Movieline Online

At the risk of sounding like a curmudgeon, today’s horror fans don’t know how good they have it.  Back in the day (that would be the ‘80s) home video presentations of foreign movies meant dubbed, censored, pan and scan versions that rarely captured the filmmaker’s original intent.  As we climbed out of the analog sewer and embarked on the digital revolution, the pendulum swung towards subtitles, correct aspect ratios and international cuts that added  more  than we’d ever seen before.  So why the trip down memory lane?  Because the release of  A.K. Tolstoy’s A Taste of Blood  (2020) is an interesting throwback to complicated, multiple-version history of horror imports. Based on the same story Mario Bava used for his  verdalak  segment in  Black Sunday  (or  Black Sabbath  in its home country of Italy…see what I mean!), this expansion of the Russian myth about a blood-sucking creature that feeds onl...

If you didn’t live through it, the “Tarantino Effect” might be hard to understand.  The success of  Reservoir Dogs  and  Pulp Fiction  unleashed an avalanche of copycat indie films full of self-aware characters spouting pop culture references while firing guns at each other.  There were  so  many it’s a shame Mel Brooks never got around to making a spoof.  But the maestro himself was still just a struggling screenwriter in the early ‘90s when all his old material was snapped up by producers eager to catch some of the buzz.   True Romance  (1993) was directed by the late Tony Scott, but it’s hard to imagine a more faithful adaptation of the Tarantino aesthetic  not  directed by the man himself.  It’s got a film obsessed nerd (Christian Slater) who falls for a quirky call girl (Patricia Arquette) and goes on the run with a bag full of stolen drugs with most of the Detroit mafia (apparently that’...

If you didn’t live through the pre-VCR era, you might not understand the abnormal amount of excitement something like ABC’s Movie of the Week could generate.  After all, short of theatrical reissues, there was no other way to see current or classic flicks.  We also had to change channels and turn up the volume by hand, but that’s beside the point.  While a fair number of major motion pictures popped up (in heavily edited form), you were just as likely to get a “copycat” production designed to spare network execs from paying for the real thing.   Such is the case with  The Initiation of Sarah  (1978), a clone of Brian De Palma’s  Carrie  (1976), minus the nudity, swears, Sissy Spacek and special effects.  That obviously doesn’t leave much to work with.  But that’s part of the retro charm of viewing these old made-for-TV horror rip-offs, many of which made as big an impression on the younger generation who wat...

Anthony Perkins was the most unlikely of horror icons.  With a reputation cemented by his performance in essentially one film (a curse of the horror genre) it took decades for the actor to embrace the legacy of Norman Bates with a surprisingly good trio of sequels, all of which avoided comprising the character – or the  actor’s  – integrity.  1989’s  Edge of Sanity , an anything-goes amalgamation of  Jekyll and Hyde  and the London “Ripper” murders, gives Perkins his last meaty role (the actor passed away in ’92) and shows he was still adept at inhabiting tortured souls at the mercy of their baser instincts. While experimenting with a new anesthetic, Dr. Henry Jekyll (Perkins) unlocks a door into his own childhood trauma, giving birth to a split-personality he names Jack Hyde.  Prowling the streets of London to satisfy his twisted sexual fantasies, Hyde leaves a trail of dead prostitutes dispatched with surgical precision. ...

Shaw Brothers films always seemed to waffle between serious historical action epics and down-n-dirty kung-fu exploitation.  Of the latter, a disabled hero always upped the ante, turning the typical underdog tale into a superhero origin story that granted said character inexplicable powers after the loss of a precious limb…or eye…or ear…or favorite appendage. 1972’s  One-Armed Boxer  (released in the U.S. as  The Chinese Professionals ) sets up the chessboard in typical fashion with rival gangs vying for over bragging rights for martial arts superiority.  The fighting starts practically from frame one, but it’s a full hour before star student Tien Lung is separated from his right arm by a single blow from a Taiwanese vampire mercenary (!) and starts training for his revenge.  The finale is a Shaw Brothers favorite, pitting our hero against a rogues’ gallery of merciless thugs each with their own inventive fighting style.   Having proven h...

Americans are prudes.  Sure, we can handle an all-you-can-eat buffet of over-the-top violence, but when it comes to people bumping their naughty parts together, we fall back on our puritanical instincts, at least as far as mainstream cinema is concerned.  There was a brief renaissance though in the ‘90s that began with Basic Instinct  and bled into notorious thrillers like  Sliver ,  Body of Evidence  and  Color of Night where a healthy dose of bloodletting helped the sexy parts go down.  1997’s  Wild Things  was really the last hurrah for this Cinemax-inspired sexual awakening, marketed around a must-see threesome between stars Matt Dillon, Neve Campbell and Denise Richards. Sam Lombardo (Dillion) is a high school guidance counselor and well-known lothario among the upper crust housewives in as exclusive Florida community.   That reputation comes back to haunt him when he’s accused of rape by two stude...

The wave of Shaw Brothers films continues – as does the online argument about which titles are most  essential  – with Arrow Video’s Blu-ray release of  The 8 Diagram Pole Fighter , the studio’s 1983 spear-poking, eye-gouging, tooth-shattering ballet of kung fu artistry.  While the formula was growing a bit tired at this point, there’s still some amazing choreography and physical prowess on display in nearly every scene. The plot certainly doesn’t break any new ground.  After suffering a crushing defeat in battle, the two surviving brothers of the Yang family go into hiding; the PTSD-afflicted  6 th   son under the protection of his sisters, while the  5 th  joins a monastery to train for his revenge.  While the treacherous Mongols search the kingdom for the remaining brothers, the Yang  sisters  enter the fray to restore the family name.   The death of Alexander Fu Sheng (who plays the 6 th  son) neces...