Before we begin, let me take you back to 1989. I was 13. It was the year of Tim Burton’s Batman, starring Michael Keaton. Comics were huge at the time. It was a great age to be a Marvel reader ...
Read More »Dark Hearts Americana: Nelson Algren
It’s 1933 and it’s Texas. There’s this guy from Chicago. He’s part Jewish and grew up in a Polish neighborhood. He works at a gas station. His name is Nelson Algren, but who cares? Nobody knows who that is yet. ...
Read More »It’s just a little blood: Bill Lustig’s ‘Maniac’ (1980)
I love New York. No, I don’t mean the real New York, not the modern New York, but that legendary, dangerous, terrifying, otherworldly New York of the 1970s and early 1980s. I love the New York artists of Patti Smith, ...
Read More »Tre Spaghetti Westerns by 3 Giallo Directors: Fulci, Argento and Martino
I didn’t grow up on Westerns, despite how they were often shoved down my throat. I hated Roy Rogers and John Wayne. The idea of The Lone Ranger and Zorro was all right, but I preferred my masked vigilantes a ...
Read More »Luigi Bazzoni and Franco Rossellini’s ‘The Possessed’ Receives a Beautiful Arrow Blu-Ray Release
Bernard, a writer, arrives in a remote Italian town looking for a woman, Tilde, he had a brief affair with. But upon arrival he learns that she had committed suicide. There is, of course, more to the story, as Bernard ...
Read More »Love is Nihilism: Natural Born Killers (1994)
There is a rich cinematic history of psychos in love, but few have made it on to a list of most controversial movies of all time. In 1994, Oliver Stone, working from a heavily rewritten Quentin Tarantino screenplay, unleashed a ...
Read More »Horror Business: Talking to Jenn Wexler About ‘The Ranger’ (2018), Horror and Punk Rock
“Giaco (Furino) and I really wanted to make a movie that clashes 80s’ punk movies and slashers, and has these outrageous characters in this heightened comic book world. However, we wanted to circle it all around this character study of ...
Read More »Rest In Power, Burt Reynolds
While I was processing the passing of the legendary Burt Reynolds, I was reminded of David Bowie’s passing. With either man, I can’t remember when I became a fan, they were just always there when I was growing up. I ...
Read More »Knights of Blind Terror: A Look at the Blind Dead Films
On Friday the 13th, in October of 1307, King Philip IV ordered the simultaneous mass arrest of dozens of Knights Templar. The order had been formed in the 1100s to defend pilgrims on their way to the Holy Land. Later, ...
Read More »The Outer Limits: The Complete First Season (Kino Lorber Review)
Through the decades, anthology series have came and went with varying degrees of success. Many are generally forgotten, either by being so short-lived and/or failing to generate viewership, like ABC’s The Darkroom (1981), which ran a mere seven episodes. But ...
Read More »