Movie Review: Sugar Boxx (2009)

by Corby Kennard

An investigative journalist has herself thrown in a woman's prison to unmask the corruption of the local judges and Sheriff. The judges; blink-and-you'll-miss-'em cameos by Tura Satana and Jack Hill; and the sheriff are getting kickbacks from the warden for trumping up charges and filling the prison with hot young girls. The warden uses the prison population as whores for local bigwigs. She also receives government money to care for the prisoners, but most of it goes right in her pocket. The journalist is able to join the stable of whores and find all the records that prove the warden is guilty of graft and pimping. And the ironic twist is that the warden becomes an inmate herself. Oh, sorry - SPOILER!

Download the Sugar Boxx Soundtrack

Movie Review: The Last Rites of Ransom Pride (2010)

Sometimes actors make indie features because they need the money. Sometimes they make indie features because they believe in the project. And sometimes they make indie features because the director has photos of them engaged in coitus with some sort of farm animal or a dead body. I prefer to think that's how director Tiller Russell was able to get such marginal Star Power as Kris Kristofferson and Peter Dinklage to make (ultimately) pointless cameos in his pet project "The Last Rites of Ransom Pride".

Buy The Last Rites of Ransom Pride on DVD or Blu-ray

I picked this one up on the cheap due both to the blurb on the back - something I never do - and the cast list. In addition to Kristofferson and Dinklage, the film "stars" Dwight Yoakum, Scott Speedman, and Jason Priestly - although I have to admit I don't recall seeing Priestly in the film at all. To be fair, I was pretty numb about halfway through the film, so for all I know there could have been a scene where a circus elephant sodomizes a hippie and I probably wouldn't remember. 

Movie Review: In the Name of the King, A Dungeon Siege Tale (2007)

Uwe Boll is generally considered the worst mainstream director alive today. From horror movies based on video games (House of the Dead) to ... other horror-type films based on video games (Bloodraine, Postal), Boll shows his ineptitude with not just the camera but with dialog, actors, scripts, and pretty much every other aspect of film. Watching a Boll movie is a gut check for even the most die hard bad film seeker like myself. There is just nothing good this man does to the movie screen, and one wonders why anyone helps him finance his projects.


Buy In the Name of the King - A Dungeon Siege Tale on DVD

However, one has to respect Dr. Boll, for he manages to keep cranking out product year after year with no money from Hollywood and a steady stream of Big Name Actors (although, to be fair, most of them are no longer A-list by the time he gets them - kind of like Ed Wood and Bela Lugosi without the heroin). Which brings us to his 2007 overblown fantasy project "In The Name of the King, a Dungeon Siege Tale", which was based on, you guessed it, a video game.

Movie Review: Bay of Blood (aka Twitch of the Death Nerve)

Stop me if you've heard this one: Some teens head to the woods to party, take a dip in the lake, have wild sex, and are subsequently hunted down and killed by a machete-welding maniac. Sound familiar? Well, it should - it's only the plot of every "Dead kids in the woods" movie since Madman and Friday the 13th.

It's also one of the bloody set pieces in Mario Bava's classic Italian giallo/horror film "Bay of Blood", AKA "Twitch of the Death Nerve". Almost a full decade before the the 80s slasher films exploded with tits and gore, Bava was inventing the tropes that would bring the horror genre the most attention it had received - both wanted and unwanted - since the Universal Horror Monsters took center stage.

Buy Bay of Blood on DVD!

Movie Review: Experiment in Terror (1962)

1962 - dir by Blake Edwards
Starring Lee Remick, Stephanie Powers, and Glenn Ford

The opening of this film is incredibly reminiscent of Hitchcock, with its lush black and white photography of a woman, Kelly Sherwood, played by Lee Remick, driving alone on the highway, top down, scarf blowing in the breeze. The score by Henry Mancini that plays over the title sequence felt like the opening music from Twin Peaks, and indeed, Remick lives in a section of San Francisco actually named Twin Peaks.

Buy Experiment in Terror on DVD!

Remick drives into her garage, and the film takes a bit of a turn into a giallo as a heavy-breathing Black Gloved Killer attacks Remick and threatens her, telling her he's killed before and he will again if she crosses him. He tells her he knows all about her and he'll be back in touch when he needs her to help him rob the bank she works at. Then he backs out of the garage, still in shadow, and leaves.

First Annual Horrible Imaginings Film Festival

On Saturday, November 6th, I was fortunate enough to attend the First Annual Horrible Imaginings Film Festival. It is, I believe, the first horror film festival in the city of San Diego; and here's hoping it happens every year.

Visit The Horrible Imaginings Website today!

Miguel Rodriguez is a newcomer to the city, but he's managed to do in two months what others have tried for years and failed to accomplish, and for that, the fans thank him. And there were plenty of fans there to enjoy the varied selection of micro- and moderate-budget shorts and features; some older films and some newer ones. The 10th Avenue Theater & Arts Center building downtown was the perfect venue. The lobby was decorated with various horror props, including many creepy undead babies, and behind a table covered with T-shirts and other merchandise sat {artist name here] who does some amazing graphic novels dealing with the Cthulu mythos. Upstairs was an art space with some wonderfully dark art and a very cool room of neon 3D art. On the roof they served hot dogs and nachos, sodas and beer, and mixed drinks on a constant basis until the after party closed at 2AM. For a first outing, Miguel really hit all the high points. About the only thing missing was a large dealer's room, but there wasn't really enough time to peruse one anyway.

Movie Review: I Spit On Your Grave (1978) and (2010)

As a cult film fan, I subject myself to many horrible things in the name of cinema. Many times it's worth it, as a layer of humanity is revealed, or I learn to think about something in a very different way. Sometimes the experience is empty but still entertaining, if a bit icky. And sometimes you wonder why you bothered.

The rape-revenge film is a subset of revenge films. A woman is raped, sometimes killed, and someone - a husband or the woman herself - takes revenge on the rapist, subjecting him/them to some sort of ironic end that makes the audience applaud and feel good about watching someone castrated or otherwise mangled and murdered. I'm not judging here, because I'd never be able to cast the first stone, as it were.


Buy the original I Spit on Your Grave on DVD or get the remake on DVD or Blu-Ray on Amazon.com


A couple of weeks ago, I won a seat to a double feature of rape-revenge films. Indeed, it was the originator of the sub-genre, "I Spit On Your Grave" and the remake of same. The directors of both films were in attendance to give some justification to their films. (In my opinion there is none for the remake, but I'll get into that in a moment.)

Movie Review: Machete (2010)

by Corby Kennard

If you were lucky enough to see the Quentin Tarantino/Robert Rodriguez nostalgia vehicle "Grindhouse" in the theater, you saw a number of fake trailers for films like "Werewolf Women of the SS" and "Thanksgiving". One of those trailers, featuring a flying motorcycle sporting a gatling gun and the tagline "They just fucked with the wrong Mexican", received such an incredible response from the fans that Rodriguez decided to make it a feature film.

Buy Machete on Blu-ray or DVD

And what was that trailer? (Well, it's not really much of a surprise since you know what this review is for and decided to read it and … *big breath*.) Yes, that's right. It was "Machete". You're very smart. Anyhoo …

Movie Review: Piranha 3D (2010)

by Corby Kennard

When I heard there was going to be a new Piranha film way back at Comic Con, I was thrilled. I love these sorts of cheesy nature attacks films. I'd recently seen Piranha 2, with the young-old Lance Henriksen and directed by someone named James Cameron, and as much as I enjoyed the silliness of the movie, I was a bit leery of the director porting over the flying-piranha hybrids to the 3rd installment of the Joe Dante-started franchise.

Buy Piranha 3D on DVD or Blu-ray

If you feel the same way, lay those fears to rest. This one is much more believable, as it involves piranha who somehow managed to stay alive for somewhere around 3 million years in a cave under Lake Havasu Arizona. An earthquake opens a crack in the cave, releasing the killer fish into the teeming and naked throngs of party-goers during Spring Break. The kids party, the cops try to save them, and the fish kill and kill and kill. Seriously, this is one of the biggest and bloodiest body counts you're gonna see in this sort of film.

Movie Review: Vindication (2010)

by Corby Kennard

Guilt Shows No Mercy


It's always tough to review a truly independent shot-on-DV film. You can't really judge it for the film quality or the sound, and they have to make do with the best actors they can get. (Sometimes they find gems, but mostly it's of the "I'm yelling to show emotion!" overacting neighborhood playhouse variety.) But everyone has to start somewhere, so I'll just start out this essay by saying the film quality in Vindication was not too bad and the acting was a little over the top and very angry. The sound had some problems, and I had to rewind a few scenes to figure out what they were saying. So, those technical issues out of the way, lets talk about the rest of the film.


Buy Vindication on DVD

Vindication starts out with a swinging lightbulb in a dark, possibly underground, room. A face comes into view, and it's a pale, eyeless creature who makes some cryptic comments about life and guilt. This person is listed in the credits as Kon'Shens, and he is apparently playing himself. (Frankly, I don't really know what that means. Moving on.)

Movie Review: Black Dynamite (2010)

by Corby Kennard

Who's the Black Super Dick who's a hit with all the chicks? Well, it might have been Shaft at one time, but there's a new contender for the throne - Black Dynamite.

Buy Black Dynamite on DVD or Blu-ray

If you've never seen a blacksploitation film, here's a short primer. In 1971, Melvin Van Peebles wrote, directed, and starred in a film called Sweet Sweetback's Badasssss (yes, five s') Song. It was filled with sex, drugs, pimps, and numerous jabs at "The Man" who'd been "keeping the brother down". When this became a hit in the black communities, tons of new films were churned out to capitalize on this momentum. Shaft, Dolemite and Coffy were some of the biggest hits, but there were tons more that covered every genre, like chop-socky flicks (Black Belt Jones), horror (Blacula), and even westerns (The Black Bounty Hunter originally known as Boss Nigger).

Movie Review: The Expendables (2010)

by Corby Kennard

 On a filthy street in Iraq, a HumVee is blasted by an IED, injuring four soldiers and killing a fifth, burning him beyond all recognition.


During a building sweep, a young man is shot in the back of the head, knocking him to the stairs underneath him. It takes four men to get him down the stairs, slipping in his blood on the way.

Buy The Expendables DVD/Blu-ray/Digital Combo


An entire abandoned factory is destroyed rather than letting it fall into the Army's hands, taking away not just a forward post, but the home of a displaced family who built a ramshackle home on the property.


No, these aren't scenes from The Expendables, they are real-life examples of what happened to, and is probably still happening to, soldiers in the Iraqi war. They are detailed in the new book "The Good Soldiers" by Pulitzer-Prize winning journalist David Finkle. It's a sobering look at the kids who were sent to the region in 2007 as part of the Surge that was supposed to end the war.

Movie Review: Green Lantern: First Flight (2009)

by Corby Kennard

Green Lantern: First Flight is the DC Universe's newest animated feature. It puts Green Lantern, a character whose time to shine has definitely come, front and center in an epic adventure across the universe. Accompanied by various members of the Green Lantern Corp, the newest lantern, Hal Jordan, has to stop a rogue Hero-turned-Villain before he destroys the Corps and enslaves the universe. It's big, loud, explosive, and action packed; everything one would expect from a superhero movie in general, and a Green Lantern movie in particular, which is why it's that much worse that the final product is mildly disappointing.

Buy Green Lantern: First Flight on DVD or Blu-ray

To be fair, the film does more things right than wrong. GL's origin story is greatly abbreviated into a five minute segment before the credits even roll. Superhero origins are generally the same: Alien falls to Earth/Fish out of water - Superman, Martian Manhunter, Aquaman, Wonder Woman; Parents killed by criminals/Are criminals - Batman, Robin, Jericho, Raven; Bestowed power by alien/accident - Spider-man, Green Lantern, Flash; Parents are heroes - Black Canary, Huntress. The only people who don't understand that hero origins can be summed up in a few words aren't going to be buying this movie, and the director, Lauren Montgomery, understood this. Unfortunately we don't get much character development about Hal Jordan before he is given the ring, but we know what we need to: i.e. He's a test pilot, an alien Green Lantern named Abin Sur crashes on Earth, his ring finds Hal and brings him to the injured Green Lantern, Abin Sur dies, and Hal is given the mantle. Perfect, concise, and easily flows into the title sequence.

Corby Kennard

Corby is a part-time writer, a full-time dad, and a lifetime moviephile. From a young age, Corby has been fascinated with the subtleties of classic cinema, like Dawn of the Dead, and ReAnimator. When in his teens, a friend became the sole employee of a local video store, and not a day went by without a stack of VHS tapes wandering home with either of them. Comedies, Action films, Horror - anything and everything was consumed in copious amounts from that point on, so now, at the ripe old age of 40, Corby's encyclopedic knowledge of film annoys friends and family alike. Instead of annoying the people he loves with his opinions, he's decided to annoy the Internet.

Read Corby's Columns