DVD Reviews

Filmmaker Charlie Paul’s documentary For No Good Reason isn’t as sharply focused as it could have been.  Steadman, who famously illustrated Hunter S. Thompson’s most famous works, is a fascinating artist and, as he continues to churn out some seriously  ...

What began as one confident FBI Agent’s routine assignment inside an idyllic seaside town in Maine has now turned into a mission to recover her identity.  Audrey Parker (Emily Rose) is not Audrey Parker.  Or is she?  Part Twin Peaks and part The X-Files, Haven: The ...

Growing up, I never realized that the Toho-helmed Godzilla flicks of the 1970s really had a lot in common with the Roger Moore era of James Bond.  Godzilla vs. Megalon, released last month on blu-ray (but already hard to come by in brick and mortar stores), is proof of ...

What a sad, sad story of one man’s tragic revenge.  Another viewing of Stan Winston’s Pumpkinhead, newly remastered and released from Scream Factory, confirms this for me.  This cult classic and its following seems to get more reputable every single year that passes  ...

While not the massively misaligned train wreck that was TriStar’s Godzilla (circa 1998), Godzilla 2000: Millennium is admittedly a letdown. It is successful in that it returns the series to Japan and gets it back on track but, with huge gaps in logic and a pacing that simply ...

Bonafide folklore and then some; that's the result of Bobcat Goldthwait's first forray into horror.  Willow Creek, writer/director Goldthwait’s latest film, sucker punched me right in gut. I guess I am still affected by these found footage flicks. What he has done here ...

Sony and Toho Productions join forces and bring audiences the trilogy of films that reintroduced the world to Mothra and the tiny singing of Moll and Lora (otherwise known as the Elias Sisters) after a long cinematic draught. Rebirth of Mothra and its two sequels are more   ...

Released in 1984, Charles E. Sellier Jr’s Silent Night, Deadly Night did for Christmas what John Carpenter did for trick or treating: memorialize the day with a seriously twisted flick.  While not as popular as the coveted Halloween franchise, Sellier’s movie definitely does not  ...

Rarely do cinematic miracles like The Battery occur for a mere $6000 and the cost of a butt-load of cigarettes.  The Battery, the directorial debut of Jeremy Gardner might be exactly what the zombie craze needs to keep its forward momentum smelling as fresh as daisies ...

In my younger and more vulnerable years, I mistakenly thought David Lynch’s Eraserhead was a wicked trip through a sort of nightmarish version of an industrial Wonderland without rhyme or reason.  I dismissed it for being surreal without reason and purposeless in its ...

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 first scene of Hateship Loveship sets the tone of this quirky indie drama, starring Kristen Wiig. Main character Johanna Parry (Wiig) attends to a sickly old woman in bed. “I’d like to wear my blue dress,” the woman says. When Johanna returns to the room, the elderly  ...

According to Warner Bros, the “scream” always rises to the top and, with release of this 6-disc set, the evil has arrived.  Or was it always here?  Warner Bros unleashes The Exorcist: The Complete Anthology to a public always hungry for more demonic possession  ...

It is a movie that still doesn’t have the audience it deserves.  Krull, a gorgeously mounted fantasy film from 1983, continues to live on in spite of the massive ignorance surrounding it.  Director Peter Yates’ broke the Joseph Campbell mythology and saddled it with  ...

The genius of Peter Sellers is that he can, in fact, carry an entire picture by saying very little. Just watching him “become” is the joy. Whether he is playing Chance the Gardner in Being There or Dr. Strangelove, the wheelchair-bound nuclear war expert and former Nazi, who ...

Santos Alcocer’s Cauldron of Blood is such a weird film. After simmering in its own juices for three years after its completion, this bizarre tale about a blind sculptor named Badulescu who uses the bones of murdered women for his art finally saw the light of day. It was 1970  ...

At long last. Every icon deserves a sequel.  Scream Factory’s excellent treatment of the horror films of Vincent Price is continued in another 7-film second serving.  The films in this treasured collection - The Raven, The Comedy of Terrors, The Tomb of Ligeia, The Last Man On Earth, Dr. Phibes ...

If one worm can’t kill you, maybe 100,000 could. Writer/director Jeff Lierberman’s Squirm takes a closer look at our fish bait and turns those harmless, wriggling little creatures into mean-spirited suckers with mutated mouth-parts capable of rending flesh from bone thanks to a  ...

The forefather of Italian Horror Cinema reanimates the dead … in outer space.  Mario Brava’s Planet of the Vampires is not a cinematic masterpiece.  It is; however, one of the most influential of narratives ever produced, introducing some timeless sci-fi tropes and is a   ...

“Whoa.  Free toy inside!  Free toy inside!” Do I have your attention Cult of UHF?  Because the blu-ray you want and need has just been released. "Weird Al" Yankovic, the reigning king of pop song parody, once took on Hollywood with his gift of satirical gab. It was ...

In 1965, rebel American director Monte Hellman (Two-Lane Blacktop) conceived of two westerns and decided to film them back-to-back in the Utah desert.  Surreal and gritty, these two westerns would prove Hellman’s skill at brilliantly analyzing the genre.  Shot for famed  ...

Inspired by writer/director/producer and all around film icon Roger Corman, Stuart Gordon – the director of From Beyond and Re-Animator – decided to film another script while he still had the use of a large Italian studio space.  Dolls, about a group of possessed toys  ...

“This stuff is way beyond Ouija boards, you guys.” Do we need to ask why?  Someone somewhere at MGM couldn’t leave well enough alone and that’s the only answer you’ll get.  Of course, Pumpkinhead has to return and, of course, an irritating group of teenagers ...

The Cabinet of Dr. Caligari is the tale of a madman told through the eyes of another madman; a film so daunting it’s horrifying. Yes, here it is: the very first horror film and still its influence is felt. There is no argument there. It is also, with its exaggerated backgrounds and sharp  ...

There are little things more unsettling than zombie Nazis rising from calm waters somewhere off the coast of Florida. These top secret storm troopers cannot be stopped once they’ve risen from the depths of Hell’s ocean. Shock Waves, one of the handful of "sleeper"  ...

Classic films are often ahead of their times. L’Avventura is living proof of that statement because the mysteries in Michelangelo Antonioni’s masterwork are still being discussed and unveiled. The language of the film is still being decoded. Reviled, loathed, and heavily  ...

Based on the popular television serial, Hammer Studios produced a trilogy of science fiction gems featuring the talents of Professor Bernard Quatermass in the 1950s and 60s.  Their first film, The Quatermass Xperiement brought them a box office hit and a major film distributor.  It also ...

The 80s were certainly the era for sequels galore and drew a road map for how Hollywood would produce movies into the future. The franchises spawned, by and large, in that era still exist today. One of the only comedic franchises that proved in its early entries to be a  ...

Adios, Matt Smith.  Hullo, Peter Capaldi!  Doctor Who: The Complete Eighth Series (but, really, 34th) starts and ends with a celebrated bang involving a dinosaur in London and the return of The Master (or should that be The Mistress?).  The character of Clara Oswald  ...

Front Line Assembly sampled it.  Magician Criss Angel recreated one of its more dangerous illusions.  Only now, almost 20 years later, can the definitive version of Lord of Illusion - a film that is more of an artifact for a 1990s time capsule than a film in and of itself - be  ...