Tough Films For The Rough Crowd

  Slow-burn horror is a tricky concept. It’s essentially the equivalent of walking a tight rope. Balance is key and in particular pacing can make or break the success of the act. Philip Gelatt’s THEY REMAIN, an adaptation of the short story “-30-” by Laird Barron, attempts this act and…

    Full Disclosure: Jason Coffman, the co-writer/director of HOUSESITTERS, is a longtime contributing writer to DAILY GRINDHOUSE.   There is a streak of what I like to call “smart dumb” to HOUSESITTERS that could unfortunately be mistaken for either sloppy storytelling or technical incompetence. But when working at the…

    Taking place in one location over a few hours with a limited cast, Ryûhei Kitamura’s new film DOWNRANGE is a tense exercise in ever increasing dread and mounting spectacle. As director and co-writer (with Joey O’Bryan), Kitamura focuses on maintaining tension and tone that makes the horror of…

The second Overlook Film Festival took place this year from April 19th to the 22nd in New Orleans at the Bourbon Orleans Hotel, which was probably a relief for those adventurous souls who returned after being snowed in at the Timberline Lodge for the 2017 festival! Just as last year,…

    Stephen King is the most influential voice in horror of the late 20th century. His books have been best sellers since his debut and have gone on to spawn numerous adaptations in film, TV, video games, and other media. King Of All Media looks at those adaptations, starting…

    If 2017 was the “year of the woman” in comics — and I would contend that, thanks to the exemplary efforts of Emil Ferris, Eleanor Davis, Mimi Pond, Gabrielle Bell, Jillian Tamaki, Sophia Foster-Dimino, November Garcia, Annie Koyama, and numerous others, it most certainly was — then 2018 may…

    Regardless of which side of the superhero movie debate you fall on, it’s hard to not give Marvel credit for what they’ve managed to do with their cinematic universe. Fans were losing their mind when Nick Fury showed up at the end of 2008’s IRON MAN, knowing that…

    Welcome back to the play along game at Daily Grindhouse – but it’s a whole new world today because it’s the first full-on guest host! I guess Call the Shots guru Kevin finally renegotiated that contract, a la Johnny Carson in the mid-’80s. But regardless of who’s in…

    Here’s a question: Do you like movies about gladiators? Or: Are you ready, prepared, and eager for a sleeper action flick about angry guys swinging swords at each other? Are you like me, in that you think GLADIATOR was just a little too serious and 300 wasn’t remotely serious enough? If so, then CENTURION is the sweet spot. If you…

  Exploding out of the late-’80s/early-’90s B-movie action boom that also launched Jean-Claude Van Damme, Olivier Gruner, and her recent co-star Don “The Dragon” Wilson, Cynthia Rothrock continues to knock out all comers as one of martial arts cinema’s definitive icons.   Bear in mind that Rothrock’s movie stardom occurred…

Religion always held an inherently creepy vibe for me. Maybe it’s imagery, maybe it’s the repression, but there’s just something unnerving about it and I wasn’t even raised Catholic. ST. AGATHA from director Darren Lynn Bousman is a perverse, creepy, and slickly shot slice of modern day nunsploitation. Set in…

  There is an entertaining movie in PUPPET MASTER: THE LITTLEST REICH, unfortunately as it stands the film is mean spirited, uncomfortable, and in poor taste. Those three things would usually be positives, particularly in a review on a site that revels in exploitation, but the PUPPET MASTER reboot seems…

It’s a tale as old as time: a young couple on the road happens upon a murderous cabal somewhere in the backwoods of middle America. THE FARM, from writer/director Hans Stjernsward, is a direct descendent of THE TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE. The film may not bring much new to the table,…

  I love genre cinema. I will always have a soft spot for horror, action, sci-fi, and all the subgenres that exist inside those larger categories. What I have never felt any real connection to are those films that exist in the realm of pure sleaze. You know the ones:…

    In the last five minutes of CORBIN NASH, a blind street preacher (Malcolm McDowell) who has acted as something of a Greek Chorus throughout the film literally says, “So it begins.” Forget that the line is meant to be a serious proclamation (despite it being overused to the…

  Life for women can sometimes be hell. Men can be educated on their experiences, told personal stories, and will never truly understand what women often go through, simply for existing. Özge Dogruol (Violetta Schurawlow) has to deal with this every day of her life. As a young Turkish taxi…

  We are constantly looking for new and different films when it comes to bringing you the best in genre entertainment. Short films are often where you find the most exciting new filmmakers taking chances, yet most audiences don’t seek them out. With that in mind, we will be showcasing…

    When I first saw the trailer for the original SUPER TROOPERS some 16 years ago, I thought it looked incredibly stupid. When it got to DVD, or VHS, or whatever it was back then, I checked it out. And my initial assumption was correct — it was stupid….

    Eric Stanze has been a major force in American independent/underground horror for over two decades now, kicking off his filmmaking career with SAVAGE HARVEST in 1994. His early work in particular was brutal and raw, cementing his reputation for pushing boundaries and wild ambition with the one-two punch…

    Being a fan of independent genre cinema can be rough. For every great undiscovered gem there are countless unimaginative, perfunctory exercises in exhausted tropes. It gets dispiriting after a while trying to sift through the dross of samey slashers, zombie movies, and more “found footage” movies than any…

        It’s all been leading up to this: four years in the making, the sixth and final installment of Johnny Ryan’s formerly-annual (or thereabouts) paean to thoughtless juvenalia, Prison Pit, is upon us courtesy of Fantagraphics Books, and while it’s frankly impossible to conceive of anyone feeling in…

      This year’s Overlook Film Festival is being held in New Orleans, a world away from last year’s event at the Timberline Lodge (the iconic exterior of the Overlook in Stanley Kubrick’s THE SHINING) in Mt. Hood, Oregon. This year’s festivities will be headquartered at the Bourbon Orleans…

  Happy tax day, Daily Grindhousers!  For our non-American readers, April 15th (or April 17th, as it falls this year) is the deadline for residents of the United States of America to file their annual income taxes, where a portion of our earnings gets set aside for infrastructure, health care,…

  Welcome back to the play-along game at Daily Grindhouse, where we invite you to identify 10 films, based on 10 screenshots.   WEEK ONE: VANITY PLATES WEEK TWO: PUNKS! WEEK THREE: SPACESHIPS! WEEK FOUR: MOVIE WITHIN A MOVIE! WEEK FIVE: WRESTLERS & WRESTLING FANS! WEEK SIX: KAIJU CAMEOS! WEEK SEVEN: GET…