DVD Reviews

Ki-ki-ki-ma-ma-ma.  Two repeating syllables is all it takes to conjure up memories of pure evil slashing away at fleshy objects in the night.  I know we fans of Friday the 13th and its many incarnations have been burnt before by subsequent releases of these films, but Scream Factory - issuing ALL the films together with love, care, and respect - have seriously come through with their latest release the Friday the 13th Collection  ...

Dark Infinity and genre filmmaker Dustin Ferguson (who is comparable only to Roger Corman when it comes to impressive B-movie offerings) have yet another horror hit on their hands with the FIVE terrifying stories absolutely crawling and clawing their way through the innards of Tales for the Campfire 3 ...

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  ...

Candy, Mandy, Sandy, Andy and Randy!  Say it again with all the joy you can muster!  And then there’s Glen.  Glen . . . Dandy! Yes, those are the names of possible victims in Pandemonium, a horror spoof directed by Alfred Sole (Alice, Sweet, Alice), and - whether it be via strip poker, a trampoline, javelin ...

Question for you all, Dear Readers.  When is a ship not like a ship?  When it’s a Ghost Ship! And, true to its name, this supernatural horror film from Dark Castle Entertainment - who previously brought to life the Thirteen Ghosts remake - doesn’t behave at all like a boat afloat as its ...

A crossdressing criminal who’s paranoia causes him to become fully committed to his matriarchal role in a hideout from the cops?  Something this wild - two gay pyschopaths assuming the identities of nephew and aunt - could only come out of Florida in the 1970s, especially when you see just how ...

Arriving just in time for a quarantined Halloween, Spooky House has re-opened its doors for all the kiddos to delight in!  While not my favorite Halloween film, this quirky comedy does have some laugh out loud moments thanks to a skeleton on a toilet and his magazine reading material  ...

Infidelity made private investigator and war veteran Jake Gittes (Jack Nicholson) the man he is today.  We know this having seen the excellent Chinatown, but admits as much in the opening line of The Two Jakes, the 1990 Nicholson-directed sequel to that 1974 film, now on blu-ray  ...

Release the blood parasites! One of the images that has long haunted my dreams and nightmares is that of a shirtless man bent over a nude woman’s body - which is placed on a desk in an office - as he opens up her stomach, pours acid into her open chest cavity and then, taking the same instrument ...

Family cult classics?  Sure!  Little Monsters is back in action because knowing that urine and apple juice are interchangeable is something one needs to know early on in life! ...

Sometimes the road to the altar - or in this case, the justice of the peace - is fraught with unexpected unexpected bumps along the way, like a fun media-frightened Archduke, saving a gangster from drowning, rescuing a missing cruise liner, and prank calling an insane asylum ...

The Awful Truth might have been Cary Grant’s first SUCCESSFUL screwball comedy, but Big Brown Eyes - with its witty dialogue and snappy performances - is, for my money' worth, the FIRST screwball comedy that he starred in.  Never heard of it?  Change that.  Quick ...

“How could it be hot when it’s Chile?” Businessman Julian De Lussac (Cary Grant) is back in Paris and he doesn’t know what he’s doing.  At all.  Which makes this Grant-centered film, his 17th film, a fun jaunt down the romantic comedy aisle of a bygone era.  Ladies Should Listen, only ...

Cinephile Kiddies and Cretins, come gather round and let me tell you a story about two bumbling reporters who, on an assignment to Dracula’s home turf, uncover the continuing reign of a bi-polar mad scientist who experiments on people, turning them into crotch-grabbing swamp monsters ...

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 ...

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  ...

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 ...

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  ...

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 ...

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  ...

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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  ...

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 ...

“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 ...

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  ...

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...

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  ...

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 ...