Category Archives: Reviews: Movies

Movie Review: Harpoon – Whale Watching Massacre

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Harpoon: Whale Watching Massacre (2009)
Directed by Júlíus Kemp
Starring Gunnar Hansen, Pihla Viitala, Nae, Terence Anderson, Aymen Hamdouchi, Carlos Takeshi, Miwa Yanagizawa, Halldóra Geirharðsdóttir, Guðlaug Ólafsdóttir, Snorri Engilbertsson, Ragnhildur Steinunn Jónsdóttir, Helgi Björnsson, Guðrún Gísladóttir

When I first was told about this movie, that it was a slasher film that takes place on a whaling boat in Iceland, and that it was the “best Icelandic slasher movie on a boat ever made”, it kind of gets one’s attention, even as absurd as it might sound. I mean, even the title alone tells you what it is. But you know, it really is the best Icelandic slasher movie on a boat ever made!

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Movie Review: Hardware

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Hardware (1990)
Directed by Richard Stanley
Starring Dylan McDermott, Stacey Travis, John Lynch, William Hootkins

“No Flesh Shall Be Spared.” – Mark 13

“The worst possible drug trip.” That is how director Richard Stanley described his first movie. For me, I tend to use the description of “visually stunning” when I start any discussion of Stanley’s debut. Each time I watch this film, I come across something new or totally different that I hadn’t noticed before. Stanley’s look of the future is very bleak and dismal, but probably a good warning for one that is not too far off.

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Movie Review: Psychomania

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Psychomania (1973)
Directed by Don Sharp
Starring George Sanders, Beryl Reid, Nicky Henson, Mary Larkin, Roy Holder, Robert Hardy, Patrick Holt, Denis Gilmore, Ann Michelle, Miles Greenwood, Peter Whitting, Rocky Taylor

The film, also known as The Death Wheelers, is about a biker gang that call themselves The Living Dead, that tools around England causing the usually sort of trouble like forcing cars off the road and just being royal pains. But their leader Tom is getting bored with the normal stuff. In fact, he often thinks of doing something really wild like killing himself. When he learns a little secret from his mother, that if you really believe that you’ll come back when you kill yourself, you will. It’s apparently that simple. Even better though is when you do rise from the grave, you can’t die and seem to be super strong. So he convinces the rest of his gang to follow his lead, in usually interesting ways.

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Movie Review: Wake Wood

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Wake Wood (2011)
Directed by David Keating
Starring Aidan Gillen, Eva Birthistle, Timothy Spall, Ella Connolly, Ruth McCabe, Brian Gleeson, Amelia Crowley, Dan Gordon, Tommy McArdle

There had been so many times over the years that we’d heard that Hammer Films, the famous British studio, was rising from the grave, like so many of the creatures they put in their movies. So many times in fact, that most serious horror fans didn’t pay too much attention to the latest announcement. And even if the studio did resurrect itself, would it be able to really continue the incredible work that its forefather did before it? But then in 2007, it really did happen. Hammer Films was back. Granted, it really was in name only for the most part, since all of the original members of the studio are long since retired, passed away, or just forgotten. But the new CEO promised to not forget about its heritage and to continue the work they had started. We all know there would be no way to bring back the style and feel of those films from yesteryear. Or could there?

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Movie Review: Don’t Knock Twice

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Don’t Knock Twice (2016)
Directed by Caradog W. James
Starring Katee Sackhoff, Lucy Boynton, Javier Botet, Nick Moran, Jordan Bolger, Pooneh Hajimohammadi

In this new film by Caradog James, we get a film that starts out in very familiar territory when it comes to story: a urban legend that consists of the person doing or saying something a number of times which in turn will call upon the monster of the movie to come get you. And it does. So once the film start, it didn’t take me long to think that we were going to retread a very old horror theme, going back to the Candyman films, and even before that. But I will say that even though that is the way the movie started, they did take the story down a slightly different path, which made a refreshing change.

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Movie Review: Vampyres (1974)

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vampyres_1974_poster_03-1Vampyres (1974)
Directed by Jose Larraz
Starring Marianne Morris, Anulka Dziubinska, Murray Brown, Brian Deacon, Sally Faulkner, Michael Byrne, Karl Lanchbury

In our continuing journey to help dig up some lost or forgotten films to new viewers, we offer up this vampire morsel that is a little different your normal blood sucking fare. While it is probably not like many vampire films you’ve seen before, it will give you something that most fanged features don’t give you…something that will sink into your brain, as well as your neck.

Vampyres is a film that no heterosexual male could watch and not remembered; especially if they saw it at a young age, like I did. At face value, the film is filled with intense scenes of eroticism, coupled with brutal acts of violence and bloodshed. Did I mention there is a bit of nudity in the film as well? 

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Movie Review: Cold Prey

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Cold Prey aka Fritt vilt (2006)
Directed by Roar Uthaug
Starring Ingrid Bolsø Berdal, Rolf Kristian Larsen, Tomas Alf Larsen, Endre Martin Midtstigen, Viktoria Winge, Geir Olav Brath

This film is a perfect example of where you can have a story that isn’t the most original in concept, but is filmed in a way that it’s still very entertaining. The film deals with a group of people head off to a mountain to do some snowboarding. After one of them breaks his leg, they make their way to an abandoned hotel for the night. But once they are there, they realize they are not alone. But by then, it may be too late. A simple story that in the wrong hands, would just be another dime a dozen slasher films. But not here and not with director Uthaug.

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Movie Review: Stake Land

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Stake Land (2010)
Directed by Jim Mickle
Starring Nick Damici, Connor Paolo, Kelly McGillis, Danielle Harris, Michael Cerveris

Several years ago, when we had the 8 Films to Die For mini-film fests, there were usually only a couple of films in the lot that really stood out to us.  In the 2007 series, there was one film that REALLY stood out. The film was Mulberry Street and it was directed by Jim Mickle, as well as co-written by him and Nick Damici (who also starred in the film). The movie is about a virus that turns the population of New York into some sort o mutant rat-people. As crazy as that sounds, it was incredibly well done. From that point on, I was paying attention to these two guys, since they seemed to not only know how to make a great film, but also to make it with very little money. Folks, this means they were smart filmmakers. Something Hollywood has forgotten years ago. Plus, they had their connections with Larry Fessenden, and we know that the people he is involved with are some very talented people.

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Movie Review: Hands of the Ripper

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Hands of the Ripper (1971)
Directed by Peter Sasdy
Starring Eric Porter, Angharad Rees, Jane Merrow, Keith Bell, Derek Godfrey, Dora Bryan, Marjorie Rhodes, Marjie Lawrence, Lynda Baron

A little girl named Anna, the young daughter of Jack the Ripper, witnesses her mother being murdered at the hands of her father, before he disappears into the night, forever gone and forever burning that memory into her psyche. Over a decade later, something triggers those memories in Anna and she becomes ‘possessed’ with some evil force and power, brutally killing the lady that had taken her in. When questioned by the police, she has no memory of it. Fascinated by her case, Doctor Pritchard decides to take her into his home and family to study her, trying to unlock the secrets in her brain, using the ‘newly’ discovered psychoanalysis techniques from a Dr. Freud. But before he can grasp what is going on inside this young woman’s mind, bodies start to pile up as something keeps triggering those memories and she becomes her father’s daughter again and again.

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Movie Review: Creepshow

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Creepshow (1982)
Directed by George Romero
Starring Hal Holbrook, Adrienne Barbeau, Fritz Weaver, Leslie Nielsen, Carrie Nye, E.G. Marshall, Viveca Lindfors, Ed Harris, Ted Danson, Stephen King, Warner Shook, Robert Harper, Elizabeth Regan, Gaylen Ross, Tom Atkins

One question that horror fans get asked a lot is “what’s your favorite horror movie?” I know a lot of fans do have a particular one that is their favorite. For me though, it really would be impossible for me to narrow it down to even 20, let alone a single one. But I do know that if such a list was ever conceived in my brain, somewhere near the top would be George Romero’s Creepshow. In fact, it is my favorite of all of Romero’s work, even above Night of the Living Dead. Maybe it was because I saw this in the theater at the time my obsession with the horror genre really started to explode. Maybe it was the great mixture of horror and humor. Or the way it blended the world of horror comic books that I read as a child into the movie world in such a beautiful way. Whatever reason it might be, or all of them, I have loved this film since I first witnessed it in the theater back in 1982, and I still love it just as much today.

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