You Have to See This! Alone with Her (2006)

Posted on February 14, 2022 by Felix Vasquez

Streaming On: Youtube, Google Play Movies & TV, Apple TV

It was only a matter of time before someone explored the more advanced world of stalking on film. What with the technological advancements, stalking no longer requires following a person and sending letters, now it’s as easy as installing hidden cameras, and using easily affordable technology, all of it at your finger tips; and available at low prices. Director Eric Nicholas begins his film on a rather unsettling note, as our predator Doug, a rather awkward man, walks around the city with his camera in his bag, catching glimpses of women in their most candid.

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Alligator (1980): Collector’s Edition [4K UHD/Blu-Ray]

Posted on February 9, 2022 by Felix Vasquez

After Spielberg’s “Jaws” took the world by storm, every studio took it upon themselves to create their own facsimile of the killer shark film. They hoped to cash in on the film’s momentum, and from that a whole sub-genre was created. And from “Alligator” there was the sub-sub-genre of Killer Croc and Alligator movies. For that you can attribute to the classic urban legend of sewers being a virtual haven for massive killer crocodiles, thanks to hapless tourists bringing home gators for pets. Writer John Sayles has no shortage of scenes involving the alligator lurking in the sewers and waiting for victims to enter its domain.

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The Bootleg Files: Der Januskopf

Posted on February 4, 2022 by Phil Hall

BOOTLEG FILES 794: “Der Januskopf” (1920 unauthorized version of “Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde” directed by F.W. Murnau).

LAST SEEN: When it was theatrically released.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: None.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: Murnau did not clear the rights to the Robert Louis Stevenson source material.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: Excellent, provided that someone finds a print of the film.

In the early 1920s, the great German director F.W. Murnau made back-to-back horror films based on popular books from his era: “Der Januskopf,” based on Robert Louis Stevenson’s “The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde,” and “Nosferatu,” based on Bram Stoker’s “Dracula.” There was just one problem: Murnau never bothered to secure the rights to these books and tried to get circumvent copyright laws by making slight adjustments to their respective stories and changing the names of the characters.
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Ghosts of the Ozarks (2022)

Posted on February 2, 2022 by Emilie Black

Following the Civil War, a young doctor is asked to join in uncle in a utopic village in the Arkansas. Once there, he slowly discovers that many secrets are protected by the locals and that crossing them is quite dangerous.

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Honeycomb (2021) [Slamdance 2022]

Posted on January 31, 2022 by Felix Vasquez

It’s always thrilling when you can see the beginning of what you hope will be a long, seasoned career of filmmaking. Avalon Fast is a filmmaker that has immense promise, and it’s fascinating that she delivers a movie that’s so jarring and unnerving, and absolutely original. Director Fast has a great habit for making the audience uncomfortable, opening the film on a weird portrait of a woman in a honeycomb, and then contrasting it with the image of innocence with one of her characters lying along a serene field. From there, it only escalates.

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The Bootleg Files: Ouanga

Posted on January 28, 2022 by Phil Hall

BOOTLEG FILES 793: “Ouanga” (1936 horror film starring Fredi Washington).

LAST SEEN: On Vimeo.

AMERICAN HOME VIDEO: On cheapjack public domain labels.

REASON FOR BOOTLEG STATUS: No one is rushing to get it into home entertainment release.

CHANCES OF SEEING A COMMERCIAL DVD RELEASE: The film has been restored, but no one is rushing to put it out on Blu-ray.

Fredi Washington earned a degree of cinematic immortality for her startling performance as Peola, the light-skinned Black woman who is repeatedly thwarted in her attempts to transcend the racial barriers of Jim Crow America by passing for White in the 1934 classic “Imitation of Life.” This was truly a once-in-a-lifetime role for Washington, both in terms of the quality of role and the exposure it afforded her – at a time when Black women in Hollywood studios were either cast as maids or nightclub singers, Washington found no offers to score a dramatic encore.
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Boris Karloff: The Man Behind the Monster (2021)

Posted on January 25, 2022 by Felix Vasquez

For the generation that cut their teeth on classic Universal horror movies, Boris Karloff is, was, and will always be the definitive Frankenstein monster. What “The Man Behind the Monster” seeks to do is act as an appetizer for the aspiring horror buff who hasn’t quite been lucky enough see much of Karloff’s work. Karloff was a man who was powerful on-screen even in to his old age; “The Man Behind the Monster” explores the powerful actor, and his tumultuous career that survived through political controversies, and the Hays Code.

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