DVD Reviews

“Everytime we come here, someone has to get topless.” Truly, this one had me at the idea of Kane Hodder butchering more beauties in bikinis, but this slasher is a bit more than just his performance as Goatface.  Let’s see, there’s the beautiful location (on Cape Cod in Massachusetts)., an interesting storyline (which begins in the  ...

What do you get when you combine the elevated emotions of a melodrama and the seedy, back-stabbing beats and visuals of a noir? This concoction is the exact recipe for Michael Curtiz’s delectably dark Mildred Pierce starring the incomparable Joan Crawford as the iconic title character ...

In cine-massacre history, there are few films that compare to the in-the-gut feeling Tobe Hooper’s The Texas Chainsaw Massacre leaves you with.  Every imperfection in this low-budget Slasher works in the movie’s favor and adds to the overall grisly experience.  The movie is not as violent or as ...

This Roger Corman-produced slasher/comedy was long overdue on blu-ray, but it makes a fairly early 4K release and for all of the right reasons, too. It was originally made in 1982 on a shoestring budget and featured as many boobs as grizzly power-tool murders. Directed by Amy Holden Jones ...

Can a movie that is a mess also be considered genius? Well, that is the perpetual debate about Orson Welles’ The Lady from Shanghai. Based on the novel If I Die Before I Wake by Sherwood King, this film takes all of the noir essentials and twists them in such an entertainingly strange  ...

Confession time, Boils and Ghouls!  I grew up  - even as fat as I was – wanting to be Michael Paré’s cool as a cucumber Tom Cody from Streets of Fire.  Most my age wanted to be cracking shit with a bullwhip and making off, just like Indiana Jones,  with golden idols and, while I was keen to  ...

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 ...

It’s been written that, “the woods are lovely, dark and deep” but are they really?  After watching the opening 10 minutes of Guts On The Chainsaw (with narration from Robert Stone), you’ll be questioning that statement yourself.  After all, according to the movie, there are over 407 open cases  ...

On again, off again. In love, out of love. Going back to school, starting a new job. Everything is fluid and everything is changing in the whimsical and lustful drama from French director Jacques Audiard. Capturing the residential district of Les Olympiades in beautiful black and white photography ...

A swinging sixties marital comedy with the charming Shirley MacLaine and the prim and proper Richard Attenborough? Sure! Why not? It’s an innocent request from the workaholic brasserie manufacturer Robert Blossom ...

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 ...

The introduction to this low budget feast tells us all we need to know . . . “The great virus started in 2019. In the first 2 years almost 5 million people died worldwide. In 2022 a new strain hit and 5 million people a month were dying. No vaccine was effective. This created high gas prices, food ...

I must admit, this one has me conflicted. Based on Sidney Kingsley’s Broadway play of the same name, William’s Wyler’s adaptation of Detective Story deals with a handful of rather outdated themes that are explored in the most melodramatic fashion that makes modern-day eyes roll. But on the ...

What does family really mean? Is it the people who are related by blood through no choice of your own? Or is it more? Is it the people who choose to protect you and stick with you – the people who genuinely care about you? Well, this conversation is the driving theme of acclaimed director  ...

“But I am in love with her, Your Highness! I feel terrible.” Ah, yes! A classic case of the lonely heart butler being mistaken for a prince by a beautiful, young countess. What could go wrong? ...

Exploitation vigilantism never kicked so hard as it does here in the second installment of the Death Wish series.  Newly remastered thanks to the efforts of Vinegar Syndrome and MGM, Death Wish II can now be seen ...

In a family-owned butcher shop situated in a sun-scorched small town, we meet Sara (Laura Galán) – an overweight teenager who is constantly bombarded with the merciless bullying and gossip of other kids her age. To them, she’s “Piggy.” ...

There’s really no way around it. Arsenic and Old Lace, directed by Frank Capra, is a certified REEL CLASSIC as the crazy situations get cranked up on one Halloween in Brooklyn, New York. With Cary Grant leading a wildly talented cast - which includes ...

Bubba Ho-Tep and I have finally made up.  I get it.  I finally get why the movie absolutely works and why my punk-ass comments when it was originally released were so naïve.  To borrow a line from Gatsby's Nick Carraway, “in my younger and more vulnerable years” I was a complete tool ...

Tis hard to believe in this century that the name Peter Jackson wasn’t known to that many in the mid- 90s. Film nuts like myself were aware of him, devouring the likes of Bad Taste and Meet the Feebles eagerly. I remember distinctly saying to a friend, after viewing Jackson’s R-rated puppet movie, that I ...

“The ink that made blood flow.” How this film was able to be made is still a bit of a mystery to me. Made in a Germany-occupied France during World War II and produced by a German production company, Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Le Corbeau was somehow able to disguise its anti-informant  ...

The crazy clown mayhem of All Hallows Eve continues! Writer/Director Damien Leone knows how to commit to horror.  I mean, without even batting an eye he serves up a whole platter of gore-iffic deserts, and sure, no one asked for them, but he definitely delivers on the special effects, turning his  ...

On again, off again. In love, out of love. Going back to school, starting a new job. Everything is fluid and everything is changing in the whimsical and lustful drama from French director Jacques Audiard. Capturing the residential district of Les Olympiades in beautiful black and white photography ...

Rabies is the least thing you need to worry about when The Bat flies into your town! Prepare for the camp to hit the ceiling in this forgotten cult classic, newly restored for its debut on blu-ray. The Film Detective, in association with Cinedigm, have unearthed a rare whodunnit gem which should  ...

Confession time, children! Gather around. Closer, please. I'm going to whisper this to you before I spend an entire review proclaiming why. Here goes: I fucking love Bob Clark ...

We’ll call them the classic, the prequel, and the sequel. Breaking the mold of the cop/detective story that audiences of the time were all too familiar with, the writers (Felix Chong and Alan Mak) and directors (Alan Mak and Andrew Lau) of the iconic Infernal Affairs trilogy sought to inject new life into the ...

“At-mos-phè-re! At-mos-phè-re! Do I look like an at-mos-phè-re?” Atmosphere is precisely what Marcel Carné’s Hôtel du Nord is all about. Arletty’s character of Raymonde (a prostitute) shouts these words at Edmond (Louis Jouvet) – her pimp/protector – when he claims that he needs a change of atmosphere – a change from  ...

Super tongue strikes again! Bob Clark’s Black Christmas is a masterpiece of horror (and humor) that you truly can deck the halls with. There’s no other way to put it. Oh, the print critics had a field day punting it around at the time of its release, but the joke is on them. Its genre legacy speaks  ...

It’s Groundhog Day!  Ready to relive this magical day over and over again?! Well, Phil Conners (Bill Murray) might not be ready to do it, but you certainly will.  Revisiting the highlights of director Harold Ramis’ Groundhog Day include watching Murray assault the many characters in the town ...

Out of all of the films that director David Lean made during his legendary career, he admits himself that Summertime is his favorite. Not Dr. Zhivago. Not The Bridge on the River Kwai. Not Lawrence of Arabia. But Summertime, starring fellow film legend Katharine Hepburn, is the film  ...