I’ve watched a lot, and I do mean a LOT of bad movies in the last few years, and some of these movies are so much fun and were made with such love and sincerity that I will unironically never forget them for the rest of my life. They’re almost like happy memories. They bring joy, just thinking about them. Then there’s movies like Without Warning, where I watched it about a week ago and forgot every single solitary thing about it within a day and had to re-watch the whole stupid mess again just to write this review. Yeah, it’s that kind of movie. Continue reading
The Abominable Dr. Phibes (1971)
This 1971 feature from the American International Pictures fun factory is a work at odds with itself. It wants to be campy, but it is never that funny. It wants to be a horror film, but poor direction dilutes the effectiveness of the chills. And while it succeeds as a Vincent Price vehicle, it fails to bring along the rest of the cast for the ride.
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Hellraiser: Quartet of Torment [Arrow Video]
Now available on Blu-ray and 4K from Arrow Video
This set contains the first four films in the Hellraiser franchise as well as a hardcover book with new writing from Phil and Sarah Stokes.
A Man on His Knees (Un uomo in ginocchio) (1979) [Radiance]
Now available from Radiance Films
A man living a quiet life soon finds himself mixed in with a kidnapping needing to prove his innocence and protect his family.
Despiser (2003) [Visual Vengeance]
Now available on Blu-ray from Visual Vengeance
An artist who was just dumped by his wife and fired from his work finds himself in an unexpected version of purgatory.
Unnatural (2024)
Now available on VOD
I’m a sucker for a good Western. Low budget, a lack of star-power, none of that really bothers me, so long as it hits high on the ol’ Yeehawometer. Likewise, I’m a sucker for a good vampire pic, pun only slightly intended. Mix the two, though, and you usually wind up with more Cookie’s Camp Mush than a Texas T-bone. There have been some decent genre mashups over the years, though- take 2005’s The Burrowers as a fine example. So I went into 2024’s Unnatural with my breath held, just in case I was wading into undead horse-hockey.
When Jack the Ripper Met Sherlock Holmes
One of the least credible theories regarding the identity of Jack the Ripper insists the serial killer was Arthur Conan Doyle, who was a practicing physician prior to gaining wider fame as the creator of Sherlock Holmes with the publication of “A Study in Scarlet” in 1887. There is no evidence – not even the most frayed wisp of preposterous circumstance – to place Conan Doyle in Whitechapel at the time of the killings, let alone providing him with a motive for the crimes.