Have you heard The Word, NASA? The other name for Mars is Death. The nifty screenplay by Sci-fi scribe Jerome Bixby lends the horror chills a basic logic, when Marshall Thompson & Shawn Smith battle a Martian stowaway on board a homebound spaceship. This Kino disc of the monsterrific ’50s favorite improves the transfer and…
Hollywood’s first talkie version of the Nathaniel Hawthorne classic was also the final film of silent superstar Colleen Moore. The dramatization of the Puritan ABCs (what do the B & C stand for?) is also a post-Code downer, putting the shame firmly on Mame Hester Prynne even as it exposes the hypocrisy of colonial intolerance….
Pairing wine with movies! See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies and many more at Trailers From Hell. This week, we serve up some leftover Halloween candy in the form of three films featuring Bela Lugosi and Boris Karloff. Oh, and we have wine pairings for each as usual. The Invisible…
An MIA ‘film prodigal’ has been returned to the fold, thanks to this well-curated restoration and remaster. Long unavailable in good condition, we can finally enjoy Riccardo Freda’s Gothic masterpiece as it should be seen, in glowing color and with a choice of language tracks. The tagline “His candle of lust burnt brightest in the…
William Holden earned his Best Actor Oscar as J.J. Sefton, a POW who runs the rackets in the prisoners’ barracks, and whose cynical opportunism attracts the hatred of his fellow prisoners. Suspected as a traitor collaborating with the Germans, Sefton doesn’t hide his contempt for his comrades. Adapting this Broadway hit was a career-saver for…
This overlooked and orphaned drama presents Candice Bergen as an alienated newcomer to Chicago. James Caan contributes a carefully modulated performance, and Peter Boyle feels real in a part that we’d expect to be pitched for comedy. Writer Peter Hyams presents a dark tale of Woe in the City, director Herbert Ross emphasizes the gloom…
Sci-fi completists and diehard fans of ‘fifties TV fun will want to know about this remastered disc containing all 13 episodes of the short-lived 1959 TV series, starring Marshall Thompson as America’s ‘tom thumb in a suitcase’ superspy, and Arthur Franz as his full-sized secret agent partner. Vintage special effects see them battle oversized animals…
‘Tis the season to be scary. On October 31, when the sun, goes to rest, that’s when drivers have to be extra careful not to run over the ghosts and goblins in the street. That’s my POV as an adult, anyway. Call me a spoilsport, but Halloween hasn’t really meant that much to me since…
Tod Browning’s Sideshow Shockers Blu-ray Criterion 1925, 1927, 1932 / 70, 66, 64 Min. / 1.33.1 Starring Aileen Pringle, Lon Chaney, Joan Crawford, Wallace Ford Written by Tod Browning, Waldemar Young, Willis Goldbeck Photographed by Ira H. Morgan, Merritt B. Gerstad Directed by Tod Browning 1931’s Dracula remains Tod Browning’s most enduring film but it’s…
Tod Browning’s final fantastic film is . . . totally bonkers. Humans are reduced in size and dispatched like zombies to take revenge on a prison escapee’s enemies. It’s all to enable the escapee to reunite with his beloved daughter, so why not paralyze some chumps and condemn the puppet people to a strange living…
Behold this mindless monster duo from the Feelin’ Fine summer of ’59, Texas- produced and ready to tear up drive-in screens. THE GIANT GILA MONSTER is truth in advertising, plus you get hot rods, non-rebellious teen rebels, and gospel-folk ‘rock’ music to accompany the hungry lizard with the flippidy flippidy tongue. The second show is…
The Others 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray Criterion 2001 / 104 Min. / 1.85.1 Starring Nicole Kidman, Fionnula Flanagan, Alakina Mann, James Bentley Written by Alejandro Amenábar Photographed by Javier Aguirresarobe Directed by Alejandro Amenábar If it’s possible for one movie to haunt another, then surely the spirit of Jack Clayton’s The Innocents walks alongside…
Wow, this truly inspirational film sees modern realities vanquishing a traditional way of life — and doesn’t pull the usual reverential heartstrings. Michael Powell’s breakout feature combines ethnographic docu-realism with the cinematic image-communication he learned in silent movies, and the result is a masterpiece — an adult art film that needs make no excuses. The…
Pairing wine with movies! See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies and many more at Trailers From Hell. This week, we will pair wines with three different versions of the great fictional detective Sherlock Holmes. Sherlock Holmes pairs with wine very well. He was documented by his creator, Sir Arthur Conan…
Cujo Blu-ray 4K UltraHD Kino Lorber 1983 / 93 Min. / 1.85.1 Starring Dee Wallace, Daniel Hugh-Kelly, Danny Pintauro, Christopher Stone Written by Don Carlos Dunaway, Lauren Currier Photographed by Jan De Bont Directed by Lewis Teague If, as Charles Bukowski wrote, “Love is a dog from hell”, then Cujo qualifies as one of the…
Somebody at Universal-International had a good, fresh idea for a psychologically-based murder thriller — but was the studio system not conducive to creative experimentation? Ray Danton and Colleen Miller put their all into a story that feels like a rough draft for Psycho, with a main character doing his best to be ‘normal’ yet prey…
Paramount’s contribution to Halloween ’23 — and its signal of support for hard video media — comes in the form of this horror gift box with five very different flavors of Scary: Rosemary’s Baby, Pet Sematary, Crawl, Smile and a ‘mystery title’ we’ve been asked not to reveal. All are in 4K with Digital codes;…
Black Sabbath Blu-ray Kino Lorber 1963 / 92 Min. / 1.85.1 Starring Boris Karloff, Michéle Mercier, Mark Damon, Written by Marcello Fondato, Alberto Bevilacqua, Mario Bava Photographed by Ubaldo Terzano Directed by Mario Bava Sam Arkoff and Jim Nicholson were not generally known for their altruism but as founders of American International Pictures, they would…
The Woman in Black 1989 / 103 Mins. / 1.33: 1 Starring Adrian Rawlins, Bernard Hepton, Pauline Moran Written by Nigel Kneale Directed by Herbert Wise CineSavant Revival Screening – Halloween Edition Born and raised in Victoria’s England, Miss Jessel and Janet Goss were women who loved too well and paid the price. They shared…
David Cronenberg’s most out-there ick-thriller precedes 30 years of weaker blow-your-mind sci-fi ‘mind evolution’ sagas, Matrices, etc.. It’s the scary truth: humanity is merging with communication and entertainment technology — is your cell phone physically attached to your body yet? Slimy James Woods and fearless Deborah Harry tresspass into a shady cable TV realm that…
We were already big fans of Douglas Fairbanks’ fantastic silent The Thief of Bagdad; this double-bill disc gives us excellent encodings of the producer-star’s Robin Hood and The Black Pirate, supremely entertaining adventures that conjure up everything a Big Night at the Movies can be. Douglas Fairbanks is at his best; it’s impossible not to…
Don’t Look Now 4K Ultra HD + Blu-ray Criterion 1973 / 110 Min. / 1.85.1 Starring Julie Christie, Donald Sutherland, Massimo Serato, Hilary Mason Written by Chris Bryant and Allan Scott Photographed by Anthony Richmond Directed by Nicolas Roeg When is a ghost story not a ghost story? The question is at the heart of…
Pairing wine with movies! See the trailers and hear the fascinating commentary for these movies and many more at Trailers From Hell. This week, we will go ape and find wines to pair with a simian set of cinematic celluloid. How in the world, you may wonder, is he going to tie in wine with…
The latest double feature from the new label Film Masters yields two thrillers from dynamo producer Roger Corman, filmed in snowy South Dakota using the same actors and technical talent. The monster romp is a fine directing debut for cult favorite Monte Hellman, from a retread crime script by the dependable Charles B. Griffith. The…
The skeletal claws of the DEAD reach out at us from Franco-era Spanish horror, where cruelty and oppression seem built into every violent fantasy. Amando de Ossorio hit pay dirt with this fright show that ignited a mini-franchise: a curse from the past looses the ghoulish remains of evil Knights Templar, eyeless zombies that ride…