces disciplinary action from her supernatural super...

For all its Tarantino tongue-in-cheek violence and movie poster posturing,  Switchblade Sisters  (1975) could easily be a case study for a women’s issues in the workplace.  A new recruit, Maggie, rises to the top of the organization, outsmarting and outmuscling her male competitors, only to be sabotaged by her best friend, Lace, the woman she trusted the most.  Director Jack Hill stole from the best, lifting much of the gangland politics from Shakespeare’s  Othello , but making sure to disguise it will plenty of chains, bullets and the aforementioned switchblades.    The “dagger debs” – later rechristened “the Jezebels” after Maggie’s corporate takeover – are proud of their juvenile delinquent status.  But adult problems are looming on the horizon and the next arrest could land them all into the prison system.  The addition of Maggie causes an emotional rift when Dominic, head of the Silver Daggers, takes more than a passi...

A kitschy but oh-so catchy double-feature of early Japanese sci-fi, Arrow Video's debut of  The Invisible Man Appears  (1949) and  The Invisible Man vs The Human Fly  (1957) is an unexpected treat for fans of the obscure, featuring a noirish black-and-white visual palette and special effects work by the future father of Godzilla, Eiji Tsuburaya, to create the film's transparent visual gags and gimmicks.  Although both films feature more heists than horror, they're a piece of H.G. Wells inspired history that have never been seen outside of Japan.   When Professor Nakazato's invisibility potion goes missing - along with the Professor himself - the police have no choice but to name him the lead suspect in a mysterious case of assaults and robberies revolving around a priceless diamond necklace.  Appearing in his signature bandages and trench coat, the Invisible Man makes fools of the police and uses his stolen super-science to wreak havoc in Kob...

The godfather of modern indie horror isn't one of the big names in the '70s or '80s pantheon, it's David Lynch, whose narrative absurdities and twisted worldview is on full display in films like  Heredity, The Lodge  and  Gretel & Hansel .  For better or worse, Lynch's detached, distorted style has seeped into the cinematic landscape with a vengeance.  Look no further than  The Bloodhound  (2020), director Patrick Picard's half-speed riff on  House of Usher , for a prime example of indie experimental excess.   Francis pays an unexpected visit to JP and Vivian, twin siblings who live a life of self-imposed imprisonment in their stylish modern home.  Beset with existential ennui and inexplicable physical symptoms, his hosts proceed to drag him into their psychological whirlpool of angst and depression.  Oh, and a creature that may or may not actually exist hides in a wardrobe and army crawls down the hall from ...

There are plenty of bad movies out there.  But  Southland Tales  is a truly WTF viewing experience so incomprehensibly convoluted you're not quite sure what to think.  Director Richard Kelly's debut feature,  Donnie Darko  (2001) made him the darling of the indie circuit, gathering a cult of likeminded Lynchian followers who adored the film's esoteric aesthetic involving time-travel, teen angst and the apocalypse.  But it was six years before he got another shot to prove his first success was no fluke.  Unfortunately, it turns out, it was.  Ostensibly a black comedy skewering the concepts of celebrity, politics and terrorism,  Southland Tales  features one of those IMDB cast lists that defies all probability, including Dwayne Johnson, Justin Timberlake, Mandy Moore, Sarah Michelle Geller and a handful of second tier SNL comedians.  There's a plot involving kidnapping, political subterfuge, porn stars an...

While Akira Kurosawa may be the only Japanese director with much name recognition in the U.S., Shoehei Imamura earned his share of international praise by winning the Palme d'Or at the 1983 Cannes Film Festival with  The Ballad of Narayama , an earthy slice-of-life period piece that detailed the lives of villagers eking out a meager physical and spiritual existence in an isolated mountain valley.     But Imamura was no one trick pony.  After working under the Japanese studio system throughout the '50 and '60s, he staged a comeback in the '80s with more creative control that produced a string of notable films, including another Palme d'Or winner,  The Eel , in 1997. While the latter isn't part of Arrow Video's new Blu-ray box set,  Survivor Ballads:  Three Films by Shohei Imamura , it still delivers a trio of charming, poetic, insightful, funny and sobering stories set against a wide background of Japan's complicated cultural history. ...

At the time of release,  Versus  (2000) felt like the hyperkinetic homemade culmination of Japanese samurai films, American horror, and ridiculous action tropes drenched in buckets of gore.  And that's exactly what it was.  Only time - and cinema in general - has caught up to director Ryuhei Kitamura's over-the-top antics, making his cult classic debut seem less like a feature-length trailer and more like de rigueur filmmaking in the 2K era. Escaped prisoner KSC2-303 (Kitarmura's film dispenses with character names entirely) runs afoul of a gang of hired yakuza thugs who, along with a kidnapped girl, await the arrival of their boss.  However, their meeting place happens to be in The Forest of Resurrection, and once the bodies start piling up they don't stay dead long.  Fighting their way through zombies, bullets and blades, our semi-heroic boy and girl duo are unknowingly headed for a rendezvous with destiny, doomed to replay a bloody co...

Slightly late to the genre party, director William Lustig's  Vigilante  (1982) followed the urban crime-cum-revenge fantasy precedent set by  Death Wish  all the way back in 1974.  And while the expiration date on this sort of material was closing in, Lustig's film looks  better  and tries  harder  than most of its cinematic inspirations, lifting the style and attitude of Italian  poliziotteschi  from the '70s to creative a fast moving piece of exploitation propaganda. Eddie Marino (Robert Forster) is a law-abiding, blue-collar family man who reaches his breaking point after his wife is attacked and son brutally murdered by a street gang.  When the judge suspends the perpetrator's sentence, Eddie  himself  is sent to prison for contempt of court, surviving with the help of a sympathetic experienced con (Woody Strode).  But upon release, Eddie joins up with a neighborhood vigilante squad led by his ...

With six official follow-ups and a short-lived TV series, one would expect  Tremors  to have the pop culture impact of a sci-fi franchise like  Jurassic Park .  Instead, it became a direct-to-video cash cow for Universal who milked the fanbase with prequels and sequels sets in various exotic locals with survivalist Burt Gummer (Michael Gross) fighting off evolutionary upgrades of the original Graboids.  Despite creative involvement by creators S.S. Wilson and Brent Maddock, nothing can top the charm of the 1990 original, which is just as much fun as it was 30 years ago.  Ne'er do wells Earl and Valentine (Fred Ward and Kevin Bacon) are just about ready to ditch their backwater hometown of Perfection, Nevada (population: 14).  But instead they're called upon to  defend  it from underground monsters that treat the valley like one long smorgasbord.  Eyeless and insatiable, these "Graboids" aren't quite as dumb as they fi...

Horror and exploitation fans are blessed with a massive library of genre titles to choose from in just about every decade.  So much so that regional filmmakers like William Grefe, whose mostly Florida shot shockers were relegated to the drive-in circuit during the '60s and '70s, went unnoticed if not completely unappreciated by most home video distributors.  But Arrow Video picks up the baton dropped by niche outfit Something Weird Video and collects seven of Grefe's eclectic features, plus an extended cut of the definitive documentary about his career packaged up in  He Came from the Swamp: The William Grefe Collection. Make no mistake, most of Grefe's work is seat-of-your-pants filmmaking that builds upon whatever trend was popular at the time.   Sting of Death  (1966) is a hilariously entertaining take on the beach party monster movie, pitting bikini-clad teens and heroic scientists against a bubble-headed were-jellyfish that stalks the Florida...

The lurid history of Elizabeth Bathory seems ready-made for cinematic exploitation artists looking to add a little class to their sex and violence.  And  Daughters of Darkness  (1971) pulls off the trick better than almost any other film before or since, picking up with the nocturnal activities of the Countess (Dephine Seyring) and her sexy secretary, Ilona (Andrea Rau), in the nearly abandoned seaside town of Ostend, Belgium, where a pair of newlyweds fall under their spell.  Director Harry Kumel's film is gorgeous from top to bottom, with a flair for the fantastic and a kinky sexual subtext that exemplifies Euro-horror at its finest. Married for only three days after a whirlwind courtship, Stefan and Valerie are already struggling to sort out their relationship.  Stefan seems afraid of introducing her to his family and instead suggests they spend time at a nearly empty resort.  But the delay proves deadly when Countess Bathory and Ilon...

You simply can’t overstate how much Stanley Kubrick’s 2001: A Space Odyssey revolutionized science fiction cinema.   Almost overnight, a new bar was raised not only for achievement in special effects but for narrative and thematic maturity.   And when the marketing department stumbled upon “the ultimate trip” tagline, an entirely new audience of 18 to 24 year olds under the influence of mind altering substances found a complementary celluloid experience.   So it was probably just a natural evolution to hand the reigns over to special effects supervisor Douglas Trumbull for a follow-up, 1972’s Silent Running , an environmentally aware sci-fi opus that, despite an earnest performance from Bruce Dern, lays on the counter-culture message a bit too thick. Drifting through the solar system in an oversized terrarium, the crew of the SS Valley Forge is part of an ambitious - but now nearly forgotten - effort to preserve Earth’s forests for a future re-seeding when the post-apo...

Now that playing videogames is an actually career choice, the premise behind  The Last Starfighter  doesn't seem to be quite the fantasy it once was.  But director Nick Castle's take on the Arthurian legend is still drenched in Spielbergian Americana balanced with breakthrough computer effects that might not seem quite as revolutionary today.  But for those of us who shared Alex Rogan's dream of being plucked from obscurity to become an intergalactic hero, the film remains an imaginative bit of pre-teen wish fulfillment that has aged as well as anything from the era when Slurpees and Stargate were the height of pre-teen pop culture. Stuck plunging toilets at his mom's trailer park, Alex's (Lance Guest) dream of escaping to college with his girlfriend Maggie (Catherine Mary Stewart) is crushed when his student loan is denied.  But after breaking the record on the local Starfighter machine, an alien talent scout (Robert Preston) whisks him off to Ry...

In a battle for supremacy over a man's soul, a hedonistic Hollywood lifestyle turns out to be more deadly than lung cancer in director Bernard Rose's adaption of Leo Tolstoy's  The Death of Ivan Ilyich , transposed into the corruptive social circles of the film industry in  Ivans xtc . (2000).  Facing an uphill battle to secure financing, Rose wound up shooting the project on the burgeoning HD video format, which actually works in the film's favor by stripping away the visual artifice of idealized glamour and wallowing in the behind-the-scenes moral decay that really makes Hollywood run.   Danny Huston stars as the titular Ivan Beckman, an ambitious agent whose backstabbing machinations just secured his firm the hottest celebrity in town, Don West (Peter Weller), lured by a script that he single-handedly turned into a hot property.  Unfortunately, his career victory is marred by a doctor's visit that turns up a "suspicious" spot on his lung, a diagnosi...