Reel Reviews - Official Site

Ol’ Jimmie needs a drink at the Huddle II.  That’s how Invasion of the Blood Farmers begins.  The film, a true trashterpiece of schlock SINema is wildly absurd, sick-minded, and loopy as hell.  It is also a ripe find thanks to Severin’s blu-ray release of this grindhouse classic ...

Read more: Invasion of the Blood Farmers (1972) - Blu-ray Review

Director Matthew Vaughn likes to get people talking.  Recall, if you will, Kick-Ass and the choice vocabulary uttered by Chloë Grace Moretz as Hit Girl.  It’s his thing, you know.  Well, audiences are going to be talking about the hot bedroom action in his new film for months.  It’s a great ...

Read more: Kingsman: The Golden Circle - Blu-ray Review

Beneath a full moon, one man walks alone.  There is a pain in his side; something within him that is awakened whenever he is sexually aroused.  He, after making a deal with the devil, knows exactly what it means and face it alone he must . . . or at least he needs to be  ...

Read more: Beast of the Yellow Night (1971) - Blu-ray Review

2017 has been something of a marquee year for Stephen King cinematic adaptations, with TV scoring big on Gerald’s Game, 1922, and Mr. Mercedes, and It breaking records on the big screen. (Note: The Dark Tower was a big stumble.) So although this year is a few shy of Misery’s 30th anniversary ...

Read more: Misery (1990): Collector's Edition - Blu-ray Review

First, there was It Came From Outer Space and then there was The Creature from the Black Lagoon.  Both of those films – and the success they shared – led to Universal’s B-movie dominance in the 1950s and, no matter how minor of it a flick it was, we have a curio ...

Read more: The Mole People (1954) - Blu-ray Review

British Prime Minister Winston Churchill, during a speech to the House of Commons in June of 1940 in the opening months of World War II, famously said, “Our policy is to wage war, by sea, land, and air, with all our might and with all the strength that God can give us.” ...

Read more: Dunkirk - Blu-ray Review

A single tear is all it takes for this dude to land all the ladies.  His name is Cry-Baby and this is his story . . . with guitars! The motorcycles!  The music!  The Squares!  The Drapes! And all the raging hormones!  It’s 1954 again in Roger Waters’ classic teenage musical, Cry-Baby.  It has been ...

Read more: Cry-Baby (1990) - Blu-ray Review

Screenwriter Taylor Sheridan concludes his American frontier trilogy with Wind River, a suspenseful murder mystery set in the snow-covered barrens of Wyoming. Sheridan burst on the scene with his blistering essay on the epidemic of violence along the Texas/Mexico border with ...

Read more: Wind River - Blu-ray Review

If you thought that the opening battle in Saving Private Ryan was intense, you haven’t seen anything yet.  Overlord takes that PTSD-causing opening to task with a sequence in the skies above Germany as American paratroopers are absolutely gutted right before our  ...

Read more: Overlord (2018) - Blu-ray Review

You can keep your Kate Beckinsale.  Move over Milla!  It’s official.  Charlize Theron is the Wonder Woman we need.  With Atomic Blonde, Theron becomes THE female action star by which all others should be measured against.  The character she plays, Agent Lorraine Broughton of  ...

Read more: Atomic Blonde - Blu-ray Review

Exterminate! Exterminate!  Exterminaaaaaaate!  Guess who is back?!?!?! The Eleventh Season of the rebooted Doctor Who has had its fair share of criticisms, beginning with the fact that the beloved Doctor has regenerated into a female.  Truthfully, actress  Jodie Whittaker is ...

Read more: Doctor Who: Resolution (2019) - Blu-ray Review

Hi-Ho Silver!

There aren’t many films as flawless in tone, performance, and spirit as The Philadelphia Story.  From beginning to end, director George Cukor’s film is perfectly balanced with charm and wit and, of course ...

Read more: The Philadelphia Story: The Criterion Collection (1940) - Blu-ray Review

The opening moments of Barb Wire, a critically panned film that is based on the Dark Horse comic book series, is thankfully filled with a whole lot of Pamela Anderson.  She is on stage, dancing, and being sprayed with champagne from a hose.  The scene, especially Anderson in ...

Read more: Barb Wire (1996) - Blu-ray Review

“Face it, Tiger.  You just hit the jackpot.”  It’s the line Mary Jane says to Peter Parker when, in the comic book, he first sets eyes on her.  It’s sort of how I feel after watching this movie.  We. Just. Hit. The. Jackpot. om Holland is the full package.  He is both Peter Parker and Spider-Man ...

Read more: Spider-Man: Homecoming - Blu-ray Review

Using oversized Invasion of the Saucer Men Halloween masks and silver sweat suits for the look of its alien invaders, Revenge of the Spacemen is a cheaply-made homage to 1950s rock and schlock that plays for solely laughs.  The film is cheesy, occasionally funny, and  ...

Read more: Revenge of the Spacemen (2014) - Blu-ray Review

The pigtails.  The big, buggy eyes.  That wretched smile.  That damn doll is back.  And she’s ready for her turn to guide you through a funhouse of holy hell. Annabelle sits in the gathering darkness of a closed closet.  A little girl stands on the other side of the door ...

Read more: Annabelle: Creation - Blu-ray Review

The Return of the Vampire, now on blu-ray thanks to Shout! Factory, is the film with which Columbia Pictures flies the B-movie, with director Lew Landers (The Raven) at the helm, to new heights courtesy of the German Luftwaffe aircraft in this unofficial (but, probably, yes) sequel ...

Read more: The Return of the Vampire (1943) - Blu-ray Review

Hello, Oscars!  Allow me to introduce you to your first 2017 contender for Best Picture, Best Director, and Best Actor at the next Academy Awards.   War for the Planet of the Apes is THAT good ...

Read more: War for the Planet of the Apes - Blu-ray Review

This is why, no matter how bad the traffic jam is, you STAY THE COURSE.  You want to get to the boxing match?  Keep your ass in line.  One wrong turn later and your entire life could be rendered null and void thanks to a dangerous neighborhood and a stray bullet. ...

Read more: Judgement Night: The Warner Archive Collection (1993) - Blu-ray Review

This is the story of a man who says just about everything that comes into his head. Wilson is a brutally honest middle-aged misanthrope (Woody Harrelson) who longs for a family, after friends move away and his father’s death leaves him all alone. Luckily it turns out he  ...

Read more: Wilson (2017) - DVD Review

Poison Ivy.  The itch you shouldn’t scratch.  But we did, didn’t we?!  And we got a collection of movies that helped former child stars strip out of their past image and into something new and racy and all kinds of shocking!  That is what the 1990s brought those of us raised ...

Read more: The Poison Ivy Collection (1992 – 2008) - Blu-ray Review

Never before have the loves of speed and killer tunes come together so magically as they do in filmmaker Edgar Wright’s latest, a genre-crossing masterpiece with music on the brain and burnt rubber in its soul. It’s called Baby Driver and it’s a mob movie. It’s also a heist movie ...

Read more: Baby Driver - Blu-ray Review

Does this mean that you WON'T be my valentine?  With those words, one scorned nerd has his revenge on a group of pretty little liars.  Valentine, directed by Jamie Blanks, is immediately better than most of the teen slasher flicks of the late ‘90s and early 2000s.  It just doesn’t  ...

Read more: Valentine: Collector's Edition (2001) - Blu-ray Review

The DC Comics & Warner Bros. Animation co-production venture is already a very successful enterprise and, with Gotham by Gaslight coming soon, they continue to be of interest.  Comic book fans have a lot of animated features to celebrate over the years.  They were  ...

Read more: Justice League: The New Frontier - Commemorative Edition (2008) - Blu-ray Review

In the years before the slasher subgenre officially arrived thanks to Black Christmas and Halloween, there were a few horror films that definitely played around with the idea of a psycho killer taking out teenagers with nothing but sex on their minds.   Tower of Evil, a 1972  ...

Read more: Tower of Evil (1972) - Blu-ray Review

The magic in the kingdom is still there, mateys. Yo ho! Directed by Norwegians Joachim Rønning and Espen Sandberg (Kon-Tiki) and written by Jeff Nathanson, Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales moves swiftly, energized by the new blood involved in the project. ...

Read more: Pirates of the Caribbean: Dead Men Tell No Tales - Blu-ray Review

Camp Clear Vista is now hiring!  If you have a love for giving kids the time of their lives over summer vacation then this is the job for you.  It also helps if you have a love for horror films and long, sharp knives that are just perfect for slicing and dicing . . .

Read more: You Might Be the Killer (2018) - Blu-ray Review

“C’mon you apes, you wanna live forever?!” ...

Read more: Starship Troopers: Traitor of Mars (2017) - Blu-ray Review

This is a movie for anyone who has ever sent a voice message to themselves.  Whether a warning or a reminder, there’s always an interesting collision of realities that occurs when the past offers insight into the Here and Now.  William Faulkner suggested the past is never dead  ...

Read more: The Cloverfield Paradox (2018) - Blu-ray Review

Well, that’s more like it. Warner Bros. entry into a shared universe of super heroes on film has been a lot more miss than hit. I, admittedly a lifelong DC Comics’ reader, have grown tired of the comparisons made between Marvel’s output and everyone else’s ...

Read more: Wonder Woman - Blu-ray Review