Despite summer movie season being in full swing, I’ve been uncharacteristically lax in visiting the multiplex for air-conditioned audiovisual action, and what little I have seen has underwhelmed. As the seven reviews below prove, I’ve been reading about the movies more than watching them. After all, the rewards can be greater and you don’t have … Continue reading Reading Material: 7 New Film Books for the Summer Movie Season
Also known under the baffling title of Because of the Cats, Brutalization is an obscure sickie in which five young men pull Hanes Control Top panythose over their heads and rape a woman while making her husband watch — you know, just for kicks! They may have gotten their rocks off, but the viewer should … Continue reading Brutalization (1973)
While certainly well-intentioned, the idea behind Hidden Horror: A Celebration of 101 Underrated and Overlooked Fright Flicks is hardly new. For example, I immediately was reminded of a book that’s now 10 years old: Fangoria’s 101 Best Horror Movies You’ve Never Seen: A Celebration of the World’s Most Unheralded Fright Flicks. Hell, the titles are … Continue reading Hidden Horror: A Celebration of 101 Underrated and Overlooked Fright Flicks
One of the precious few genre films made by Japan’s Shochiku production studio, The Living Skeleton is a good one. The ghost story begins aboard the Dragon King, a ship carrying gold bullion, which makes it a natural to be robbed by a gang of ugly-mugged, well-armed pirates. It is, and one of its passengers, … Continue reading The Living Skeleton (1968)
To the surprise of no one, I Spit on Your Grave 2 tells essentially the same story as its 2010 predecessor (itself a remake of the notorious 1978 grindhouse classic): Pretty girl gets kidnapped, raped and left for dead; pretty girl doesn’t die; pretty girl gets revenge on her captors/rapists. And yet, returning director Steven … Continue reading I Spit on Your Grave 2 (2013)