I’ll plead guilty in admitting that I’ve never understood why “C.H.U.D.” is considered a horror classic. The title is great, as it completely lays the cards out on the table for the audience. The concept is golden, as underground mutants that eat random people in the big city is ripe for a great monster movie. But when you get down to the actual movie itself, it’s a romance drama, mixed with a political thriller, with man eating underground mutants that kind of sort of appear in the finale for a bit here and there. You go in to it expecting a creepy monster film, but what you get is “The China Syndrome.”
Greenlight (2019) [Shriekfest 2019]
A young filmmaker gets the opportunity of a lifetime to direct his first feature film based on the talent anhard work shown in his short films and a little luck. However, a few strings come attached to the offer.
The Omen Collection: Deluxe Edition [Blu-Ray]
After the release of the 2008 “The Omen” Collection, Shout Factory brings fans a brand new exhaustive release of “The Omen” movie saga in a pristine new box set. There’s even wonderful new art for fans. If you’re a hardcore fanatic for “The Omen,” this is about as great as it gets, and it doesn’t satisfy your appetite for Damien Thorne and his grand master plan to take over the world well then, you’re very hard to please. In either case, this is a set that every horror buff must own, as it’s pretty fantastic and brings together every single “The Omen” on Blu-Ray. I would have loved to see the pilot for “The Omen” as an extra, but hey, I admit that that’s merely nitpicking.
Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer (1986)
John McNaughton’s horror drama is a pitch black film that managed to raise so much controversy upon its release and to this day is still a very polarizing work of art in the horror genre. Like “Texas Chainsaw Massacre” it centers on a point of humanity and pure evil that is irredeemable and absolutely impossible to rationalize. “Henry” is that kind of movie without a single bright spot, a tale about a shapeless person indulging in sadism and murder who thinks of snuffing out human life as a mundane hobby that he revels in indulging in.
The Shining (1980) [4K UHD/Blu-Ray/Digital]
We’re at the middle of an all out Stephen King renaissance where, once again, he is a hot item in Hollywood. Many of his short stories and novels are being adapted in to big, acclaimed projects, and we’re even getting second stabs at “The Stand” and a third stab at “Salem’s Lot.” With “Doctor Sleep” on the way, and Hollywood opening the scope of King’s writing for films or television, there is an inevitable remake of “The Shining” coming. But until then, fans of Kubrick’s loose cinematic adaptation can now invest in the 4K edition of the horror masterpiece.
Cluny Brown (1946)
Ernst Lubitsch’s last completed film was a riff on the British class system in the period before World War II. The estate of Sir Henry Carmel is turned upside down by two outsiders: Adam Belinski (Charles Boyer), a Czechoslovakian writer forced from his country by the Nazis, and Cluny Brown (Jennifer Jones), the orphaned niece of a Cockney plumber who is hired as the new maid but who secrets desires to pursue her uncle’s profession.
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Elizabeth Taylor Forever!
For the first episode of the fourth season of “The Online Movie Show with Phil Hall,” the focus is the life and career of Elizabeth Taylor, tracking her from precocious child star to glamourous screen icon to humanitarian work that saved thousands of lives. Actor-comic-writer-raconteur Kevin Dolan is the guest on this show, which is produced at Pleasant Podcasts.