Tough Films For The Rough Crowd

    The price of oppression and isolation can be a hefty one. When outsiders are deemed dangerous, and vile acts are perpetrated in the name of righteousness, there begins the seeds of violent retribution. These personal transgressions are at the heart of director Lukas Feigelfeld’s debut feature HAGAZUSSA. An…

  Years ago, George Romero attempted to mount a musical take on his beloved zombie genre called DIAMOND DEAD. Had the film, about an undead rock band, been made, it would have joined a tiny and rare, but altogether potent, field of horror-musicals, a hearty bit of niche programming that…

When I was 19 years old, I worked at a Borders Books and music. One job I tasked myself with was attempting to keep the Something Weird section alphabetized. Some shifts, I’d just thumb through the selection of double feature DVDs of films that—even I, who fancied myself a cinephile—had…

As a longtime ROCKY HORROR aficionado, it’s surprising to me that ANYAB escaped me until this year. Even was I was 15 tracking everything from bootleg versions of the film—featuring the original mono soundtrack as well as the “Super Heroes” ending— various television clips (the “Ronnie Horror Picture Show” sketch…

    The best friendships formed while growing up are those crucial relationships that weather the storms of puberty, new social structures, and endure through accepting each other for who each truly is. But what happens when those bonds are frayed? Whether by the jealousies of new romances, changes in…

          When I was a kid, the first serial killer I remember ever hearing of was Jeffrey Dahmer. How could you not? It was shocking and horrifying. I saw a dramatization of it sometime in the early 1990s called THE SECRET LIFE OF JEFFREY DAHMER, an…

          We have all been at a bar or a coffee shop or a restaurant by ourselves and wound up in a conversation with the stranger next to us. Most of the time, that conversation is uneventful: a few minutes chatting about sports or the news…

          Many of the jokes in RON GOOSSENS: LOW-BUDGET STUNTMAN are super-specific to the Netherlands and, even more specifically, to the Dutch film industry. I am afraid I am an expert on neither the country nor its film industry. All I really know about the cinematic…

          I worked in a haunted house for ten years and would do it for another ten if I could. It’s painful, you get hurt, slapped, spit at, cursed out, and called everything in the bad-language bible. And yet, I’d do it again in a heartbeat….

          APPLECART (which will more than likely have its name changed when it gets picked up for distribution) feels very of the moment—it features witches and a true crime reality show within the film—and at the same time, has one foot in early ‘90s direct to…

          VAMPIRE CLAY from writer/director Sôichi Umezawa is an oddly funny bit of Raimi-sploitation that adheres the ‘80s teen slasher plot points of revenge for wrong doing and one by one nasty kills. At a low rent art school in the Japanese countryside, a teacher and…

          Larry Cohen is a legend of American independent filmmaking. A favorite among many around the DAILY GRINDHOUSE virtual offices, his filmography reads like the greatest hits of smart, genre cinema of the ’70s and ’80s: IT’S ALIVE, GOD TOLD ME TO, BONE, Q, SPECIAL EFFECTS,…

                      The film with the clunkiest title that I will probably see at this year’s Fantastic Fest is also probably going to be one of the most heartfelt and life affirming. Perversely, it is about a group of strangers communicating…

      Some cartoonists are so good at “what they do” — at telling the kinds of stories that fit within a niche they’re not only carved out, but created from whole cloth, for themselves — that you feel no particular urge as a reader to see them “branch…

        Florence Hartigan is an American-born, New Zealand-raised, LA-based actress and musician. Her latest film project is the leading role in Phoenix Forgotten, produced by Ridley Scott (ALIEN), Wes Ball (THE MAZE RUNNER) and Mark Canton (THE MARTIAN). The film is based on the shocking, true events…

    ZEN STUDIOS KICKSTARS THEIR UNIVERSAL CLASSICS LINE OF TABLES WITH TWO CLASSICS   On September 26th the popular digital pinball franchise PINBALL FX will be releasing its 3rd iteration, along with two very interesting looking tables based on the classic Steven Spielberg films E.T. and JAWS. For those…

      You don’t have to be a film geek to know that mother! is getting a ton of hate out there. I really didn’t know much about the movie, outside of the one trailer I saw. From what I gathered, Darren Aronofsky had another psychological mind-fuck up his…

          THOROUGHBREDS is like a writhing, roiling tapestry of snakes, each one filled with a lethal dosage of black-market, black comedy venom. Every shot composition, every performance, every musical cue, and every line is choreographed with razor wire thin precision.     I dare not tell…

  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:…

      It’s Fantastic Fest time! If you’re like me, you know what that means – watching all of your friends post pictures and status updates about all of the cool stuff they’re doing and all of the neat new movies they’re watching! Without you! Those jerks! We hate…

  We don’t get to do this often, but we’re running this terrific reflection back on the life and death of VHS by author J. Tonzelli, courtesy of our friends at CutPrintFilm and Lunchmeat Magazine (whose editor, Josh Schafer, has provided a brief introduction here). This piece was straight up…

        2014’s KINGSMAN: THE SECRET SERVICE was a fun, brash jolt of superspy fun that felt propulsive and like a logical updating of the crazy espionage films of old. Matthew Vaughn (along with his co-writer Jane Goldman) brought Mark Millar and Dave Gibbons’ comic to the screen…

        I hope I’m not the only person in the world in love with Leslie Grossman. Ever since the WB days where teen dramas ruled pop culture, one of my favorites has always been POPULAR, an early Ryan Murphy offering. Whenever I tell people unfortunate to not…

  In The Lion, The Witch & The Wardrobe, author C.S. Lewis describes the first encounter between the children and Aslan. He notes that: “People who have not been in Narnia sometimes think that a thing cannot be good and terrible at the same time.”   Of course anyone who’s…