B Movie Origins
Much like a beautiful butterfly beings its life as a slimy larva, so must famed actresses kick off their careers with less-than-award worthy fluff that may not be the most eye-catching entry on an IMDb page. With Shark Night 3D…
Wynorski’s “CHOPPING MALL” Rises Again
On March 21st, 1986, a film was released by legendary producer Roger Corman that today is still recognized as a genre classic. “CHOPPING MALL”, produced by Julie Corman and helmed by exploitation wunderkind Jim Wynorski, was released during the VHS/home…
Fall Scream And Some Other Stuff
Fall signals the arrival of serious movies competing for year- end awards. Autumn also provides fertile ground for annual cinematic scare fests testing our nerves. This season’s horror/thriller crop includes “risk adverse” remakes (“Carrie,” “Argento’s Dracula”), sequels and rereleases (“Insidious…
Robocop Remake…..El Stinko
Even amid the troubling trend of remaking films that have barely collected a speck of dust, there are still movies that can surprise you. I know quite a few colleagues who were plenty keen on last year’s Dredd, a cohesive…
Diesel shines in B movie Riddick
“Pitch Black” was the low-budget science fiction action film that made Vin Diesel into a movie star. Four years later, the sequel “The Chronicles of Riddick” was so bloated and silly that it nearly destroyed his career. With that history,…
Chopping Mall Returns
Coming this Fall, Chopping Mall returns to the the big screen Chopping Mall is an American horror/science fiction film, produced by Julie Corman and originally released on March 21, 1986[1] under the title Killbots. Lionsgate released the film twice on…
Bounty Killer
Bounty Killer feels like the adaptation of a video game that doesn’t exist. Inspired by the likes of Mad Max (movie) and Fallout (game), it tells of a desert dystopia in which soldiers of fortune are paid handsomely to knock…
The Grandmaster
Fans of the artfully romantic, atmospheric cinematic baths that are Wong Kar-wai’s best films — especially the dreamy, fragmented, and über-sensuous In the Mood for Love — may have a head-scratching disconnect moment upon hearing that his latest, The Grandmaster,…
“MIDNIGHT MADNESS”
On Friday, Sept. 6, join DocUtah for a very special late-night event. The fun begins at 9:30 p.m. in Eccles Fine Arts Center on the Dixie State University campus. Festivities will start off with “The Guerilla Commercial Showcase.” A handful…
Cockneys vs. Zombies
It’s a good time to be a fan of British horror-comedies. First, director Edgar Wright’s “The World’s End” has been doing fairly brisk business at the box office. Now comes this raucous zombie comedy, set in London’s blue-collar East End….
The Gang Behind HELL BABY
Thomas Lennon and Robert Ben Garant have been together for so long, it was just a matter of time before they had a baby. And this one’s straight from hell. In the indie horror comedy Hell Baby (on video on…
Patrick McGoohan
“I am not a number — I am a free man!” implores the haunted figure named Number Six, in the cult TV series The Prisoner. This iconic phrase is now a classic of high-end popular culture, a 1960s mantra like…
Riddick
In the early Noughties Vin Diesel was the hottest emerging action star with The Fast And The Furious and a sleeper sci-fi hit called Pitch Black, the story of which he returns to here. However, while producing as well as…
Sin O Matic
We’re talkin’ trash in this week’s column. Well, in truth, the movies showcased aren’t trash to everyone. Many people think they’re good films, maybe even great films. And many hold the filmmakers — Russ Meyer and Roger Corman — in…
Gila Opens Tonight
The movie opens with a young couple parked in a bleak, rural locale pondering their future, A giant gila monster attacks the car, sending the young couple running for their lives. Chase Winstead , a young mechanic and hot rod…
From Bad To Worse
They’re the movies audiences love for all the wrong reasons – the cinematic flops that are now finding appreciative audiences at cult screenings. Once these films were slaughtered by critics; now they’re attracting viewers who laugh, heckle and applaud at…
Why Don’t You Play in Hell?
An alarmingly catchy toothpaste commercial is the only thing you’ll care to remember from “Why Don’t You Play in Hell?,” a tedious, over-the-top gorefest that finds prolific Japanese auteur Sion Sono veering into sub-Tarantino B-movie-pastiche territory. Relentlessly jokey, strenuously deranged…
Ginger Snaps
The first thing you need to know before you watch Ginger Snaps is that’s a real horror movie. That means genuinely unsettling, disturbing, makes-your-skin-crawl kind of stuff. And you’re plunged right into this from the start. The opening scene involves…
I Was A Teenage Werewolf
While it’s mostly considered just a campy B-movie these days, I Was A Teenage Werewolf was a big deal in the late 1950s, especially on the drive-in circuit. It made $2 million on a budget that ranged from either $82,000…
Getaway Wimps Out
And thus does a summer that started with a silly car chase picture end with a sillier one. “Getaway” has some of the elements of a good gear grinder — a B-movie where a car takes a pivotal role in…