You Have to See This! Tammy and the T-Rex: The Gore Cut (1994) [Cinepocalypse 2019]

“I was sticking all this shit in it, just to make it work.” – Stewart Raffill on writing “Tammy and the T-Rex”

In the nineties America was obsessed with dinosaurs. For reasons we could never put our fingers on, Dinosaurs were in just about every facet of pop culture you could imagine. Video games, movies, animated series, they were mascots for snack foods, they were the basis for a family sitcom, and yes, they were fit in to movies amounting to cinematic oddities still making movie buffs scratch their heads. We had a family film about miniature dinosaurs, a buddy cop comedy about a female cop and a dinosaur, and yes, we even had “Tammy and the T-Rex.”

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Attack of the Demons (2019) [Cinepocalypse 2019]

I have to say that I hate that I didn’t like “Attack of the Demons.” Throughout its merciful seventy five minute run time I anxiously tried to love it, and wanted to recommend it thirty times over. But by the end, while I appreciated its approach and concept, it’s really just a dull demonic thriller in the end. There might be a new way here to tall a story, but it’s by no means a novel take on the premise of a demon apocalypse by Eric Power.

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Cute Little Buggers (2017)

There’s a reason why sometimes a one off joke is used just once. It’s because stretching it out destroys the momentum of the joke. Someone behind “Cute Little Buggers” loved the scene in “The Holy Grail” involving the man eating cute rabbit and decided to turn it in to a horrendous horror comedy. Not that I have anything against movies that take inspiration from Monty Python, but when they have a rhyme or reason, and an actual good idea, I’m all for it. But “Cute Little Buggers” seems centered on the premise of one joke that one joke that gets boring after being used repeatedly mainly since the joke just isn’t that funny in the beginning, anyway.

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Jojo’s Bizarre Adventure: Diamond in Unbreakable – Chapter 1 (2017) [Fantasia International Film Festival 2017]

The most popular teen in school seems to have supernatural or at least extraordinary talent. As he learns how to use these and more about himself, he is called upon to help save a fellow high schooler and his small town from unexplained evil.

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The Violent Shit: Five Film Collection (DVD)

You have to give it to Synapse films. With the decline of physical media, more studios are open to delivering movie buffs the classics, and the obscure titles. Let’s face it, until now, no other major label would have ever made the “Violent Shit” collection available for mass consumption. At the end of the day, this five movie collection of shot on video horror gore films from Germany are strictly a niche release, but they’re at least there for everyone to view. While the “Violent Shit” movies, in fact, complete shit, they are also important cinematic relics. Back in the eighties, when Germany enacted heavy censorship on all film releases, including horror movies, that were cut for mass consumption, a bunch of indie filmmakers got together and made their own gory, graphic, and obscenely splatterific horror movies.

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The Neon Demon (2016)

Whether or not you like Nicholas Winding Refn, there’s no doubt that he makes art that gets people talking. Surely, his movies are hit or miss, but they are art that spawn emotions that not many directors can incite. Much like Lynch’s “Mulholland Drive,” Winding Refn’s newest masterpiece is a statement about the ills of fame and how Los Angeles can consume innocence and naiveté. Winding Refn makes a statement about how the modeling industry is literally cut throat, while seemingly drawing inspirations from films like “Suspiria.” The women here are assuredly predators intent on committing a devious scheme that revolves around the idea of vanity and self preservation.

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