The Devil’s Knot
If you’re unfamiliar with the West Memphis 3, or the Robin Hood Hills Murders, or the Paradise Lost documentaries that gave both national attention, here’s a quick (spoiler alert) rundown: in West Memphis Arkansas in 1994, three impoverished, teenage, Goth-kids…
The Time Travellers
Minor but well-regarded sci-fi which I found undeniably interesting and not unentertaining, yet disappointing – since, for all the progressive scientific attitude on display (particularly at the denouement), its overall tone remains invincibly juvenile! Nevertheless, it was remade (by the…
Five Quick Questions with Mitchel Viernes
B movie creature films don’t always need to have destruction and horror. Though, there will be some craziness in this film, but overall the upcoming film “Peter and the Colossus” is a family oriented film. http://vimeo.com/80713653 Trailer “Rachel, a young…
Fantastic Film Festivals That You Might Not Know About
Rebecca Sapp Santa Barbara International Film Festival, Santa Barbara, CA It is said that location is everything. And in the case of the Santa Barbara International Film Festival, the beachy location (called “the American Riviera”) adds to the allure. This…
A Taste Of Ape
You have to feel a little bad for Dawn of the Planet of the Apes (if you can feel for a blockbuster that is sure to make hundreds of millions). Lost amongst the superhero and sci-fi shuffle, Dawn feels a…
Reptilicus
I love movies with dinosaurs and giant monsters and can find something to like in most films, however dated or low-budget. “The Amazing Colossal Man” has a sympathetic hero and a monster origin good enough for Stan Lee to borrow…
The Corpse Eaters
Using recently established Canadian Film Development Corporation loans, Canadian horror exploded in the early 1970s under the guiding hands of Ivan Reitman, Bob Clark and David Cronenberg. One of the rarest titles to emerge at this time was The Corpse…
Riot In Cell Block 11
Riot in Cell Block 11 was produced by longtime Hollywood independent producer Walter Wanger (he was also responsible for two earlier Criterion releases, Stagecoach and Foreign Correspondent) as a hard-hitting, gritty, realistic picture depicting the inequities and maltreatment prisoners receive…
Stunt Rock
A faux documentary about real life Australian stuntman Grant Paige, STUNT ROCK garnered considerable attention in cult film circles earlier this year when a trailer for it appeared on the TRAILER TRASH vol. 1. And, truth be told, the trailer…
Planet of the Vampires
In the film PLANET OF THE VAMPIRES, there is an undeniable creeping dread, a very real sense of terror, in every scene. Despite the obvious lack of money, Bava wrung some eerie, disturbing imagery out of his sf schlock piece….
Deadly Harvest
“To most of us, it came as a surprise. Not many understood. Too few cared enough to stop it. Then it no longer mattered how many understood or cared–it was too late!” One of Canada’s first eco-thrillers, Deadly Harvest…
Hustlers
A new trailer for crime thriller Hustlers has been released by Lionsgate UK. The film, which debuts as a straight-to-video release in the UK, is out now on DVD and Blu-ray. The film is the latest feature from acclaimed filmmaker…
The Quiet Ones
Paying homage in style and theme to the vintage horror movies of the 1970s, “The Quiet Ones” is the latest stylish shocker from Hammer, the recently reactivated classic U.K. studio imprint. Mixing creaky haunted-house and exorcism tropes with a nod…
Road Games
It’s amazing how many pleasant treats you’ll find on TV Friday nights at one o’clock in the morning. Take “Roadgames” (or “Road Games”) for example: The Hitchcockian story of a trucker delivering meat across Australia who becomes entangled in a…
Miracle Mile
These are the end times … for the Hirshhorn’s exhibit Damage Control: Art and Destruction Since 1950. To help send off this exhibit, the Hirshhorn brings you Disasterthon!, an all-day program (from DVD, I presume) of disaster movies including The…
Android
Androids… automatons that are created from biological materials and resemble humans…from Fritz Land’s 1927 classic Metropolis to Ridley Scott’s 1982 masterpiece Blade Runner, the notion of artificial life becoming more human than human has long been an interesting and somewhat…
The Warrior and the Sorceress
The Eighties. VHS Hell. Somebody made the big buck with exploiting certain structures of genre cinema and within a year the b-industry was at hand providing two shelves of rip-offs for your local mom-and-pop rental limbo. Not only the usual…
A Touch Of Sin
The films of Chinese director Jia Zhang-ke can be challenging, punishing experiences. His 2000 breakthrough Platform addressed the effect of Western culture on Chinese performing troupe in the 1980s, but anyone looking to that description for a movie that delighted…
Flash Gordon (1980)
After a plane crash in extreme weather, Flash Gordon and his travelling companion Dale Arden after abducted by Dr Zarkov to help pilot his spaceship to confront what he believes is an attack from space. Once in space Flash comes…
St.Valentine’s Day Massacre
It’s incredible to think that this film, Roger Corman’s major studio debut, and THE GODFATHER (made by Corman alumnus Coppola) were made within five years of each other. They could be decades apart, in look, in sensibility, in impact. Whereas…