Well, it’s a new look, but I’m working on it. Basically scratched the theme for the site I had started writing from scratch. It was way too buggy and apparently I don’t know what I’m doing, who’d have thunk it! Anyway, I took another three column theme and have so far just scratched the surface in terms of adapting it to my needs - but hopefully others will like it! It’s the least dark the site has ever been - but hey, this isn’t just a horror site or anything so it’s free to be down with whatever.
Anywho, more reviews to come. Today I’ll be busy getting all of my Rogue Cinema stuff together but after that I’ll get back on the site. Be cool everybody!
The Review: Although the Italian genre scene is one that is rife for parody, few filmmakers have taken up the torch to actually lampoon what was probably the silliest and most over-the-top cinematic movie business the world will likely ever see. Only in Italy during the seventies/eighties could films such as Cannibal Ferox, The New Gladiators and Emanuelle in America have been made - especially with the intention of actually making a profit. During the better part of the nineties, if you knew about films such as these or if you actually owned them and had more films from these subgenres - you could consider yourself pretty far “in the know”. With the boom of the internet however and a wealth of cinematic knowledge at the fingertips of any would-be-geek, we’ve seen a fairly dramatic rise in the popularity of these films with American audiences and horror fans the world over. A decade ago, the title “Cannibal Holocaust” was almost universally unknown - however thanks to dozens of little film geeks parading their knowledge in various other internet cultures - the majority of film fans out there have at least heard of this influential and disturbing horror great. Now it seems, thanks to the folks at Dire Wit Films, we actually have what has to be the first Italian cannibal parody. I never thought I would see the day.
The Review: If you’ve been living under a rock for the past two decades, or if you’re just “too cool” for all of this cult cinema geeky madness - let me explain something to you. Bruce Campbell is the greatest American actor who has every been. Robert DeNiro? Wow, what did he do, get punched alot in Raging Bull? Did he ever lop the head off a rushing deadite or tell a woman plain face “give me some sugar, baby!”? He simply couldn’t. Don’t even get me started on Brando and how he would fair against the Evil Dead. If you haven’t got the point yet, Bruce Campbell’s fans can be a bit rabid. The reason for this is his portrayal of the character Ash in the Evil Dead trilogy, a series that may go down as one of the most important and beloved of the entire horror genre. What was once a cult phenomena with only an army of simple horror geeks at its disposal has turned into a legion of many due mainly to the fact that if a person is introduced to the Evil Dead films - nine times out of ten, they will love it just as much as you do. With films like that it’s hard to imagine how they became “cult” hits in the first place, but Army of Darkness in my opinion is that one piece of cinematic excellence that can build bridges between just about everybody. How could anyone dislike such a film?
The Review: Ahh, the 1980’s. Who could ever forget them? Truthfully, I’m of the opinion that right now we’re pretty much reliving them. Pop music dominates the charts again, bad hairstyles are in vogue and the level of materialism that our society is experiencing is even beyond that of the eighties. Horror is even having a resurgence, so not all bad things are coming about! With all of this said though, there was something special and unique about the eighties. Something that brought us some truly immortal b-movies, such as the classic I present to you today: Night of the Demons. A film that featured the only box at the video store that actually scared me off as a child. The sight of that demon girl on the front cover and her devilish smile, even as a fan of Jason and Freddy at the time my own fear of that supernatural element was still just a bit too much for me to conquer at that young age. So here I am, probably sixteen or so years later - and I have stared down my own fears! Yeah, not too impressive for a twenty-something who has seen pretty much every horror great out there and a large portion of the very worst. Still, I am happy to report that Night of the Demons is about everything you could expect from a eighties possession horror!… which is to say, not a whole lot.
The Review: Feast turned out to be the train I completely and utterly missed out on. Only recently did I finally buck up and get a Dish for my television watching, growing up strictly with basic cable, so I missed out on all of the Project Greenlight crazyness in the past years when it was on HBO as well as the Bravo station. For those unfamiliar, Project Greenlight was a program where producers (including Matt Damon and Ben Affleck) got together and picked out one user submitted script in order to make a feature film out of. Feast was on the third season of Project Greenlight, and I’m sure there was all kinds of drama behind the scenes of the film - but having not seen that series I can only make judgement on the film itself and I suppose that’s even better. With no way of showing partiality towards the filmmakers and their good intentions, I come into Feast as just another guy looking for a bit of gory horror film fun. With that frame of mind, I have to say that Feast definitely delivered.