Book Review: The Films of Larry Buchanan

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filmsofbuchananThe Films of Larry Buchanan
By Rob Craig
Published by McFarland & Company, 2007. 271 pages.

While the films of Larry Buchanan might be an acquired taste, he is probably my favorite of the low (or no) budget filmmakers. And hearing stories about his films and the making of them are sometimes more entertaining then the movies themselves.

Author Craig does an amazing job dissecting Buchanan’s film, giving us a ton of information about the films, the people who worked on them, and Buchanan himself. The only problem is that I think Craig has looked at the films at little too close and started to see things and meanings that I don’t necessarily believe are there. Now granted, with any film study, there are those who see deeper into the pictures than others can. That is not to say they are right or wrong, but for me I think if you stare and examine anything long enough, you will find whatever it is you might be looking for. As much as I love and enjoy Buchanan and his films, I don’t think some of these deeper messages that Craig points out were really there or at least never consciously intended to be there. Again, this is just MY opinion.

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Book Review: It Came From Hunger! Tales of a Schlockmeister

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hungerbookIT CAME FROM HUNGER!  TALES OF A SCHLOCKMEISTER
By Larry Buchanan
Published by McFarland & Co, 1996.  215 pages.

For those out there that think that Roger Corman made movies with incredibly low budgets, then you need to learn who Larry Buchanan was.  Station out of Texas, Buchanan churn out film after film with embarrassing low budgets, some of them making some decent money.  This is one of my favorite quotes from the book:

“Roger Corman had been giving three times the budget we had.  His version was in black and white, and he had as his leads Peter Graves, Beverly Garland, and Lee Van Cleef.  And the running time was only 71 minutes.  For $30,000, I was expected to shoot 80 cut minutes of color and bring in three young stars from Hollywood.  Their board, hotel, and air fare alone would be $15,000!”

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Book Review: The Argento Syndrome

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argentosyndrome-scThe Argento Syndrome
By Derek Botelho
Published by BearManor Media, 2014. 261 pages.

Do we really need another book on Dario Argento? I mean, after the great tome from Alan Jones, what more could be said? The answers to those two questions is Yes and a LOT! There are some books that are just fact based, like reading something from IMDB. Or others are just loaded with stories from the authors point of view. But the real beauty of Botelho’s book is that it is a combination of those two types, making it not only a great read, but very informative.

He covers all of Argento’s movies, but also gives us a little story behind it of how he first saw it, which gives the reader an insight to the author, but it also shows that he is a fan, just like most of us. Reading a book on a filmmaker that is basically someone’s college thesis can sometimes be a bit dry, but Botehlo gives us some great stories about the man, the movies, and the different people that worked on them.

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Movie Review: Mark of the Devil

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markofthedevil-arrowMark of the Devil
Directed by Michael Armstrong & Adrian Hoven
Starring Herbert Lom, Udo Kier, Olivera Katarina, Reggie Nalder, Herbert Fux, , Gaby Fuchs, Johannes Buzalski, Adrian Hoven, Ingeborg Schöner

It has been quite a while since I sat down with this notorious little film. And after watching it, I remember why it has been so long. For me, this is a very brutal and disturbing film. Not in the sense of something like Cannibal Holocaust, but because this really is based on historical fact, and what the church and their underlings did to innocent people, for reasons of greed, lust, jealousy, and just about every other sin there was. I mean, you have a group of nuns being attacked and raped in the first few minutes of the film, so that sets the tone pretty quickly. Watching this story unfold once again in front of me, it brought forth my feelings towards this kind of religious fever and terror from a group that is supposed to be about peace and love. In his book Horror Films of the 1970s, author John Kenneth Muir writes that this “film exists solely to catalogue man’s brutality against man.” I completely agree with that, but think that is the reasoning behind it, to show what we as a race have done to each other. This film shows a very unsettling period of time then, and sometimes makes me think we could go through that all over again.

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Mystery Photo 3-30

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Yes, I know it has been a while since our last Mystery  Photo. I can only blame it on being gone last weekend for the HorrorHound show. But since things on the weekend tend to happen, like conventions, I’ve decided to move these Mystery Photo posts to Mondays. That it will be at least one good thing to look forward to Mondays for, right?

Our last photo was from George Romero’s The Dark Half, which I just recently seen for the first time since it probably came out on video. But this little part where the frame grab was taken from really gets the jump from the audience. Kudos to the following for sending in the correct answer: Aaron Christensen, Matt Dean, Ken Johnson, Kevin Matthews, and Mike Tutino.

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Cinematic Crossroads – Battle # 3: Cabin Fever

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With this episode of Cinematic Crossroads, we take on Eli Roth’s debut film, Cabin Fever. So let’s get started!

cc-cfbannerSpecial Guest Start: John Pata. John Pata comes from the land known as Oshkosh, WI, where he is the owner of Head Trauma Productions. Pata co-wrote/directed the feature length film, DEAD WEIGHT, released earlier this year. He also is the president of the Time Community Theater, a volunteer-based, non-profit theater in Oshkosh, and continues to organize various horror events as Oshkosh Horror. Oh, and he loves burritos and iced tea. I mean LOVES them.

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Cinematic Crossroads – Battle #1: The Blair Witch Project

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It seems I got the order of these a little screwed up. This is our first entry in the Cinematic Crossroads, with From Dusk Till Dawn being our 2nd venture. So I’ve edited our last post a bit. But in our first one, we didn’t have a guest start yet, so it was just myself, Aaron Christensen, Brian Kirst, and Dave Kosanke. Enjoy.

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Cinematic Crossroads – Battle # 2: From Dusk Till Dawn

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Some of you might not know or remember when we started doing these group discussions, which I called Cinematic Crossroads. It is basically 4 dedicated horror fans and one guest star, discussing a film that is divided between when it comes to their opinion. This is our first one that was posted some time ago, but I am bringing them over from the old site to here. So if you haven’t seen this before, please read and enjoy!

Our panel consist of myself, Aaron Christensen (Horror 101 with Dr. AC), Dave Kosanke (Liquid Cheese fanzine), and Brian Kirst (Big Gay Horror Fan).

Special Guest Star: Adam Rockoff – In the past year, Adam Rockoff has written the remake of I Spit on Your Grave (under his pseudonym, Stuart Morse), as well as the Hallmark Channel made-for-TV-movie, Dad’s Home.  In one of them, a single father is heartbroken because he may be forced to uproot his family and move to another city.  In the other, a rapist has his eyelids pulled back by fishhooks while crows peck out his eyeballs.  You figure out which is which. 

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The Beyond at the Music Box Theatre

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Later on this evening, I will be heading into Chicago for a midnight screening of Lucio Fulci’s The Beyond, thanks to not only the Music Box but also Grindhouse Releasing for all of their hard work they have done on this. But why drive the hour+ long drive into the city to see a movie that I’ve already seen twice on the big screen at this same theater, not to mention having seen it upon its original release back in the ’80s (although in a highly cut version, under the re-titling of Seven Doors of Death)? Because of many reasons.

beyond3First and foremost, The Beyond is one of my favorite movies, so having the chance to see this on the big screen is one that I’m going to take advantage of whenever I can. Also it is to show support. Support to folks at Grindhouse Releasing for all of their hard work that they do in preserving this amazing films. And support to the Music Box Theatre for continuing to screen these kind of films. If we don’t support this kind of work, then they are going to wonder why bother and stop them.

And the most important reason….YOU GET TO SEE A LUCIO FULCI CLASSIC ON THE BIG SCREEN!!!!

So…we’ll see you there, right?

F@#K REMAKES – HorrorHound Weekend…Part 2

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blobSaturday night during this recent HorrorHound Weekend, some friends and I were hanging out at the hotel discussing the future of the world and other such stimulating topics, when a guy came up to join our little group. He was passing out little buttons that said “Fuck Remakes” and went to give me one, asking if I liked remakes. When I replied that not all are bad, he withdrew the offer. I then noticed he was wearing a t-shirt with the same moniker. Then the discussion began. Now, it is kind of ironic that while I’m reaching an age where grumpiness and generally being an asshole becomes a normal mood, but at the same time, I’m a lot more tolerant on topics and ideas that in my youth I would have rallied against, much like this recent addition to our group. When I threw out titles like Carpenter’s The Thing or Cronenberg’s The Fly, or Chuck Russell’s The Blob, he blew those off commenting that he thinks the studios would be better off putting time and money into projects that were original. I totally agree with him on that, as well as some of the other points he was making.

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