You Have to See This! Shredder Orpheus (1989)

Now Available at Vinegar Syndrome.

The best way to summarize “Shredder Orpheus” is if “Gleaming the Cube” and “Videodrome” had a torrid violent, sexual love affair while high on shrooms that projected new wave music videos in to their brains, all the while the pair ended their rendezvous with a round of skateboarding. Courtesy of Boom! Cult and AGFA, Robert McGinley’s VHS SOV genre film is simultaneously oddly entertaining but also incredibly mind numbing. It’s a dystopian tale that seems to be working toward some kind of coherency at times, but occasionally gives up in exchange of using the budget to showcase skateboarding. In lieu of story there are just aimless scenes of people skateboarding.

Continue reading

Tremors 2: Aftershocks (1996): Arrow Video Limited Edition [4K UHD]

1990’s “Tremors” and I go a long way. It’s not just one of my all time favorite monster movies, but it’s also a childhood favorite and has a ton of nostalgic value. I first started watching it when my mom recorded it on VHS off of cable TV back in the heyday of the 1990’s. I wore that VHS out, suffice to say. I loved it and still love it. So imagine my surprise when in 1996, in came “Tremors 2: Aftershocks.” While this follow up is not at all like the original film it still manages to be pretty darn fun.

Continue reading

The Marvels (2023)

What hinders Nia DaCosta’s “The Marvels” is that it literally is all over the place. This feels like Marvel is trying to squeeze in so much in ninety minutes, and while often it succeeds in getting the idea across, it can also stumble here and there. Nonetheless, “The Marvels” still winds up being a bang up Marvel entry, one that’s packed with some excellent fight sequences, wonderful conflict, and a great trio of characters, all of whom present a common goal in spite of how they operate as superheroes. Carol Danvers, Monica Rambeua and Kamala Khan are all heroes in their own right approaching the ideas of the superhero in their own mind set.

Continue reading

Meg 2: The Trench (2023) [Blu-Ray/Digital]

I liked “The Meg” enough to consider it a fun bit of James Cameron-lite entertainment, but I wasn’t exactly clamoring for a sequel. With “The Meg 2,” director Ben Wheatley leans heavily in to more unique elements allowing Jason Statham to be more physically active this time around, while also embracing the Asian influence. You just know Statham requested at least one action sequence of him fighting bad guys, hence the re-introduction of Jonas Taylor. Taylor is still a brainy scientist, but he’s also an ecological activist who skirts the law by breaking on to ships and stealing information from criminals. While “The Meg” was basically “The Abyss” meets “Deep Blue Sea,” this time around director Ben Wheatley opts more for “Jurassic World” meets “The Deep.”

Continue reading