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Jan 28, 2012, 12:30 pm
The official Oscar hype season has begun, and silent film homage ... the absence of sound. John S. Robertson's take on Robert Louis ... , archaic performance. It still works.
Robertson shot on a set with ... good-looking movie.
John S. Robertson, a Canadian, began his film ... silents in the ea... Comment - Like
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Jan 21, 2012, 1:04 pm
Hey, everybody. I have already written about the next four films on the Rue Morgue list. Here are links to those older reviews.
Deathdream (Bob Clark, 1974)
Dellamorte Dellamore aka Cemetery Man (Michele Soavi, 1994)
Deranged (Jeff Gillen & Alan Ormsby, 1974)
The Devil's Backbone (Guillermo Del ... Comment - Like
Josh K. posted an article on
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Jan 14, 2012, 1:35 pm
This unfairly neglected cult horror film from 1981 comes armed with a pedigree that should make any horror fan take notice. The director, Gary Sherman, previously wrote and directed the cult British horror film Raw Meat aka Death Line, and he went on to make other cult films of varying quality like ... Comment - Like
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Dec 31, 2011, 12:16 pm
Note: Cutting Moments is available on DVD with two other Douglas Buck short films, Home and Prologue, under the title Family Portraits: A Trilogy of America.
A quick Internet search for Cutting Moments reveals several bootleg and foreign region DVD covers and posters that, aside from the official Fa... Comment - Like
Josh K. posted an article on
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Dec 17, 2011, 11:35 am
Here's an interesting oddity: a dark, violent western with horror and crime thriller elements and an atmosphere recalling Werner Herzog's madmen-surviving-the-elements classics. The film is bleak with no sympathetic characters, but it's also unpredictable, directed with invention and energy, strikin... Comment - Like
Josh K. posted an article on
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Nov 26, 2011, 12:53 pm
Jacques Tourneur was born in Paris nine years after the invention of cinema and brought to the United States by his father Maurice nine years after his birth. He and the movies grew up together. Maurice was a silent film director, notable for The Wishing Ring and The Last of the Mohicans, (though he... Comment - Like
Josh K. posted an article on
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Nov 11, 2011, 12:07 pm
Despite the patronage of Quentin Tarantino, Reb Braddock's sole feature film, Curdled, didn't make much money and received mostly negative reviews. Braddock has been unable to get any other film projects made, though he's enjoying a second career as the head of the film program at his alma mater, Fl... Comment - Like
Josh K. posted an article on
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Oct 29, 2011, 12:22 pm
I'm a skeptic, but I'm also open to the possibility I could be wrong and this world could be much stranger than we know. I even had my own bizarre encounter with something I can't entirely explain when I was a senior in high school. I wasn't anally probed or abducted by small gray men or the skinny ... Comment - Like
Josh K. posted an article on
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Oct 15, 2011, 1:01 pm
... they committed has been told repeatedly. Manson has become a meaningless counterculture T- ... Bebber also wisely chooses to make Manson himself a peripheral character. Instead, ... 't just tell the story of the Manson family. The film's lengthy ... up so many memories for me. The 1970s bl... Comment - Like
Josh K. posted an article on
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Oct 8, 2011, 12:39 pm
The next film on the list is one I've already written about: Peter Medak's The Changeling, an entertaining haunted house movie starring George C. Scott. Here's a link to the old review. Comment - Like
Josh K. posted an article on
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Oct 1, 2011, 12:41 pm
What a pleasure it is to see a modern filmmaker who knows how to use visual space and how to blend content, form, and structure into a personal style. Two days ago, I watched Slumdog Millionaire, and my viewing of Calvaire last night acted as a coincidental rebuke to the former film in almost every ... Comment - Like
Josh K. posted an article on
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Sep 17, 2011, 12:46 pm
... Hollywood assignments were horror films (Interview with the Vampire and In Dreams), ... drama, surrealist nightmare, criminal-on-the-run thriller, boyhood coming-of- ... -recognize Sinead O'Connor.) As the tragedies and punishments and confinements ... overblown melodrama or distanced coldnes... Comment - Like
Josh K. posted an article on
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Sep 3, 2011, 1:32 pm
This is the first documentary I've reviewed on this site. The documentary is not a genre that springs immediately to mind when one thinks of horror film subgenres. There's not a lot of crossover there. Real-life horrors don't give you the guilt-free thrills most good horror films provide. Stil... Comment - Like
Josh K. posted an article on
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Aug 19, 2011, 1:28 pm
It's turning into Mario Bava Month here on the old D-Cap ZomVamp B-Bath (as the youth call it), and I can't complain. The last movie on the list was Bava's first color film, the three-part anthology Black Sabbath, and now we have another Bava film, 1960's Black Sunday. Black Sunday was Bava's ... Comment - Like
Josh K. posted an article on
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Aug 5, 2011, 12:20 pm
A British rock band called Earth were rehearsing in Birmingham, England across the street from a movie theater in 1968. Their shows were sparsely attended, and audiences were confusing them with another band of the same name, but the theater had a huge line. The band looked at the marquee. The movie... Comment - Like
Josh K. posted an article on
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Jul 23, 2011, 12:29 pm
If we've learned anything from the movies, we know we should never leave a man or woman behind when we go off to get help. Let's isolate one of many scenarios. (Assume we're in the days before cell phones, unless you're a phone-hating Luddite like me.) You and your lovely wife and loyal dog are driv... Comment - Like
Josh K. posted an article on
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Jul 8, 2011, 11:09 pm
Kinji Fukasaku was one of the kings of Japanese genre filmmaking. Working in a variety of genres at a fiendishly prodigious pace, Fukasaku nevertheless gave the majority of his output a hard-to-maintain standard of quality and irreverent personal stamp notably absent from many other filmmakers who c... Comment - Like
Josh K. posted an article on
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Jun 25, 2011, 1:46 pm
What will you give me for a basket of kisses?
Why, I'll give you a basket of hugs.
Just try getting that dialogue out of your head after watching The Bad Seed. The question is spoken in a child's cloying faux-sincere sing-song by blond, pig-tailed Rhoda Penmark (Patty McCormack), an eight-year-old g... Comment - Like
Josh K. posted an article on
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Jun 11, 2011, 1:24 pm
Wes Craven's Scream is a smug, stupid film that is inordinately pleased with itself. Craven thinks he's clever, but the film is postmodernism for dummies, a braying donkey of a movie that can't stop honking instructions at the audience about how to watch. Possibly more irritating than the film itsel... Comment - Like
Josh K. posted an article on
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May 28, 2011, 1:29 pm
Here's an interesting, neglected gem. Angst is an Austrian film about a serial killer that resembles few other serial killer movies. Most often compared to Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer, Angst shares some similarity in tone with John McNaughton's classic but mostly exists in its own world. Neve... Comment - Like
Josh K. posted an article on
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May 14, 2011, 2:03 pm
Alan Parker is one of those directors critics love to hate. He has a high opinion of his work and himself, but his films too often self-consciously masquerade as high art or hot-button issue movies, barely covering the ordinariness of the mildly fascistic middlebrow vulgarian more in line with Olive... Comment - Like
Josh K. posted an article on
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May 1, 2011, 6:55 pm
None of the films in the Amityville franchise earned good reviews or critical respect (though most horror films are treated poorly by the majority of mainstream critics), but 1979's original The Amityville Horror has since become an iconic movie in the horror canon. A huge hit and still a popular Ha... Comment - Like
Josh K. posted an article on
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Apr 16, 2011, 1:32 am
Michael Weldon, in his Psychotronic Video Guide, paid Alucarda a mighty compliment, which Mondo Macabro, the company releasing this film on video in the U.S., shrewdly blurbed on the cover of the DVD: "More blood, loud screaming, and nudity than any horror film I can think of." Weldon's statement is... Comment - Like
Josh K. posted an article on
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Apr 2, 2011, 1:42 pm
Ignoring the Alien vs. Predator franchise because it doesn't even rate, I find it fascinating that the four Alien films have been made by four different, visually distinctive, powerful directors: Ridley Scott (Blade Runner, Thelma & Louise), James Cameron (The Terminator, Titanic), David Fincher (Se... Comment - Like
Josh K. posted an article on
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Mar 19, 2011, 12:30 pm
This second film from the Rue Morgue list is a 30-minute short by Spanish director Nacho Cerda. Unlike the Fangoria list, the Rue Morgue list includes a number of short films, and I'm presented with a writing challenge. How do I give a short film the same treatment I give the feature-length films wi... Comment - Like
Josh K. posted an article on
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Mar 5, 2011, 12:16 pm
We're kicking off a new list this week, Rue Morgue magazine's Connoisseur's Guide to 100 Alternative Horror Films, and I think it's a good omen we're beginning with The Abominable Dr. Phibes. I'm trying to tone down the hyperbole, but oh my god I love this movie. If a supervillain gave me the choice... Comment - Like
Josh K. posted an article on
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Feb 13, 2011, 1:18 pm
Well, I did it. I have watched, and in some cases re-watched, every film on Fangoria's "101 Best Horror Movies You've Never Seen" list. The initial plan for this blog was to complete that list and then pull the plug. I have two other blogs, and three seemed a little excessive. This would just be a l... Comment - Like
Josh K. posted an article on
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Jan 29, 2011, 1:26 pm
I've reached my 100th review! I still have one more movie to write about until this project is over, but the blog will carry on indefinitely while I accumulate more horror movie lists, guides, cheap DVD sets, etc. Announcements about the next phase in the blog will show up in the next post.
When a S... Comment - Like
Josh K. posted an article on
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Jan 15, 2011, 1:31 pm
I'm a big Larry Fessenden fan, even though he's directed only four feature films in 20 years, and I hate one of them and have some minor problems with another. He's one of the few modern directors working in the horror genre whose films I anticipate, and he's a fine character actor, too. A true inde... Comment - Like
Josh K. posted an article on
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Dec 31, 2010, 1:40 pm
I love horror movies, but horror movies don't really scare me. I've been unsettled by a handful of disturbing movies and felt suspense and shocks and surprise during particular scenes of many films, but horror is fun. There is a pleasure and a joy I take in the watching of horror movies that I just ... Comment - Like
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Dec 4, 2010, 1:33 pm
This low-budget Scottish film, though not without its problems, is a solid, enjoyable haunted house/social realism hybrid that convinces in both its modes for most of the running time. Take out the haunted house story, and you have a compelling drama about a 12-year-old girl, her young half-brother,... Comment - Like
Josh K. posted an article on
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Nov 20, 2010, 1:50 pm
NOTE: This film is available on video and DVD under both its original title, Aswang, and The Unearthing. I had a much easier time finding it under Aswang.
This low-budget horror film made by two college buddies from Wisconsin for under $200,000 is well worth your time. Based on a Filipino vampire le... Comment - Like
Josh K. posted an article on
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Oct 30, 2010, 11:56 am
This disappointing debut feature from New Zealand writer/director Scott Reynolds presents a dilemma for me as a writer: I have a lot of specific things to say about the aspects of the film I disliked, but its virtues are a bit more amorphous and abstract. I will try not to beat up on Reynolds too mu... Comment - Like
Josh K. posted an article on
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Oct 16, 2010, 1:10 pm
I nearly made the same mistake with Herschell Gordon Lewis I made with Mario Bava in my last post. I erroneously reported that Twitch of the Death Nerve was my first exposure to Bava's films. I later updated with the corrected information about seeing Bava's science fiction film Planet of the Vampir... Comment - Like
Josh K. posted an article on
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Oct 2, 2010, 12:19 pm
Whew. This has been quite a week. I saw two great shows by two of my favorite reunited '90s bands, Pavement and Guided By Voices. I'm in the second week of preparing materials for a major life and possible career plan for next year. My wife and two friends were on lockdown at their jobs for three ho... Comment - Like
Josh K. posted an article on
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Sep 18, 2010, 12:56 pm
Tombs of the Blind Dead is commonly regarded as Spain's answer to Night of the Living Dead. Regarded by whom? I don't know, but this statement appears several times on the DVD case and is repeated in every review of the movie I scanned, so I might as well join the crowd. Both movies feature an army ... Comment - Like
Josh K. posted an article on
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Sep 4, 2010, 12:18 pm
I'm fortunate to live in a city with two of the greatest video stores in the country, with two locations each, that continue to thrive in the era of Netflix. Occasionally, however, something falls through the cracks. And that, my friends, is how I came to own a second-hand VHS copy of the straight-t... Comment - Like
Josh K. posted an article on
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Aug 21, 2010, 11:36 am
I'm not a big Wes Craven fan. That might be an understatement, considering I find The Last House on the Left and Scream two of the most insulting, repugnant films ever made, but I have to give the guy a little credit. He's directed a lot of iconic horror films (A Nightmare on Elm Street, The Hills H... Comment - Like
Josh K. posted an article on
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Aug 6, 2010, 11:46 am
A few minutes into Strange Behavior, I smiled and thought to myself, "This movie was made by interesting people." That thought continued for the rest of the movie's running time. This is a weird, forgotten gem that deserves more attention, and anyone who dislikes it should be battered with large obj... Comment - Like
Josh K. posted an article on
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Jul 24, 2010, 12:58 pm
Maybe I sound like an angry old man bemoaning the state of the world because he no longer keeps up with it, but something bad happened to mainstream Hollywood filmmaking in the first decade of this new century. This badness didn't originate in the 2000s and is really an amalgam of all kinds of cultu... Comment - Like
Josh K. posted an article on
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Jul 10, 2010, 2:03 pm
When I first saw this film about 11 years ago, I appreciated it as a much better than average variation on the generic slasher template. Seeing it for a second time last night, my appreciation only increased. Making the crazed killer a step-parent with a Reagan '80s/'50s sitcom idea of family va... Comment - Like
Josh K. posted an article on
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Jun 4, 2010, 1:03 pm
(Warning: Nostalgic childhood anecdote precedes movie review. I apologize if any of you find this irritating. I usually do, but this anecdote is forever tied in my memory to this movie, so suck it.)
I have a long and strange history with this movie. My first exposure to it was late at night at the a... Comment - Like
Josh K. posted an article on
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May 23, 2010, 1:26 pm
I had low expectations for visual effects man Jamie Dixon's straight-to-video directorial debut, Shadow Builder, and these low expectations were largely met. For one thing, look at that title. Yes, the title comes directly from the obscure Bram Stoker story that loosely inspired the film, but Shadow... Comment - Like
Josh K. posted an article on
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May 1, 2010, 12:26 pm
Session 9 is, happily, a modern anomaly. That is, a horror film relying on character, suspense, tension, dread, and avoidance of cliche instead of godawful, anonymous, 2000s-style quick cutting, personality-free adolescent and twentysomething voids as main characters, bland and/or stupid remakes, an... Comment - Like
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Apr 18, 2010, 1:58 pm
The Sender begins with a young man (Zeljko Ivanek) sleeping in the wilderness near the side of a road. A truck drives by, waking him up. He's startled and begins walking to a nearby public park with a lake. His face is intense, and he's walking like someone is guiding him. He picks up a huge rock an... Comment - Like
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Apr 3, 2010, 1:36 am
Many elements were in place for Screamers to be something other than an ordinary sci-fi/horror movie, yet that's exactly what it is. It's based on a Philip K. Dick story ("Second Variety"), it was co-written by the late, great Dan O'Bannon (Dark Star, Alien, Return of the Living Dead, Total Recall),... Comment - Like
Josh K. posted an article on
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Mar 20, 2010, 1:40 pm
I really like this movie, almost as much as I did when I saw it for the first time eight years ago, though my first exposure to the films of Alejandro Jodorowsky was an overwhelmingly negative experience. One Friday night in college, I was at the video store looking for something to rent, and I saw ... Comment - Like
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