Tough Films For The Rough Crowd

After a first wave announcement that included such highly anticipated titles as HAIL SATAN?, I TRAPPED THE DEVIL, and a retro screening of VICE SQUAD with director Gary Sherman in attendance, the second and final wave of films has been announced for this year’s Chattanooga Film Festival. This will be…

The second annual Windy City Horrorama is creeping up on us. The festival will be running from April 26 through April 28th at the Davis Theater in Chicago. It was just announced that they will be bringing THE RUSALKA to the Davis theatre this year as well as a 30th…

  The number of cinematic portrayals of the Whitechapel serial killer known as “Jack the Ripper” is easily in the dozens, dating back to the silent era of THE LODGER (1927) and PANDORA’S BOX (1929) to BLACK THE RIPPER (1975) to the recent animated film BATMAN: GOTHAM BY GASLIGHT (2018)….

      ALIEN PARTY CRASHERS tells of a group friends at a New Year’s Eve bash in the Welsh Valley, who must fight against an invasion force of time travelling aliens. We spoke to the ‘mastermind’ behind the film, Peter Stray.       What sounds like a horror…

Expect anything.   That’s the tagline for What The Fest!?, which the IFC Center created in 2018 and is about to launch its second year tonight in Greenwich Village. Running through March 24th, the festival is dedicated to shining a spotlight on “smart, bold and inventive films from the world…

    The generally-held view of the ancient mystical pseudo-scientific practice of alchemy is that it was all about turning lead into gold, but my understanding is that this is a rather limited “piece” of the overall alchemical project, which was largely concerned with creating that which didn’t exist before…

      In THE MINION, Dolph Lundgren plays a priest with a Hellboy hand who does battle with the Anti-Christ, in a story set in New York but which looks as Canadian as anything possibly can. This is basically the Rick Moranis of Dolph-versus-Satan movies.   It may be tougher for younger people to remember, but at the end of…

    You know the face – it’s been a fixture in everything from movies such as PIRATES OF THE CARIBBEAN, ENCINO MAN, FATHER OF THE BRIDE PART II, and ED TV, to television series like  The Last Ship and American Horror Story – but you might not know the name!   Meet…

        The movie: Anthologies rarely come as elemental as SCREAMS OF A WINTER NIGHT. Just the title alone evokes a primal scene, complete with howling wind and icy desolation. It’s the perfect name for a story about a group of friends embarking on a retreat to the…

    Talking sex, drugs, booze, and driving while black with seasoned comedy director Paul Sapiano!     Okay, lets start at the beginning – I’m intrigued to know what THE BOYS & GIRLS GUIDE TO GETTING DOWN is! It’s a how-to guide for partying in Los Angeles. Ha-ha. Sex,…

Mary Lambert’s 1989 adaptation of Stephen King’s PET SEMATARY has never been a favorite film of mine. That’s not to say I think that the film is poorly made, it’s simply too effective. It’s one of King’s bleakest (the author considered shelving it, calling it dark and unenjoyable) tales and…

I love giant monster movies. The first “scary” movie I watched as a kid was the 1976 version of KING KONG, and it made a major impression on me then. I know KING KONG isn’t actually considered a “scary” film by most, but to six-year-old me, the very thought of…

  Generally speaking, zombie apocalypse movies don’t do much for me anymore these days. Especially American zombie films. Thank goodness DAWNING OF THE DEAD is at least a British zombie film. That alone makes it a bit more tolerable. Zombie apocalypse films are a dime a dozen these days. For me, there…

    “I briefly lived in a haunted house…” – Luke Crain, “The Twin Thing”     We did, my brother and I, or at least we think we did. He a fair bit more than I. But I was raised in a very Eastern European and Catholic family, so…

          Not every determined and talented actor that leaves the “Land Down Under” for Hollywood looking for fame achieves Crocodile Dundee-like success right off the bat. Actor and filmmaker Shaun Robinson wants to educate the unversed on just how tough it is getting gigs in Hollywood…

These days, there seem to be two ways to approach ambitious sci-fi on a small indie film budget. The first is to fully embrace the lack of budget and make the film look as cheap and shoddy as possible via terrible effects work and hammy acting that plays like a…

    Long ago, demons roamed the world harvesting human beings in order to make blood sacrifices to their demon queen. Apparently that’s still going on today (or, the today of 1972), because a very bloodied man (hilariously named Jim Carrey) stumbles down the road and heads toward a bar…

  WELCOME TO ACAPULCO is a charming action-comedy directed by Guillermo Ivan. Featuring a colorful cast of several recognizable actors, like Michael Madsen, Paul Sorvino, and William Baldwin along charismatic leads Michael Kingsbaker and Ana Serradilla, it hits the ground running and never stops. When video game designer Matt Booth…

The CONJURING films and their spin offs are essentially the MCU of modern horror cinema—and a much more successful attempt at that Universal’s “Dark Universe.” There is no doubt that under the watchful eye of James Wan, there is a plan to bring the Warren’s of THE CONJURING, the titular…

        We love Renny Harlin here. Some of the films he directed are PRISON, A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 4, THE ADVENTURES OF FORD FAIRLANE, DIE HARD 2, CLIFFHANGER, THE LONG KISS GOODNIGHT, and DEEP BLUE SEA.   He makes vigorous, humorous, attractive action cinema, and he…

      The European cinematic movement of the 1960’s and ‘70s known as the giallo would eventually help kick start the slasher movement in the United States. And, like the slasher movement, gialli could often result in solid, respectable titles worthy of critical appreciation, but they could often vie…

        Anyone know any good pet cemeteries in the area that filmmaker Rebecca Matthews can visit? As the PET GRAVEYARD filmmaker admits in our exclusive interview, she couldn’t find any pet plots to visit while filming. Let’s change that!     What was the initial pitch that…

  HENRY: PORTRAIT OF A SERIAL KILLER famously (or perhaps infamously) languished on the shelf for over three years after its festival premiere in 1986. Deemed too revolting in its graphic depiction of sex and violence, the MPAA insisted that no amount of editing could earn director John McNaughton an…

          Everyone knows that city slickers and the isolated woods don’t work well together. Sometimes it is to comical effect, like in TROOP BEVERLY HILLS, or it can lead to disastrous results, like in DELIVERANCE and most redneck-sploitation films. While the untamed British wilderness has been…