DVD Reviews

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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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  ...

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  ...

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 ...

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  ...

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 ...

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  ...

“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 ...

...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 ...

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 ...

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 ...

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  ...

“You don’t want to go out.  You don’t want to go home.  What do you want to do, Andie?” The pink, volcanic ensembles.  The cast - Molly Ringwald, Harry Dean Stanton, Jon Cryer, Annie Potts, James Spader, and Andrew McCarthy - bringing their best acting to a BRILLIANT script ...

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  ...

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 ...

“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 ...

“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 ...

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 ...

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  ...

In the wake of composer Ennio Morricone’s passing, there are few things as beautiful and as moving as his score set to the playful opening of prolific movie mogul Dino De Laurentiis’ Orca: The Killer Whale!  Sure, this is a JAWS rip-off, but watching those beautiful beasts hurl themselves out  ...

The Dynamic Duo of silent AND sound comedy return! This release has been a long time coming, but finally - thanks to Jeff Joseph in conjunction with the UCLA Film & Television Archive and the Library of Congress - Stan Laurel and Oliver Hardy have arrived on ...

Calling all fans of 1970s cinema!  Severin Films has got your ticket to ride with what has to be one of the strangest science fiction offerings, The Astrologer.  Slow-moving and centered around a covert government agency which monitors astrological signs to see if a person is good or bad, this film will leave ...

You haven't seen anything until you witness a double amputee karate kick someone's ass straight into a pool.  In slow motion, nonetheless.  That's the exploitative territory we're headed into in tonight's viewing of Mr. No Legs.  Get the beer ready! ...

The Cameraman is the film in which Buster Keaton’s character (accidentally double exposing some pretty hilarious images over each other) discovers the avant-garde on accident.  All joking aside, this comedic masterpiece from the silent era - with one scene hilariously depicting Keaton  ...

Kiddos, when it comes to making movies, films RARELY get this ambitious. Primal Scream is what happens when Dashiell Hammett and Arthur C. Clarke get together, smoke a little weed, and decide to make a movie. Outside of Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow, there is simply nothing  ...

Men and women in ape suits?  Yes, please! The Universal Horror Collection returns with even more mad scientists, crazed apes, and wild women!  Woot, woot!  I’ve been excited for this release since it was originally announced and, with a few short months of waiting ...

Believe it or not, the meta-munching kills of Babyface (Raicho Vasilev) are back!  Completely ignored by damn near everyone at the time of its release, The Hills Run Red brought the “babyface” mask to horror enthusiasts a decade before Happy Death Day and Happy Death Day 2 U and ...

Produced and expertly directed by Sean S. Cunningham and written by Victor Miller, Friday the 13th, being the first independent movie to get distributed by a major studio, never seems to get the credit it deserves.  We take it for granted with much of the discussion revolving around which  ...