I wish there were more movies like Jesse Blanchard’s “Frank & Zed” in theaters and midnight movie showings. It’s a movie that promises to become a cult classic and for good reason. Not only is it wildly inventive, and absolutely charming, but I was completely sucked in to everything from the story, the gruesome gore, and the shockingly incredible production values (40 Handmade puppets!). While the movie is low budget, Blanchard’s ability to make every single element of his film feel epic in scope, keeps “Frank & Zed” consistently brilliant and absolutely entertaining.
Category Archives: Halloween Horror Month
Scooby Doo! Pirates Ahoy! (2006)
2006’s “Pirates Ahoy!” is one of the more clever animated sequels to come from the aughts when the “Scooby Doo” movie series was pretty much stale. By this time they’d given up fighting real monsters, and reverted back to criminals and goons with fancy costumes and illusions. It’s surprising how much talent these direct to DVD movies always attract, and the cast compliments what is a pretty nifty mystery, altogether.
Friday the 13th Collection: Deluxe Edition [Blu-ray]
Full Disclosure: The “Deluxe Edition” was purchased at my own leisure and not provided by Scream Factory; the review presented is completely honest.
2020 has been filled with a ton of surprises for movie fans, and one of the better ones was the sudden introduction of the Deluxe “Friday the 13th Collection” from Scream Factory. While there have been a ton of re-releases since the initial DVD set in 2004, Scream Factory has never been prone to just re-packaging the same movies in to “new” sets, so it was no shock when the Deluxe Collection for “Friday the 13th” was announced, fans crashed Scream Factory’s site to order the set. Suffice to say, Scream Factory simply hasn’t failed horror buffs and Jason Voorhees fanatics. What began as a means of ripping off “Halloween” in 1979, Sean Cunningham and screenwriter Victor Miller’s summer camp slasher film became an iconic pop culture sensation and long running franchise.
Transylvania 6-5000 (1985)
Director Rudy De Luca amassed a career working with and writing for Mel Brooks, so it’s likely intentional that “Transylvania 6-5000” feels like an attempted companion piece to “Young Frankenstein.” It seems to aspire to do so more times than the viewer would like. “Transylvania 6-5000” feels like a pseudo or spiritual sequel to “Young Frankenstein” which is a good element in some instances and works to its detriment in other instances.
Stay Tuned (1992)
Peter Hyams’ horror comedy was way ahead of its time in 1992, and it’s a film that warrants so much more examination, mainly because of its prophetic view of television. Back in 1992 television was humongous and low income houses were finally getting access to cable television, so naturally there was a lot of ballyhoo about its addictive nature. Speaking as a television junky, “Stay Tuned” was a great bit of satire that also dabbled in to the arena of “So Bad it’s Good.” It’s not laugh out loud funny, but it’s often very clever, and never misses a chance to deliver some kind of word horror oriented pun.
Shorts Round Up of the Week: October Terrors
I hope this year has been merciful to you, as October is now in full motion. After such a terrible, bizarre year, feel free to lose yourself in five short horror films for our October festivities, which are no in full swing! Warning: Some of the reviews include the short films for your viewing pleasure, while others are just the teaser.
If you’d like to submit your short film for review consideration, submissions are always opened to filmmakers and producers.
Scary Movie (1991)
It’s surprising that Daniel Erickson’s “Scary Movie” has fallen so consistently under the radar, especially during the rise of modern Halloween oriented movies. Erickson’s movie is very misleading in that it feels a lot like it meanders back and forth narratively, but in the end, charges head first in to something absolutely clever. John Hawkes’ performance as a gaping, clueless, and frightened young man is wholly intentional. Warren is basically the foundation of “Scary Movie” as he wanders around his small towns’ haunted house attraction on Halloween night literally terrified of his own shadow.