Although often lumped in with the blaxploitation films of the period, Ossie Davis’ Cotton Comes to Harlem feels a lot less Superfly and a lot more like a classic ’70s buddy cop movie, albeit one set in a Harlem where the possibility of a race riot is always just a few minutes away. The result … Continue reading Cotton Comes to Harlem (1970)
According to my trusty Leonard Maltin iPhone app, director Curtis Harrington was so disappointed with the television version of his Ruby, he insisted on taking the infamous Alan Smithee credit. Before it was retired, the pseudonym was used by filmmakers who felt their artistic vision had been so catastrophically usurped, they could not allow to … Continue reading Ruby (1977)
In retrospect, it seems amazing that writer/director Michael Tolkin was able to get The Rapture made. In the history of mainstream American filmmaking, it’s hard to come up with another example of a film that persuasively argues that even if the God worshipped by millions of evangelical Christians does exist, he/she/it is far too cruel … Continue reading The Rapture (1991)
The Convent is made with such obvious affection, I’m able to forgive that it literally plunges a knife into the heart of its least hateful character 30 minutes into its running time, and then makes us wait another 20 before Adrienne Barbeau shows up to kick some serious demon nun ass. It begins memorably in … Continue reading The Convent (2000)
Unleashed the same year as A Nightmare on Elm Street, Wes Craven’s made-for-TV Invitation to Hell is another dark look at American suburbia, only without all of the good stuff that made his feature effort so memorable. Whereas Elm Street gave us Freddy Krueger, Hell does its best with soap star Susan Lucci, who is … Continue reading Invitation to Hell (1984)