Evil Dead 2: Dead By Dawn (1987)

Posted on April 5, 2013 by Felix Vasquez

The sequel to “The Evil Dead” is once again what happens when Sam Raimi has little and can do so much with it. As director, Raimi finds new ways to enthrall the viewer and add a new appendage to the “Evil Dead” series without ruining the former film. “Dead by Dawn” acts as a sequel and a pseudo-remake, that recaps the original film in a brevity, and then proceeds to follow along with the journey of Ash Williams. Becoming the accidental hero in many ways, Ash is a man tasked with fighting the demonic beings of the necronomicon, not because he chooses to, but because he simply can’t escape their grasp.

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A Final Bow to Roger Ebert

Posted on April 5, 2013 by Felix Vasquez

“I’ll see you at the movies.” – Roger Ebert’s Final Written Words.

It’s as I said in my review for “Starting Out in the Evening”: Come obscurity, irrelevance, success, or fame, a writer still has to write, regardless. In Roger Ebert’s case it was, come disease, sickness, and life altering illness, a writer still has to write. And Roger Ebert, no matter what he faced in his life, had to write. In the end, whether you agreed with him, hated his ability to raise controversy, or just had a relative indifference toward him, very few movie critics changed the world of cinema and the landscape of writing as he did. It’s with a heavy heart that I write about the passing of my favorite movie critic of all time, as Roger was a man who seemed to almost know he was dying.

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An Interview with "The Dream Seekers"

Posted on April 5, 2013 by Felix Vasquez

Peter Dukes and his comrades at Dreamseekers Productions have been giving genre fans some unique short films for many years, and most recently they delved in to the werewolf sub-genre with their short film “The Beast” co-starring Bill Obsert Jr. In the midst of directing his latest short film “Little Reaper,” director Peter Dukes took time out for an interview and discuss his love for film, his methodology, and his plans for “Little Reaper,” a short film about the grim reaper’s rebellious young daughter.

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The Stand (1994)

Posted on March 31, 2013 by Felix Vasquez

Mick Garris’ 1994 cinematic adaptation of Stephen King’s The Stand is one half a great epic post apocalyptic tale of human endurance, and one half a preachy and overwrought religious tale about God, the Devil, and a lot of hokey sermonizing that falls flat. Which is not to say it bogs down the film, but as King is noted for, “The Stand” eventually devolves in to religious hokum that completely eliminates the appeal of the original story.

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The Road (2009)

Posted on March 31, 2013 by Felix Vasquez

I respect Cormac McCarthy for exploring the less stylish side of the apocalypse. While many modern fictional outlets have given a real sense of sensationalism to the end of the world, “The Road” is an often uncompromising, cruel, and disturbing look at the end of civilization. It’s a world full of cowards, a world where humans prey on one another out of desperation for food, and it’s a world where there’s literally no hope. The world is dying all around a man and his son, and the pair can do nothing but hold tighter together and spend every waking hour looking for food. Viggo Mortensen who plays the man known by his son as simply papa is a haggard shell with dirty nails, stained teeth, and a gradually fading health, while his son spends most of the story taking on the weight of the world. And yet, even when confronted with the worst of human cruelty, he can not find the worst in humanity. He wants to believe there’s still some good in the world.

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Rapid Fire (1992)

Posted on March 31, 2013 by Felix Vasquez

After cameos in “Kung Fu,” a still laughable premiere in “Laser Mission,” and shifting out of the shadows of bigger names in “Showdown in Little Tokyo,” Brandon Lee finally garnered his own action vehicle in 1992. Whether you like, love, or hate the movie, there’s no denying Brandon Lee had what it took. With the fading mold of the action star becoming an antiquated concept in modern cinema, Brandon Lee had the chops to become a bonafide film star who could have built himself an empire in the same way Michael Douglas did by straying from the legacy of his father Kirk Douglas.

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