cfisanick-551-293544 Reviews

13 Tracks to Frighten Agatha Black (2022)

Impressively ambitious micro-budget horror film

[7/10 · 14 December 2022]

13 Tracks to Frighten Agatha Black, the first feature of Bradley Steele Harding, made for $20,000, is impressive. First, it has an original conceit: The film is narrated in Greek chorus fashion with stories from those old Halloween vinyl records of years gone by. Second, while the budget was tiny, this is not a careless production. Almost every shot is carefully blocked, and there is some imagination in the sound design. Finally, kudos for getting the wonderful Udo KIer as the opening narrator.

Some might consider this like one of those elevated "artsy" horror films from A24 with its slow burn and cryptic structure, which are so much in vogue today. I don't. I think the film is more of a throwback to early1970s Italian giallo/supernatural thrillers like All the Colors of the Dark and The Perfume of the Woman in Black. Indeed, lead Bridie Marie Corbett resembles a low-keyed Edwige Fenech. For a film paying homage to a beloved genre, it does pretty well for itself.

Overall, count me in as a fan of this original work. I want to see what Steele does with a bigger budget. It's sure to be cool.

Captain Isotope & the Enemy of Space (2018– )

The "let's put on a show" attitude of Captain Isotope is endearing.

[7/10 · 10 March 2020]

Captain Isotope & the Enemy of Space is one of the weirdest things that I've seen lately. It's a combination spoof/homage of old 1950s TV shows like Space Cadet, done by a few fanboys in, of all places, Tonawanda, New York, who have more heart than funds. (They claim on this page that the budget is about $100. That seems a little high unless they all super-sized their lunches at Burger King.) But although they try, it doesn't really come off like a cute replication of the original product on 60-year-old kinescope, even though it's in black and white. While it does have some cool retro models, most of it is statically filmed in front of a green screen with master shots of cast members standing around reciting dialogue. Except for lead Erik J. Nielsen, acting is strictly sub-middle-school play. Cheryl Syzmczak, as the female love interest, seems to be not bad, but in one of the episodes I saw, her dialogue was almost inaudible due to terrible sound recording, like everyone was sharing a $10 lavalier microphone.

That said, the writing is quite droll and witty--Nielsen has nice timing and delivery--and I was surprised that I laughed out loud a couple of times. And the rinky-dink title song is a hoot. I'm glad that this show, originally a Buffalo regional curio, has found a home on Retro TV alongside that longrunning Buffalo standard, Off Beat Cinema. Captain Isotope, on the network that runs classic Doctor Who, may find an appreciative cult. And I, for one, hope that these folks get some funding to keep doing what they're doing and get better at it. Their spirit is infectious.

The Amusement Park (1975)

Ever wonder what an educational film directed by George Romero would look like?

[7/10 · 15 October 2019]

Answer: The Amusement Park, an hour-long film on the terrible way society treats the elder commissioned by the Lutherans and directed by the great George Romero in 1973 but not seen until now. I can only imagine that the investors, upon seeing it, said, "WTF did we pay for???"

While it is what it is--a public service film on ageism--there's no mistaking that Romero directed it. (He even shows up as a nasty patron of the park's bumper cars.) It's extremely avant garde, humorless, and depressing. But it's well done on its nothing budget and still has a lot to say on the subject today. No, it's not so terrible or unfinished that it couldn't have been released back in the day. It's was just too much. (And kudos to George's widow and the George A. Romero Foundation for doing a nice job restoring it from a couple of faded 16mm prints.) It's worth a look as a weird curio and footnote to the career of the greatest horror director who ever lived.

Sharon's Baby (1975)

If you are down, this will instantly cheer you up.

[6/10 · 29 July 2016]

As just about everyone has pointed out, by normal measure, this is an absolutely dreadful horror film. But it will bring a smile to your face because it is so bat-crap crazy that you won't believe your eyes, but it will tickle your funny bone. The only downside is knowing that Peter Sasdy, a fine horror director, knew right from the get-go that this was a terrible screenplay. You can tell from even the opening scene with lots of zooming that he had given up and was desperately trying to get through the film. He interrupts the narrative to take us on a tour of London in the mid-70s, which is very interesting from a historical perspective. But then it's back to the ludicrous action with a demented dwarf, a cute but killer baby, sexy Joan Collins, Donald Pleasance maintaining his dignity, sexy but dubbed Caroline Munro, Ralph Bates with a pidgeon Italian accent, and best of all, Eileen Atkins intoning for the ages, "Your beh-bee az been pozessed by dee day-ville."

This film should be a prescription for clinical depression. For no matter how melancholy you feel at the moment, when you watch this, you will feel better. Guaranteed.

Night Flight (1981–2018)

One of the best television shows ever

[10/10 · 12 July 2016]

What else can I add about the late, great Night Flight, the cutting edge music/media/cult show from the 80's, that hasn't already been said? It was--and still is--amazing. Trust me, you've never seen anything like it. This obscure, but fondly remembered by those-in-the-know, show is so brilliant that it's like dadaist art for the ages. And now I see that you can watch it as VOD on Roku boxes. But although there are "original episodes" posted, they aren't really the same as how it was back in the day. They are shortened versions of the old shows, most likely because obtaining the rights to much of the original material is cost prohibitive or impossible. Anyway, I digress. If you've only heard about Night Flight, you owe it to yourself to partake of this wonder and be enlightened. For me, I have DVDs with hours of complete episodes captured in the wild. It's a prized possession.

Da Vinci's Inquest (1998–2006)

One of the best police procedurals of all time

[10/10 · 3 February 2016]

I have been in law enforcement for over 30 years now. Only two shows really capture what it is really like: from the US, Homicide: Life on the Streets and the Canadian classic Da Vinci's Inquest. What sets this show apart from just about every other show is how true it is to real life. Life isn't always about good and bad; there are many shades of gray. Cases aren't always tied up in a neat bow. Good people have character flaws. Bad people are often good people with a single character flaw. Life goes on. I can't praise this show enough for realistic writing and acting. I think that I counted exactly one car chase in all the years that it was on--and it was a slow-paced car chase. The cops all smoked cigarettes and drank coffee out of Styrofoam cups. That may sound like a cliché, but I assure you, it's absolutely accurate. There were good cops, troubled cops, and bad cops. Justice didn't always prevail. Like the US show Homicide, I never considered this show as just a police procedural. It was a show about life.

Kill, Baby... Kill! (1966)

Unforgettable...and unforgettably influential

[10/10 · 19 May 2014]

The creepy little girl with her hand pressed against the window, the bouncing ball, the spiral staircase, the endlessly repeating room... Scorsese, Kubrick, Burton, Lynch, and just about every J-horror director all paid homage to Mario Bava's masterpiece of design, colors, and creepiness. This is possibly the least seen, most underrated horror film of all time. It's nearly 50 years old, yet it has images that will resonate for as long as people talk about horror films. Brilliant on every level as a work of cinematic art, it stands as one of Bava's pivotal works, a color Gothic that introduced so many of the classic genre tropes that we take for granted today. And of all the goofy titles that it has been given over the years, maybe I'm in the minority, but I actually like "Kill, Baby...Kill." It's short and to the point, just like the film itself.