Wes Craven was a man who managed to re-invent the horror genre at least three times during his entire career. Craven was a man who helped define a lot of the modern tropes we take for granted, and yes, even brought the nineties out of the drudges with his jolt of adrenaline known as “Scream.” However, sometimes Craven’s efforts didn’t always click, and while he had a knack for fascinating characters and complex situations, “Deadly Friend” is one of his more notable genre misfires.
Tag Archives: Drama
Snakehead (2021)
A newly arrived immigrant works off her debt to the people who helped her get to America. In doing so, she finds herself working as a human smuggler and making some hard decisions along the way.
Frankenstein’s Daughter (1958): The Film Detective Special Edition [Blu-Ray]
The Z Movie to end all Z movies, “Frankenstein’s Daughter” is both a cult classic and a classic piece of cinematic trash. It’s a god awful attempt to take the Frankenstein tale and retro-fit it in to a teen horror drama about coming of age, legacy, and uncomfortable scenes of men aggressively hitting on high school girls. In either case, “Frankenstein’s Daughter” is something of an anomaly, it’s a movie that’s been widely accepted within the genre, but it’s just so painfully bad when you finally experience it.
1981’s “Dark Night of the Scarecrow” is the Perfect Halloween Tale
You could pretty much build an entire library of horror films based on or around scarecrows and their tendencies to provoke or be involved in inherent horror or the supernatural. There’s just something so mystifying about the scarecrow where horror creators always go back to that same device, and most times it works. Take 1981’s “Dark Night of the Scarecrow.” The horror thriller by Director Frank De Felitta and writer J.D. Feigelson, celebrating its 40th anniversary this year, was unleashed on the CBS Network and managed to build a pretty loyal cult following over the years.
Night Teeth (2021) [Digital]
There’s a lot of world building in “Night Teeth” and that’s not always a good thing. What seems like a movie based around two vampires and their inadvertent victim driver, morphs in to a very layered (to a fault) crime thriller involving two warring factions of hunters and vampires, a vampire mob boss, struggles for power, and turf wars. It almost feels like they intended “Night Teeth” to be part one of a trilogy. But I doubt we’ll ever get the complete picture of it all.
The Retaliators (2021) [Screamfest 2021]
A pastor loses his daughter to a violent killer. After the justice system fails, he is approached by someone who may have a solution.
Legend (1985): 2-Disc Limited Edition [Blu-Ray]
I haven’t been the biggest fan of Ridley Scott’s output over the years, but there’s no denying his one two punch of “Alien” and “Legend” is immense. Often times modern audiences forget to cite “Legend” as one of the benchmarks of the fantasy genre. It’s probably the quintessential dark fantasy film and the one film I think of when I refer to fantasy films. There’s everything here from goblins, and trolls, to unicorns, and a valiant warrior, in the form of Tom Cruise. There’s also the unparalleled performance by Tim Curry whose delivers a stunning turn as the Lord of Darkness.