The Wizard of Gore first published by Film4 Synopsis: Jeremy Kasten remakes and updates Herschell Gordon Lewis’ grimy Grand Guignol 1970 horror. Featuring Crispin Glover, Brad Dourif and Jeffrey Combs… Review: Having established his place at the more visceral end of exploitation cinema with Blood Feast (1963), Two Thousand Maniacs! (1964) and many other bloody, bikini-laden B-graders of the 1960s, in 1970 Herschell…
First published by EyeforFilm Abel Ferrara’s Bad Lieutenant (1992) represented some kind of high (or is that low?) point in the annals of scuzzy cinema. Following a corrupt Catholic New York cop as he tried to juggle his addiction to hard drugs and high-stakes gambling with an investigation into the rape of a nun, Bad…
First published by Film4 Synopsis: David Lynch is executive producer on this Werner Herzog film about a man, his sword, his mother, and the long arm of the Lord. Inspired by a true story. Review: As the sound of a train is heard in the distance, the title ‘David Lynch presents’ appears on screen, followed swiftly…
House first published by Little White Lies It is the second half of the ’70s. Single, middle-aged salarymen are still eating up whatever exploitative sensationalism Japan’s movie studios will feed them, but the all-important under-thirties market has been all but lost to the attractions of television. So Toho turns to Nobuhiko Obayashi, then a trend-setting director…
Dreamcatcher review first published by Daily Info – and genuinely one of my favourite scoops of studio-released batshit. Director Lawrence Kasdan is best known for The Big Chill, The Accidental Tourist and Body Heat, and any one of those titles would have been appropriate for his new film Dreamcatcher, with its snowbound setting, and its uninvited…
The Dyatlov Pass Incident (aka Devil’s Pass) first published by Grolsch FilmWorks In early February 1959, nine experienced hikers all died on Kholat Syakhtl (‘The Mountain of the Dead’ in the local Mansi language) in the Urals. All had fled their tent in a hurry, tearing their way out rather than using the entrance. Most were in a…
Review first published by Movie Gazette. Review When yakuza Ozaki (Aikawa Sho) displays increasingly deranged behaviour, the gang’s boss Azamawari (Ishibashi Renji) assigns Ozaki’s subordinate Minami (Sone Hideki) to drive the embarrassing yakuza to Nagoya where he is to be executed and dumped. Reluctant to kill a superior and friend who had once saved his…