Movieline Online

While other countries tried to duplicate Hollywood’s success by lifting ideas wholesale, Japan’s approach to cinema was similar to their modernization in general, cherry-picking elements that had broad appeal but retaining their distinct cultural identity.  Unlike Italy which relied heavily on exports playing throughout Europe, Japan’s relatively closed market meant that were making films mostly for themselves.  And their attempts at the burgeoning gothic horror genre in the 1960s stand as unique expressions of common folk tales amplified by new cinematic techniques  The Ghost of Yotsuya  (1959) is a curious mix of chanbara – or samurai film – and straight-up monster movie.  First performed as a kabuki play, the film remains a very set-bound, staged production for almost the entire running time as it tells the story of Oiwa, the scorned wife of Tamiya who leaves her to marry into a more successful family.  But after Oiwa’s death, her spi...

The term “instant classic” is obscenely overused in today’s Letterboxd film review culture.  Usually once the short-term enthusiasm for a particular release runs out of steam it settles into a more realistic “average” historical perspective.  But  Trick ‘r Treat  (2007) has, if anything,  improved  its reputation in the horror community since its premiere (on video, no less) 17 years ago.  A dark, gruesome and funny Halloween anthology, writer/director Michael Dougherty captures the essence of the holiday on screen in a way few other films ever have.   Bouncing between five different conjoined stories in the town of Warren Valley, Ohio, there’s an elementary school principal hiding a dark secret, a quartet of party girls looking for fresh meat, an urban legend prank gone wrong and a Scrooge-like Halloween hater who gets his comeuppance.  Meanwhile, the framing device introduces us to Sam, a pint-sized trick or treater who ...

The original wave of J-Horror was a short-lived affair in its home country, growing out of the DTV market and capitalizing on the success of  Ringu  to launch a flurry of phantasmagorical spirits and supernaturally enhanced technology.  By the time Hollywood sent those same tropes boomeranging back to Japan the bottom had essentially dropped out of the genre.  But that time  in between  produced a number of interesting variations collected in Arrow’s limited edition Blu-ray box set  J-Horror Rising , a four-disc affair that gives proper exposure to lesser-known titles produced at the turn of the millennium. Shikoku  (1999) stars  Kill Bill ’s Chiaki Kuriyama as one part of a ghostly love triangle (she’s the ghost) brought back to take physical form and wreak unholy vengeance.   Isola: Multiple Personality Girl  (2000) mixes psychic powers, mental illness and spiritual possession as a woman tries to exorcise the meddli...

Let’s be honest, it’s starting to feel like one of the Cenobites most ingenious torture techniques is seeing how many times they can convince fans to buy a new copy of the same movie.  Few horror franchises have had more releases in the boutique video era than  Hellraiser  and its disparate sequels…outside of the  Evil Dead  (Anchor Bay took up a whole shelf with that one) or maybe  Texas Chainsaw  (there’s probably a new 4K in the works as we speak).  But it just goes to show the longevity of Clive Barker’s creation and its unique standing in the overstuffed horror community.  Even 27 years later, there’s still nothing else quite like it. Once hailed as “the future of horror” by none other than Stephen King, few would have predicted Clive Barker’s debut as a director, not to mention his transgressive approach to horror itself, would have such broad appeal.  (Meanwhile, King is  still  apologizing for  ...

While everyone praises a film that is timeless, those that are  of their time  an inevitably more interesting. And  Hollywood 90028  (1974) occupies a singular moment of L.A. cinematic history written by the early generation of UCLA film school grads; an urban desert of sleazy peep shows and dashed artistic aspirations populated by Midwest transplants looking to make it big.  Director Christina Hornisher’s obscure addition to this tragic catalog was sold as a sexed-up piece of violent exploitation (and retitled  The Hollywood Hillside Strangler  and  Twisted Throats ) but this low-budget effort is really anything but.   Mark (Christopher Augustine) is a frustrated filmmaker shooting dirty movies to pay the bills, unable to put together a highlight reel that will get him out of the celluloid gutter.  Michele (Jeannette Dilger) is on the other side of the camera, ashamed of her “performances” but lured by the easy money. ...

For those old enough to have lived through the hair-metal to grunge changeover, there was a lot of griping about how the new generation just didn’t know how to have fun anymore.  Flannel, feedback and self-pity were a poor substitute for the live-for-today, gratuitous charm of the previous good time rock n’ rollers.  It’s a valid argument and one that can also be applied to cinema at the time: glossy ‘80s action heroes shooting their way through music video warehouses finally gave way to self-referential hitmen whose banter was the only thing on their highlight reel. But director Mike Mendez seems to want to have it both ways.  In  Killers , a late-to-the-game riff on Tarantino’s post-modern serial killer craze, he reimagines the Menendez Brothers (here they’re the James Boys) as gun-toting celebrities who choose the wrong house to break into.  That’s because the Ryan family, despite their  Leave it to Beaver  wholesome appearance, ...

Now that terms like  kaiju  and  giallo  have become common in film culture, it’s about time we add  krimi  to the ever-expanding foreign film dictionary.  Shorthand for the German mystery-thrillers mostly based on the work of Edgar Wallace in the ‘60s, it’s a sub-genre that combines the complex plots of Agatha Christie with a liberal amount of eyebrow-raising sex and violence.  And 1967’s  Creature with the Blue Hand  is a doozy of a place to start, with identical twins, a mysterious asylum, family secrets and a vicious piece of medieval weaponry (the titular “blue hand”) that gets its fair share of use before the credits roll.   Klaus Kinski plays the dual role of Richard and Dave Emerson, the latter of whom has been institutionalized for the murder of the family gardener.  But Dave has always pleaded his innocence, and upon escaping from the asylum he promptly assumes the role of Richard to gather information ...

In the U.S., we tend to take our kung-fu seriously.  Just look at the psycho-spiritual metaphors in  The Matrix  or the catalog of ridiculously intense films from Steven Seagal and Jean Claude Van Damme.  There ain’t no fooling around.  But Jackie Chan made an entire  career  out of doing just the opposite, even after Hollywood tried to dull him down.   Project A  (1983) was the first time he really got to do things  his way , shifting the focus from martial arts to simply “action” and mixing in his playful personality to create a film that crossed all boundaries.   Set in the 19 th  century with Hong Kong under British rule, Dragon (Chan) is a proud member of the Coast Guard, an organization reeling from constant pirate attacks.  After a budget cut, Dragon and crew are forced to become regular Hong Kong cops under the Inspector Tun-tzu (Yeun Biao) who uncovers a weapon smuggling operation led by F...

The  western  has proven to be a particularly durable genre, waxing and waning in popularity, shifting from the big screen to the small screen and back again, but always cleverly absorbing the issues and concerns of the era in which each film was made.  Counter culture and the political aftereffects of the Vietnam War - coinciding with the rise of auteur filmmaking in the ‘70s – produced number of interesting permutations.  So after the anti-establishment success of  Bonnie and Clyde , co-writers Robert Benton and David Newman teamed up again for  Bad Company  (1972) with Benton elevated into the director’s chair for the first time.   Draft dodger Drew Dixon (Barry Brown) is on the run from the civil war, headed west with a boot full of his parent’s money and a holier-than-thou attitude.  His first rude awakening comes at the hands of Jake Rumsey (Jeff Bridges), a deserter headed west himself with a cadre of young companio...

At the turn of the millennium, horror fans were confronted with remakes of pretty much every franchise, from the expected (Rob Zombie’s  Halloween ) to the out-of-left-field ( Last House on the Left ).  2009’s reboot of  Friday the 13 th  was neither the best nor worst of the bunch, remaining faithful to its slasher simplicity but not adding much to the eccentric Jason mythology.  It did what it was  supposed  to do – nothing more, nothing less.  But 15 years down the line that’s actually kind of refreshing.   After his sister goes missing, Clay Miller (Jared Padalecki) focuses his search on her last known location:  the now defunct Camp Crystal Lake.  Which just so happens to be the vacation destination for some rowdy college kids staying at daddy’s luxury cabin.  The two parties eventually come together when Jason begins his body count, offing these annoying expendables in his singularly gruesome...

A kidnapping / home invasion thriller from director Kinji Fukasaku,  The Threat  (1966) isn’t a film that deserves to be singled out in a career that produced more than 70 features.  But neither is it a work that deserves to be ignored.  Rather it’s a Japanized take on a typically Western genre that included  The Desperate Hours  and  Cry Terror!  where masculinity is cruelly redefined for the modern man who has become too domesticated to defend himself and his family.    Misawa (Rentaro Mikuni) is a typical salaryman who’s only real physical struggle is climbing the corporate ladder.  So, when a pair of inmates break into his home carrying a baby and force him to participate in collecting the ransom, he takes the easy way out and cooperates. Frustrated by his wife and embarrassed in front of his son, Misawa is pushed to the limits of shame, dishonor and cowardice.  But a crisis of conscience eventually brin...

There’s something fascinating about flawed science-fiction films; all that cinematic effort at world-building, even when gone awry, is always worth a second look.   Pitch Black  (2000) was a rousing horror-sci-fi hybrid with low expectations that writer/director David Twohy turned into a sleeper success and unleashed Vin Diesel upon the world as the next action star.  Its flaws were few because its ambitions were relatively small.  But with  The Chronicles of Riddick  (2004), both men took a deep dive into  Dune -style space operatics, stitching together a universe full of patchwork inspirations lifted from better material whose individual parts are still surprisingly captivating. Even though he has a price on his head, Riddick (Vin Diesel) is recruited to help prevent the Necromongers – a cult of Underverse-worshipping weirdos – from destroying the system of Helios Prime.  It seems there’s prophecy regarding a young Furyan des...

For those unfamiliar with the  hopping vampire  (or Jiang Shi) of Chinese folklore here’s your two-cent history.  These reanimated corpses have multiple origins stories and powers: victims of a violent death or magical incantation, super strength, greenish skin, black robes and a signature method of locomotion…the aforementioned “hopping.” Sammo Hung’s  Encounters of the Spooky Kind  (1980) and the  Mr. Vampire  series are the most well-known cinematic adaptations.  But 1979’s  The Shadow Boxing  (aka  Spiritual Boxer 2 ) is a fun take on the legendary monsters from the equally legendary Shaw Brothers.   Working as a “corpse herder,” Fan Chun Yuen (Wang Yu) is responsible for leading the recently deceased back to their hometowns for a proper burial.  But on his first solo journey, he’s saddled with a skittish love interest and a bald-headed imposter (Gordon Liu) using a vampire disguise to extract vengeance ...

It’s easy to forget with all the attention lavished on the big screen that often our most impressionable experiences as children come from watching television.  Whether it’s learning opera from Looney Tunes or picking up our musical taste from  Miami Vice , the small screen can sometimes be more powerful – and more  personal  – simply because it’s piped directly into those suburban homes.  Horror has been a mainstay since the early episodes of  Twilight Zone  but things really took off in the ‘70s with classics like   Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark  and  Salem’s Lot .  And coming in right under the wire, before home video changed the media landscape, was 1981’s  Dark Night of the Scarecrow , pure pre-teen nightmare fuel that seems to age better every year.   Bubba (Larry Drake) and Marylee have a special relationship built on the sort of innocence only children can share.  The trouble is, Bubba i...

By the time director Sergio Martino got around to dismembering bodies with a hack saw courtesy of a faceless black-gloved killer,  giallo  progenitor Dario Argento had already given up on the genre after three successful entries:  the groundbreaking  Bird with the Crystal Plumage , its lesser follow-up,  Cat ‘O Nine Tails,  and   Four Flies on Grey Velvet .  But Martino never had illusions that he was actually making art.  A journeyman director who jumped from action to comedy to smut and back again, Martino always seemed to work wonders with the few crumbs other filmmakers left behind. And that’s exactly what he does with  Torso , recasting  Bird ’s Suzy Kendall as one of a gaggle of barely-clothed girls vacationing at a Cliffside villa who find themselves tormented by a killer with emotional scars and a penchant for fashionable neckwear.  The Argento influence is unmistakable, with a combination of pl...

No matter which particular "Bond" is your favorite, a good villain is essential.  Ernst Blofeld and Auric Goldfinger are just as responsible for making their respective films memorable as 007...while duds like Hugo Drax and Eliot Carver don't even merit a mention.  So, producer Harry Alan Towers was on the right track when he elevated Sumuru to leading lady status in a pair of Bond rip-offs based instead on the writing of Sax Rohmer, better known for creating the now-politically incorrect master criminal Fu Manchu.   A classic case of feminism run wild, Sumuru (played by Shirley Eaton, Goldfinger's first painted victim) has assembled an army of sexy sleeper agents at her command.     This commando unit of femme fatales commit acts of terrorism with the goal of conquering the known world in the name of women everywhere!     Rohmer crafted five books in the Sumuru series; Towers managed to eke out two films -   The Million Eyes of Sumuru ...

There’s nothing more enjoyable than falling down the rabbit hole of a director’s previous work, especially one as accomplished as Damiano Damiani.  Labeled the most “American” of Italian directors, his films were ironically steeped in political and social commentary hidden under a façade of genre trappings.  1979’s  A Man on His Knees  again delivers the best of both, telling the story of a mafia miscarriage of justice that sets its sights on the wrong man.      Nino Peralta (Giuliano Gemma) is a former car thief turned café owner still ashamed of his past.  So, when a kidnapping goes bad and one of his cups are found in the hideout, he’s blindsided to find out his name is one of eight on a mafia hit list.  Desperate to prove his innocence, Peralta reaches out to the man assigned to kill him, Antonio Platamonte (Michele Placido), hoping they can make a deal.  But the further up the chain of command they go, ...

When it comes to music, movies and literature, just delivering  more of the same  tends to get a bad rap.  We applaud the heavy metal band that hits it big with a power ballad, the horror author who writes a children’s book or a director who takes on a project outside his or her comfort zone.  Put, to be honest, there’s something to be said for perfecting a formula and doing it well.  Take Shaw Brothers Studio, for example, who managed a decade long streak of kung-fu success by creating an artistic assembly line without equal.  But all streaks must come to an end and the two latest titles from 88 Films find the studio tweaking their formula, balancing traditional fare with new erotic trends to keep audiences’ attention. Based on the notorious but influential erotic Chinese novel,   The Golden Lotus  (1974) looks to combine the gilded elegance of the studio’s mannered visual approach and set design with raunchy exploits on par w...

While the English equivalent of yakuza is “gangster,” it would be a mistake equate the genre with American films like Scarface, Little Caesar or Goodfellas. While those films largely deal with the consequences of out-of-control greed and fatal ambition, Japanese criminals play by a much stricter set of rules. To become a yakuza is to give up one’s very humanity, at least as it’s presented in Tokijiro: Lone Yakuza (1966) and Tattooed Life (1965), a pair of anti-yakuza films that drift into the realm of violent melodrama. After assassinating the leader of a rival clan, Tokijoro finds himself unexpectedly caring for the dead man’s wife, Okinu, and her young son. But as their relationship grows, the bonds of honor prevent them from becoming a true family. Attempting to atone for his past sins, Tokijoro takes up the sword again to save the woman he loves. While director Tai Kato begins his film with fountains of blood, Lone Yakuza quickly sidesteps the genre conventions. It’s a love st...