I am sitting here having just watched the Paul Naschy directed/starring the Frenchman’s Garden. A film I could only have sat through on a bad bootleg just a few years ago. 10 years ago even I could only get a handful of Naschy’s more popular horror works on DVD, and now I could pull so…
Blu-ray Review – Deadlock – Subkultur
Review—Deadlock (Subkultur)Author: Palo SionopliaIn case you’re the sort of ne’er-do-well who only gives reviews the briefest of glances, I’m going to frontload the following: you need to purchase this release. I’m now going to spend the rest of this space telling you why.To most of us on the American side of the pond, director Roland…
Blu-ray Review – It’s Nothing Mama, Just A Game – Mondo Macabro
The influence of the Most Dangerous Games seem to have not strayed for from the world of EuroCult cinema in the 70’s. In the past Mondo Macabro themselves have released at least 2 films that I can think that have channeled the themes of the story, with last year’s release of Seven Women for Satan,…
Blu-ray Review – Killer’s Delight – Vinegar Syndrome
Review—Killer’s Delight (Vinegar Syndrome)Author: Palo SionopliaKiller’s Delight (aka The Dark Ride aka The Sport Killer) is a bit of a mixed bag. It’s an exploitation film dressed up as a police procedural, a would-be thriller that borrows heavily from the real-life drama of Ted Bundy’s initial capture and conviction. Released in 1978, the film can…
Blu-ray Reviews – Human Animals – Mondo Macabro
Eligio Herrero’s 1983 film Human Animals is set in a world where the bombs have finally dropped, and the end of the world has arrived. Into this nuclear apocalypse are 3 individuals 2 men and one woman who awaken seemingly in the middle of a desert environment. One of the men and the woman appear…
Blu-ray Review – Wrath of Man – Warner Brothers
Review—Wrath of Man (MGM/Warner Bros.)Author: Palo SionopliaWrath of Man is not your dad’s Guy Ritchie. Roughly two decades ago, Ritchie and I parted ways. While I could see the talent in idiosyncratic crime comedies like Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels and Snatch, I thought the Coen brothers and Jonathan Glazer (Sexy Beast) made better…
Blu-ray Review – The Designated Victim – Mondo Macabro
The giallo was big business in Italy in the early 70’s. Yeah, it got its start in the 60’s, but it seems once Argento took flight with his Bird with the Crystal Plumage the genre really boomed. Hundreds of the films were made just in the 3-4 years after Bird…, and while not everyone took…
Blu-ray Review – Skinned Deep – Severin
Review—Skinned Deep (Severin) Author: Palo Sionoplia In the early 2000s, Fangoria films rode the direct-to-video wave with a spate of films under the company’s newly-minted “Gorezone” imprint. While none of these films broke new ground, they gave young directors the opportunity to develop their craft and release material that was too quirky for the multiplex….
Blu-ray Review – Siege – Severin Films
Review—Siege (Severin)Author: Palo Sionoplia In 1983, Canadian genre cinema gave the world its answer to John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13 via the aptly-titled thriller Siege. In hopes of creating a film with strong commercial appeal, co-directors Paul Donovan (who also wrote and produced the film) and Maura O’Connell concocted a lean, mean work of…
Blu-ray Review – Swordgai – The Animation – Complete Series – Sentai Filmworks
Swordgai – The Animation takes place in a world where incredibly violent and powerful weapons exist. These weapons are demonic in nature, and either possess their wielder, or begin to slowly control them. Into this world comes “Gai”, whose Mother had come into contact with one of these weapons “Shiryu” when she was pregnant, but…