For another year, Cinema Crazed is covering the Cinepocalypse Genre Film Festival. 2019 promises to be a fun year for the festival as programmers promise to screen some classic genre entries, as well as screening some of the most unique and original horror films from around the world. Presiding over the jury this year is Joel Schumacher; here are five reasons to be excited for this year’s festival.
Batman and Robin (1997) [4K UHD/Blu-Ray/Digital]
No matter what you feel about “Batman and Robin,” you can’t deny that it almost killed the comic book movie as a sub-genre. It also about killed the careers of Alicia Silverstone, Chris O’Donnell, and Uma Thurman, all of whom took years to recover. Even today with so much nostalgia and looking back on classically bad movies, “Batman and Robin” is still just bad. I understand Warner wanted kid friendly, and Joel Schumacher delivered on kid friendly, but in the process he also delivered a nigh unwatchable sequel that also killed Batman on film for years until Christopher Nolan swooped in to reboot the whole kit and caboodle.
HI-DEATH (2019)
I honestly never go in to any movie prepared to hate it. I approach every single movie with even the lowest of expectations and always hope to be surprised and thoroughly entertained. With “Hi-Death” though, this is a movie I had a difficult time finding any redeeming traits for. I love anthology horror, I love throwbacks to classic VHS and SOV days of horror and science fiction, but “Hi-Death” is a confusing mess of an indie horror film that will test the patience of any hardcore horror fan.
Terror in the Skies: Mothman, Winged Demons, Thunderbirds, Prehistoric Remnants (2019)
With Godzilla and giant monsters currently stomping through American cinemas, “Terror in the Skies” comes at the right time asking us about allegedly real giant monsters. Throughout decades of folklore and legends, there have been encounters with giant winged beasts, and supernatural monsters, all of which have managed to spawn mass hysteria and mysterious accounts by locals of various towns around America. While “Terror in the Skies” has potential to be a creepy documentary, it watches so much more like afternoon filler on basic cable.
The Universal Horror Collection: Volume 1 [Blu-Ray]
When “The Universal Horror Collection” was originally announced, it was titled the “Boris Karloff/Bela Lugosi Collection” by Shout Factory. One can only assume that they’ve managed to retain the rights to many Universal movies obscure and classic, thus changing their new series to “The Universal Horror Collection.” With that broad a title, the sky is apparently the limit for Shout Factory and what they can do with these volumes. Since this was originally a Karloff/Lugosi four movie set, the whole of the films included star the pair of horror icons. With Volume 1 of “The Universal Horror Collection,” fans will be elated to see that they’re starting us off on the right foot.
Shorts Round Up of the Week – Cannes Contenders
This week we have seven stellar short films from around the world including Asia, Hungary, and The Ukraine, as well as one from prolific indie filmmaker Patricia Chica. Some of the shorts featured have competed in Cannes this year, and all deal with some kind of interesting and very widely discussed social theme including LGBTQ Pride Month. Look for these excellent films when you can. If you’d like to submit your short film for review consideration, submissions are always opened to filmmakers and producers
Five Things Fox’s “X-Men” Series Did Well, and Five Things It Destroyed
The FOX “X-Men” movie era is officially over marked as the end with “The Dark Phoenix.” Now that Disney has absorbed FOX’s properties, there’s a strong chance we will be seeing the “X-Men” again on film and or television very soon, just not in the way FOX Studios imagined it in 2000. As an “X-Men” fanatic, I can’t say that the series delivered very much but it did offer some small nuggets that are worth appreciating. What did you think of FOX’s “X-Men” series overall?