Movie Reviews

Details: Published: 28 May 2019; Written by Loron Hays

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You say want sex and violence? Well, the Masked Mutilator has EXACTLY what you are looking for. Just be respectful because this house parent will definitely kick your ass ...

Details: Published: 19 September 2019; Written by Loron Hays

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Fright (1971)

3 Beers

Transfer: 3 Beers

Sound: 2 Beers

Special Features: 2 Beers

It’s all over, but the screaming. Even the British got in on the whole babysitter stalking trend. Wait. Back up. When was this film made? Oh hell, they helped bring it to the United States. The proof arrives in Scream Factory’s latest HD offering, Fright, starring Honor Blackman (Bond's Pussy Galore), Susn George, Ian Bannen, and John Gregson, in which one naïve babysitter finds herself and the boy she is looking after caught in a house that a stalker is wanting to get into.

Poor Susan George. She’s always victimized. Which, like her performance in Straw Dogs, is EXACTLY what happens in Fright, a thriller that sees her trapped in a house with a psycho. Except – hello, hello – the psycho turns out to be her friend’s ex-husband who, as this character is played by, Ian Bannen, is damn frightening.

Directed by The Italian Job’s Peter Collison, this thriller is a bit too stuffy for its own good. There are some memorable moments – thanks to Bannen’s take on this jittery and very cold psycho – and some scenes that are striking, thanks to the cinematography of Ian Wilson, but this film feels very padded in what probably could have been a very tight 60-minutes. Instead, we have too many cutaways to dinner scenes while George wanders a house that has been invaded.

The stalker’s target? Well, his kid of course. He wants what he feels is his alone. Damn what his wife wants. He’s breaking in and taking what he feels is rightfully his. So, in this domestic thriller we have a rustic setting – it’s deep in the woods on the edge of town – and lots of murderous moments with an epic shard of glass. In fact, it I this which delivers the final gasp from the delusional killer.

With nice shots from the crib of the child being watched and a solid tone when it comes to George’s viewpoint of the odd happenings around her – stemming from her boyfriend (Dennis Waterman) visiting her and then later being suspected of playing a prank on her – Fright is not without its pluses; the house itself is a win as it is totally cluttered with stuff that fills EVERY room with possible hiding places. But, unfortunately, it doesn’t maintain the suspense in the house when it ventures to the dining of Helen and Dr. Cordell. I mean, we don’t really care about them now do we? We care about what is happening in the house, which is why I suggest that Fright feels padded in order to get a theatrical running time.

Fright is not a bad film; it just probably needed to stay at the running length as an episode of a British horror anthology series. That being said, it does seem that this film operates more as a proto-slasher film, seeing as we have the Final Girl and it was made almost 8 years before Halloween, so there is some respect that much be paid to it.

Fright is now on blu-ray thanks to Scream Factory.

Blu-ray Specifics:

Released on 1080p by Scream Factory, the HD presentation is indeed a step up from the any version we’ve seen previously of this film. Colors are saturated a bit more. Black levels are thickened. There’s a nice new coat of paint to much of the house in this feature – even if the film suffers from filler. The rooms are expressively detailed. The grounds surrounding the school are solid green and, if you look hard enough, you will see texture through the grain in some of the scenes. The clothing is detailed and certainly interesting to look at; all those lines (yes, even back there) seem chiseled a bit deeper thanks to this expressive transfer. The sound is presented in a solid DTS-mono track and the picture is a bold 1.66:1.

Commentary:

None.

Special Features:

While the interview with Author/Film Historian Kim Newman is brand-new, nothing else is. Fans get a theatrical trailer and a still gallery.

Fright Nights – An Interview With Author/Film Historian Kim Newman

Theatrical Trailer

Still Gallery

Details: Published: 14 June 2019; Written by Frank Wilkins

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The #metoo movement wouldn’t stand a chance in John Shaft’s world. The most badass private detective to ever don a leather duster gets a modern-day update in Tim Story’s revisit to the Shaft franchise that kicked off the blaxploitation movement back in the early ’70’s ...

Details: Published: 14 September 2019; Written by Loron Hays

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Kill the head! Kill the head! Jim Jarmusch, the writer/director of Night on Earth, Dead Man, Ghost Dog, Broken Flowers, Only Lovers Left Alive, and Coffee and Cigarettes, has made a zombie movie. That sentence alone, if you are a fan of independent films just this side of quirk, should get your heart racing. No? ...

Details: Published: 16 May 2019; Written by Christopher Symonds

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John Wick is one of those franchises that seemingly came out of nowhere. Keanu Reeves (deservedly) has maintained a level of currency through his lengthy and stellar career, but if we’re to be honest, his star was on the wane when he signed on to the ...

Details: Published: 04 September 2019; Written by Loron Hays

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Details: Published: 24 May 2019; Written by Frank Wilkins

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Details: Published: 31 August 2019; Written by Loron Hays

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Hell Comes to Frogtown and only "Rowdy" Roddy Piper as Sam Hell can save the day. I don’t know whose idea it was – cinematographer/director Donald G. Jackson or writer/producer Randall Frakes or, hell, the B-film minded souls over at Roger Corman’s New World Pictures – but strapping a bomb onto Piper’s ...

Details: Published: 07 June 2019; Written by Frank Wilkins

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One of the toughest challenges faced by screenwriters when developing a sequel – especially to a wildly popular animated film – is how to best capture the same spirit and vibe of the original while also taking the story and characters we love to new ...

Details: Published: 27 August 2019; Written by Loron Hays

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Details: Published: 03 June 2019; Written by Christopher Symonds

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Creative writing courses talk about where that spark of an idea can come from, and how to nurture that possibility into something bigger. One of the catalysts most often encouraged is to pose a question. Writers Brian and Mark Gunn have most definitely asked a question in their creation of Brightburn ...

Details: Published: 21 August 2019; Written by Loron Hays

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Details: Published: 17 May 2019; Written by Frank Wilkins

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The only thing more difficult than making a feature documentary film may be running a farm. But farmer/filmmaker John Chester does both in his new film, The Biggest Little Farm, a sweet little documentary that chronicles the near-decade-long struggle of he and wife Molly’s plan to leave the city life behind and ...

Details: Published: 21 August 2019; Written by Loron Hays

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Details: Published: 10 May 2019; Written by Frank Wilkins

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The new comedy starring Anne Hathaway and Rebel Wilson called The Hustle is an almost identical remake of the 1988 classic comedy Dirty Rotten Scoundrels which starred Michael Caine and Steve Martin - itself a remake of Marlon Brando’s Bedtime Story. I say “almost” because ...

Details: Published: 21 August 2019; Written by Loron Hays

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Details: Published: 01 June 2019; Written by Loron Hays

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The King has returned - along with 17 other classic Titans - but, hey, long live the King! Continuing the plot of 2014’s Godzilla and 2017's Kong: Skull Island as far as the Monarch Corporation is concerned, Godzilla: King of the Monsters is a creature-centered film that wastes little time in giving ...

Details: Published: 18 August 2019; Written by Loron Hays

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I mean, it isn’t every day you see a body being dragged on the ground by your grandparents. That’s just one of the MANY shocks in this creepy gem from the video store. Newly scanned and remastered in 4K from its original 35mm camera negative, Vinegar Syndrome gives us another ...

Details: Published: 24 April 2019; Written by Christopher Symonds

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Eleven years ago, I snorted derisively at the audacity of the newly minted Marvel Studios plans. Without a single hit to their name, a grand plan had been hatched: they would release a litany of films, starring their various characters (that they still had the rights to) and combine ...

Details: Published: 15 August 2019; Written by Loron Hays

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Details: Published: 26 April 2019; Written by Frank Wilkins

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An angry woman scorned eerily stalks the world’s rivers and waterways by night wearing a threadbare wedding gown as she looks for children to drown. This is the subject of the age-old Latin American folktale of La Llorona or “The Weeping Woman” that has fueled the ...

Details: Published: 15 August 2019; Written by Loron Hays

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Details: Published: 06 August 2019; Written by Loron Hays

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Details: Published: 11 August 2019; Written by Loron Hays

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Details: Published: 19 January 2019; Written by Loron Hays

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Details: Published: 29 July 2019; Written by Michelle Duy

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Details: Published: 10 August 2019; Written by Loron Hays

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The Vinegar Syndrome Archive line, celebrating forgotten cinematic oddities from the video store era, has officially started thanks to the HD release of Evil Town! ...

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