Reel Reviews - Official Site

What makes for great horror? Some prefer in-your-face blood and graphic violence, while others are spooked by the unsettling things that can’t be seen – the things that happen just off screen or in the corners of the frame. Fans of the latter, do we have a film for you! ...

Read more: The Night House - Blu-ray Review

Your savior has arrived! There’s something wrong with Maud (Morfydd Clark, Crawl).  This is important to identify correctly as we are with the poor girl for the entire movie.  In fact, we never leave her side no matter what happens or what dark forces take over her body as they communicate ...

Read more: Saint Maud (2019) - Blu-ray Review

THE POST SAVES EARL WILLIAMS!  Hear all about it in His Girl Friday, now available on blu-ray thanks to the Criterion Collection.  Directed by Howard Hawks and starring Cary Grant and Rosalind Russell with standout performances from ...

Read more: His Girl Friday: Criterion Collection (1940) - Blu-ray Review

“Is it wrong to want greatness for you?” David Lowrey’s new visual marvel, The Green Knight, challenges the very notion of greatness and honor in this 21st-century retelling of the 14th-century poem, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight. What exactly does achieving greatness and honor ...

Read more: The Green Knight - 4k UHD Blu-ray Review

Leave this house now!   Peggy (Sian Barbara Allen, Billy Two Hats) never should have taken the housekeeping job at the Elliot Estate.  She knows this now that its deadly mysteries have been unearthed.  Of course, it might be too late for her, but it is not too late for us.  You’ve been ...

Read more: Scream, Pretty Peggy (1973) - Blu-ray Review

If you ever get a hankering for some solid improvisational comedic skills on display throughout a major motion picture, look no further then director Leo McCarey’s slapstick comedy, The Awful Truth.  It might have been his first film for Columbia Pictures, but that didn’t stop McCarey from  ...

Read more: The Awful Truth: Criterion Collection (1937) - Blu-ray Review

Climb in and enjoy the ride, suckas!  There’s no need for roads where this franchise is headed!  Space awaits!  Yes, this is where F9 heads and you will love the sheer ridiculousness of it all as the 9th film in the series gets both the FAST and the FURIOUS back on track, avoiding the Moonraker-sized  ...

Read more: F9 - Blu-ray Review

Greetings from Valkenvania! Written and directed by Ghostbusters’ Dan Akroyd, Nothing But Trouble has achieved almost legendary status as Akroyd’s OTHER horror/comedy.  You know, the one that was the box office BOMB, blasting itself into oblivion with its troll-like Valkenheiser ...

Read more: Nothing But Trouble: Shout Select (1991) - Blu-ray Review

Sometimes it takes meeting the wrong person to finally get to the right person.  That’s one of the territories in Holiday, an often overlooked romantic comedy from 1938 which deals with clashing values and what it means to truly live as pie-in-the-sky dreamers mix drinks with the aristocrats  ...

Read more: Holiday: Criterion Collection (1938) - Blu-ray Review

In case you missed the now (in)famous twitter thread from back in 2015 written by then mostly unknown waitress/stripper A’Ziah-Monae “Zola” King – who now acts as the film’s producer, you can get yourself caught up on one of the most bizarre weekend road trip stories since the Hoover family ...

Read more: Zola - Blu-ray Review

In 1992, the first feature film made by a Scottish woman was released. That was Margaret Tait with Blue Black Permanent. Seven years later, Lynne Ramsay became the second with her own feature debut, Ratcatcher. And what a debut film it is! ...

Read more: Ratcatcher: Criterion Collection (1999) - Movie Review

It’s the simplest twist of fates as Bob Hope and Paulette Goddard return to do battle with the supernatural in The Ghost Breakers!  Voodoo, ghosts, and island-bound zombies!  Add in a criminally underrated performance from Willie Best and you have the makings of another REEL CLASSIC! ...

Read more: The Ghost Breakers (1940) - Blu-ray Review

Crazy Rich Asians director Jon M. Chu teams up with Tony-Award winning playwright Lin-Manuel Miranda to bring this year’s most electrifying film to theaters and HBO Max. In the Heights is a beautifully orchestrated celebration of diversity, heritage, and the Latin culture that just might be  ...

Read more: In the Heights - 4K UHD Blu-ray Review

Now, this right here is the KA-RAZY chopsaki kung-fu that I miss about the martial art flicks from the 1980s!   Written, directed and starring Taiwanese martial arts legend John Liu (The Secret Rivals, Invincible Armor), New York Ninja is truly a ...

Read more: New York Ninja (1984) - Vinegar Syndrome Exclusive 4K Release

Swamp gators (with their mouths taped shut as evidenced by this crisp 4K handling!), dead lawyers, and mighty sums of money!  Such frightful delights await those that can stay sane in the Norman clan.  ...

Read more: The Cat and the Canary (1939) - Blu-ray Review

What I wouldn’t give to have been a fly on the wall during what was certainly the most bizarre elevator pitch in the history of elevator pitches for Luca, the latest churn from Pixar’s ever-productive mill of animated greats. It probably didn’t, but I like to imagine it went something like this ...

Read more: Luca - 4K UHD Blu-ray Review

It’s a party to die for! Demonic spirit or not, Killer Party proves why wild costume parties inside abandoned fraternity houses are a really bad idea.  There’s just a lot to unpack by way of young adults and their raging hormones before the twisted spirits ...

Read more: Killer Party (1986) - Blu-ray Review

Some 27 years after it’s release, one might be forgiven for forgetting what a game changer Jan de Bont’s Speed was. No scratch that, you should remember! Back in the early 90s, the big muscles, full testosterone action picks from Sly, Arnie, Segal, Van Damme and the like were started  ...

Read more: Speed – 4K UHD Blu-ray Review

This is a movie about the girl next door . . . turned into a robot in a life-saving operation by the teenage genius who lives on her block.  Still with me?  You should be as Deadly Friend, directed by Wes Craven, is a forgotten gem of 80’s horror schlock as it successfully combines horror elements with  ...

Read more: Deadly Friend: Collector’s Edition (1986) - Blu-ray Review

Remember that episode of The Big Bang Theory? You know, the one where Sheldon shares his love of Raiders of the Lost Ark with Amy, and after watching it, she blows his mind by attesting that the plot would have been exactly the same without it’s protagonist. I, like Sheldon, was ...

Read more: Indiana Jones: 4-Movie Collection - 4K Blu-ray Review

Beware the yellow van! Opening with some great aerial shots of San Francisco, Jeremy Hoenack's Killer’s Delight (originally shot as The Sport Killer and later re-released as The Dark Ride) shocks its audience when a van that we’ve been following pulls to the side of the road and a nude, dead ...

Read more: Killer’s Delight (1978) Vinegar Syndrome Exclusive - Blu-Ray Review

With nothing more than the well-being of our fellow man at stake, can humans be trusted to do the right thing to ensure the proliferation of the species? Or are we genetically programmed to revert to primitive nature? ...

Read more: Voyagers - 4K UHD Review

“Kiss me, Tyler!” Alright, alright, so Girls School Screamers might be on the rather cheap end of Z-grade budget horror, but from the very beginning (in which a ghost in a wedding with worms and maggots dangling from her face scares a little boy so badly he runs from the house), to its ...

Read more: Girls School Screamers (1986) Vinegar Syndrome Exclusive - Blu-Ray Review 

Oof! The struggle is real!  Wonder Woman 1984, directed by Patty Jenkins, should have been a lot of things as it embraces the technicolor, cocaine-fueled era of BIG HAIR and even BIGGER SHOULDER PADS, but it’s not and its nearly ...

Read more: Wonder Woman 1984 (2020) - Blu-ray Review

Black magic!  Like in Marilyn's books!  This demon wants a lifeless body to control! Through the Fire begins with a flat tire.  We have a glorious wide shot in which a white car comes to a stop against a night full of stars.  That single shot is pretty awe-inspiring.  Unfortunately, the rest of the movie is  ...

Read more: Through the Fire (1988) Vinegar Syndrome Exclusive - Blu-Ray Review

It often takes an earth-shattering moment to remind us that sometimes, it is friendship – not biological family – that gets us through some of life’s most challenging times. That’s the big take-away in Our Friend, which tells the devastating true story of the Teague family and how their lives were suddenly ...

Read more: Our Friend - DVD Review

Once Upon a Time there lived a young woman named Wanda (Kathy Ireland.  You know the name.  Look up the number!) and she really wanted to change in order to please her surfer boyfriend.  She can change!  She wants to change! ...

Read more: Alien from LA (1988) Vinegar Syndrome Exclusive - Blu-Ray 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: SOUL (2021) - Blu-ray Review

It’s time once again to hop in the WAY BACK MACHINE and go . . . way back to another age of Hollywood HIGHS and HORROR!   Pre-Code Hollywood fascinates me.  There are a lot of grand and wonderful films reflecting the true culture of the time period from 1930 – 1934.  Man, it must  ...

Read more: Val Lewton Double Feature - The Ghost Ship/Bedlam: The Warner Archive Collection (1943, 1946)

From the producer of Get Out and Us, Antebellum (2020) is hard to watch as it depicts the realities of slavery. Everything from branding a human being to committing rape and murder is vividly portrayed. Thankfully, some scenes take place in the present day which give the viewer a much  ...

Read more: Antebellum - DVD Review