Reel Reviews - Movie Reviews, blu-ray/DVD reviews

Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema, Volume I: Storm Fear (1955) - Blu-ray Review

Details: Published: 14 July 2020; Written by Loron Hays

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Classic film noir - with its emphasis on atmosphere and futility - simply doesn’t get any more claustrophobic than in Cornel Wilde’s directorial debut, Storm Fear. A classic thriller which has West (The Naked Prey) starring, producing, and directing ...

Yeti: The Giant of the 20th Century (1977) - Blu-ray Review

Details: Published: 14 July 2020; Written by Loron Hays

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It begins, hilariously enough, with some fairly shitty-looking stock footage of glaciers sliding off into the sea. Big budget this Yeti flick is not. Relatively quickly, we are whisked away to a fishing trip that quickly gets ruined by a ...

Coven - Movie Review

Details: Published: 14 July 2020; Written by Loron Hays

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If the opening few frames of Coven - as five scantily clad females (later referred to as "Josie and The Pussylickers") make their way toward us through smoke and a pitch-black night - doesn’t get your attention, then nothing else will in this supernatural horror film. These badass babes definitely ...

Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema, Volume I: He Ran All the Way (1951) - Blu-ray Review

Details: Published: 13 July 2020; Written by Loron Hays

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“You’ll eat my dinner or one of you walks out of here with a bullet in his head.” John Garfield, one of the original rebels in film cinema, is absolutely on fire in He Ran All The Way and, sitting right next to him, is Shelley Winters, a true partner in crime, as ...

Film Noir: The Dark Side of Cinema, Volume I: Witness to Murder (1954) - Blu-ray Review

Details: Published: 13 July 2020; Written by Loron Hays

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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 ...

The War of the Worlds: Criterion Collection (1953) - Blu-ray Review

Details: Published: 13 July 2020; Written by Loron Hays

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“No one would have believed, in the middle of the 20th century, that human affairs were being watched keenly and closely by Intelligences greater than man's. Yet, across the gulf of space on the planet Mars, intellects vast and cool and unsympathetic regarded our Earth with envious eyes ...

Mr. Majestyk (1974) - Blu-ray Review

Details: Published: 12 July 2020; Written by Loron Hays

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Never mess with another man's melons! Once that sick theme song from composer Charles Bernstein kicks in, you know that this film is going to be an epic showdown. It doesn't disappoint either. No clean window - be it in a car or a house - can stop him ...

Deany Bean is Dead - Movie Review

Details: Published: 10 July 2020; Written by Loron Hays

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“Imagine plunging the murderous edge of your knife into the beating red heart of your enemy. Imagine the satisfaction of wrapping your fingers around the neck of someone you can’t stand. Imagine how you would feel to squeeze the last breath out of their hollow body. Imagine. Imagine. Imagine.” ...

Horrors of Spider Island (1960) - Blu-ray Review

Details: Published: 09 July 2020; Written by Loron Hays

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The horror! The hilarity! The frauleins! Insanity follows in Horrors of Spider Island, a Z-grade schlockfest, from Germany! Released here in the United States as It's Hot in Paradise, with some cuts made so that all the girls keeping their clothes on, the horror film finally sees the light of day again ...

Parallax - Movie Review

Details: Published: 08 July 2020; Written by Loron Hays

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Displacement. That’s EXACTLY what Parallax, a psychodrama science fiction thriller from writer and director Michael W. Bachochin (Cascadia; God Forgive Us), is about as a young artist wakes up to a life she doesn’t recognize. She doesn’t respond to relatives. She doesn’t react to the ...