Most Japanese gangster movies of the 60’s and 70’s are little more than cleverly-achieved exercises in style over substance, with plenty of lurid violence and salacious sexuality to pleasure their thrill-seeking audiences. Maybe they’re fun to watch, but after your first viewing you might not feel compelled to grant any of them an encore. Massacre…
Mark of the Devil (Arrow Video) Blu-ray
The best exploitation movies, the ones that really stick with you long after the end credits roll, often conceal within their hard-coated shell of violence and sex the sweet, nurturing candy of the ugly truth. That’s how I see it anyway. Mark of the Devil, infamous for its U.S. marketing campaign that promoted it with…
Mosquito (Synapse) Blu-ray Review
Visual effects artist Gary Jones (Army of Darkness, Moontrap) made his directorial debut with 1995’s Mosquito, an entertaining tongue-in-cheek homage to the giant monster and killer bug B-movies of yesteryear. Jones’ labor of love receives its long-awaited debut on Blu-ray courtesy of Synapse Films with a beautifully upgraded transfer and some terrific supplements that dig…
Murder Obsession (Raro USA) Blu-ray Review
Life is far from being a bed of roses and pasta primavera for Michael Stanford (Stefano Patrizi); the handsome and popular actor has a career fast on the rise and the love of the beautiful Deborah (Silvio Dionisio) to comfort him in times of despair. During the production of a horror film Michael embraces his…
MST3K: Manos The Hands of Fate (Shout! Factory) DVD Review
Somewhere in rural Texas a vacationing family take a wrong turn and end up staying the night at a menacing lodge under the careful watch of the creepy Torgo (John Reynolds), who serves at the best of the Master (Tom Neyman), the leader of a cult that worships a vengeful spirit known only as Manos….
Major Dundee (Twilight Time) Blu-ray Review
As American is engaged in the Civil War, disgraced Union Calvary officer Major Amos Charles Dundee (Charlton Heston) – currently spending a once illustrious career in the military overseeing a prison stockade in New Mexico – is assembling an army to go into Mexico and capture or kill Sierra Charriba (Michael Pate), the vicious Apache…
Arena (Sony) DVD Review
Denver firefighter David Lord (Kellan Lutz) has the ideal life: a good job, his beautiful wife Lori (Nina Dobrev), and best of all he’s about to become a father. But one sunny afternoon a devastating car accident takes all that away. Racked with grief David flees to Acapulco to drown his sorrows in booze. Enticed…
An American Hippie in Israel (Grindhouse Releasing) Blu-ray Review
Mike (Asher Tzarfati), a Vietnam veteran from New York, came back from the war to embrace the lifestyle of a free-spirited hippie wandering the world. Arriving in Tel Aviv, Israel, Mike hitches a ride with beautiful stage actress Elizabeth (Lily Avidan) and the two hit it off right away. They eventually end up back at…
Ashanti (Severin) Blu-ray Review
David Linderby (Michael Caine) and his wife Anansa (Beverly Johnson) are both doctors who work for the United Nations. Their latest assignment takes them to an African village to inoculate the villagers. While David is engaged with photographing a tribal dance Anansa decides to go skinny dipping in a nearby river. After she emerges from…
The Amityville Trilogy (Scream Factory) Blu-ray review
The Amityville series has been one of horror cinema’s most persistent and questionably enduring franchises. It all began with the 1977 novel by Jay Anson that was supposedly based on a true story, though it has long been debunked. Nevertheless, the original Amityville Horror has spawned sequels, unofficial spin-offs, pale imitations, countless parodies, and the…