I’m trying to figure out what signals so clearly that this is a super cheap film. I mean, I’ve seen worse monster makeup in far more expensive films. Nor does the film quality look that much worse than most Eighties horror films. Perhaps it is the lack of music most of the time and the […]
Read more "Bloodsuckers from Outer Space (1984)"Oh, wow. This is an insanely great little film. Why in the world haven’t I heard of this one before? Somehow it manages to combine the Y2K “virus,” Frankenstein level mad science, brain downloads, and the digital end of the world (in the year 2000) with… Eight bit videogames? It’s also a bit hard to […]
Read more "Midnight Science (2021)"As I noted in my review of The Man with Nine Lives (1940), the late Thirties and early Forties were one of the busiest moments in Boris Karloff’s career, as he took on an impressive number of projects at different studios. And many of these were mad scientist films. Before I Hang was one of six […]
Read more "Before I Hang (1940)"I suppose it was inevitable. Lately, I’ve reviewed quite a few Hacker films. Most of these are, frankly, borderline science fiction at best, although it is often hard to figure out where the reality ends and the science fiction begins — or whether they have any solid connection to reality, no matter how believable they […]
Read more ".com for Murder (2002)"[Mild Spoilers] To start in a less than obvious place: This happened back in 1986, when CBS announced their latest TV movie, a version of Edgar Allen Poe’s Murders in the Rue Morgue starring, of all people, George C. Scott. Yes, the same George C. Scott who seems to be playing the same stolid and […]
Read more "Murders in the Rue Morgue (1932)"I’ll confess that I am of two minds about Stuart Gordon. Now he started out with a few great films, like the first Re-Animator, From Beyond, and Robot Jox, only to sort of wither away into doing TV movies and foreign productions long after his name lost whatever luster it once had. Curiously, that seemed to […]
Read more "Bride of Re-Animator (1990)"You learn what you are up against in the first few minutes of Mercano the Martian. Mercano — a little, green, squiggily-animated Martian — has just stolen a computer and run away from the police. They follow him down into the subway, only one of the cops — who is afraid of heights — slides […]
Read more "Mercano, el marciano [Mercano the Martian] (2002)"(aka, Demon Heaven: Ghost Hero) Honorable Mention This is one of those films which is almost impossible to explain. And when I say that, I mean, an almost impossible to explain Japanese film, which, yes, puts it in an even stranger category. Nor is it easy to put it into any of the ordinary categories […]
Read more "Youkai tengoku: Ghost Hero [Monster Heaven: Ghost Hero] (1990)"(aka, Piranha DD) You know how it goes. Someone out there recommends a film as a wild exploitation movie which is pure fun (this time around, I believe it was Mauler on one of his E.F.A.P. podcasts) and you actually go out and watch the thing. Let’s just say the results are…unpredictable. Now there are […]
Read more "Piranha 3DD (2012)"Honorable Mention I think it would help if I started with another Shaw Brothers film I saw not too long ago: The Black Lizard, a ghost story involving a lizard monster. It had Mario Bava-style atmospheric lighting (heavy on the green), ghosts, monsters, special effects, and had clearly been patterned on the Euro Horrors and […]
Read more "Wu du tian luo [The Web of Death] (1976)"
rivets on the poster 