My life at the movies.
Directed by Nico Mastorakis. Starring Robert Behling, Jane Lyle, Jessica Dublin, and Gerard Gonalons.
When it cut to Robert Behling’s contorted face as he sodomized the baby goat, I grinned. Few films would dare hurtle so far over the top, and if they dared, they’d build-up to it. Island of Death proffers that scene in the first 15 minutes. Continue reading...
Directed by Lucio Fulci. Starring Florinda Bolkan, Jean Sorel, Stanley Baker, and Silvia Monti.
Fulci’s most formal effort to date. A stylistic thriller revolving around a politician’s daughter who dreams of murdering her hedonistic neighbor, only to awaken and find herself the center of an actual police investigation. Continue reading...
Directed by Lucio Fulci. Starring Tomas Milian, Adrienne Larussa, Georges Wilson, and Mavie Bardanzellu.
Grindhouse historical drama. Fulci takes a tired plot (oppressive patriarch murdered by his family) and livens it up with salacious plotting, sloe-eyed Adrienne Larussa, and Hammeresque gore.
Directed by Lionel Barrymore and Wesley Ruggles. Starring Raquel Torres, Charles Bickford, Nils Asther, and George F. Marion.
Escaped convict Bickford arrives in a small Caribbean village posing as a priest and gets tangled up with local vamp Torres who’s promised herself to any man who can slay the giant Manta-Ray that killed her brother. Great production and Bickford’s entertaining performance can’t overcome Torres’s incessant emoting. Boris Karloff has a forgettable part with a couple of lines.
Directed by Jacques Tourneur. Starring Dana Andrews, Peggy Cummins, Niall MacGinnis, and Maurice Denham.
Curse of the Demon offers the best kind of thriller: one populated by intelligent characters behaving according to their personalities, not the whims of the plot. It avoids cheap jump-scares, preferring shadowy hallways and darkened rooms to keep us on edge. And, for the real horror, there’s Niall MacGinnis. Continue reading...
Directed by Anthony Russo and Joe Russo. Starring Robert Downey Jr., Chris Hemsworth, Mark Ruffalo, and Chris Evans.
Best Marvel movie.
Directed by Mervyn LeRoy. Starring Joan Blondell, Eric Linden, Jobyna Howland, and Ned Sparks.
I watched Big City Blues because it features an early, uncredited performance from Humphrey Bogart. Given the film’s obscurity, my expectations were low. Continue reading...
Directed by Don Coscarelli. Starring A. Michael Baldwin, Bill Thornbury, Reggie Bannister, and Kathy Lester.
A friend’s birthday sleepover. The dead of night. Lying tucked inside my He-Man sleeping bag on the living room floor of a strange, dark house. This was how I first watched Phantasm. It traumatized me. Continue reading...
Directed by Adam Green. Starring Danielle Harris, Kane Hodder, Tony Todd, and Parry Shen.
Picks up where Hatchet ends. The sole survivor (played this time by Danielle Harris) returns with a group of well-armed hunters to exact revenge on Victor Crowley.
Though plot-heavy, this sequel maintains the first film’s look, feel, and heart. The practical effects remain top-notch and the Victor Crowley makeup proves much better, but the shot selection remains limited and I missed Deon Richmond’s comedic timing.
Directed by Edward F. Cline. Starring Bert Wheeler, Robert Woolsey, Dorothy Lee, and Edna May Oliver.
I came to this film having never heard of Wheeler and Woolsey. Reading up, I learned they were a top-grossing comedy duo in the early 1930s. This explains the surprising number of sets and why the script proves little more than a setup for Woolsey’s one-liners. Continue reading...
