During the 1940s, prolific Hollywood screenwriter Lillie Hayward would power the decade with rich and compelling films that varied in theme and tone. From shadowy and complex Westerns such as Blood on the Moon (1948), to introducing new dimensions to ...
Read More »Classic Horror on Disc: Shout Factory’s The Witches (1966)
Filmed around the same time as Plague of the Zombies, Hammer’s The Witches is a colourful but slightly tedious occult thriller / folk horror film. The print on this Scream Factory disc opens with a British Board of Film Censors ...
Read More »Looking Back at The White Reindeer (1952)
Witchcraft is an amorphous category, and the witch, as a figure, contains infinite possibilities. In many ways, her greatest power is the power of transformation. She is certainly prone to literal metamorphosises: she may turn herself into a cat, a ...
Read More »Mr. Whippy on the Prowl: The Suburban Terror of Snapshot (1979)
Bare breasts – of the female variety – was considered an almost obligatory part of 1970s Australian cinema, particularly of the independent or exploitation variety. Even if it was just a fleeting glimpse, female nudity was always highlighted in a ...
Read More »“Chatting to a Chimp in Chimpanzee:” A Look at Donna McRae’s Cobby: The Other Side of Cute (2018)
Donna McRae is lovingly devoted to animals and animal welfare. Knowing her personally, I am in constant awe of her passionate and well-informed stance on the treatment of animals across the globe; whether it be the hushed abuse of donkeys ...
Read More »The Last Road To Hell: Satire and Deconstruction in Cannibal Holocaust (1980)
Cannibal Holocaust (1980) is often described as one of the most controversial films ever made. It’s easy to understand why. Provocative and polarizing, its content is both shocking and subversive. Ruggero Deodato’s most notable work has incited repulsion in some, ...
Read More »“Girls Swinging Around on a Pole”: Katt Shea’s Stripped to Kill
I can’t be certain that Katt Shea’s sexploitation flick Stripped to Kill (1987) holds the record for most gratuitous butt shots, but it features so many of them in the first five minutes alone that I’m confident in declaring it ...
Read More »“YOU WERE GREAT, BABY…SIMPLY GREAT”: Atomic Age Artistry in My Dream Is Yours (1949)
The promise of the American dream is a dead-end billboard in Michael Curtiz’s significantly cynical and bittersweet musical My Dream Is Yours (1949), a film thematically concerned with fabricated aspects of artistic integrity, sacrifice, jealousy and the flighty complexities of ...
Read More »There is Always Someone Younger and Hungrier Coming Down the Stairs After You: The Resurrection of Showgirls.
After the enormous success of the 1992 erotic thriller Basic Instinct, director Paul Verhoeven had audiences waiting with bated breath to see what he would do next. Sharon Stone’s infamous interrogation scene had already firmly cemented itself in pop culture, ...
Read More »Classic Horror on Disc: Severin’s All the Colors of the Dark (1972).
Disc Details Severin, 2019. Region A. Feature: 94 mins. Aspect ratio 2:35:1. Previous Region A/Region 1 Disc Editions Shriek Show/Media Blasters. 2004. DVD. The Movie All the Colours of the Dark is a fascinating giallo directed by Sergio Martino and ...
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