DVD Reviews

The Monster That Challenged the World might not be the smartest creature feature from the heyday of the atomic age but it is nonetheless enjoyable. It opens with a peaceful shot of what is supposed to be California’s Salton Sea as a brilliant white light – emerging ...

A professor, haunted by his own words of disbelief in the supernatural, runs across an empty beach as the surf crashes violently against a steady shore of rock and sand.  He is frantic in his search for his wife who is convinced that the taking of her life will prevent the loss of his.  This scene is one of  ...

Written and directed by John McTiernan, Nomads is a film whose reputation as a disappointing film suffers solely because it was released way ahead of its time.  Print critics simply killed the film with the pen and their negative reviews upon its initial release in 1986 but –  ...

While not remarkable, Lost After Dark is a somewhat effective throwback to the heydey of Slasher flicks that once made the drive-in rounds while knocking off Friday the 13th.  This Canadian feature played well at festival circuits last year and, thanks to Anchor Bay  ...

Sometimes shit is shit.  Writer/director Ryan Bellgardt’s Army of Frankensteins is being advertised as a horror/comedy.  It is neither.  It’s just a bad film that – even with its intriguing premise of a time travelling Frankenstein trapped in the Civil War – goes nowhere fast.  Released by  ...

The directorial debut from Brian Yuzna simply will not be silenced. It is, at once, disgusting and gratuitous and demented; however, its message about wealth and excess expands out beyond the yuppie influence of its origins and speaks volumes here in the golden age of  ...

…in which we meet Invader ZIM’s inspiration. While perfectly harmless, Spaced Invaders is a kid’s movie that had the potential to be something a little bit more than a silly Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles knockoff. Halloween night. A War of the Worlds rebroadcast ...

While most of sexploitation director Pete Walker’s films (Die Screaming, Marianne, The Flesh and Blood Show, House of Whipcord) have been greeted with disgust and condemnation, House of Long Shadows is his – as far as the horror genre goes – his most noteworthy. Check  ...

With strong hues of murderous reds and neon blues, Tobe Hooper’s follow-up to The Texas Chainsaw Massacre has always been regarded as a stylized mess.  It is neither good enough nor horrible enough to dismiss without a second thought, though.  It is a movie that   ...

Hailing from the early years of the Blaxploitation movement in cinema, Jim Brown in 1972’s Slaughter is one helluva serious bad ass.   He never smiles and puts EVERYONE in his or her place.  The film – as its blu-ray arrives this week courtesy of Olive Films – remains  ...

With the release of Jackie Chan’s Rumble in the Bronx and First Strike on blu-ray this week Warner’s back catalog of New Line titles finally begin their much-delayed martial arts HD rollout.  These are, mind you, bare-boned releases with a 2K visual upgrade and no special  ...

Operating along the same guidelines as a raging bull in a china shop, James Roday’s directorial-debut Gravy, now appreciating a solid release on blu-ray thanks to Scream! Factory, is a gonzo-spirited horror-comedy that definitely does not disappoint.   This freewheeling comedy  ...

Riddle me this. Besides being movies I like, what do Evil Dead II, Moontrap, Army of Darkness and John Woo's Hard Target all have in common? It's not Bruce Campbell. It's the not the splatterific amount of gore either...but close. It's special effects artist Gary Jones  ...

I have to say that in the vampire category of horror flicks there are very few I find to be actually worthy of a true scare.  The Return of Count Yorga is one of those.  This new age take on sunny Californian vampirism succeeds where the original near skinflick, Count Yorga  ...

Swiping its title from an Edgar Allan Poe short story, The Oblong Box is American International Pictures’ answer to life after Roger Corman, who stopped his Poe & Price AIP film cycle in 1965.  This time, Gordon Hessler (The Golden Voyage of Sinbad), takes his first step behind  ...

Billy Zane.  Billy Zane.  Billy “You fucking ho-dunk, po-dunk, well then there motherfuckers!” Zane.  Demon Knight, the first “Tales from the Crypt” movie, finally arrives on a newly minted HD transfer thanks to the Horror Hounds at Scream Factory, an imprint of Shout Factory  ...

Five men board a train. They don’t know each other. They hardly acknowledge one another until a sixth joins them in the same small compartment. Little do they know that their final destination is linked together by this mysterious figure and the tarot cards he carries with  ...

While considered a rather weak film serial when compared to other flicks of the era, Flying Disc Man from Mars – a 12-part science fiction offering from Republic – is a solid example of just how silly and fun the format was for moviegoers.  Olive Films, who released The Invisible  ...

Genre fans rejoice!  The creature feature B-movie category just got a brand spankin’ new addition to its roster of gore, charm, and cheese.  Stung, directed by Benni Diez, is just the type of garden party turned story of survival you’ve been waiting for.  Full of genetically-mutated   ...

Bruce Dern attaching two heads to a monkey.  Hell, Dern attaching two heads to anything!!!  If that image doesn’t get you excited for a schlock film full of nastiness, then I doubt little else will.  You should probably stop reading and click somewhere else. Still here?  Okay ...

It's a Wonderful Life’s Gloria Grahame and Len Lesser (ya know, Uncle Leo from Seinfeld), make a deadly duo in Philip Gilbert’s Blood and Lace. Written and co-produced by Gil Lasky (The Night God Screamed), the slasher flick is a wannabe skin flick that teases its sleaze  ...

...because little kids really can be this terrible!  The horror/comedy hybrid is a really weird and tricky sub-genre to tackle as a writer.  Everything has to hit in such a manner that it satisfies both genre devotees just right.  Leave it then to one of Glee’s creators, Ian Brennan, and ...

Bela Lugosi. George Zucco. John Carradine. Why wouldn’t a Horror Hound NOT want to check out director William Beaudine’s Voodoo Man? Of course, there are plenty of things wrong with this unintentionally campy horror flick BUT it’s all so perfectly harmless that  ...

It was only a matter of time. Poe couldn’t be the sole horror author to get ALL the attention from the cinema. And so, when it came to a new round of anthology items to consider, Vincent Price found himself caught inside the pages of Nathaniel Hawthorne’s Gothicism  ...

When you get to a B-movie as aptly titled as The Brain that Wouldn’t Die, you – of course – have to embrace disbelief with open arms. If you do, you won’t exactly be disappointed with the results as one doctor refuses to give up on his girlfriend and decides to attach her   ...

James Brolin. A demonic car. Some Native American warnings. And the arid American desert. What else do you need to have one helluva damn good time? Nothing. And that's exactly the territory of The Car, a horror film that owes its inception to the success of Jaws. Directed by   ...

…in which the origins of American International Pictures are unearthed… B-movies, quite literally, do not get any worse than with the events depicted inside The Beast of 10,000 Leagues.  Born from America’s post WWII fears, the quick look at the nuclear-made ...

South Korea’s first entry into the kaiju movie genre is probably the sole reason to ever pick up a copy of Kino-Lorber’s 1080p treatment of Yongary, Monster from the Deep and that truly is ONLY if you are nut about the genre. Believe me when I tell you that this is a monster   ...

When we get to the films of director Frederick R. Friedel let it be known that we are in very special B-movie territory. Inspired equally by the eye of Orson Welles and the taste of Roger Corman, Friedel and his gang of film conspirators combined their talents and put North   ...

Warner Bros – as part of their Archive Collection – simply do not realize or appreciate some of the lesser-known gems they have on their hands. With the bare-boned blu-ray release of The Ice Pirates, their misunderstanding of this science fiction comedy is as audible as it ...