DVD Reviews
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- By Loron Hays
Emperor Ming the Merciless (a very FUN Max von Sydow) of the planet Mongo is bored. In the famous opening of Flash Gordon, he admits of his boredom and decides to play with Earth and causes widespread destruction . . . like floods, heavy winds, and a hellish barrage of flaming meteors ...
Read more: Flash Gordon: Limited Edition Ultra HD 4K (1980) - 4k UHD Review
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- By Loron Hays
AS I have previously stated, Pre-Code Hollywood fascinates me. There are a lot of grand and wonderful films reflecting the true culture of the time period from 1930 – 1934. Man, it must have been a wild time. These films, featuring strong sexual innuendos, different races mingling ...
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- By Loron Hays
And with Pitch Black, Vin Diesel arrives! “They say most of your brain shuts down in cryo-sleep. All but the primitive side, the animal side. No wonder I'm still awake.” That opening line of voice-over narration is our first introduction to criminal Richard B. Riddick ...
Read more: Pitch Black: 4K Blu-Ray Special Edition (2000) - Review
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- By Loron Hays
Suspense! Action! And GIANT telepathic crabs! What more could you ask for in a B-movie?!?! Absolutely nothing and that’s why Attack of the Crab Monsters, now on blu-ray with a brand-new 2K transfer thanks to Shout! Factory, continues to rule when it comes to non-stop Z-grade motion ...
Read more: Attack of the Crab Monsters (1957) - Blu-ray Review
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- By Loron Hays
Shout Factory is back at it with their HUGE collection of Roger Corman titles and, while these limited releases are only available through their store (www.shoutfactory.com), the titles are definitely worth owning, making these releases a lot like crate-digging for jazz records. Fans obsess about them and for ...
Read more: Caged Heat/Jackson County Jail (1974, 1976) - Blu-ray Review
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- By Loron Hays
In what might be one of the most exploitative openings in Hammer’s 1970 era, we see a grave robber (Doctor Who's Patrick Troughton) struggle mightily with a corpse in a grave and, after a police officer falls in the now-empty grave, we see a jar of gooey, squishy eyeballs (looking very ...
Read more: Frankenstein and the Monster from Hell (1974) - Blu-ray Review
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- By Loron Hays
Big gun! Number one! Maybe it’s the heavy biker boots announcing his thunderous arrival to all lawbreakers in a post-global warming world. Maybe it’s the dark, circle-framed sunglasses through which he sees all varieties of criminal behavior in ...
Read more: Split Second: MVD Rewind Collection (1992) - Blu-ray Review
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- By Loron Hays
Poor Ben (John-Paul Howard). No one believes him. No one. And he is seeing, as he has come in for the summer to work at his Dad’s marina, a lot of strange shit that defies easy explanation. Unfortunately, no one believes in witches anymore ...
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- By Loron Hays
Eight discs, six stories, and 650 minutes of classic science fiction. That’s what fans get with the BBC’s latest Doctor Who release which features the fourteenth season of classic Doctor Who, constituting the third trip around the sun for Tom Baker in the titular role as everyone’s favorite ...
Read more: Doctor Who: Tom Baker - The Complete Season Three (1976 - 1977) - Blu-ray Review
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- By Loron Hays
The drugs! The coppers! The crimes! And the Femme Fatales! It's all here in The Sleeping City! Sometimes, as is the case with 1950’s The Sleeping City, Film Noir offerings are notable for one thing entirely: their use of their location. Okay, okay, so The Sleeping City - which has ...
Read more: Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema III: The Sleeping City (1950) - Blu-ray Review
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- By Loron Hays
Lady Luck has no heart at all in this morality tale! The Lady Gambles begins with a stunning beatdown as its star, Barbara Stanwyck, is repeatedly attacked, smacked, and punched by a couple of thugs who feel cheated by her use of loaded dice in a ...
Read more: Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema III: The Lady Gambles (1949) - Blu-ray Review
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- By Loron Hays
“Mommy, can we come home?” With those words, Cookie (Melissa Leo) and her kid brother Tim (Randall Batinkoff) plead to return to their mother’s house. They’ve been kicked out because her new man hates them both. Their request is denied, so the two wander the bus station as ...
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- By Loron Hays
In which the nuns get it done! Thanks to the crackling cinematography of William H. Daniels (Six Bridges to Cross, Harvey, Winchester ‘73) and the performance of Claudette Colbert as Sister Mary who is haunted by the past, Thunder On The Hill roars off the screen with a fury that is relatively unmatched ...
Read more: Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema, Volume II: The Price of Fear (1956) - Blu-ray Review
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- By Loron Hays
It is said that when a woman fights for a man, she is like an ANIMAL! Vanessa Windsor (Hedy Lamarr), a spoiled Hollywood star, and her daughter, Penny (Jane Powell), fall head over heels in love with the same man, Chris Farley (George Nader), and they aren’t even aware of the other’s interest in him! Tabloid...
Read more: Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema II: The Female Animal (1958)
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- By Loron Hays
Sometimes a classic film - or one we now consider a classic of its genre - underwhelms in its original run. This is the curious case of Breakheart Pass, a film that continues - every five years or so - to garner more interest in it as it reaches new audiences thanks to Charles Bronson’s ...
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- By Loron Hays
The most successful 3D film of the 1950s has finally arrived on Blu-ray. André de Toth’s House of Wax brought Warner Bros a lot of fortune and fame during its original run in 1953 but the film is also known for something else: the rebirth of Vincent Price ...
Read more: House of Wax 3D: The Warner Archive Collection (1953) - Blu-ray Review
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- By Loron Hays
Because, sometimes, even babies need the support of the police! Pushing a hard-hitting social commentary, Abandoned - with a colorful set of character names - takes aim at selling unwanted babies as the City of Angels becomes ground zero for black ...
Read more: Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema III: Abandoned (1949) - Blu-ray Review
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- By Loron Hays
Arthur Kriticos' dream house - full of shatterproof glass cages and sliding steel panels - has arrived. . . but it’s a damn nightmare! Critically hammered and only very loosely based on William Castle’s original film, THIRT3EN Ghosts gets a second chance to make a lasting reflection in the glassy Halls of Horror thanks ...
Read more: THIRT3EN Ghosts Collector’s Edition (2001) - Blu-ray Review
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- By Loron Hays
It is no understatement to suggest that Bruce Lee’s return to Hong Kong, after America refused to make him a star, was the best thing for his career. Lee was pissed off; frustrated by Hollywood’s inherent racism and refusal to put any faith in the idea that an Asian could ever carry a profitable film ...
Read more: Bruce Lee: His Greatest Hits (1971 - 1978) - Blu-ray Review
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- By Loron Hays
What has the world come to when the director of Sasquatch at the Mall can't get a gig? That's what horror auteur Harry Penderecki is wondering. Once considered a horror legend, with a string of hits like Bowel Movement, People Pesticide and I'll Take the Ring Back and the Finger Too, he now finds himself ...
Read more: Brutal Massacre: A Comedy (2007) - Blu-ray Review
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- By Loron Hays
In which the nuns get it done! Thanks to the crackling cinematography of William H. Daniels (Six Bridges to Cross, Harvey, Winchester ‘73) and the performance of Claudette Colbert as Sister Mary who is haunted by the past, Thunder On The Hill roars off the screen with a fury that is relatively unmatched ...
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- By Loron Hays
The mystery! The murder! Corruption inside America’s Bible Belt! That’s the territory of Black Rainbow as writer/director Mike Hodges blends genres, creating a movie that takes on chemical plants and spiritual links to the After Life ...
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- By Loron Hays
Make no mistake about it, The Flesh and the Fiends is a righteous horror film, drooping left eye and all, as experimental vivisections rule the day. Lost men! Lost souls! With no apologies issued to the dead, The Flesh and the Fiends begins in a spooktacular fashion as a body is torn free from ...
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- By Loron Hays
Because not everyone can be saved. Inspired by the Great Brink's Robbery of 1950, Six Bridges To Cross makes its targets known early: trigger-happy cops and unrepentant criminals. Civil unrest. That’s what happens when a police officer (George Nader) shoots a kid during a robbery ...
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- By Loron Hays
An Act of Murder, in which a very uncompromising and stubborn judge learns a tough, tough lesson about guilt and morals, is perhaps one of the most forward-thinking film noir offerings in that it comes from the point of view of a man who defends a very strict and outdated view of law and ...
Read more: Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema, Volume IV: An Act of Murder (1948) - Blu-ray Review
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- By Loron Hays
“Two gin slings . . . with ice.” With that famous line, Alan Ladd (Shane) as American pilot, Neale Gordon, begins to fall for Virginia Moore (Gail Russell, The Uninvited). He doesn’t want to, but he can’t help himself. Hell, one look at her engaging beauty and I would, too. Holy cow is she a looker ...
Read more: Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema, Volume IV: Calcutta (1946) - Blu-ray Review
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- By Loron Hays
...in which the Golden Age of Radio meets the Chiller Comedies of the 1940s. No wonder Haunted Honeymoon was a box office bomb, but that doesn’t mean it needs to be ignored. The film, with over-the-top characters and spooky atmospheres, is damn funny ...
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- By Loron Hays
Okay, so A Bullet for Joey, directed by Lewis Allen (Appointment with Danger, The Perfect Marriage) and starring Edward G. Robinson and George Raft, doesn’t exactly fit so tidily into the whole film noir genre, but that doesn’t keep it from sharing certain elements of that cinematic world ...
Read more: Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema, Volume 1: A Bullet for Joey (1955)
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- By Loron Hays
The “witness” in this film noir title is Barbara Stanwyck. The murderer is George Sanders. I’m not spoiling anything for those who have never seen Witness to Murder. In fact, we see the murder happen in the very first scene as Stanwyck as Cheryl Draper looks out her apartment ...
Read more: Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema, Volume I: Witness to Murder (1954) - Blu-ray Review
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- By Loron Hays
From stunning, widescreen vistas in Colorado's Royal Gorge National Park to some deftly handled underwater scenes (filmed in Santa Monica, California), Big House, U.S.A. does not disappoint, going dark with the gruesome murder of a kid at the beginning ...
Read more: Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema, Volume 1: Big House, U.S.A. (1955)
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Movie Reviews
Morbidly Hollywood
- Colorado Street Suicide Bridge
- Death of a Princess - The Story of Grace Kelly's Fatal Car Crash
- Joaquin Phoenix 911 Call - River Phoenix - Viper Room
- Screen Legend Elizabeth Taylor Dies at 79
- Suicide and the Hollywood Sign - The Girl Who Jumped from the Hollywood Sign
- The Amityville Horror House
- The Black Dahlia Murder - The Death of Elizabeth Short
- The Death of Actress Jane Russell
- The Death of Brandon Lee
- The Death of Chris Farley
- The Death of Dominique Dunne
- The Death of George Reeves - the Original Superman