Movie Review: The Mad Magician (Blu-ray, Twilight Time)

Reviewed By: Hal Astell

If you're going to make a movie in 1954 about a tortured artist screwed over by life, who could you possibly cast in the lead but Vincent Price? He's Don Gallico, known as Gallico the Great, but only recently as he's previously been a designer of illusions for other magicians, working for a company called Illusions, Inc. Unfortunately he's an artist, a genius even, but he's hardly a businessman. As his first show is closed down by court injunction by Ross Ormond, his own employer at Illusions, inc, he discovers that Ormond owns him and everything he creates, even when designed and made in his own time. Not much has changed in the entertainment business over the last fifty years, it seems.

Price is great here as the artist driven mad by those who seek only to exploit his genius, but then that's hardly surprising to us looking back because it's precisely what we see him as. In 1954 when this was a brand new 3D movie (and it later became the first 3D movie to be shown on television), Price was still new in the horror game. He had plenty of solid credits behind him but the first horror picture was only a year earlier in 1953. Given that it was the massively successful House of Wax about, yes, an artist driven mad, this one must have been a decent consolidation of his new reputation as a master of the macabre, and we know how that built.

Movie Review: Man in the Dark (Blu-ray, Twilight Time)

The 3D format has been a huge tool used to draw in moviegoers to some of the biggest blockbusters over the past few years with movies like The Avengers, The Hobbit and other big budget films utilizing the gimmick to wow audiences. In a way it's made a comeback, but you know what? The format had so much more of impact when it first came out in the 1950's. William Castle used it and so did Universal for the classic monster flick, Creature from the Black Lagoon. While 3D was used for science fiction and horror the majority of the time it made one its earliest appearances was in the film-noir Man in the Dark. Twilight Time has done something special in bring this enjoyably nostalgic slice of 50's gimmickry to Blu-ray in a nifty new release.

Lew Landers' Man in the Dark follows the journey of a man named Steven Rawley (Edmond O'Brian, White Heat, The Wild Bunch), a former tough who's had his brain re-wired not to commit crimes. The urge to commit any kind of shenanigans has basically been plucked from his noggin. Great idea, right? Not so much. When Rawley isn't cooped up by a bunch of wise guys he’s being either chased by them, or the cops, all over town. The biggest challenge for him is knowing who his enemy is and whether there’s anyone out there to trust

Movie Review: Sadako 3D (2012, Blu-ray)

Review By: Rob Sibley

If I learned anything over the years of watching dozens of J-horror films, it's that you can't keep a good ghost girl down. The most interesting thing about Sadako 3D is it's not a sequel to Ring 2. This is actually the “official” sequel to “Rasen”. If Rasen doesn't sound familiar let's do a quick history lessen shall we?

Rasen was originally intended to be the sequel to Ring 2, it was based of the novel “Spiral” by Koji Suzuki. A very prolific J-horror author who also penned the original novels for Ring, Spiral and Dark Water. His short story “Dream Cruise” was adapted into an excellent episode of the short lived Masters of horror series on showtime. Now The Ring & Rasen were both released in Japan at the same time but the thing is The Ring did box office bank. But Rasen bombed, so producers pretty much ignored the film and made The Ring 2. So the film became forgotten. 

Movie Review: "Dead Before Dawn 3D" (2012, Wango Films)

...oh, how this viewer misses the good ol' days of late-night cable TV...that bygone era of wildly eclectic, after-hours television broadcasting cache of movies 'til dawn, which generously stretched from the stroke of midnight, up to the crack of dawn, on Friday and Saturday nights. Y'all remember those times, right?? An out-of-control, rable-rousing night of partying, culminating into a quiet, deadened and lethargic evening in someone's darkened living room, wherever the party might have been, that night (...now, now...you have your familiar post-party drunken scenario, I've got mine...if you please, just read on, OK??). If you weren't lucky enough to pair up with someone cuddly, in one of the assorted house-party bedrooms...and had not yet passed out from the varied and undescriptive alcoholic concoctions, which were being liberally passed around...you and whoever might have also been conscious at the time, probably found yourself on a beaten, battered and smelly living room couch, surrounded by the 'corpses' of passed-out partiers, with nothing but the cathode tube glow of the television, emitting a flickered eerie light, all about. Nursing a warm, half-bottle of...of whatever was closest, picking up the remote, and giving it the old 'click, click, click', you scan the channels, until...whoa!! Yeah!! USA Up All Night!!! Now, we're talking!!! Horror Flicks...Teen Sex Romps...Boobies...Dim-Witted, Monster Hunting Teens...Slimy Sci-Fi Space Junkies...More Boobies...Action-Filled Atrocities...And More Boobies...The Cheesiest of the Cheesiest B-Flicks Ever Made...with occasional, sometimes groan-inducing, sometimes genuinely knee-slapping commentary by...depending upon the night...Rhonda Shear or Gilbert Gottfried. Those movies...oh, those movies...titles like "Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-o-rama", "The Pink Chiquitas", "Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death", "Revenge of the Teenage Vixens from Outer Space", "Chopper Chicks in Zombietown", and countless others ; clearly, only a certain breed of film genuinely qualified for the haplessly respectable place of being broadcast on USA Up All Night...some of which proudly...or shall we say 'shamelessly' wore badges of respectability amongst undiscriminating cult film devotees (...for myself, I remember seeing USA Channel-truncated versions of "Day of the Dead", "Frankenhooker", "Killer Klowns from Outer Space" and "Basket Case"). Heck, even when trimmed for content, the hilariously scathing commentary by our illustrious hosts made up for content-restrictive editor's hand...we're talkin' the type of films that shamelessly defy criticism...that cross the line of being coined 'bad', and well into the arena of 'embraceably ludicrous'...yes, THOSE kinds of films...films like...well.....

Piranha 3DD Comes to 3D Blu-ray and DVD on September 4, 2012!

ANCHOR BAY ENTERTAINMENT and DIMENSION FILMS PRESENT DOUBLE THE ACTION, DOUBLE THE TERROR, AND DOUBLE THE D’S WITH THE 3D BLU-RAY™ COMBO PACK AND DVD RELEASE OF PIRANHA 3DD

 

Full Of Flesh-Eating Fish, Hot Girls, Nudity, and Sick, Sick Humor, This Campy Sequel

To The 2010 Hit Swims To Retail On September 4, 2012!

 

 

BEVERLY HILLS, CA – Anchor Bay Entertainment and Dimension Films announced today the 3D Blu-ray™ Combo Pack and DVD release of the campy comedy-horror film, PIRANHA 3DD.  A sequel to Piranha 3D – the 2010 reboot of the fan-favorite franchise from the ‘70s  – PIRANHA 3DD stars Danielle Panabaker (The Crazies, Friday the 13th), Katrina Bowden (TV’s “30 Rock”), David Koechner (Anchorman: The Legend of Ron Burgundy, Get Smart), David Hasselhoff (TV’s “Baywatch,” “Knight Rider”), Christopher Lloyd (Piranha 3D, Back to the Future), and Gary Busey (Lethal Weapon, The Buddy Holly Story).  Directed by John Gulager (Feast) and written by Marcus Dunstan and Patrick Melton (the writing team behind four Saw titles), PIRANHA 3DD heads to retail on September 4, 2012 for an SRP of $29.99 for the 3D Blu-ray™ Combo Pack and $24.98 for the standard definition DVD.

 

PIRANHA 3DD incorporates the classic elements of the teen horror/exploitation movies of the 1970s, packed with ferocious flesheaters, scantily-clad young victims, and bizarre and exciting twists and turns.  Whereas Piranha 3D  Back for more outrageous fun, Christopher Lloyd reprises his role as the eccentric piranha expert. took place on a lake, the 2012 sequel is set at a water park, complete with water slides and a lazy river – the perfect places for piranha mayhem!

Movie Review: Cave Of Forgotten Dreams 3D (2011, IFC Films)

It's documentary time here at the Cheese and today it's none other than legendary German director Werner Herzog's recent feature Cave Of Forgotten Dreams that's on the menu. Five years after the release of Herzog's critically acclaimed Grizzly Man, the filmmaker has taken the focus from exploring the life of bear-loving activist Timothy Treadwell to the exploration of the stunning Chauvet Caves of Southern France.

Buy Cave of Forgotten Dreams on Blu-ray or DVD

Movie Review: Drive Angry 3D (2011)

Blood, boobs and brutal violence—the three key ingredients to your typical Hollywood “guy flick”—and in the case of Drive Angry 3D, one hell of an action-packed thrill ride. Todd farmer and Patrick Lussier have come together to create one of the best 3D-enhanced movies since the explosion of the latest triple-dimensional trend in cinema. 

Buy Drive Angry on DVD or Blu-ray

Every year, moviegoers are force-fed an unnecessary dose of that extra dimension. Sure it’s cool to be looking down the larger-than-life barrel of a shotgun, or have the debris from a massive explosion come flying within centimeters of your face, but in some movies it just isn’t necessary. Lussier did it right, utilizing the 3D element to amplify every mindlessly awesome visual aspect of the film.