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Entries tagged with 'Horror'
Posted May. 7, 2008,
Don't Miss The Nightmarish Frontiere(s)!
By Dennis Dermody
Opening this week for a limited run before its DVD release on Lionsgate is the brilliant brutal French shocker Frontiere(s). Trust me, you've never seen anything like it. In the film a bunch of kids escaping the riots in Paris head deep into the country and come to stay at a remote inn which they soon find out is filled with a charming Nazi cannibal family. While the movie is ruthlessly violent it's pretty terrific too... beautifully directed by Xavier Gens, who went on to direct Hitman. You really should try to catch this in theaters because when I saw it the audience went ape-shit.....
Posted Apr. 28, 2008,
It's Alive! With Bijou Phillips!
By Dennis Dermody
Here's a pretty great new trailer for the remake of the Larry Cohen classic It's Alive!, this time starring Bijou Phillips. I usually get disgusted by the endless remakes, but this trailer surprisingly rocked....
Posted Apr. 4, 2008,
The Ruins Rocks, May Make You Take a Hammer to Your House Plants
By Dennis Dermody
Opening today is The Ruins, director Carter Smith’s flesh-crawling adaptation of Scott Smith’s creepy novel about a bunch of American kids on vacation in Mexico who unwisely head to a remote Mayan ruin where there is supposed to be an archaeological dig going on. When they get there they are confronted with some angry natives and are only allowed to continue upwards to the precipice of the ruins where terror awaits them in the form of carnivorous vines. The book was a beautiful tour-de-force... a bloodcurdling page turner. And anyone who has seen Carter Smith’s brilliant, disturbing, short film Bugcrush knows he is the right man for this job. The unlucky tourists (Jonathan Tucker, Jena Malone, Shawn Ashmore, Laura Ramsey, Joe Anderson) act convincingly frightened, and the movie has a perfect nightmarish claustrophobia to it. It also makes you want to take a hammer to your house plants when you get home. It confounds me that Dreamworks didn't screen this for critics because it really rocks!
Posted Apr. 2, 2008,
Shrooms!
By Dennis Dermody
Finally caught Shrooms the other night which is out on DVD on Magnet. It's about a bunch of Americans who go to Ireland and meet up with a friend who takes them out to the wilderness to do some serious tripping on shrooms. Directed by Paddy Breathnach and starring cute kids like Lindsey Haun (Village Of The Damned) and Jack Huston, it's a lot of fun, especially when the lead girl stupidly takes a bite out of the Death's Head Mushroom -- which looks like a mushroom with a black nipple and seriously freaks out. The bloody mayhem that follows is very entertaining, especially one scene with a dude in his underpants conversing with a talking cow in the moonlight who says to him: "You know, you are dead fucked!" The ending is stupid but the rest of it is immensely enjoyable in a junk food way.
Posted Feb. 20, 2008,
The Signal: "A Refreshingly Original Indie Horror Film"
By Dennis Dermody
Finally opening this week is, The Signal, a refreshingly original indie horror film made in Atlanta about a sudden signal that comes over the television and phone lines that causes most people to become violent and homicidal. Shot by three separate directors (David Bruckner, Dan Bush andJacob Gentry), the film is broken up into three “Transmissions,” and while each section varies in tone (from hair-raising horror to pitch-black splatter comedy) they mesh together beautifully. The through story is basically a romantic threesome -- Mya (Anessa Ramsey, who’s remarkably good), her dangerously jealous husband Billy (A. J. Bowen) and her new boyfriend Ben (Justin Welburn) who is desperately searching for her amidst the nightmarish carnage. A bloody blast from start to finish.
Posted Feb. 11, 2008,
Inside, Featuring a Scary Scissors-Wielding Womb Raider, Comes to Lincoln Center!
By Dennis Dermody
Every once in a while a horror movie comes along that is so jaw-dropping and nightmarish and great that you want all your friends to see it. This is the case with Inside, this outrageous new French shocker by directors Julien Maury and Alexandre Bustillo. It's one of the high points of the Film Comment Selects series at Lincoln Center (from Feb. 15-28) and you shouldn't miss it at any cost!
After a car accident that leaves her boyfriend dead, a traumatized and very pregnant photographer Sarah (Alysson Paradis) decides to spend Christmas Eve alone at her remote house. That is until a strange woman (Beatrice Dalle) shows up banging at her door ferociously trying to get in. She’s not Santa, either. Like a Grimm fairy tale gone berserk, the film is awash in blood and gore -- so much so that you won’t believe what you’re watching. I love this new wave of horror films coming out of France -- they’re like American fright flicks of the 1970s, visceral, intense, and, with a take-no-prisoners attitude. Former Betty Blue, Beatrice Dalle, is absolutely terrifying. She’s a scissors-wielding womb raider, and she cuts such a frightening figure in the film she freezes your blood.
Posted Jan. 21, 2008,
Saw IV, The Unrated Director's Cut: "Hard to Follow, but Easier to Watch Than the Last One."
By Dennis Dermody
I watched Saw IV (the unrated director's cut) over the weekend, out on Lionsgate DVD. Missed it in the theaters for some reason. Loved the first two Saw films -- they were smart nasty little chillers with endings that really pulled the rug out from under me at the end. But when I got to Part 3 my patience wore out. It was all about the crafty dying serial killer Jigsaw, aka John Kramer (Tobin Bell) and his accomplice Amanda finally coming to an end, but their deaths haven't stopped the franchise.
Part IV (directed by Darren Lynn Bousman) is so convoluted and filled with so many tricks that it's hard to follow, but easier to watch than the last one. Costas Mandylor plays a cop named Hoffman who's captured by a new nemesis. Buddy cop Rigg (Lyrig Bent) traces clue after clue (encountering many people in elaborate gruesome jerry-rigged traps along the way). One of my favorite new ones is a man that has to push his face through a wall of knives to get out... yikes. I guess this will just go on and on until audiences get tired of them. The thing is they're not bad -- the new ones are just way too over-written and complicated for their own good, but the fans seem to dig that about them. Think you should definitely watch the third one before you sit through this though or you'll be completely lost. But I didn't hate this one... at least it's not as bad as Cloverfield.
Posted Jan. 3, 2008,
The Monster From Cloverfield!
By Dennis Dermody
Everyone's dying to find out what the monster attacking New York in Cloverfield looks like and here it is -- not to mention the crab creatures that pop out of it. This Blair Witch Project meets Godzilla opening in late January is the one movie I can't wait to see!
UPDATE: So, it turns out this is a fake monster. Instead of kvetching about it on the comments board, buy a ticket and see the real monster for yourself! - DD
Posted Nov. 16, 2007,
Audience Freaks out at Sitges for .Rec!
By Dennis Dermody
My friend Marc Walkow just got back from the Sitges Festival in Spain and said one of the big hits was a Spanish horror film called .Rec. Directed by Juame Balaguero, (The Nameless) and Paco Plaza, it's obviously The Blair Witch Project-inspired and is about a female TV reporter and her camera crew following a fire department when they're answering a call to an apartment building, with frightening results... But I love the video of this crowd freaking out while they're watching the movie. Haven't heard if it's been picked up here yet... but I can't wait to see it.
Posted Oct. 22, 2007,
Mario Bava Collection: Vol. 2!!!!
By Dennis Dermody
It's here: The long-awaited Mario Bava Collection Volume 2, and in stores this weeks from Anchor Bay Entertainment/ and it's astonishing. Eight films from the Italian maestro of the macabre Mario Bava (Black Sunday, Black Sabbath) and included are several masterpieces: Lisa and the Devil, a film close to Bava's heart; a surreal, Alice in Wonderland nightmare starring Elke Sommer as a woman vacationing in Europe who stumbles down a lonely street and encounters the devil (a lollipop-sucking Telly Savalas) and later is stranded at a gloomy mansion with a blind matriarch (Alida Valli) and her loony son. Atmospheric and dream-like in its intensity, it was recut and mangled into House of Exorcism to cash in on The Exorcist (that version is included here) which has a possessed Elke puking green frogs in front of a priest (Robert Alda) while flashbacks reveal the story of Lisa and the Devil).
Posted Oct. 18, 2007,
Gore-a-palooza: Wrong Turn 2
By Dennis Dermody
Just watched a straight-to-DVD release from Fox Home Entertainment called Wrong Turn 2: Dead End, the "Unrated" edition -- but since it was never released it's hard to imagine an "R" cut of the film because it's so over-the-top gory. It's about a reality show called "Apocalypse" set in the wilderness of West Virginia. Henry Rollins plays a retired marine who sets six strangers -- a vegan (Erika Leerhsen), a sports star (Texas Battle), a butch girl (Daniella Alonso), etc. -- on a series of challenges in the wild, all recorded on video. But unfortunately there are these pesky inbred hillbilly mutants to contend with that descend on them with murderous fury. Some of the kills are just outrageous (a girl torn in two during the opening credits had me pushing rewind), and that's part of the enjoyment in this Joe Lynch-directed horror film. It's surprisingly a gruesome blast.
Posted Oct. 17, 2007,
Best DVD Cover Art: Cannibal Man
By Dennis Dermody
The best DVD cover art of 2007 belongs to Blue Underground for their new release of Eloy De La Iglesia's Cannibal Man (1972). The movie is a terrific Repulsion-like thriller about a slaughterhouse worker who accidentally kills a man and it starts a domino effect of bodies piling up in his house. While the body count increases he is being spied on by a gay man living in a nearby high-rise.
Eloy De La Iglesia is best know for his 1978 film El Diputado (The Deputy), which also had a gay theme. Cannibal Man is really a terrific film, and was out on DVD years ago on Anchor Bay, but this go-around is a much better transfer. The cover also reminds me of my favorite VHS video box that I love showing guests: The Spectre Of Edgar Allan Poe, a silly horror movie starring Cesar Romero and Robert Walker Jr., but the box cover art was just fabulous.
Posted Sep. 28, 2007,
Brad Pitt, Psycho Killer?
By Dennis Dermody
Any good actor worth his or her salt has a skeleton of an early horror film in their closet. The lovely Naomi Watts was in Children of ohe Corn IV: The Gathering. And before Brad Pitt made his splash in the film Thelma & Louise he made this 1989 body-count teen slasher film Cutting Class. Directed by Rospo Pallenberg -- who wrote screenplays for John Boorman (Excalibar), it's about a series of killings a local high school. Who did it? The pervert Principal (Roddy McDowall), the weird kid just let out of a mental institution for killing his dad (Donovan Leitch) or the hot jock in the red convertible (Brad Pitt)?
The film features lots of attempts at lame black humor and some creative murders -- one teacher gets pushed into a kiln, one has her head bashed into a copy machine, the gym coach gets an American flag plunged through him... But Brad Pitt has star quality to spare even at this young age -- you can't take your eyes off him while he's on screen. Leave it to Lionsgate to unearth this baby....
Posted Sep. 19, 2007,
The Last Winter Is "An Inconvenient Spook."
By Dennis Dermody
Check out The Last Winter opening this week. I admit to being a fan of director’s Larry Fessenden’s artful, eerie, terror tales (Wendigo, Habit), and his new slice of strangeness takes place at a remote Alaskan outpost where a team is investigating the readiness for oil drilling while the drastic climate changes and the increasingly alarming behavior of the crew suggest that there’s “something off."
Ron Perlman plays the blustery macho boss desperate to get the project rolling who locks horns with an ecological investigator (the always terrific James LeGross). But when mysterious deaths begin to occur it does seem to suggest something supernatural might be rising from the earth. I suppose this can be called environmental horror, or An Inconvenient Spook. But Fessenden does wonders with fluid camerawork and music creating the mood of isolation and shifting moods of the crew in this this icy wilderness. When the terror kicks it’s wonderfully disorienting and creepy. A darkly poetic apocalyptic chiller that proves “it’s not nice to fool Mother Nature."
Posted Sep. 12, 2007,
Talk of Toronto: Inside
By Dennis Dermody
The talk of the Toronto Film Festival is this French horror film called A l'interieur (Inside) directed by Alexandre Bustillo and Julien Maury. It concerns a pregnant woman inside a house with a vengeful female psychopath (Beatrice Dalle/Betty Blue) trying to get in. Audiences compared it to High Tension for it's relentless horror and Variety said "if you like blood by the barrel" this is your movie. Bring it on!
Posted Sep. 11, 2007,
Children Shouldn't Play With Bad Spelling!
By Dennis Dermody
My friend alerted me to the cover art for the updated DVD release of Bob Clark's fun 1972 zombie film Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things. Check out the stupid typo on the DVD box: "Your Invited." It's taken to be from the original movie ads: "You're Invited To Orville's Coming-Out Party. It'll Be A Scream -- YOURS!"
Director Bob Clark is probably best known for Porky's and A Christmas Story, but his genre horror films were terrific, like the original Black Christmas and Deathdream, about a soldier who comes back from Vietnam really "changed" with a taste for blood, which is eerie and sensational.
Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things is about a troupe of actors who go to an island, dig up a corpse named Orville, and jokingly do a satanic rite to raise the dead. Unfortunately it works all too well and they are attacked by rotting, hungry, corpses. It mixed humor with horror and used to play on late night TV here in New York all the time, and everyone I knew looked forward to it. Sadly, Clark and his son were killed in a head-on car collision in April of this year.
Posted Sep. 5, 2007,
Rock On Rob Zombie
By Dennis Dermody
I'm thrilled that Rob Zombie's remake of Halloween made $31 million over the Labor Day weekend. Not that the movie's all that good -- it isn't. But the first 45 minutes are so twisted and great that one has to give Zombie credit for slipping it into a dumb remake of a classic horror film.
When I first heard that Halloween was being redone I groaned, but then when I heard it was Rob Zombie at the helm it made me hopeful. And the beginning of the film is really the prequel -- or how Michael Meyers "became." John Carpenter's film was about the boogie man on Halloween night in a small town called Haddonfield. And shots from the movie The Thing on TV were no accident -- Meyers represented this dark scary relentless figure who keeps coming for you. That's the genius of the first film -- its utter simplicity and how it managed to create such unbearable suspense. We really don't care about Michael Meyers. He's beside the point.
Posted Aug. 29, 2007,
The Blood Rose: "The First Sex-Horror Film"
By Dennis Dermody
Billed as the "First Sex-Horror Film," The Blood Rose is a 1969 French variation of Fanju's Eyes Without a Face by Claude Mulot. It's got plenty of nudity and violence but it's artful and wonderful too and thanks to Mondo Macabro, this uncut gorgeous transfer of this creepy carnal classic can be yours for a song.
The DVD features fun extras, such as fascinating stories from good-looking director Mulot, who was in his 20s when he embarked on this film. Mulot drowned in a tragic swimming accident in 1986. Mulot was a fan of the horror genre and he infused this movie with poetry along with breasts and blood. It's about a painter, Frederic Lansac, (Philippe Lemaire) who has a remote castle where he lives with his beautiful bride-to-be, Anne (Anny Duperey), who was hideously disfigured by a fire. A dubious doctor (Howard Vernon) is dragged in, and gorgeous women are captured and sacrificed in hopes of restoring Anne's beauty. It all goes very wrong. Mulot went on to make hard core sex films in France ironically under the name "Frederic Lansac" (the same name of the painter in this film). He made one of the best XXX films I ever saw: Pussy Talk (1975) about a woman with a possessed vagina. I saw this movie in New Orleans with a group of friends and it was fabulously sexy and funny.
Posted Aug. 17, 2007,
Go See: Them!!!
By Dennis Dermody
Just came back from a Fangoria screening of a stunningly scary new fright film from Europe: Them, which opens Friday at the Cinema Village (22 E. 12th St.) -- you have to see it! Directed by Xavier Palud and David Moreau, it's about a schoolteacher named Clementine (Olivia Bonam) and her boyfriend/writer Lucas (Michael Cohen) who live in a remote cavernous house in the woods. One night they go off to bed and are awoken to hear sounds outside the house and they realize they are not alone. It's based on a true incident that happened in the Czech Republic. The brilliance of the movie is its simplicity and the way it just keeps the suspense building and building without resorting to gore or cheap shots. It's incredibly frightening and really well done. Check out the website (www.themthefilm.com) but don't read too much about it first -- just go and prepare for "them"!
Posted Aug. 15, 2007,
The Night of the Sorcerers and Exorcism out on DVD!
By Dennis Dermody
Two twisted DVDs out on www.bcieclipse.com : Exorcism and The Night of the Sorcerers and they're both lots of sick fun. The Night of the Sorcerers is directed by Amando de Ossorio -- the director of the Blind Dead films, which you definitely should check out.
Sorcerers takes place in Africa as a group of explorers arrive at a site where many years ago female members of a tribe were beheaded and transformed into vampires (go figure) and the nightmare is re-awakened big time as the jungle runs red with blood. Filled with lots of sleaze, nudity, whippings and violence, it's fun for the whole family. Exorcism stars legendary Spanish horror icon Paul Naschy as a priest who is called in when an aristocratic daughter seems possessed by the devil. There are satanic cults, hideous transformations, beds levitating off the floor -- the usual shenanigans. Both are extremely rare and gleefully gory. Wheee!
Posted Jul. 31, 2007,
Lindsay Lohan Killed Me!
By Dennis Dermody
Bummed out from Ingmar Bergman's death, I raced off to the movies to see tabloid terror Lindsay Lohan's I Know Who Killed Me -- and it's a riot! Lohan stars as Aubrey, a sweet rich high school teen who would rather write short stories that put out for her jock boyfriend. One night she disappears, kidnapped by a local serial killer (that one can practically spot during the opening credits). She's found unconscious, but alive, on the side of the road, and awakens in the hospital missing her hand and part of one leg. She claims she's not Aubrey -- but Dakota, the daughter of a crack whore who dances at a strip club. Her parents are horrified, the cops are pissed, and the shrink thinks she's delusional, a result of the trauma she suffered at the hands of the psycho.
Oh brother, after that, the plot twists will unhinge your jaw. Directed by Chris Sivertson (who did a Jack Ketchum film adaptation called The Lost that still hasn't surfaced but I hear is brutal and great). This is a howler... but really cheered me up. Any movie that combines Saw, Boxing Helena, The Parent Trap and then throws in stripper poles and stigmata is genius in my book.
Posted Jul. 27, 2007,
Mutant Cow Fetuses: Isolation
By Dennis Dermody
I've been tracking this Irish-UK horror film Isolation by writer/director Billy O'Brien since it made the festival circuit in 2005. Now it's out on DVD (www.firstlookstudios.com) and you have to check it out.
Set at a remote dairy farm, a cash-strapped farmer (John Lynch) has made a deal with a geneticist (Marcel Iures) to experiment on his cattle. But there is trouble with the birth of a new calf, and it becomes clear when a hideous mutation is born. A couple (Ruth Negga and Sean Harris) camping on their property, gets drawn into the barnyard terrors. A real sense of claustrophobia adds to the Aliens meets Elsie the Cow creepiness. It's a shame this never got released in theaters because it's damn good. It's really unnerving and scary... if you thought Supersize Me frightened you from burgers wait until you see this!
Posted Jul. 16, 2007,
Death Wish Club: A Weird and Wild DVD
By Dennis Dermody
Was alerted to the news that one of my favorite “weirdo” movies was finally on DVD: The Death Wish Club. I remember the first time I saw this movie was when I got the VHS of Night Train to Terror (1988). God and Satan where arguing on a train speeding through the night that was doomed to crash at dawn. An 80s rock band was performing on the train and there were three horror tales -- the middle one: Death Wish Club. But later on the Regal VHS, I found the original longer version and it blew my mind, it was so strange. It’s the story of Greta Connors (Meridith Haze) who’s first seen selling popcorn at a carnival. A wealthy man named George Youngmeyer (J. Martin Sellers) approaches her, stuffs bills down her blouse, and she dumps the popcorn and goes off with him. “She wanted to be in movies so I put her in movies...” comes the voiceover and next we see Greta performing in X-rated porn being watched by a bunch of frat boys at a college. One who is entranced by Greta is med student named Glen Marshall (Rick Barnes). He tracks her down to a sleazy nightclub where she plays piano. He eventually starts dating her, but she makes him go with her to a “death wish club” where a group of decadents plays Russian roulette with such things as a poison beetles, electric shock, etc. This proves too much for Glen and he dumps her. Later he finds out that Greta took too many drugs and now thinks she’s a man named “Charlie." Charlie even plays piano at the nightclub in male drag.
Posted Jul. 3, 2007,
Universal Horror & Sci-Fi DVDs!
By Dennis Dermody
Here's a scoop: Universal is putting out another Best Buy exclusive this fall -- two 5-movie box sets. "The Sci-Fi Collection" includes: The Deadly Mantis, The Land Unknown, Dr. Cyclops, Leech Woman, Cult Of The Cobra. "The Horror Collection" includes: Horror Island, Night Monster, Man Made Monster, The Black Cat and my favorite, Captive Wild Woman starring Acquanetta!
The last exclusive "Classic Sci-Fi Ultimate Collection" from Best Buy, which had Tarantula, The Incredible Shrinking Man, The Mole People, The Monolith Monsters and Monster On The Campus, is out of print and goes for $190 and up at www.Amazon.com.
Posted Jun. 21, 2007,
High Tension This Sunday!
By Dennis Dermody
At the Museum of the Moving Image, they're running a great festival: It's Only A Movie: Horror Films From the 1970s and Today from June 16-July 22. Some great titles: David Cronenberg's Rabid, Dario Argento's The Bird With The Crystal Plumage, Larry Cohen's It's Alive, Lucio Fulci's The House By The Cemetary and this Sunday: High Tension, the nerve-frying 2003 French shocker by Alexandre Aja. Think that someone perverse scheduled this for Gay Pride Day considering it is a horror movie about homosexual panic....
Posted Jun. 19, 2007,
Horrors of Malformed Men DVD!
By Dennis Dermody
This August from Synapse Films (www.synapse-films.com) and Panik House, one of the rarest of Asian cult classics, the notorious 1969 Teruo Ishii film: Horror of Malformed Men! Based on a story by Edogawa Rampo, a medical student travels to a remote island to discover a mad scientist turning humans into hideous monsters. (Sound familiar -- think Island of Dr. Moreau). Not surprisingly audiences sensitive to post-Hiroshima ran up the aisles out of the theater causing this to be banned and rarely seen ever since. The special edition DVD is fully restored with audio commentary by critic Mark Schilling, and includes a half-hour documentary, Malformed Memories, and the original Japanese trailer.
Posted Jun. 11, 2007,
The Food of the Gods on DVD!
By Dennis Dermody
According to www.dvddrive-in.com, the MGM Midnight Movie DVDs are back on track after a long hiatus. On September 11th, they’re releasing the sublimely stupid The Food of the Gods, a 1976 Bert I. Gordon film (loosely) based on the life of H. G. Wells. The film stars Marjoe Gortner confronting giant wasps, chickens and ravenous rats, with Pamela Franklin, Ralph Meeker and Ida Lupino, who says these immortal lines of dialogue: “I won’t never sin again, never! Only don’t let no rats eat us -- please, God!” Here’s the wonderful trailer for this American International Films camp classic.
Posted Jun. 7, 2007,
Hostel: Part II Is a Horror Classic!
By Dennis Dermody
Well get ready: Hostel: Part II joins that rare group of fright sequels like Evil Dead 2 and Dawn of the Dead that not only reinvents itself and ups the ante but crosses over into hard core horror art as well. Eli Roth is a rarity among genre directors. He has an affinity for horror but is smart enough to shape his films into something original, darkly funny and disturbingly visceral.
Hostel was about a bunch of dudes backpacking in Europe out for girls and ganja who are coerced to Slovakia for more of the same but end up becoming victims for rich decadents who want to experience the thrill of a kill. In the new film it’s three women -- Lauren German, Bijou Phillips and Heather Matarazzo -- lured by a gorgeous model (Vera Jordanova) to this dreadful place. But we also see more of the nefarious organization and the bidding war for potential targets (which is like eBay of the damned).
Posted Jun. 5, 2007,
Happy Gay Pride Month - Pink Angels!
By Dennis Dermody
In tribute to Gay Pride this month, let me offer up a trailer for a sleazy 1971 exploitation gem about gay bikers called The Pink Angels. Trust me, it looks like a wild and weird action film -- and it is -- but then at the end, the whole gang gets strung up and hanged from trees, and it's supposed to be funny! There are times I think we've come so far, but then I see the trailer for I Now Pronounce You Chuck And Larry, the Adam-Sandler-Kevin-James- pretend-to-be-a-gay fireman-comedy and I want to set fire to my Judy Garland records...
Posted Jun. 4, 2007,
The Giant Claw On DVD!!!
By Dennis Dermody
A little bird told me (and it hasn't been officially announced yet) that this fall we will be able to own the DVD of one of the most ludicrous '50s monster movies: The Giant Claw. Starring Jeff Morrow (This Island Earth) & Mara Corday, this 1957 howler has the distinction of a giant buzzard terrorizing the world that looks just like Big Bird. Actually Big Bird is scarier... Hear that this will be part of a box set with other gems!
Posted Jun. 1, 2007,
At Home with the Cinemaniac
By PAPERMAG Editors
PAPER's Cinemaniac, Dennis Dermody, gives us a tour of his lair and shows us his incredible collection of horror film memorabilia ( from Jeffrey Dahmer's refrigerator bill to the original Jason mask) and impossible-to-find films. As Dennis puts it, "You can never bring a trick home because they'll go to the bathroom and run out the front door."
Posted May. 30, 2007,
Gory, Great Horror Book: Offspring!
By Dennis Dermody
I happen to love splatterpunk author Jack Ketchum, who like my other fave -- the late Richard Laymon -- writes horror fiction that actually goes too far. Ketchum's books like Lost, Red and The Girl Next Door are relentlessly shocking both in subject matter and delivery.
But my all time favorite has always been Off Season (1981) about a cannibalistic tribe that lives in caves off the coast of Maine that attack vacationing tourists one fateful night. It was genuinely shocking. He did a sequel called Offspring, but it's been out of print forever and I kept getting outbid on it on eBay. But it's been re-issued by Leisure Books (www.dorchesterpub.com) in paperback and I read it over the weekend and it's a chilling page-turner where some of the original tribe of killers have been moving up and down the coast of Maine killing and stealing children to propagate their family. This one is really brutal too, and almost unimaginably violent. God, was it good!
Posted May. 29, 2007,
The Burning/From Beyond DVDs!
By Dennis Dermody
According to www.fangoria.com on September 11, MGM Home Entertainment is releasing two cult favorites: From Beyond, the 1986 film by Stuart Gordon based on an H. P. Lovecraft story about a scientist experimenting on the pineal gland that opens the door to a scary alternate universe filled with horrifying creatures. And The Burning, a beloved 1981 slasher film about a camp counselor (Cropsy) hideously burned during a prank that gets revenge on summer campers. This will be the uncut version -- with all of FX-master Tom Savini's gore effects intact. It's fun to spot young rising stars -- Jason Alexander, Holly Hunter & Fisher Stevens.
Posted May. 24, 2007,
Hot Rods to Hell!
By Dennis Dermody
As we celebrate Memorial Day just remember -- on June 26th from Warner Brothers Home Video, as part of their Cult Camp Collection: Terrorized Travelers series, you can now own Hot Rods to Hell, the hilarious howler starring Dana Andrews and Jeanne Crain about a family traveling across country attacked by wild kids in cars. With the great Mimsy Farmer!
Posted May. 23, 2007,
RIP Nicholas Worth!
By Dennis Dermody
Character actor Nicholas Worth died on May 7th at age 69. Most of the online sites mentioned his roles in Star Trek: Voyager, The Naked Gun: Files Of The Police Squad! and Darkman, but to me he will always remain Kirk Smith, the balding photographer rapist and strangler in Don't Answer The Phone! (1980), one of the sleaziest movies I can remember seeing on 42nd Street.
His performance was so over-the-top and fabulous -- pulling a stocking over his face as he terrorized women in Hollywood and then making taunting phone calls to daytime radio host Dr. Lindsay Gale (Flo Gerrish). The audience went crazy with his every rant.. It was almost Divine-like in manic intensity. I even tracked down the poster for this film, I loved it so much. He'll be missed!
Posted May. 22, 2007,
Bug Will Freak You Out!
By Dennis Dermody
Opening this week is Bug, a frightening new film by William Friedkin (The Exorcist). Ashley Judd and Mike Shannon are electrifying as two damaged souls in a seedy Oklahoma roach motel in Friedkin’s nightmarishly brilliant film version of the acclaimed play by Tracy Letts.
Judd plays the hard-drinking Agnes, haunted by her son’s disappearance years ago, and the repeated menacing phone calls (with no one on the line) that she assumes is her ex (Harry Connick Jr.), just released from jail and abusive as ever. Her girlfriend introduces her to Peter (Mike Shannon) a brooding drifter whom Agnes invites to spend the night. But she is soon drawn into his paranoid fantasies -- convinced that the government has infected his blood with mutant bugs. Soon the walls and ceiling are lined with tinfoil and fly strips and the couple’s descent into madness escalates into violence. Letts's play is like Sam Shepard on Special K, and Friedkin definitely has a feel for the dark side of this material. Judd gives a raw, shattering, Oscar-worthy performance and Shannon is just astonishing.
Posted May. 17, 2007,
Severance Is A Gory/Funny Blast!
By Dennis Dermody
Opening Friday is Severance, which is The Office meets The Hills Have Eyes, when six members of the European sales team of Palisades Defense are sent to a “team-building” retreat deep in the wilderness of Eastern Europe only to find themselves hunting targets of crazed killers. Directed by Christopher Smith (who made the twisted treat Creep), it’s good, gory fun, with plenty of laughs at the expense of the obnoxious workers, and some nasty shocks along the way. Particularly funny is Danny Dyer, as the druggy slacker of the group.
Posted May. 14, 2007,
Scary Mary!
By Dennis Dermody
Here's a re-cut trailer for the Disney classic Mary Poppins that turns it into a horror movie... it's really clever and funny!
Posted May. 7, 2007,
The Shining (as Romantic Comedy!)
By Dennis Dermody
Here's something I think is genius -- someone reconfigured The Shining as a romantic comedy! Made me laugh out loud all weekend.
Posted May. 1, 2007,
Two Korean Chillers!
By Dennis Dermody
Two good Korean horror films from Tartan Video you should check out. The Ghost is an above average chiller about a sociology student suffering from amnesia. When some her of grade school chums start mysteriously drowning, she realizes it’s tied into what she can’t recall and there’s a very pissed off water-logged ghost out for revenge so she better remember fast. There are some nice twists to this one.
In Cinderella, a 17-year-old girl is home from school to stay with her mom, a plastic surgeon. But when her girlfriends start suddenly disfiguring themselves (with shards of broken mirrors and sculpting knives) it might be tied to a dark secret mom’s got hidden in the basement. Stylish to a fault but still good, grisly fun.
Posted Apr. 26, 2007,
Asian Cannibal Movie -- The Last Supper!
By Dennis Dermody
The Last Supper is an outrageous, grisly Asian shocker about a handsome cosmetic surgeon named Dr. Yuji Kotonado (Masaya Kato). He is also secretly a cannibal, who delights in killing his dates and later grilling their body parts on the stove. He writes online a “Diary Of A Cannibal” on how he came to this, from first frying up some fat from one of the women he liposuctioned, to finding a woman hanging in the park who became his first real entrée.
“It is the desire to eat the meat of the one you love” is his mantra. There’s a wild scene when he travels to Hong Kong and goes to a private club where a woman is beheaded and the patrons all feast on her. Directed by Osamu Fukatani, mercifully some of the special effects are not great, but on the whole the movie is unbelievably bizarre. Yummy!
Posted Apr. 26, 2007,
Paul Naschy -- Spain's Lon Chaney Jr.!
By Dennis Dermody
Arriving on May 8th are two DVDs on www.bcieclipse.com of Euro-cult legend Paul Naschy. Naschy, actor, writer and director, was the Lon Chaney Jr. of Spain, and starred in a series of Universal-like films where he played a wolfman and then countless other gothic chillers. The two DVDs are Night of the Werewolf, a 1980 film where Naschy stars as Waldermar Daninsky, who rises from the grave to fight vampires and worry about the full moon when he turns to a bloodthirsty monster. In the other, Vengeance of the Zombies (1972), he plays three roles including a Hindu healer and Satan. It's a gory shocker about voodoo and living dead hellbent on revenge. Both are remastered and look stunning with extensive still and photo galleries and are a lot of fun.
Posted Apr. 19, 2007,
Joan Crawford in Strait-Jacket!
By Dennis Dermody
Nothing pleases me more than watching this medley from William Castle's 1964 Strait-Jacket starring Joan Crawford as an axe murderess released after 20 years in an asylum into her daughter's (Diane Baker) care. So get away from depressing news footage of college massacres and return to a gentler time -- when "crazy" meant fun.
Posted Apr. 18, 2007,
Hot Fuzz Is Hilarious!
By Dennis Dermody
This weekend opens the uproarious new film by the Shaun of the Dead director Edgar White: Hot Fuzz. It's about a tough London Sergeant (Simon Pegg) who is relocated to a bucolic British village and paired with a sweet bumbling PC (Nick Frost). He begins to suspect a series of deaths are not accidental and he can’t get anyone to help him track down a shadowy hooded character seen fleeing from each crime. A takeoff on buddy cop movies that is consistently comical and gets better as it goes along. Shaun Of The Dead I found amusing, but it wore thin towards the end. Here the comedy builds and by the time you get to the finale -- involving a violent shootout throughout the village -- you will be convulsed in laughter.
Simon Pegg and Nick Frost make a great pair -- a postmodern Laurel & Hardy. Even the wonderful Bill Nighy and Steve Coogan make cameos in this riotously funny film.