Movie Review: Bonnie and Clyde vs. Dracula (2008)

Silly title? Maybe, but this little gem balances camp and serious intentions fairly deftly, and mixes it all up with some visual style, effective period detail and a jaunty pace. Oh, and the acting is pretty good, too. It's the kind of thing you used to see all the time, often produced by Roger Corman, in the 60s and 70s: minor but engrossing genre films made by talented young directors eager to make their mark. The kind of thing you don't see too often anymore.

Buy Bonnie and Clyde vs. Dracula on DVD

The story doesn't waste much time with explanations and elaborate set ups. It simply follows two parallel plots which come together in the third act. Both story lines revel in genre cliches, and yet are full of surprises and are never boring.

Movie Review: Monsters, Marriage and Murder in Manchvegas (2009)

Yep, that's what it's called. Monsters, Marriage and Murder in Manchvegas. This is what Jeff and his pals sent me to review this week. MMMM for short. Worth watching? Mmmm, not so much.

Buy Monsters, Marriage, and Murder in Manchvegas on DVD

I looked up the town of Machvegas on the urban dictionary: Alternative name for the city of Manchester, New Hampshire, USA. The word was coined by combining the first part of "Manchester" with the second word in "Las Vegas," juxtaposing Las Vegas's glitz and glamor with Manchester's lack of either. Used derisively. "So are we going out tonight?" "We live in Manch-Vegas. The hottest spot open this late is Wal-Mart."

So that answers that question. And like the town itself, nothing too exciting happens here. Oh, there are monsters, lots of talk of marriage, and even a few murders. But trust me. You won't really give a damn about any of them.

Movie Review: Fierce Friend (2010)

FIERCE FRIEND is one of those thrillers that takes a normal, every day kind of relationship and gives it a dark twist by making one of the participants a psychopath. Movies like THE HAND THAT ROCKS THE CRADLE, THE CRUSH, THE STEPFATHER and even THE BAD SEED all come to mind as examples of this kind of story. I liked this modest entry into the sub-genre, which emphasizes character and performance over thrills and grue.

Buy Fierce Friend on DVD or Watch it Instantly

The story concerns two boyhood friends, Patrick and Bobby. Patrick is a shy loner who is befriended by popular, out-going Bobby at a young age. Later, as adults, they share a house as Patrick pursues his acting career. But then comes April, Bobby's girlfriend, who moves in with them. Patrick, whose whole life is centered around his friendship with Bobby, begins to feel threatened and, yes, jealous. Patrick starts a covert campaign to break the two up which leads to darker and darker levels of his obsession for his friend.

Movie Review: Evil Things (2011)

"Evil Things," written and directed by Dominc Perez, is an interesting entry in the hand held "reality" fright genre created by "The Blair Witch Project" and carried on -- with varying degrees of success -- by movies like "Cloverfield," "Quarantine," "Paranormal Activity" and "Monsters." This one is slickly made and well-acted and manages, at times, to generate a good deal of suspense. It also feels padded, is episodic and structurally awkward.

Buy Evil Things on DVD

Like "The Evil Dead" and many other low budget horror films, a groups of friends are on a road trip when the weirdness begins to happen. Miriam and her four friends Cassy, Mark, Tanya and Leo, drive to a remote house for a 21st birthday celebration. Leo, the aspiring filmmaker, videotapes everything, providing us with a visual document of the whole weekend gone awry.

Movie Review: Up From the Depths/Demon of Paradise

Here is another Shout Factory double feature DVD of Roger Corman produced features. This set highlights two exploitation films from the 70s and 80s; when Roger ran Concorde and New Horizon Pictures.

Besides the requisite action and kung fu titles, Corman produced a plethora of blockbuster ripoffs. Probably the two movies that inspired more titles for Corman than any others were ALIEN and JAWS. Roger produced a lot of titles ripping off those two seminal thrillers, with varying degrees of success. Earlier I reviewed a couple of the less inspired ALIEN clones (THE TERROR WITHIN and DEEP SPACE). Today, we cover JAWS knock offs.

Buy Up From The Depths / Demon Of Paradise on DVD!

Movie Review: Revenge (1964)

Takahiro Imai is not as well known in the west as Kurosawa, Ozu, Mitzoguchi, or any number of critically respected Japanese directors. That is a shame, and may have much to do with his well-publicized Marxist leanings. But polemics aside, and no matter where you stand politically, the fact is he was a master story teller with a great passion for social justice. I am very grateful for AnimEigo for releasing some of his most important works in beautiful subtitled editions. The latest I've seen is 1964's REVENGE (ADAUCHI), which is an unflinching and unsentimental indictment of the futility of revenge, and a powerful condemnation of any system which expects the individual to sacrifice his life and soul for a rigid code of conduct. It is beautiful to look at, masterfully suspenseful, and gut-wrenchingly powerful.

Buy Revenge on DVD

Shameless Plug: THE RED THING

This shameless post is to inform all readers of this blog that my short film, THE RED THING, is currently showing on the website www.50hourslam.com.

The short film was made as part of the 50 Hour Film Slam competition a couple months back. All participating teams were given a piece of music, a line of dialog and some other parameters and within 50 hours were required to deliver a completed short film. Here is my humble effort. I was writer/director and it was shot in the house where I live. Please give it a look , and if you like it, give us a vote.

The film stars Wes Deitrick, a veteran of many horror films, including Guyver 2. His daughter May is in it also, as well as my friend Chris Peterson. Another local film maker, Ray Biddle, was my partner on the project. He shot the short and handled post production.

Movie Review: Bianca (2011)

Tom Steeber's "Bianca" is that rare cinematic beast: something I have never seen before. It is at once thoughtful, disturbing, horrific and moving. The fact that this smart and disturbing tale is told in animnation only heightrens its creepiness, and gives it an atmosphere unlike anything else. It got under my skin.

Buy Bianca on DVD

Bianca tells the story of Glen, a regular, average-looking guy who catches the eye of Bianca, a beautiful but enigmatic girl that he meets at work. Bianca is sweet and sincere, and never thinks even for a second that she is out of Glen's league. But there is an oddness about her that is hard to peg. However, Glen, thrilled that such a beautiful woman is attracted to him, allows himself to be swept up. At their first sexual enounter he learns her secret. She has a bizarre sexual fetish that I don't think I've ever heard of before. It invovles a razor, and that is as much as I can say without giving too much awy. Suffice it to say that the sex scene is as distrubing as anything I have seen all year. It starts out making you laugh, and ends up making you cringe.

Movie Review: Poor Pretty Eddie (1975)

Here is a little oddball gem that covers nearly every genre of exploitation. "Poor Pretty Eddie" (1975) is part revenge drama, part blaxploitation, part redneck atrocity film, part horror movie. At times it is consciously arty; at times it is deliriously wallow-in-the mud sleazy; at times it is crafted and polished; at times it is disjointed, episodic and all over the place. It is well-shot and well-acted, full of familiar and welcome character actors in roles you would have never guessed they had agreed to do. And occasionally it packs an honest wallop. It defies definition and I loved every minute of it.


Buy Poor Pretty Eddie Blu-Ray + DVD Combo Pack

Movie Review: Bob Dylan Revealed (2011)

I have always been fascinated with Bob Dylan. Not that everything he has touched has been gold, but his work has always been unique, with no real compromises. Like Orson Welles (my other favorite iconic artist), he seems to me to have always been in search of something and never willing to repeat himself, no matter the risk or lack of rewards. So I was thrilled when this disk landed in my mailbox, courtesy of the secret underground known as Cinema Head Cheese.

Buy Bob Dylan Revealed on DVD!

Movie Review: The Sins of Madame Bovary (1969)

When I first received this disk, I groaned. Another boring late sixties sleaze fest based on material that was considered risque a hundred years ago. And although I am sure it did fine box office in its day, based solely on it's ad campaign emphasizing it sexual elements, I was surprised to find a remarkably faithful, fairly well-produced, and even tame adaptation of Flaubert's masterpiece. So tame, in fact, that excising less than a minute of breast shots and this could be shown on broadcast TV today.

Buy The Sins of Madame Bovary on DVD

Released in 1969, this Italian film is now presented (by One 7 MOVIES DVD) in 2.35:1 aspect ration and with crisp new subtitles. The sex is so tame that the only real attractions here are the nice production values - beautiful locations and period costumes - the sumptuous color photography, and stunning Edwige Fenech in the "tit"ular role. She is transcendentally sexy.

Movie Review: Idol of Evil (2009)

Here is the law of diminished returns, shot-on-video style. This British import is ambitious, and yet… not. An Indiana Jones/DaVinci Code hybrid ripoff that looks and sounds all right, but still manages to lay there and smell like the turd that it is.

Buy Idol of Evil on DVD

An anthropologist named Kixley disappears and his friend, David Hilton, is sent in by the Vatican to search for him. We soon learn that Kixley discovered the eye to an ancient skull idol with mysterious and ancient powers. He has been kidnapped by armed cultists with mis-matched uniforms who want to use if for their own nefarious purposes. Dr. Kixley’s assistant, hottie Lucy, joins Hilton on his quest to recover the artifact. The cultists are led by an under-acting over-achiever in a Tom Baker Dr. Who fedora who now holds the power to rule the world! Before it is all over, guess what? Hilton and Lucy fall in love, and she gets kidnapped, upping the stakes! After over an hour of dull cat-and-mouse and some really lack-luster fight scenes, we finally are “treated” to some supernatural gore effects reminiscent of a high school re-enactment of the resurrection scene in the original Hellraiser. The resulting creature is a normal-sized spawn of the War of the Colossal Beast monster without the entertainment factor, and is dispatched almost immediately.

Cinema Head Cheese: The Podcast! #7 featuring Ryan Nicholson and Ron Ford

Kevin Moyers and Jeff Dolniak sit down for a talk about their first movie trade-off. Kevin made Jeff watch the Karate Kid remake, while Jeff had Kevin watch Hanger. They also discuss a Swedish exploitation book, rape in movies and whatever else comes to mind.

Our Canadian correspondent Lacey Paige got a quick phone interview with director Ryan Nicholson of Hanger and Gutterballs.

Also in this episode, Kevin and Jeff talk to director and CHC contributor Ron Ford in the first ever edition of Know Your Cheese.

Click here to listen or right click and choose "Save Link As..." to download.

Find Ryan Nicholson and Ron Ford on Amazon.com.

Support Ron's next movie, Man Without a Saddle, on IndieGoGo.

Movie Review: The Stranger (1946)

Here is another amazing re-master from HD Cinema Classics. This collection is pretty oddball, featuring everything from Al Adamson’s most questionable head-scratcher (CARNIVAL MAGIC) to this, Orson Welles most accessible and readily-available classic, THE STRANGER (1946). Although it has long been probably the easiest to find of Welles’s films, I have never seen such a crisp and beautiful copy. For this Orson Welles freak, it was positively a reason to cheer.

 Buy The Stranger DVD or Blu-ray

Many Welles-ophiles consider THE STRANGER to be Welles’s sell-out movie, made to prove to Hollywood producers that he could deliver a standard Hollywood product on time and on budget. Although there were the usual battles over the final edit of the movie between Welles and studio bosses, The film did become a box office success and for a time did help Welles’s standing with Hollywood studios. The screenplay is credited to Anthony Veiller, but it is commonly reported that Welles and John Huston completely rewrote it. But slick Hollywood fare though it may be, it is not typical of the normal studio post-war dramas, and all of Welles’s trademark bravado is on display. It is a terrific movie, and stands very well on its own.

Movie Review: Kansas City Confidential (1952)

Here is a welcome addition to my DVD collection from HD Cinema Classics: an HD re-master of Phil Karlson’s taught and tough late noir, KANSAS CITY CONFIDENTIAL. Coming at the end of the noir cycle, it is one of several tough-minded pictures of the early to mid fifties with the word “Confidential” in the title. Although I am fond of Jack Arnold’s HIGH SCHOOL CONFIDENTIAL, I think it’s fair to say this is the best of them. It is full of surprises, edgy brutality and moral ambiguities. It deserves to be better known than it is, which is why this new release is so very welcome.

Buy Kansas City Confidential on DVD
 

Karlson was a work-a-day director of Hollywood programmers who always brought some honesty and style to his work. I suppose he is most know today for the best of the “good ol’ boy” revenge movies, WALKING TALL. But he was also responsible for Dean Martin’s THE SILENCERS, the memorable ALEXANDER THE GREAT television pilot with William Shatner, and KID GALAHAD, with Elvis Presley. In his early career he directed several hard-hitting crime dramas like the excellent THE PHOENIX CITY STORY and 5 AGAINST THE HOUSE. And, although the payoff doesn’t quite satisfy on the level of its terse, nail-biting build-up, KANSAS CITY CONFIDENTIAL stands with those as among the best of Karlson’s output. In many ways it plays like an early dry-run for RESERVOIR DOGS and may well have been one of Tarantino’s influences for that masterful crime drama.

Movie Review: The Life of Death

I have been following Kevin Lindenmuth’s career since his first film, “Vampires and Other Stereotypes.” He is something of a pioneer, being one of the first guys to take advantage of digital technology to make very personal low end horror films and get them into video stores world wide. I’ve always respected him, his work, his drive and his dedication.

In recent years he seems to have concentrated on talking head documentaries, like “But You Look So Well,” which dealt with multiple sclerosis. His new documentary, “The Life of Death,” may be his most personal work yet: an examination of death as seen through the eyes of people directly involved in genre films and literature. It’s an odd and slim premise (implying that people involved in the horror genre have some special relationship with the idea of mortality), and reaches no real conclusions, but remains gripping and fascinating throughout – no small feat for a talking heads film with a running time of 117 minutes!

Article: Man Without a Saddle

You may or may not be aware of my work as a filmmaker. But to ste outside of my role as critic for a moment, I wanted to let you all know about my next project. It's a western with a horror twist, and a piece I am very excited about. 

MAN WITHOUT A SADDLE is based on Kipling's classic story, Mark of the Beast, transferred from colonial India to the American west of 1870. Three ex-Army regulars, Strickland, Fleete and Barton, are hired to convince a Shoshone shaman to move on to the reservation. The shaman, Tanupah, guards a stone petroglyph, sacred to his people. Fleete, in a drunken fit, urinates on the petroglyph and dishonors its spirit. In retaliation, he is cursed by Tanupah, turning him into a raging creature, half man, half wolf. After subduing the creature (an act which very nearly costs them their lives), Strickland and Barton torture Tanupah until he removes the curse. However, in so doing they all feel deep shame, and forced to examine their belief systems. This is especially true of Strickland, a deeply religious man, who finds his foundation (his "saddle") rocked to the core.

Movie Review: Bushido: The Cruel Code of the Samurai (1963, AnimEigo)

Tadashi Imai was a Japanese director who, throughout his long career, alternated between lyrical historical dramas and preachy Marxist polemical essays. His work is not quite as well known in the West as Ozu or Kurosawa or the small handful of other great Japanese directors; possibly because of his unpopular political stance. At his best, however, he was capable of a lyrical beauty that at times rivaled the masters.

Buy Bushido: The Cruel Code of the Samurai on DVD

AnimEigo is now offering a crisp, beautiful transfer of his 1963 classic BUSHIDO ZANKOKU MONOGATARI, or BUSHIDO, THE CRUEL CODE OF THE SAMARAI. It is an episodic drama of a family, spanning 350 years, which attempts to straddle both schools of Imai’s output: historical drama and political “message” movie. As a result it displays the director’s greatest strengths and weaknesses in one fascinating package.

Movie Review: Roger Corman's Cult Classics; Triple Feature

Today was my definition of heaven. Revisiting some of the most resonant movies of my boyhood, made by a guy whose legend continues to grow even as we age. Shout Factory's re-issues of Roger Corman double and triple features continues to thrill and inspire us old timers, and hopefully will also garner new young fans along the way. Today I watched one of the most welcome sets of the bunch. A triple feature of new transfers of three of Roger's most iconic early films: Attack of the Crab Monsters, Not of This Earth, and War of the Satellites.

While the prints are not flawless, they are probably the best I have seen. Shout Factory has obviously gone to some effort to find good quality prints to make their transfers from. Two of the three in this set are from British release prints; none are from scratched up TV prints as has often been the case in the past.

Movie Review: The Absent (2011)

Here is an ambitious low budget feature shot in the quaint little town of Twisp in Central Washington state. The actors and cinematographer were all flown in from LA to ensure a professional-looking film, but most of the minuscule crew were locals; many of whom I am proud to say I have worked with on stage and in my own local movie productions. The result is a slick-looking little thriller with a unique tone; and, while not entirely successful, it is well worth a look.

The story, set in the fictitious town of Liberty, hinges on twin brothers Vincent and Oscar Burton (real-life twins Bryan and Denny Kirkwood). In the opening flashback, we see their parents plotting to kill Oscar for insurance money. Oscar fights back and poisons them both, sending him to prison for a long, long time. Jump to twenty-five years later when the grown up Vincent is now the town high school science teacher. Vincent, not quite the squeaky clean role model he appears to be, is having an affair with one of his students, Katie (Yvonne Zima). Like a lot of small towns, Liberty is filled with dirty little secrets, and lots of them get exposed as people begin to die at the hands of a mysterious killer. Vincent comes to believe it's his twin, Oscar, who has escaped from prison and returned to wreak his vengeance on the town. The local Sheriff (Samuel Ball) is narrowing in on the suspected Oscar as the body count rises, but Vincent my just be helping to keep his brother out of sight.