In my opinion, the 80’s had it all: great movies, laughable clothing, TV that was worth watching, Nintendo, and hair bands. Even though I was too young to remember the 80’s (I was born in 84), I’ve always held a soft spot for this backwards decade. A good chunk of the films on my shelf are from this era, as is a large portion of the songs on my iPod. So when I heard some buzz on the HorrorDVDs forum about a film called Black Roses being released on DVD, I was instantly intrigued. According to the forum members, this film had combined two things that I love: cheesy low budget 80’s horror and hair bands. Needless to say, this was a recipe for a good time and the DVD was immediately added to my wish list. Here is my review for the epic 80’s heavy metal cheese fest Black Roses:
Back in 2000, I saw the film Final Destination in theaters. The film had dealt with a teen that had a premonition of his friends dying in a plane crash, and he was able to convince them not to board. Of course, the plane actually goes down in the film, and from this point his friends seem to start to get killed off one by one in horrific "accidents". Final Destination spawned two more sequels and has proven to be a successful franchise. However, a little known film entitled Sole Survivor follows a strikingly similar plot even though it pre-dates Final Destination by 17 years. Here’s my review of Sole Survivor from its release through Code Red DVD.
What better way to celebrate Easter than with a review of a horror film about killer rats? Here we have the film Mulberry Street, which is part of 2007’s After Dark Horrorfest. For those of you that aren’t familiar with the After Dark Horrorfest, it’s an annual "festival" of eight independent horror films that are grouped together and shown in one theater that’s put together by Lionsgate. They had their first one in 2006 and the success of their DVD sales prompted this batch of "8 Films To Die For". As for this particular film, there was some buzz going around that it was the best of the bunch in 2007, and it even graced the cover of Rue Morgue Magazine. Let’s see if the buzz this film has been generating has been worthwhile:
In 1978, a young college filmmaker named Sam Raimi shot a short film entitled "Within The Woods" with a group of friends. This film featured four friends renting a cabin in the woods only to have their friendly excursion become host to a little supernatural possession. Within The Woods would become to the precursor to one of the most widely known and revered horror films of all time, The Evil Dead. Following a similar plot to the student film before it, The Evil Dead brought a relentless amount of shocking imagery and gore-soaked scenes to audiences across the world and would quickly develop one of the largest cult followings in movie history. Here’s the review of the latest edition (among many releases of the same film currently available) of The Evil Dead from Anchor Bay Entertainment:
I’m sure that within the past few months or so, you’ve heard of the something about the "Hi-Def War" between Toshiba’s HD-DVD format and Sony’s Blu-Ray. Six months ago, there wasn’t a clear winner in the "war" between the two brands, but after the 2007 holiday season it seems that Blu-Ray has jumped ahead of its arch rival. Whether it was the large number of studios jumping on board with Blu-Ray, or the vast number of PS3’s sold in recent months, HD-DVD may soon be down for the count. In my own world, I could care less about who came out ahead, my main concern is how my favorite films would look and sound in these new formats, and how much they would be better than standard DVD. After my recent purchase of a Playstation 3, I was dying to find out just how good one of my favorite films would look in 1080p. I figured what better place to see the differences between standard DVD and these new formats than by checking out one of the best horror films of all time on Blu-Ray, Dawn of the Dead!
Ah, the 80’s, a decade when horror flicks were at their peek. Well, if you consider a cinematic peek to be slasher movies getting churned out every weekend capitalizing on young movie goers and making a bloody mockery of various holidays (April’s Fools Day, Happy Birthday To Me, New Year’s Evil, etc.) I sure as hell know I do. Call these flicks "cheesy", "campy", or just plain "retarded", I can’t help but to call them fun. This next review is of a movie that came out in 1987, when people were starting to get a bit sick of the slasher craze entitled Doom Asylum.
Here’s a review of a movie that has quite possibly one of the most ridiculously long names ever, Your Vice Is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key. This film is under the horror sub-genre known as the "giallo". Giallo is translated as "yellow" in Italian, coming from a group of "whodunit" crime fiction books published in the 1920’s and 1930’s, known for their yellow covers. However, in the 1960’s and 1970’s, the giallo sub-genre of film appeared, and brought with it highly stylized Italian "whodunit" films of their own. These films combined amazing cinematography, mysterious killers with mysterious motives, and Euro sexiness cranked up to 10. This is quite easily my favorite sub-genre of horror, and the following film is a great example of a top tier giallo:
Ah yes, my very first "official" post and very first movie review. Well, I shouldn’t say first, I’ve done alot of mini-reviews as posts on message boards, but this is my first time as an actual "reviewer". I should start off by saying that I like to keep things simple when I review. Plot overview, DVD review, and my final thoughts should do the trick. I can’t wait to look back on this months from now just to see if I’ve improved at all. Anyway, here we go:
