People download an app that correctly predicts when they are going to die. When a young nurse played by starring Elizabeth Lail discovers she only has three days to live she discovers that a demonic figure is haunting her, and has to find a way to save her life and that of her kid sister before time runs out. This teen horror movie isn't actually that bad (it's pretty topical tapping into contemporary fears about online content and features characters you actually kind of care about), but it's nothing you haven't seen before. P. J. Byrne from The Wolf of Wall Street has a fun role as a demon battling priest, and Peter Facinelli from the Fox series Fastlane and the film adaptations of the Twilight novels plays a sleazy MD. A random generator death app that looks exactly like the one in the film was built and uploaded by developer Ryan Boyling after he watched the trailer, and is available for both iOS and Android. It even reached the number one spot in the App Store charts in October 2019.
Reviews
269 Reviews
Countdown
(III) (2019)
A movie that reminds us to check the terms and conditions of social media apps before downloading
16 August 2020
The Devil Rides Out
(1968)
Dennis Wheatley's black magic novel gets the Hammer horror treatment in one of their best movies
2 July 2020
Dennis Wheatley's black magic novel gets the Hammer horror treatment, with Christopher Lee relishing the chance to play the good guy for once as the Duc De Richleau, an authority on the occult who does battle a group of Satanists (led by Charles Gray) for the soul of his friend. Made the same year as Rosemary's Baby, it was one of a number of films that brought Satan out of the shadows during the onset of the Summer of Love and is one of Hammer's best movies. Directed by the legendary Terence Fisher (The Curse of Frankenstein (1957), Dracula (1958), The Hound of the Baskervilles (1959) and The Mummy), from a screenplay written by Richard Matheson (of I Am Legend fame, the novel that spawned Last Man on Earth with Vincent Price, Omega Man with Charlston Heston and I Am Legend with Will Smith), it received praise from Wheatley himself and Christopher Lee said in interviews that it was one of his favorite onscreen performances. The cast includes Niké Arrighi as the sexy satanic neophyte Tanith Carlisle and Sarah Lawson and Leon Greene. The grinning Goat of Mendes in the film was played by Eddie Powell, who was Christopher Lee's stunt double in Hammer's 1958 adaptation of Dracula.
The Monster Club
(1981)
A bizarre, scary and charming 1981 horror anthology from Milton Subotsky and Roy Ward Baker
30 June 2020
Warning: Spoilers
Very loosely adapted from stories written by British horror writer R. Chetwynd-Hayes, Roy Ward Baker's bizarre, scary and charming 1981 horror anthology
'The Monster Club' features three tales told inside a framing story which in this instance involves a vampire named Eramus (Vincent Price) taking the human author also named R. Chetwynd-Hayes (John Carradine) that he's just chewed on for a drink at the titular club. Critics hated it, and younger audiences seeking violence, sex and more visceral and nihilistic entertainments in the vain of The Exorcist, The Texas Chain Saw Massacre, Halloween, Dawn of the Dead and Friday the 13th were put off by its old school charms, meaning that it was a box office dud. Sure the stories vary wildly in terms of quality, but it remains a fun trip. The tale of the lonely shadmock (James Laurenson) with its murderous whistle being robbed by heartless villains Barbara Kellerman and Simon Ward feels like a filler story that has fallen out of one of the Amicus anthologies which is hardly surprising given that this particular movie was produced by that company's founder Milton Subotsky. There is a vampire tale that is played strictly for laughs featuring a frumpy looking Britt Ekland, Donald Pleasence as a civil service vampire hunter, and Richard Johnson as a vampire who wears a stake proof vest. The third and best story (and according to Chetwynd-Hayes the only one to resemble his source material) tells of a horror movie director searching for locations who happens upon a mist shrouded village where he is set upon by corpse eating ghouls and has to take refuge on holy ground all to a lovely, haunted synth tune called 'Ghouls Galore' by Alan Hawkshaw and some fantastic John Bolton illustrations. The movie features musical performances by The Viewers, B.A. Robertson, Night and The Pretty Things. UB40 also contributed to the soundtrack but do not appear in the film.
I
I
Class of Nuke 'Em High
(1986)
Trash-movie moguls Lloyd Kauffman and Michael Herz force yet another epic of bad taste upon the viewing public
24 June 2020
Trash-movie moguls Lloyd Kauffman and Michael Herz (the creative team behind distributor Troma Films and makers of The Toxic Avenger) force yet another epic of bad taste upon the viewing public with this melding of teenage sex-comedy and slime-oozing monster mayhem, described by the filmmakers as "like The Breakfast Club, only not as stupid, and really, really drunk." The story involves the student body of Tromaville High school being turned into ultra-violent mutated thugs, who ride hell bent for leather through the hallowed halls on their choppers, shrieking obscene pseudo-songs and giving birth to slimy and spiky mutant offspring when the dilapidated nuclear plant next door starts churning out glowing green effluvia.... pretty much business as usual then. By Troma standards (they're the cinematic equivalent of head cheese) this qualifies as a "classic." It isn't by anyone else's, though there are some good moments. The only way to put this film into any kind of perspective is to say it's never dull. Two sequels (subtitled respectively Subhumanoid Meltdown and The Good, the Bad and the Subhumanoid) followed in the '90s. Return to Nuke 'Em High (another follow up split into two parts) was announced to coincide with Troma's 40th anniversary in 2013.
Withnail & I
(1987)
One of Britain's biggest cult films with a tour de force performance from Richard E. Grant
24 June 2020
This 1987 black comedy written and directed by Bruce Robinson and based on his life in London in the late 1960s, is one of Britain's biggest cult films thanks to it's use of period music (it features a rare appearance of the 1968 Beatles song "While My Guitar Gently Weeps" which was written and sung by George Harrison, and included in the soundtrack due to Harrison's involvement as a producer), quotable dialogue, and a tour de force performance from Richard E. Grant as Withnail, probably one one of the most iconic figures in modern films. The movie follows two unemployed actors, Withnail and "I" (portrayed by Paul McGann) who share a flat in Camden Town in 1969. Needing a holiday, they obtain the key to a country cottage belonging to Withnail's eccentric uncle Monty (Richard Griffiths), where their weekend away proves less recuperative than expected. Ralph Brown plays Danny the drug dealer who rolls and smokes the Camberwell Carrot, the ultimate joint. Despite all the boozing and drug taking, Grant was a teetotaller with an allergy to alcohol. He had never been drunk prior to making the film, so Robinson forced him to go on a drinking binge so he could experience inebriation and a hangover in order to make his portrayal more believable.
Everly
(2014)
An ultra-violent revenge romp that is never boring
22 June 2020
In this 2014 action thriller directed by Joe Lynch and written by Yale Hannon based on a story by Lynch and Hannon, Salma Hayek (replacing Kate Hudson) plays a former yakuza sex-slave who is forced to fight back against a legion of killers who are out to collect the bounty on the heads of her and her family. It's a pretty ultra-violent revenge romp that is never boring thanks to some fast paced action that are creative enough to keep things from becoming stale too quickly, and Hayek is good in a role that lets her channel her inner GI Jane, even if Lynch allows her to be objectified by the camera despite the fact she's playing a character who's impetus for everything is a gang rape. The movie premiered at Fantastic Fest in 2014, before being released on iTunes and receiving a limited theatrical release by Dimension Films. Critics hated it, but there's enough bloody violence and gore (it is filled to the brim with severed heads, disembowelment via acid, and blood-spurting arteries) that those who like their action filled with blood and guts will get a kick out it.
Beyond the Gates
(2016)
A retro-cool blast from the day-glo 1980s past that tries to put a fresh spin on old-school terror.
22 June 2020
Anyone old enough to feel nostalgic for the era of VHS board games should get a kick out of "Beyond the Gates," a retro-cool blast from the day-glo 1980s past, that zaps viewers back to a time when VHS ruled, video stores were meccas for horror fans, and shocks came with a healthy dose of schlock. It's an entertaining and mildly spooky B-movie version of Jumanji and Tron that is full of affection for the kinds of movies that inspired it, and concerns two estranged brothers (Graham Skipper and Chase Williamson) who in the wake of their father's mysterious disappearance, reunite to sift through the contents of his VHS rental store. When they find an interactive board game which their father viewed just before he vanished, they realise it's a portal to a nightmarish alternate reality. Cult horror icon Barbara Crampton plays the hostess of the VHS tape that accompanies the board game, and is easily one of the most enjoyable aspects of the film even though she's given little to do except stare out of a staticky TV. Premiering at the 2016 Los Angeles Film Festival where it won the audience award in the festival's midnight section, this is a movie bursting with eye-popping practical effects, an unsettling synth score, and wicked black humour that tries to put a fresh spin on old-school terror.
Hellgate
(1989)
A bats#!t insane teen horror movie with a plot that makes no sense
22 June 2020
Ron Palillo (from Welcome Back, Kotter), who was nearly 40 at the time, stars in this bats#!t insane teen horror movie with a plot that makes so little sense that even explaining it becomes a messy string of confusing words and ideas. It concerns two young couples who become embroiled in the mystery of a desolate ghost town, Hellgate, where a young woman was kidnapped and murdered by a biker gang in 1959. Many years later, the girl's father finds a magic crystal that can bring the life back to dead objects and uses it to bring her back. Pretty soon the town is overrun by zombies and ghostly can-can dancers and a weird English guy who cuts his fingers off and other random nonsensical stuff that only throws you even further off the plot. The film was shot in South Africa and almost all the cast consists of South Africans trying to do American accents. It was released in the United States and United Kingdom directly-to-video.
Samurai Cop
(1991)
Possibly the most god awful example of bungled, inept action filmmaking of the 1980s
17 June 2020
"You have the right to remain silent. Dead silent." Amir Shervan (director of Killing, American Style) was responsible for this, possibly the most god awful example of bungled, inept action filmmaking of the 1980s, and remains one of the worse films ever made. He's big. He's bad. He's got serious hair issues. He's Samurai Cop! (aka Joe Marshall, played by sun-scorched, lion-maned actor Matt Hannon, a former bodyguard for Sylvester Stallone) and he's out to bring down a Japanese crime syndicate known as the Katana Gang led by the ruthless, mullet-haired Fujiyama (Cranston Kumoro) and his number-one samurai henchman Yamashita (Maniac Cop himself Robert Z'Dar). Filmed over several months, the makers of this micro budget effort couldn't even afford lighting, so they had to shoot the the entire film during the day. The actors also had to wear their own clothes and drive their own cars, with much of it shot without sound and in single takes (that kinda explains the bemused looks on the actors faces). When he couldn't get any of the bit part actors to return post production, the director just dubbed their voices himself and warped it to sound different. It does feature B movie hotties Janis Farley and Melissa Moore stripping off, but that ain't no recommendation. Unbelievably a sequel, Samurai Cop 2: Deadly Vengeance, directed by Gregory Hatanaka, founder of Cinema Epoch, was released in 2015 with Hannon (who was rumoured to have died in the early 2000's) reprising his role.
Piggy
(I) (2012)
A stylishly made psychological character study that feels the need to give way to cartoonish spectacle
17 June 2020
Joe (Martin Compston) ), is a meek office messenger who struggles with the fear he feels living in modern day London. After his brother is murdered by a gang of thugs he is befriended by a mysterious stranger named Piggy (Paul Anderson) who persuades him to extract a gory revenge against those responsible. What appears to be another cheap slasher featuring a killer in a goofy rubber pig's nose, is actually a stylishly made psychological character study that accentuates mood and motivation instead of grizzly body counts and typical horror movie trappings. Writer and director Kieron Hawkes demonstrates bags of technical talent in a movie that feels the need to give way to cartoonish spectacle rather than concentrating on a script where we cared about the characters. It never really gets too deeply into the issues it wants to explore, and while it tries very hard to be original, it really isn't anything you've seen before.
Suburbia
(1983)
An interesting coming-of-age drama that has a raw vibe that can't be denied.
16 June 2020
Misanthropic punk runaways take over an LA suburb slated for demolition and try to build the kind of supportive, loving family they never had at home in this interesting coming-of-age drama written and directed by Penelope Spheeris, and produced by Roger Corman. "The Rejected" as the gang call themselves encounter hostile neighbors who do not want fringe people living near them, and a redneck gang of vigilantes who try to chase the punks away. Aka The Wild Side and Rebel Streets, it is the first of two youth movies made by Spheeris in the 1980's. She cast real-life punks to play the kids - including the future Red Hot Chili Peppers bassist Flea,and included sets by scene luminaries like D.I performing "Richard Hung Himself", T.S.O.L. performing "Wash Away" and "Darker My Love", and The Vandals performing "The Legend of Pat Brown". It was filmed at an abandoned housing tract in and around the cities of Downey and Norwalk in California known for its gang violence and "drug houses", and in the early days of Metallica, then-bassist Ron McGovney hosted auditions/rehearsals and made demos in a house in the same tract. Even though for the most part Suburbia is wretchedly acted and broadly scripted, it has a raw vibe that can't be denied.
The Forgotten
(I) (2014)
A creepy British ghost story from 2014 in the tradition of MR James
16 June 2020
A decent ghost story in the tradition of MR James, the Ealing studios spooky portmanteau Dead Of Night, and the Woman In Black, set on an abandoned council estate scheduled for demolition where a father and son are forced to squat. The movies teenage protagonist is awoken each night by strange noises coming from the flat next door, and witnesses his fathers behaviour becoming ever more bizarre and disturbing. Befriended by a local girl, they start to explore the empty flat together and discover its dark history. This 2014 British horror film was the directorial debut of Oliver Frampton, and premiered at that years FrightFest in London. There are one or two hiccups along the way, and the loose ends are all tied up a little too neatly to bring about the finale, but it is genuinely affecting and chilling in parts, and is an impressive and mournful debut marking Frampton and writer James Hall as ones to watch.
British Made
(2019)
A gritty slice of social realism that has been marketed as something it isn't
16 June 2020
BRITISH MADE is the first feature film by Godiva Films, written and directed by Simon Rickards, it follows Daniel (James Knapp), a young man released from prison for his involvement with a far-right nationalist group, as he attempts to rebuild his life and uncover the truth behind his troubled past leading to violent consequences. It's a pretty low budget affair and was marketed as a football hooligan type film which really undersells it, people going into this movie expecting another Danny Dyer type Football Factory movie will be very disappointed. The directors passion for social realism and drama really shines through, it is a grim and pretty depressing drama, and is indebted to British film-makers such as Ken Loach, Mike Leigh, Shane Meadows, Lynne Ramsey and Danny Boyle, who all made very high quality films with low budgets. Written over a two-year period, with the director researching the subject intensively and always trying to base the script on real-life events, the film was selected for many film festivals around the world throughout 2019 and 2020 and won numerous awards. Screenings were held in London and it is available to stream on Amazon Prime video
Coherence
(2013)
A less-is-more science fiction-horror movie that is proof that inventive filmmakers can do a lot with a little.
12 June 2020
Written and directed by screenwriter-turned-director James Ward Byrkit (he wrote the cartoon Rango) this less-is-more science fiction-horror tale, is indebted to the original "The Twilight Zone" (particularly "The Monsters Are Due on Maple Street") as well Luis Bunuel's "The Exterminating Angel," and concerns eight friends who gather for a dinner party on the night a huge comet is passing overhead. When the lights suddenly go out, things start to get weird and weirder as two of their number venture out into the darkened street to use a neighbour's phone and come back spooked, having found an empty house down the street exactly like the one they left. This clever, mostly improvised, brain-teasing drama had its world debut at the Austin Fantastic Fest in 2013, and is proof that inventive filmmakers can do a lot with a little.
VFW
(2019)
A retro exploitation movie that delivers to audiences the kind of movie they were promised, but never really got.
12 June 2020
A typical night for a group of war veterans at the local VFW turns into an all-out battle for survival when a teenage girl runs into the bar with a bag of stolen drugs in director Joe Begos' retro exploitation movie. Finding themselves under attack from a gang of punk mutants looking to get back what's theirs at any cost, the veteran stars who include Stephen Lang (Avatar, Don't Breathe), William Sadler (The Shawshank Redemption, Die Hard 2), Martin Kove (the Karate Kid movies, Cagney and Lacey), David Patrick Kelly (The Warriors, Commando) the legendary Fred Williamson, and George Wendt (the world just seems a better place when the Cheers actor can once again be seen sitting on a bar stool), prove that they might be old but they're still rollin' as they indulge in the kind of cinematic ass-kicking that marked many of their previous films. Begos (Bliss, The Mind's Eye) has no trouble supplying that mayhem, staging a series of ultra-violent encounters marked by the sort of explicit blood and gore that will have genre fans howling with delight at the sheer excessiveness of it all. Sure, it cribs from countless westerns and John Carpenter's Assault On Precint 13, as well as featuring elements of Mad Max and revenge flicks like The Exterminator, but there is never a notion of "Do you get that reference?". Instead, the film makes good on the promise of countless misleading VHS covers and delivers to audiences the kind of movie they were promised, but never really got.
Exterminator 2
(1984)
A pretty forgettable sequel that is nowhere near as satisfying as the first movie.
11 June 2020
Four years after the release of the original move, The Cannon Group put together this more action based sequel, this time directed by the original's producer Mark Buntzman, with some online reports crediting cult director William Sachs (The Incredible Melting Man) with additional scenes and co-scripting the film. Once again troubled 'Nam vet Johnny Eastland (Robert Ginty) has to pick up his trusty flamethrower when his dancer girlfriend (Deborah Geffner) is first badly beaten and permanently crippled and later murdered by a gang of street thugs led by "X" (Mario Van Peebles). This time round Johnny is aided by Be Gee (Frankie R. Faison), a former vet turned garbageman. This being a Golan-Globus production, and given their reputation for cutting corners you can see the compromises throughout the film, with Cannon more concerned on chasing the big bucks at the box-office rather than creating a sequel that would be as equally satisfying as the first movie. This just feels like an extended episode of TV's The A Team, and there's even an extended breakdancing sequence thrown in for no reason whatsoever. Pretty forgettable stuff.
The Exterminator
(1980)
Yes it's the movie where the Mafia guy is turned into mincemeat after being fed into a meat grinder
11 June 2020
Warning: Spoilers
Critics may have hated this sadistic vigilante-themed movie directed by James Glickenhaus, a direct rip-off of Death Wish (1974) , in which Vietnam War veteran John Eastland (Robert Ginty) embarks on a one man mission to cleanse New York of organised crime after a group of thugs paralyze his friend, but it was a big hit with audiences who couldn't get enough of its graphic excesses. The movies infamous scenes of violence and gore don't really happen at all, they're mostly suggestive, and in the case of a sleazy Mafioso who is turned into mincemeat after being fed into a meat grinder, it all takes place off screen. Christopher George co-stars as a detective on the trail of "The Exterminator" who has a hot dog rotisserie on his desk, and Steve James from American Ninja is underused as Eastland's soon-to-be-paralysed bud, who after foiling a robbery gets a garden fork plunged into his back and scraped along the length of his spine until his eyes pop. Gaining a huge cult following since its release, the film was followed by a sequel, Exterminator 2, in 1984, which saw star Ginty return and producer Mark Buntzman step up to direct.
An ambitious movie that wastes its potential by turning into an action flick with little intelligence behind it.
10 June 2020
Based on Rick Remender and Greg Tocchini's 2009 graphic novel of the same name, The Last Days of American Crime clocks in at a bottom numbing 148 minutes and will test your patience despite all the gory excesses that director Olivier Megaton and screenwriter Karl Gajdusek throw at the screen. The story focuses on career criminal Graham Bricke (Édgar Ramírez) as he struggles to get back in the game since the death of his brother Rory (Daniel Fox) in a robbery. Seeking revenge against those responsible for his brother's loss he teams up with fellow criminals Kevin Cash (Michael Pitt) and Shelby Dupree (Anna Brewster) to plan a huge heist, racing against the clock before a mysterious government-made signal threatens to put a stop to all crime for good. The movie was panned by critics who took exception to its violent content and depictions of police brutality in light of the George Floyd protests (during one brutal fight scene a police officer is shown choking someone). Sure, it has it's flaws, but it isn't as bad as the reviews make it out to be, despite the fact it tries too hard to be something it's not, and leaves viewers wondering about the central message. Rather than attempt to deliver on its intriguing premise (an America without crime, but different to other movies like The Purge), The Last Days of American Crime wastes its potential by turning into an action flick with little intelligence behind it.
Riot
(I) (2015)
Another month and another Dolph Lundgren VOD movie.
10 June 2020
Another month and another Dolph Lundgren VOD movie. An ex cop stages a bank robbery in order to be caught and jailed in the same prison as the ruthless Russian mobster Balam (Chuck Lidell), so he can get revenge against him for killing his family years earlier. Matthew Reese (who you've probably never heard of) is the star of the show here, although you'd never know it as all the promotional material suggests that Lundgren and Liddell are the co-leads despite the fact they're barely in it! Director John Lyde made the action/apocalypse/fantasy films Survivor and Curse of the Dragon Slayer, and manages to cobble together some decent action and fight scenes into a movie that's just an excuse to show people beating one another up. The plot is ludicrous, as are some of the twists, but then what do you expect from a script written by a Spunky Dustin Ward?
Revenge
(I) (1990)
Tony Scott's 1990 all star vehicle is all style and no substance.
9 June 2020
Kevin Costner plays an ex-pilot who visits the Mexican estate of an old associate "Tibey" Mendes (Anthony Quinn) for a bit of R & R following his retirement, and gets involved in some sizzling hoochie-coo with his old friend's incredibly beautiful young wife (Madeleine Stowe). When Mendes eventually rumbles the reclusive lovers catching them in their lustful liaison he extracts a painful and cruel punishment. Costner vows a pay-back and the last part of the movie involves his attempt to achieve it. Tony Scott's 1990 movie combines the slick, high-tension filmmaking fashion of today with the values and sexual stereotyping of yesterday, and plays like a showdown between its style and its story, with Stowe (who is pretty hot) becoming nothing more than a pawn in some macho contest. The film takes a long time to get going and was co-written by Jim Harrison, based on his novella of the same name published in Esquire magazine in 1979. Miguel Ferrer and Sally Kirkland make up the supporting cast, and it also features one of John Leguizamo's earliest film roles.
The Vast of Night
(2019)
A slow moving sci-fi thriller that will delight fans willing to invest time in its snail like pace
9 June 2020
In this very low-key and obviously extremely low-budget science fiction movie, first time director Andrew Patterson (who also co-wrote the script under the pseudonym of James Montague) pulls off a feat as amazing as any flying saucer. Set in the twilight of the 1950s, on one fateful night in New Mexico, with the story framed as an episode of a Twilight Zone style TV series called Paradox Theatre, it follows s a young switchboard operator, Fay (Sierra McCormick) and a charismatic radio DJ Everett (Jake Horowitz), who discover a strange audio frequency while almost everyone else is at the high school basketball game. Dropped phone calls, AM radio signals, secret reels of tape forgotten in a library, switchboards, crossed patchlines and anonymous phone calls lead Fay and Everett on a scavenger hunt toward the unknown. It's big on dialogue but short on action, but this movie is chock full of Easter Eggs which Sci-Fi fans will love gathering. The radio station is called WOTW (War Of The Worlds), and the town is called Cayuga, which is after The Twilight Zone production company, Cayuga Productions. Patterson financed the movie himself, and was rejected by 18 film festivals before it premiered at the 2019 Slamdance Film Festival where it won Best Narrative Feature Audience Award. After it started to gain wide critical attention the film was acquired by Amazon Studios, and released in drive-in cinemas and on Amazon Prime Video.
Deep in the Heart
(1983)
An authentic and socially aware revenge thriller that goes against the grain of what Hollywood regularly churned out
3 June 2020
A teacher in Texas (Karen Young) learns how to use a gun in order to take revenge against the lawyer (Clayton Day) who raped her in British director Tony Garnett's American film debut. EMI Films funded this slow, thoughtful, and considered character study that criticizes American gun culture but refused to release it as they were expecting a commercial action movie with some sexy rape scenes. Like the director's previous film, Prostitute, you could be mistaken for thinking you were watching a documentary rather than a film, and this is certainly not your standard exploitation revenge thriller that Hollywood regularly churned out, especially coming from an era when movies like I Spit On Your Grave were rife. Garnett used a mix of unknown actors and non-professionals in key roles and operated right at the apex of contemporary social issues, upholding the traditions of the utterly authentic, socially aware films he produced with Ken Loach in Britain during the '60s and '70s. He sold the film to Warner Bros who just sat on it as they were producing a Clint Eastwood rape and revenge film at the same time and didn't want the competition. It opened in just a few theatres before being pulled and was a Box Office flop.
Skullduggery
(1983)
Out of the obscurest corner of the slasher film sub-genre comes one of the weirdest movies ever made.
2 June 2020
Warning: Spoilers
Out of the obscurest corner of the slasher film sub-genre comes Skullduggery (also known as Warlock and Blood Puzzle), a 1983 Canadian horror film directed by Ota Richter in which the descendant of a medieval family cursed by an evil sorcerer becomes a violent killer when a game of dungeons and dragons awakens the curse within him. If you came looking for another Canadian slasher to put near those like My Bloody Valentine (1981) prepare to be disappointed, this is one of the weirdest movies ever made. It makes no sense whatsoever and is just filled with random strange things, such as the worst amateur dramatic play in cinema history taking place in a lengthy talent show that goes on and on. A scene of the killer chasing a woman cuts to a minute long panning shot of mourners at a funeral who never appear again. A Liberace lookalike appears playing a church organ, and a hospital murder sequence includes a smoking doctor in a gorilla suit who has just had sex with a nurse. Add to this a terrible , Scooby-Doo-like theme song (that you will never, ever be able to get out of your head) and the fact that it doesn't even have any real gore or actual nudity to recommend it, it's just an all round terrible movie in every possible way.
Dead Heat
(1988)
A corny action comedy with a unique spin on the buddy cop formula
2 June 2020
Warning: Spoilers
This action comedy directed by Mark Goldblatt (The Punisher) puts a unique spin on the buddy cop formula popularised by 48 Hours and Lethal Weapon, as Treat Williams and Joe Piscopo play a couple of LA detectives called Roger Mortis and Doug Bigelow who discover that a spate of armed robberies in the city are being carried out by zombies. When Mortis is killed in the line of duty he is brought back to life in a resurrection machine and has twelve hours before his body starts to decompose in which to solve his own murder. The jokes are corny and the performances lame in this movie written by Terry Black (brother of Lethal Weapon films' scripter Shane Black), but Steve Johnson's makeup and special effects are pretty impressive and there is a standout scene in an Oriental grocery store where a bunch of re-animated animals go on the attack. The film is really moist with blood & guts too, it was originally rated X and had to be resubmitted 8 times to the MPAA before it got it's R rating as bodies literally melt and explode all over the screen. It also features Vincent Price in one of his last ever screen appearances as Arthur P. Loudermilk, inventor of the resurrection machine. The ending parodies Casablanca (1942) with the two leads walking off together, saying "This could be the end of a beautiful relationship."
Parents
(1989)
A unique horror-comedy experience that peers into the darker aspects of 1950s suburban America.
29 May 2020
Warning: Spoilers
In this bizarre and very black comedy set in 1950s suburbia, Michael Laemle (Bryan Madorsky) suspects that his parents (Randy Quaid and Mary Beth Hurt) may be cannibals after Dad starts bringing home some meat from his place of work, a mortuary. Sandy Dennis plays a school social worker who the boy confides in, and ends up an entree in the next family dinner, as Michael's parents attempt to indoctrinate him into their odd lifestyle. Director Bob Balaban wrote and directed several episodes of George Romero's Tales From the Darkside (1983-88), Steven Spielberg's Amazing Stories (1985-87), and The Twilight Zone (1985-89) before making this supremely weird and underrated movie. Channeling everything he learned from TV into his movie debut, Parents drips with unease, and is not for the squeamish. Drawing on David Lynch's Blue Velvet (1986) and 1950s sci-fi paranoias like Invaders from Mars (1953) and Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1979), it features a soundtrack that jostles with novelty tunes of the era like Chantilly Lace and Purple People Eater and is laced with a streak of black humour that makes it a unique horror-comedy experience that, while disliked by critics after its release, peers into the darker aspects of 1950s suburban America.
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