Often when we 80s kids talk about growing up in that golden age of cinema, we refer to slasher films like A Nightmare on Elm Street or Friday the 13th, or the angsty dramedies of John Hughes, or comedies such ...
Read More »Dark Hearts Americana: Jim Thompson
Fucked up and over at the miserable old age of 70, Jim Thompson died at home in, of all places, Los Angeles-a town that promised golden dreams to an aging novelist who’s novel writing days were over. He got fucked ...
Read More »Looking Back at Faust: Love of the Damned
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 ...
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