Reel Reviews - Official Site

Well, this one definitely flew under the radar.  After its initial premiere at the 2021 Sundance Film Festival, Mass quietly made its festival rounds, then only to be played in a very few select theaters, until finally in December, it got a VOD release, and now, to the thanks of Bleeker Street, we finally are  ...

Read more: Mass (2021) - Blu-ray Review

Loretta Young is a wholesome brunette no more!  As a naive blonde bombshell, this one-time gangster’s moll finds herself with a deep, dark secret.  Because of You is the film that launched Tony Bennett's career as the title song became his first Number 1 hit, but it is also progressive for its era ...

Read more: Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema, Volume V: Because of You (1952) - Blu-ray Review

Perhaps one of, if not the most important film movement in cinema’s history is that of the French New Wave, that made its audacious emergence in the late 1950’s and lasted until about the late 1960’s. Throwing out every rule of the dominating studio system, this movement took to the streets  ...

Read more: The Celebration: Criterion Collection (1998) - Blu-ray Review

Independent films don’t get any more baadasssss than with Melvin Van Peebles at the helm.  Recognize that right now and we can remain on speaking terms.  The collective black consciousness is alive and well in his filmography and, thankfully, his independent output left a lasting mark on pop ...

Read more: Melvin Van Peebles - Essential Collection: The Story of a 3 Day Pass (1967), Watermelon Man...

Kitty’s back on the cell block!  Woot! Woot!  Let the sweat-dripping orgies begin! Violence in a Women’s Prison, originally released in 1982, is a damn ugly exploitation flick. Even when you lower the bar when it comes to Women in Prison flicks, this ...

Read more: Violence in a Women's Prison (1982) - Blu-ray Review

Eddie Brock has a BIG secret! It takes a couple of views, but Venom: Let There Be Carnage is a fun, fast-paced flick that, easy to swallow, gets straight to the point as Eddie Brock (Tom Hardy) continues to live with the unwanted shape-shifting symbiote known as Venom (also voiced by ...

Read more: Venom: Let There Be Carnage - 4K Ultra HD Blu-Ray Review

Director Jack Arnold was Universal’s go-to guy when they wanted a quick hit.  He proved himself mightily as he churned out classics like It Came from Outer Space (1953), Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954), Revenge of the Creature (1955), Tarantula (1955), and The Incredible Shrinking  ...

Read more: Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema, Volume V: Outside the Law (1956) - Blu-ray Review

“Doctor!  Doctor!  She’s . . . dead.” A horror triple feature from the vaults of the American Genre Film Archive (AGFA)?  Yes, please!  Call it the return of the Drive-In schlock.  Hell, call it whatever you want.  I call these films - Help Me . . . I’m Possessed, Carnival of Blood, and Night of the ...

Read more: Blood-A-Rama Triple Frightmare: Help Me . . . I'm Possessed (1976), Night of the Strangler (1972),...

You say want sex and violence?  Well, the Masked Mutilator has EXACTLY what you are looking for.  Just be respectful because this house parent will definitely kick your ass ...

Read more: Masked Mutilator (1994, 2019) - Blu-ray Review

Hell’s Kitchen in Manhattan was, at one time, a place of filth and absolute poverty.  Back then, it was known as one of the roughest neighborhoods in Manhattan; a better place to be from than to be in.  Bordered by the Hudson River on the west, Eighth Avenue on the east, 59th Street on the  ...

Read more: Angels with Dirty Faces: Warner Archive Collection (1938) - Blu-ray Review

In just five short years since the much-maligned Spider-Man 3, Marvel’s Spider-Man gets the rebooted remake in Marc Webb’s thrilling The Amazing Spider-Man.  While, before seeing the picture, one could argue the rationale of such a move on Columbia’s part, the necessity however becomes  ...

Read more: The Amazing Spider-Man 1 & 2 4K Ultra HD Blu-Ray Set (Limited Edition) - Review

Make no mistake about it.  Jack Frost 2: Revenge Of The Mutant Killer Snowman is not a great movie.  It might not even be that necessary considering the first one was all bark and little bite, but as we are talking about a psychotic (and in this one, resurrected) snowman who kills for jollies, I guess ...

Read more: Jack Frost 2: Revenge Of The Mutant Killer Snowman - Abridged Version - Collector's Edition (2000)

If we are to believe the film’s promotional materials, namely its poster which asks “Who Made Tony Soprano,” then The Many Saints of Newark is an origin story for the fictional gangster played by James Gandolfini in David Chase’s groundbreaking, award-winning HBO drama series ...

Read more: The Many Saints of Newark - 4K UHD Blu-ray Review

Think it’s just the rainy day blues that has this mind reader down in the dumps?  Think again.  Based on a Cornell Woolrich novel, Night Has A Thousand Eyes might be classic B-movie material (due to its supernatural sources), but the film is both poetic and engaging as one mind reader  ...

Read more: Night Has A Thousand Eyes (1948) - Blu-ray Review

This set from Arrow Video is arguably their best release yet.  It is indeed a labor of love as the company has carefully curated and gorgeously presented a selection of all-time Shaw Brothers classics in this box set.  You read that correctly.  From King Boxer to Mighty Peking Man and everything  ...

Read more: Shawscope Volume One - Limited Edition - Blu-ray Review

“Immoral women shouldn't work in banks, you know. They might corrupt the young dollar bills.” Small towns can be so wonderful, can’t they? Everybody knows one another so well. It can be like having one giant family with the sense of comfort and love gushing from the community. Well, why  ...

Read more: Hot Saturday (1932) - Blu-ray Review

The run of Daniel Craig as James Bond comes to its stunning and long delayed conclusion with No Time to Die, an action-packed spectacle of fun and tears that seriously delivers.  For “final” Bond films, this one satisfies on every level connecting the dots and plot points of previous entries  ...

Read more: No Time To Die: Collector's Edition – 4K Ultra HD Review

The new comedy starring Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson called The Hustle is an almost identical remake of the 1988 classic comedy Dirty Rotten Scoundrels which starred Michael Caine and Steve Martin - itself a remake of Marlon Brando’s Bedtime Story. I say “almost” because  ...

Read more: Jack Frost: Collector’s Edition - MVD Rewind Collection (1997) - Blu-ray Review

Despite the film’s strong foundation and rather rich themes, Paul Schrader’s newest project, The Card Counter, is unsuccessful in attempts to achieve a tense and mysterious tone, and ultimately ends up as a dull, messy drama full of awkward dialogue and performances ...

Read more: The Card Counter - Blu-ray Review

Sometimes the good country air can be harmful to your health.  Such is the frightening territory of this atmospheric thriller which sees a small-town recluse turn murderer.  The woman projects nothing but EVIL while, at the same time, being nothing but pleasant in conversation.  She’s a  ...

Read more: The Spider Woman Strikes Back (1946) - Blu-ray Review

“The worm is the spice!  The spice is the worm!” David Lynch’s Dune might not be the director’s favorite movie-making experience.  It also might not be on any science fiction fan’s top 10 list (although it probably should be).  Those sentences alone do not make Lynch’s attempt at bringing ...

Read more: Dune: 4K Restoration (1984) - 4K UHD Review

It’s time for Clint Eastwood to hang up his acting hat for good. There, I said it. And that’s coming from one of the guy’s biggest fans. Sure, the man is inarguably a true Hollywood legend having appeared in more than 50 films, from 1950’s sci-fis, to countless war dramas, to starring roles in a dozen or ...

Read more: Cry Macho - Blu-ray Review

“The mob doesn’t think. It has a mind of its own.” In 1933, some loud-mouthed man with a tiny mustache and a weird haircut rose to power in the country of Germany. His name, I believe, was Adolf Hitler. You may have heard of him, no? Well, he established a dictatorship to replace ...

Read more: Fury (1936) - Blu-ray Review

The man with the straw hat is back!  And so are his ghoulish finds in the windy city of Chicago.  Watergate era television doesn’t get much better than with Kolchak: The Night Stalker.  And that, my friends, is a certified fact. It begins in a dingy motel room.  A cassette player is on.  A disheveled  ...

Read more: Kolchak: The Night Stalker - The Complete Series (1974 - 1975) - Blu-ray Review

The intense stage lighting. The stylized production design. The black gloved-hand killer. The dramatic and often weirdly over-stylized music with electronic throbbing Goblin-like rhythm and pulses.  And, yes, the buckets of blood splashed everywhere.  If this were the 1970s, the best decade for  ...

Read more: Malignant - Blu-ray Review

“You stinkin’ rat!” For crime flicks, High Sierra, directed by Raoul Walsh, is indeed a watershed moment as the gangster pictures of the 1930s gave way to the fatalism found in Film Noir, which would dominate the 1940s.  Making spectacular use of its locations ...

Read more: High Sierra: Criterion Collection (1941) - Blu-ray Review

“Can you still do the things with your eyes?  You’re not crazy if you can still do the thing with your eyes.” I will NEVER forget the first time I saw Philip Kaufman’s Invasion of the Body Snatchers.  I wouldn’t go outside in the rain for weeks afterwards thanks to the opening few minutes of  ...

Read more: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1978) - 4K Ultra HD Blu-ray Review

Metallic hands and dark glasses!  There can be only one Dr. Gogol!   Maybe it is the warning that is issued as the film begins in total blackness or maybe it is the way that Peter Lorre is lit and filmed throughout this horror film, but Mad Love absolutely works its twisted ways in a modern viewing and ...

Read more: Mad Love: Warner Archive Collection (1935) - Blu-ray Review

This low budget ($300,000 USD) slasher film, made by a USC graduate in the late 70s, would spawn countless sequels and give its backers some serious profits, the world horror auteur John Carpenter and Jamie Lee Curtis. Those things make the love for this simple tale worth it alone. It’s cementing  ...

Read more: Halloween (1978) - 4K UHD Collector's Edition Review

Folk Horror.  The very combination of the words suggest a clash of ideologies and, true to its nature, this seems to be its roots.  It is a concept of evil so entwined with the land that it is damn near impossible to ever tear its threads clean.  The voices in the woods; the pagan ceremonies on the  ...

Read more: All the Haunts Be Ours: A Compendium of Folk Horror - Box Set Blu-ray Review