The true breakdown of society appears to have begun in Australia around 1979, when George Miller made this berserk extrapolation of every toxic futurist prediction on the books. Out on the open road the only thing saving society from horrifying motorized gang violence is a corps of equally crazed patrolmen in their interceptor vehicles….

Amazon Women on the Moon Blu ray  Kino Lorber 1987 / 85 Min. / 1:85 Starring Lots of Actors Cinematography by Daniel Pearl Directed by Joe Dante, Carl Gottlieb, Peter Horton, John Landis, Robert K. Weiss Mark Twain said “If you don’t like the weather in New England now, just wait a few minutes.” That…

  Guest reviewer Lee Broughton returns with an assessment of Robert Englund’s offbeat video rental store favourite 976-EVIL. Satanic panic ensues when two teenage cousins are foolish enough to start using an automated telephone “horrorscope” service. Dialling 666 just might be granting the pair a direct line to the Devil himself and there’s bound to…

  Join Joe Friday and Frank Smith as they make a case against the rotten gangland crooks that moiderized Dub Taylor with a shotgun, point blank! See detectives loiter about while smart remarks and BIG music stings provide the excitement! The big-screen version of the hit TV show has a surfeit of guest crooks, unhappy…

  Region B Blu-ray-capable noir fans have a formidable six-pack of noir crime pictures on tap: a WW2 espionage thriller, two caper pix and the show that launched the notion of a hit man who’s both charismatic and psychopathic. The list of leading actors is stellar as well: Glenn Ford, Kim Novak, Eli Wallach, Brian…

  Finally, a horror shocker that needs to make no excuses! Harry Kümel’s interpretation of the Elizabeth Báthory legend excels in all departments and succeeds in each of its aims. Erotic Eurohorror meets Sternbergian visual decadence, making a vivid (and bloody) statement about classic screen exoticism. Given the full glamour treatment, silky Delphine Seyrig is…

  This bizarre, creepy and maudit masterpiece of silent expressionist horror is an independent 1950s production that never had a chance commercially. Butchered by a second distributor, its ignominious fate was to wind up as a movie-within-a-movie footnote for Steve McQueen. Cohen/BFI’s ‘rescue’ remastering of John Parker’s picture does some things great — we never…

The Fu Manchu Cycle—1965-1969 Blu ray  Powerhouse Indicator 1965 – 1969 / 96, 93, 91, 94, 92 min. / 2:33:1, 1:85, 1:66 Starring Christoper Lee, Tsai Chin Cinematography by Ernest Steward, John Von Kotze, Manuel Merino Directed by Don Sharp, Jeremy Summers, Jesús Franco Arthur Henry Ward was born in Birmingham in 1883—at the age…

  French filmmaker Alain Jessua comes up with a commercial thriller with a science-fiction, medical horror twist. Alain Delon and Annie Girardot don’t shy away from some matter-of-fact nude scenes, that serve a legit dramatic purpose. Outside France the sex content was almost the only angle exploited. Beneath the glamour and intrigues at a chic…

  The Cuban masterpiece has been restored, and is now viewable on the Martin Scorsese’s World Cinema Project 3 boxed set. Humberto Solás’ nearly 3-hour national epic revisits two earlier revolutions to tell the stories of  three Lucías. The first Lucía is entangled in the war of independence against Spain, and the second opposes the gangland-era…

  It’s Christopher Lee and Peter Cushing together in a horror picture, a formula no shock feature fan can resist. Most of us remember staring at the beautiful full-color photo of Chris Lee in monster makeup in Denis Gifford’s picture book about horror movies. Yet this has remained one of the pair’s most obscure items,…

  If you like Euro-crime and haven’t seen this one you’re in for a real treat. English killers are on the road in Spain, executing a hit on a ‘Supergrass’ who’s spent ten years in protective custody. The brilliant cast — Terence Stamp, John Hurt, Tim Roth and Laura Del Sol give the criminal twists…

  Clint Eastwood proves again that he Owns the western genre with this odd tale of land reform insurrection and establishment blowback, in New Mexico of 1906. To direct the script by the great Elmore Leonard, Eastwood brought in the western movie legend John Sturges. But Sturges discovered that collaboration now meant acceding to whatever…

The Ape Blu ray  Kino Lorber 1940 / 62 min. / 1:33:1 Starring Boris Karloff, Maris Wrixon Cinematography by Harry Neumann Directed by William Nigh William Nigh directed over 40 silent films before he signed on for The Ape, which might account for this 1940 film looking far older than its release date—the staging is…

This CinemaScope musical remake of 1939’s The Women is highly watchable, especially in this flawless digital remaster. The actresses that bare their claws, compete for husbands and just plain cat-fight are a choice batch, with favorites from the ’50s (June Allyson, Agnes Moorehead) the ’40s (Ann Sheridan, Ann Miller) the ’30s (Joan Blondell, Charlotte Greenwood)…

  Easily the best family-oriented black experience movie of the early 1970s, the Third World Cinema Corporation’s first film features Diahann Carroll and James Earl Jones in a funny, endearing saga of life in the welfare system, with human feeling and compassion to spare. But the triumphant socially progressive movie fails the 2020 diversity test…

  This big, expensive and well-produced action-suspense Sci-fi epic mostly delivers on its promise to be Aliens at the bottom of the sea. At heart it’s a 1950s pulse-pounder with a bigger monster, a zillion times the budget and a script that does everything but make us care. We appreciate the likable characters but it’s…

  It’s finally back on Blu in Region 1, the ‘sixties spy movie beloved by enthusiasts that yearned for something a bit more substantial & nutritious than James Bond. This first Harry Palmer adventure seems even more perfect than when it was thanks to a great espionage recipe and quality ingredients. Michael Caine is sensational…

The Chalk Garden Blu ray  1964 / 106 min. / 1:85:1 Starring Deborah Kerr, Hayley Mills, John Mills Cinematography by Arthur Ibbetson Directed by Ronald Neame Julie Andrews thrived in the role of governess—even when pitted against the Nazis in The Sound of Music she found plenty of time for sing-alongs—the same for Mary Poppins where…

If you have to name ONE movie that’s not likely to ever be screened in a prison, this one’s a good bet. In his sophomore starring outing Burt Lancaster leads a group of rebel convicts on a do-or-die bust-out against Hume Cronyn’s utter Nazi of a warden Captain. Richard Brooks’ script and Jules Dassin’s direction…

Producer-star Richard Widmark may have thought he was inventing a new kind of spy film but his adaptation of an Alistair MacLean novel just grinds the Cold War grist, mixing good atmosphere with unconvincing action derring-do. The handsome production makes good use of Austrian and Swiss locations and the unfamiliar cast is a big assist….

  A bona fide film classic, George Stevens’ movie is less revered as an excellent adaptation of Theodore Dreiser than for its intense, almost hallucinatory romantic scenes between Montgomery Clift and Elizabeth Taylor. A guileless poor boy tries to succeed above his economic background and entangles himself between two very different women. I guess the…

  TV’s 1979 Titanic movie comes to Blu in two versions. We liked it when new but didn’t care for the cut-down theatrical version that hit DVD in 2002. Kino’s disc completes a set of various film versions of the infamous 1912 disaster, and allows us the chance for a Titanic ‘battle of the bands’…

The Vincent Price Collection Blu ray  1960,’61, ’63, ’64, ’68, ’71 / 79, 85, 87, 90, 86, 94 min. / 2.35 : 1, 1:85:1 Starring Vincent Price, Barbara Steele, Hazel Court Cinematography by Floyd Crosby, Nicolas Roeg, John Coquillon, Norman Warwick Directed by Roger Corman, Michael Reeves, Robert Fuest The Vincent Price Collection, the first…

  Ya like quality pro-intervention propaganda?  Warners’ filmic call to arms inspired America’s reluctant warriors via a superhuman feat by a highly decorated WW1 veteran… and promptly got into hot water with the United States congress. Howard Hawks’ highly effective load of sentiment and sanctimony makes Tennesseans look like denizens of Dogpatch, U.S.A.. But America…

  And now for something we had read about but never before saw: Tod Slaughter’s highly entertaining murder thriller is stylized in a vintage theatrical format, the Victorian blood & thunder barnstorming drama, originally from 1880 or thereabouts. Slaughter’s refined gentleman is also a crazed killer with a bizarre modus operandi. Everything that happens is…