“Suckazzz…” —John Gulager, FEAST franchise director
Ah, FEAST III…the most fun you’ll ever have being rapped on the chin by a franchise’s third installment. Chin-checks are no fun—a terrible bruise occurs, and turns purple, blue, then fades into an embarrassing green-yellow during the healing process.
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No matter what your personal feelings are for THE LAST HOUSE ON THE LEFT, there’s no denying the fact that Wes Craven ain’t no Ingmar Bergman. Craven’s landmark exploitation ripoff of Bergman’s lyrical 1960 melodrama THE VIRGIN SPRING—itself still one of the most beautifully harrowing films ever made—remains controversial, with as many people debating its technical merits as its dubious content.
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Monday, February 16, 2009 08:44 AM
Samuel Zimmerman
DVD & Blu-Ray
MY NAME IS BRUCE is a Bruce Campbell movie through and through. It has moments of greatness, moments of flatness and a lot of entertaining mayhem; all in all, despite its flaws, Bruce just makes you like it.
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Thursday, February 12, 2009 01:05 PM
Michael Gingold
Film
It has been said, and turns out to be true, that the new FRIDAY THE 13TH combines the storylines of the first four movies in the original Paramount series. That may sound like a lot of plot to cram into one feature, but in truth, it’s sort of a de facto way of saying that those films all had the same storyline, with small variations, each of which has indeed been worked into FRIDAY 2009’s scenario.
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Tuesday, February 10, 2009 11:46 AM
Vince Darcangelo
Books
In order for a horror novel to work, the author must strike a balance between realistic and fantastic elements. Bryan Smith skews heavily toward the latter in his new release, SOULTAKER, which has moments of great imagination but too often emphasizes shock over substance.
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There's something odd about the recent wave of "vampire" and "zombie" films that claim to be one or the other, while in reality are neither. In Richard Crudo's directorial debut AGAINST THE DARK aka the much-discussed "Steven Seagal Vs. Vampires" flick, the creatures found within are said to be "vampires" (per the film's marketing), but really aren't - in a kind of I AM LEGEND sort of way.
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Tuesday, February 03, 2009 12:22 PM
Samuel Zimmerman
DVD & Blu-Ray
There’s something about grocery stores. They have a sort of charm that’s currently going three for three, as far as recent horror/sci-fi entries with that setting go. Both THE MIST and last year’s SPLINTER were excellent examples of the “trapped in a market” theme, and now comes Warner’s Raw Feed DVD release ALIEN RAIDERS (out February 17)—which, while not overly original, is nonetheless pretty awesome.
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Here we are again with another installment of EVERYONE'S A CRITIC, the feature that puts YOU in the reviewers seat right on the front page of Fangoria.com.
This time we feature Richard A. Ekstedt and his take on a classic Italian vampire film presented by Dark Sky Films, SLAUGHTER OF THE VAMPIRES. If you dig Hammer, A.I. and Amicus, then read on and discover a truly underrated gem...
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Friday, January 30, 2009 01:34 PM
Michael Gingold
Film
There are two visual processes I’ve loved in fantasy cinema since my youngest days of viewing it: stop-motion and 3-D. One has generally gotten more respect than the other over the years, and both had been in decline until recently in the technically advanced modern age of moviemaking, but CORALINE represents a glorious marriage of the two, an eye-filling experience that also gets at some pretty creepy stuff.
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Friday, January 30, 2009 01:29 PM
Michael Gingold
Film
In the mini-pantheon of Asian-horror remakes, THE UNINVITED winds up being more welcome than last year’s underachieving triumvirate of ONE MISSED CALL, THE EYE and SHUTTER. Well-crafted enough that it doesn’t feel like an opportunistic knockoff, it suffers less in comparison to the Korean original, A TALE OF TWO SISTERS, than from the fact that the story ingredients of both are familiar from numerous past genre films.
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When I first reviewed QUARANTINE here at the time of its theatrical release, I noted the difficulty in forming a completely objective view of its achievements, since it hews so closely to its inspiration, Jaume Balagueró and Paco Plaza’s [REC]. The comparison won’t be an issue for those who watch Sony Pictures’ QUARANTINE DVD (coming February 17) without foreknowledge of its source, because the Spanish film isn’t mentioned anywhere in the disc’s quartet of bonus features. Not once.
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Wednesday, January 28, 2009 10:01 AM
Samuel Zimmerman
Film
It’s been a while since I’ve seen a movie revolving around witchcraft and satanic rituals, and in that respect, THE HAGSTONE DEMON is a fun breath of fresh air. Shot on what was clearly a low budget, Jon Springer’s tale of a haunted apartment complex (which recently premiered at the Tromadance Film Festival) is generally successful and entertaining throughout.
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Proving yet again that Lucio Fulci didn’t make movies like anybody else, his CAT IN THE BRAIN (a.k.a. NIGHTMARE CONCERT, coming in a two-DVD set March 31 from Grindhouse) is a difficult movie to nail down into a single genre. With almost equal parts psychological horror, faux self-documentary awareness and enough stock footage from the director’s previous films to almost make this movie feel like a clip reel, it is both a self-reflexive statement on the illusion machine known as cinema and an intellectual fart unleashed in a crowded elevator.
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