DVD Reviews

Delivering a gory right jab straight into the face of its viewers, Zombie Holocaust is easily the best cannibal/zombie meat-fest to ever emerge from Italy.  It’s a horror film that specializes in the absurd, the naked, and the fierce; featuring a mighty...

Horrible Bosses, in my opinion, is the real sequel to The Hangover.  It captures the same loose spirit and outlandish antics of that film and is just as hysterically mental without getting insincere and insulting toward its audience. It’s also a simple concept...

Mass-destruction on an apocalyptic level isn’t really a laughing matter…at least not always.  Driven by absurd logic, one-note performances and drive-thru fantasy, director Andrew Marton’s Crack in the World is precisely what happens...

The precarious life – and struggle to avoid death - of the Loggerhead Sea Turtle is illustrated beautifully in Nick Stringer’s Turtle: The Incredible Journey, a film that began its own North American sojourn back in 2009...

The public outcry for the extended editions to arrive on blu-ray sooner than later has been answered with a deafening and rather thorough box set.  Essentially, Peter Jackson’s assemblage of quality transfers and supplemental material shames all other ...

At Hammer Films, resurrection is the flavor of the month.  Once a staple of the Horror community, Hammer films reigned supreme for nearly thirty years producing such classics as The Curse of Frankenstein, Vampire Circus, and ...

With no 3D delights to dangle in front of audiences like a tempting carrot and no computer graphics to shock and dazzle kids either, Winnie the Pooh’s formula to its success rests in its willingness to explore...

Cinematically, it began a decade ago.  Eight films and three hundred billion-fazillion dollars later, the epic conclusion to the mysterious world of muggles and magicians has arrived.  Harry Potter and the Deathly Hallows Part 2 is ...

Loosely adapted from Roger Zelanzy's 1969 short story, Damnation Alley arrives on blu-ray courtesy of those B-movie lovers over at Shout! Factory.  The film, originally made in 1977, cost more to make than Star Wars: A New Hope did and looks ...

Famed writer/director/producer Roger Corman is not one to let a trend pass without notice and monetary capitalization.  Still looking to mine the Star Wars vein of golden riches and fortune and glory in 2980, he mounted his most expensive...

Director Andrew Traucki thrives on inferring undersea menaces.  In 2008, he brought to life alligator attacks in the terrifying thriller Black Water and now, in The Reef, he strands his five-member cast in Australia’s Great Barrier Reef and...

Drugs are bad, mkay?  Except when they aren’t.  As bad for you, I should add.  Science suggests that we only use something like 15% of our brain’s potential at any given time (or maybe throughout our lifetime). What a waste.  It’s a...

Turf wars get extraterrestrialized in Writer/Director Joe Cornish’s Attack the Block.  The film is rich in concrete jungle atmosphere and gritty laughs making its urban dynamics so grossly enjoyable. Energetic in its attempts to recapture the ...

For many long decades, people have scanned the horizons and wondered if humans were alone in the universe or if there were other creatures just waiting to communicate with us.  Yet, fear always sets in and our imaginations turn to galactic invasions and ...

Before making some of the finest films of the Silent Era, Buster Keaton (under the financial guidance of Joseph M. Schenck) made nineteen two-reelers that would define his well-known persona as “The Great Stone Face” comedian. Keaton was already established...

There seems to be a resurgence of stylized medieval actioners of late.  From Black Death to Centurion, these mostly independent features are side-stepping traditional Hollywood paths and pursuing a limited release in theatres, then settling into the Home Theatre market ...

Playing more like a poor man’s episode of The X-Files, Dylan Dog: Dead of Night doesn’t have much bite in its tale of vampires, zombies, and werewolves.  It’s an interesting attempt to revitalize the darker nature of vampires upon the streets of New Orleans ...

Going back to the start of Pierre Boulle's mythology, Rise of the Planet of the Apes sets the stage for the ape revolution and delivers their first uprising.  Half the movie is welcomed sci-fi soul courtesy ...

Popcorn epics don’t get much better than with director John Milius’ action-packed Conan the Barbarian.  This is sword and sorcery at its most rugged and (sometimes) goofiest.  Yet, never does it lose its sense of fun and ...

How quickly the mighty can fall.  In the mere two years since the original premiered, Conan the Destroyer presents us with the family friendly version of a barbarian who has no business being friendly or hanging around a family. The film ...

The body-swap flick gets a raunchy R-rated makeover in David Dobkins’ The Change-up, a film that fails to counter its smutty better half with anything other than schmaltzy, sentimental hogwash. So, instead of Wedding Crashers meets ...

“We’ve gone up a lot heavier than this.”  With that one sentence, the fate of seven people - all desperately trying to catch a flight to Johannesburg - are sealed together forever in Sands of Kalahari.  It’s a survival film from 1965 – a few years before the survival film ...

Releasing a meaningful movie at the very end of summer is grossly unheard of from the executives up in Hollyweird and yet that’s exactly what Dreamworks and Touchstone Pictures have done with The Help.  Powerful and powerfully moving ...

Offering a new take on ghosts, mysticism and matters of life and death, Apichatpong Weerasethakul's Uncle Boonmee Who Can Recall His Past Lives is also a bit tedious at times. The film is also a critical darling due to its ...

Splashy but predictable and a wee bit uninspired, Rio will certainly keep the kids in check but adults looking for something a bit more out of the unusual will have to go elsewhere.  It’s from the makers of Ice Age – and while that might garner some attention...

Snaking its way through 30 Minutes or Less, the sophomore big screen effort from Zombieland director Ruben Fleischer, is a foreboding sense of dread and darkness that permeates the humor like a stabbing reality check ...

For these turbulent times, there simply is no other film as influential and as important as Gillo Pontecorvo’s The Battle of Algiers.  Its black-and-white images are gritty and powerful and uncommonly modern for its 1966 date of production ...

Were Marcus Nispel’s Conan the Barbarian remake only 30 minutes long, it might be heralded as the only blood-riddled version you ever need to see of Robert E. Howard's scantily clad hero.  Schwarzenegger be damned. Unfortunately, the remake is not...

Beginning during the coldest part of the original Bambi, this direct-to-video sequel fills in the gaps of Bambi’s maturation under his father’s guidance. The animation isn’t as sharp as the original just a bit more glossy in its overall look. Bambi 2’s heart ...

Disaffecting, miscast, and thinly written, One Day is the pitch-perfect example of all the things that can go wrong when attempting to adapt a highly acclaimed novel to the big screen. Especially when the source material tells the story of an ever-evolving long-term ...