Posted on by Alexander Case

Film Review: The Visitor (1979)

The Visitor is a very different animal where Italian horror films are concerned. It’s not a giallo or an offshoot of giallo like The Black Cat or Argento’s Three Mothers series. It’s not a zombie film at the least. I’d describe it as fitting closer to Italian Satanic horror films – films inspired by or seeking to mimic Rosemary’s Baby, The Exorcist, The Omen, and other similar films. These films rely less on plot cohesion and more on mood and tone. It doesn’t quite matter if the motivations of the characters are clearly spelled out or the narrative beats are coherent so long as the emotional beats are. Read more

Posted on by Alexander Case

Film Review: Altered Space

Altered Space is something of a horror film that isn’t quite a horror film. In a way, it’s difficult to describe – this is my first time watching a film by Ken Russell, but his reputation has preceded him. Specifically, his reputation for psychedelic, religious, and psychosexual imagery. All of those things are present in Altered Space in spades – with subject matter that is fundamentally horrific but is never presented in that manner. Read more

Posted on by Alexander Case

Film Review: Mother of Tears (2007)

Almost 20 years after Dario Argento released the middle installment of his “Three Mothers Trilogy” he made the final installment of the series – Mother of Tears. As with most series that take this long between installments, there is a sense that what you’ll get with the final installment can never live up to what expectations you’ve set for it. However, even then, Mother of Tears is particularly disappointing. Read more

Posted on by Alexander Case

DVD Review: Cheezy Horror – Vol. 1

One of the interesting things I like about the boom of interest in Exploitation film after Grindhouse, along with the rise of DVDs as a media format is the rise of the Trailer DVD – a DVD chock full of trailers for various exploitation films from the 1950s, ’60s, and ’70s. They make for a great snapshot of a moment in time, showcasing both how films were sold (and what you could get away with in trailers), along with the movies being sold. Read more

Posted on by Alexander Case

Film Review: Don’t Breathe

One of the issues with modern horror films, particularly those with a human antagonist, is the filmmakers feel the need to give a grounding to their villain’s methods that they feel believable, and they have the same need to make the protagonists just unlikeable enough that when bad things happen to them, things don’t feel overly cruel. The problem is that when this goes wrong it comes across to a degree like victim-blaming – and leads to a toxic message like the one put forward in your standard ’80s slasher film. Don’t Breathe manages to avoid that – barely. This review will contain a few spoilers. Read more

Posted on by Alexander Case

Movie Review: Inferno (1980)

Suspiria was what I’d describe as one of the best films Dario Argento ever made, with a tremendous visual esthetic, particularly through the use of color in the film, combined with the excellent score by Goblin. So, it’s not surprising that Dario made a semi-spiritual sequel. The second film, Inferno, introduced the thematic series that Argento named “The Three Mothers” trilogy, with the films based around three witches drawn from Thomas De Quincey’s Suspiria de Profundis. Inferno aims to basically be “like Suspiria but more so,” but it doesn’t quite work. Read more