Director Tom De Simone’s “Hell Night” usually gets lumped in together with a lot of the other eighties slashers, but in reality his genre offering is so much more unique than a simple hack and slash. “Hell Night” is a great Halloween horror romp that feels like something pulled out of a haunted house Gothic novel. It’s the perfect fixture for the holiday delivering a relentlessly bleak tone that makes it quite an unnerving experience all the way through. Linda Blair can do these kinds of horror movies in her sleep and she plays final girl Marti quite well, doing her best to battle a deformed monster in its territory.
Category Archives: Collector’s Den
Cinema Crazed Holiday Gift Guide: Our Suggestions for the Respective Geek or Movie Lover
It’s that time of year, the time where we rush out to buy presents for our loved ones for Christmas, or Hanukah, or Kwanzaa, or Festivus. Or whatever you celebrate. To ease the troubles of looking for something special for that nephew you’ve only met two times in the last ten years, but know he likes movies… we have suggestions for you!
Eve of Destruction (1991) [Blu-Ray]
Now Available from Shout! Factory
I’m all for the idea that every movie no matter how bad they may be, has some kind of value to them. I’m not saying that “Eve of Destruction” is a bad movie, I’m just wondering why it received a Blu-Ray release from Shout! when it’s a fairly unremarkable movie. It’s about as routine and stale as you’d imagine a movie made in the post-“Terminator” era could be, where every studio dealt us their own movie about a killing machine run amok with a big gun or massive weapon. Here we’re given a weird central plot about clones Gregory Hines who is about the least convincing military mercenary ever put to film.
“Warlock” Collection [Vestron Video Collector’s Series] [Blu-Ray]
It’s ironic, and perhaps not incidental, that Vestron would release the entire movie series for “Wishmaster” and “Warlock.” They’re two weak attempts at movie maniacs in a pretty stale decade for horror, and deep down while they have potential to be menacing and terrifying horror villains, they’re poorly realized, and potentially trail off in to absolute nothingness. “Warlock” is not as bad a slope as “Wishmaster,” as it managed to gain some momentum in the nineties, even sporting a Sega Genesis video game in 1995 which involved platforming, and fighting off zombies and demonic beasts with magic spells. 1989’s “Warlock” is a tonally confused movie that wants sorely to be a horror film, but ends up sliding in to dark fantasy territory by the time it draws to a close.
Misery (1990): Collector’s Edition [Blu-Ray]
It’s been a banner year for Stephen King fans everywhere, and Shout Factory sweetens the pot by giving Rob Reiner’s horror masterpiece “Misery” a collector’s edition. Based on the classic Stephen King novel, Rob Reiner who is no stranger to adapting King’s work, brings to screen a work of terror, dark comedy, and a demented commentary about the fans behind our work that also control our work. It’s a very volatile and sharp edged polemic about fandom when you get right down to it, and it’s never been more relevant than in the day and age where fandoms from all corners of the world have the loudest voices and sometimes can break the very thing they love.
TV on DVD: Supergirl: The Complete Second Season [Blu-Ray/Digital], The Flash: The Complete Third Season [Blu-Ray/Digital]
“Supergirl” never really fit in on CBS, since the channel has almost always avoided genre fare since its renaissance in the early aughts. “Supergirl” finally found a great home at the CW network, avoiding being cancelled, and gets a chance to bloom and fit in with her fellow superheroes at the channel. For the second outing of the “Supergirl” series, the writers and producers are so much more devoted to bringing in new viewers. Not only did the network give a whole season marathon over the course of the summer before its debut, but season two finally introduces this iteration of Superman.
Satan’s Cheerleaders (1977) [Blu-Ray/DVD]
Widescreen and Uncut for movie buffs everywhere, “Satan’s Cheerleaders” is a wonderful piece of crap that mixes all of the seventies hallmarks in a ninety two minute piece of junk food. There’s your disco soundtrack, your scantily clad cheerleaders (Kerry Sherman is a stonecold babe), and of course what would the decade be without Satanic cults and women in the buff praising an altar of some kind? “Satan’s Cheerleaders” is a delightfully campy bit of nonsense that felt like someone had a script for a horror movie and a teen sports movie and put them together for the sake of getting a movie funded.