Punching A Hole In The Dam
As a young man and an aspiring filmmaker, I had always thought that my talent (which has diminished with age) and hard work would naturally lead me to the heady life as a Hollywood based filmmaker. I of course was…
Agency
A lot happened to Lee Majors following the cancelation of his hit series The Six Million Dollar Man. Unhappy with the strong-arm tactics he used to get a raise for the show’s fifth (and final) season, Hollywood studio execs had…
The Angry Red Planet
An unusual movie in many ways. Firstly; it’s back to front. We see the rocket return before we know what’s been going on. That’s not quite an original idea; the same approach was taken by Nigel Kneale to his ‘Quatermass…
Poseidon Rex’ falls short of ‘Sharknado
The natural-disaster B-movie “Poseidon Rex” would fit perfectly in the SyFy programming lineup had it boasted the likes of Tara Reid and John Heard of “Sharknado.” With a cast of unknowns, the most logical distribution avenue for it would be…
Evil bong hits
In Gingerdead Man Versus Evil Bong, right out of the gates we’re met with three sets of titties swarming around the Gingerdead Man in an erotic frenzy. Gingerdead Man is a serial killer doomed to inhabit the cookie body through…
The Drive-In Bucket List
Couched by the truth that Tuesday’s local forecast included that unendurable four letter word, SNOW, there’s no denying that spring has sprung, and that summer is a maniacal machete man hiding in the woods, preparing for his chance to pounce….
The Apple
A 1980 musical set in the far-flung future of 1994! At a song competition festival, a boyfriend/girlfriend team, Alfie (George Gilmour) and Bibi (Catherine Mary Stewart!), have their song ruined by the evil Mr. Boogalow. His song wins and he…
Ginger Snaps: Unleashed
Released with hardly any publicity, Ginger Snaps came and went from Canadian theatres in 2000. Like Ginger in the film, time proved to give the Snaps a life of its own, as it quickly found a new life on video. Not only…
Goosebumps for Godzilla
Godzilla director Gareth Edwards has teased that the film will give the audience the shivers. The Monsters filmmaker is offering up his “serious” big-screen version of the 1954 Japanese science-fiction movie, which stars Aaron Taylor-Johnson, Bryan Cranston and Elizabeth Olsen….
Def-Con 4
Canadian critics can endlessly debate the positive and negative effects tax shelters had on Canadian film in the late 1970s and early 1980s. While most agree that they were largely detrimental, there is no denying that this influx of private…
Empire of Ash
It’s the year 2050, and the world has become a wasteland after a fatal virus has ravaged the human race. Those few that have survived are forced to fight against a powerful warrior empire that seeks total control over the…
Celebrities Killing Sharknado
Last year, a cheesy made-for-TV movie called Sharknado achieved a level of fame far out of proportion to its merits. In this joyously inane motion picture, an unexpected hurricane – the worst kind – churns up the waters off the southern California…
Carnival of Souls
“I don’t belong in the world….something separates me from other people” says Mary Henry (Candace Hilligoss) in perhaps the most lyrical horror film ever made. It is the unlikely 1962 masterpiece “Carnival of Souls” which philosophically fleshes out the premise…
The Dark
Second only to Straw Dogs type thrillers, giant rat movies are a staple of Canadian horror. This is the latest film in a long line of Canadian movies about oversized rodents, including such revered entries asFood of the Gods II and Deadly Eyes, which…
Billy Jack
om self-important start to self-important finish, this movie runs on all cylinders, managing to tackle every single social ill of the early 1970s that people pretended to care about. Vietnam, women’s rights, Indian rights, environmentalism, alternative education, bigotry, and half-breed…
The Wicked Dreams Of Paul Schultz
EVEN if your idea of a good time is to watch a lot of middle-aged Germans, some of them very fat, all reddening, grimacing, perspiring, and falling over Elke Sommer, I think you ought to skip “The Wicked Dreams of…
Cleopatra Jones
Cleopatra Jones is a well made little movie, which isn’t something you can say for all of its “blaxploitation” brethren. While the genre has its own distinct charms, they often don’t include finely tuned storytelling or high quality filmmaking. This…
The Virgin Queen of St. Francis High
Grab any random stack of teen comedies from the 1980s, and at least half of them will revolve around a band of horny male Screwballs that show off their Hot Moves in hopes of finally Losin It. Obviously geared towards the male rental crowd, most…
Happy Birthday To Me
Happy Birthday to Me is an often neglected and seldom viewed 80’s cinema gem. It is a damn shame that it has not received the cult status it so solidly deserves. The plot involves cliques, prep schools, and a very…
Ghostkeeper
“Ghostkeeper” is an obscure little Canadian horror movie from the early 1980s that I’d read about and wanted to see for quite some time, so I was really happy when I got the chance to. “Ghostkeeper” revolves around a group…