Director William Lustig’s “Vigilante” is a lot like “Death Wish” on steroids. It’s a bonafide mix of a prison movie, it’s a drama about PTSD, a parable about political corruption, and a surefire revenge thriller to the very end. While the aforementioned ends on a twisted note, “Vigilante” is something of a contradiction. It seems to celebrate the idea of vigilante justice and revenge, but it ends on such a low, bleak note where our hero gets his vindication but literally has nothing left in his life.
Tag Archives: Revenge
Pixie (2021)
In a scheme that may be completely genius or pure insanity, Pixie goes on an revenge trip with 2 friends to try and get back at those who cost her mother her life. Along the way, drugs, mobsters, and the clergy all get in the way.
Savage Streets (1984) [Blu-Ray]
After the excellent release of the limited edition 2018 print, Code Red delivers a wider and more broadly available upgrade for the highly deserving “Savage Streets.” The 1984 cult classic is still a marvelous gem of eighties exploitation. It channels the classic Youths Gone Wild films of the fifties, and is filled with gorgeous women, roughneck teenagers, and an insanely sexy Linda Blair wreaking pure vengeance against the men that victimized her sister. She does it all with a bitchin’ crossbow, to boot.
To Your Last Death (2020)
Director Jason Axinn’s animated gore fest is “Funny Games,” meets “Saw” meets Twilight Zone’s “The Masks” wrapped up in one sick sadistic mutant. It’s gory, and vicious and mean spirited and occasionally baffling, but damned if I didn’t have a good time with it. There’s just something about watching the wealthy tear each other apart that hits a nerve, and “To Your Last Death” is a movie that has fun with its own concept. Not only does Jason Axinn break the conventional narrative, but he uses it as a means of bringing the ugliest sides out of his characters.
Freaky (2020)
Blumhouse has found a little niche market in taking classic comedies and turning them in to bonafide horror movies. After “Happy Death Day 2 U,” they take the creaky Disney classic “Freaky Friday” and add a slasher twist to it. Shockingly, it works more times than it doesn’t. Christopher Landon doesn’t just embrace the classic narrative, but he tops it off with a gory slasher movie, and even injects so many LGBTQ overtones that it wouldn’t surprise me if it picked up steam as a LGTBQ classic very soon.
Blade (1998) [4K UHD/Blu-Ray/Digital]
Stephen Norrington’s 1998 adaptation of the comic book “Blade” is a movie that’s often overlooked and or ignored as one of the comic book movie hits that broke ground. While it was never as mainstream as “X-Men” or “Spider-Man” it was a hit movie starring an African American hero, with an R rating. And while it hasn’t aged quite well since its initial release (it’s aged about as well as “X2,” which is good and terrible), it’s still a trailblazer worth seeking out right this second.
Girl (2020)
Director/Writer Chad Faust really knows what he’s doing in “Girl,” as he places a lot of the film’s weight on star Bella Thorne. Thorne is an underrated actress that’s been stuck in a lot of terrible movies, but when she’s paired with the right director, she gives performances like the one we see in “Girl.” Star Thorne carries what’s just an okay movie that feels like it aspires too eagerly to be held in the class of other backwoods dramas like 2010’s “Winter’s Bone.”