I wasn’t quite sure what to expect from Vampyr. I’m pretty familiar with vampire movie concepts at this point, but most of the even most well known films of the concept really brought something to the table that gave them something extra – Nosferatu used the memories of the 1918 Influenza outbreak and leveraged that to bring a new direction to how the vampire is scary (and in a way that has aged incredibly well).
Read moreFilm Review: Nosferatu the Vampyre
How do you take a silent film, that’s one of the most iconic works of German Expressionist cinema alongside the Cabinet of Doctor Caligari, remake it in late ’70s and in color, and have it work just as well? You have Werner Herzog do it, apparently. Read more
Film Review: The Omega Man (1971)
The Omega Man is a weird film to think about in the wake of the presidential election. It’s a film that is as counter-cultural as it is against the counter-culture, with a protagonist who, as a character, very heavily represents the establishment, and who is played by an actor whose later life left him intrinsically linked, in a way, with the establishment. Read more
Film Review: Tales from the Crypt (1972)
One of the strengths of the anthology film in horror, is that horror works really well in short form. It is almost as much the medium of the short story the way that Science Fiction is the realm of the novella and novel, and heroic fantasy is the realm of the novel. This is also why the horror comics of the 50s and 60s leant themselves well to anthology TV series and the anthology film in particular. Read more
Film Review: God Told Me To (1976)
God Told Me To is an interesting exploitation film. On the one hand, it’s a pretty clear-cut science fiction film on a lot of levels, but on another hand, it has some interesting concepts it plays with with societal paranoia and copycat crimes that gives it a bit of depth. Read more
Film Review: Extraordinary Tales
I really like anthology films – particularly when it comes to horror. Anthology films let you take a brief period of time to tell an exciting, concise story that can scare you, excite you, or creep you out. Perhaps this is due to many great horror stories being short stories. One of the masters of the horror story was Edgar Allen Poe. This brings me to Extraordinary Tales, an animated anthology film adaptation 5 of Poe’s short stories. Read more
Film Review: King Kong (1933)
King Kong is a film that is widely held as a classic of cinema – with some of the iconic monster photography in cinema. It is a film whose visual effects have held up very, very well, but narratively hasn’t held up quite as much.
Film Review: Squirm
You know the old joke of Slasher films having “30 minutes with jerks”. This film is more like “90 minutes with jerks”. Read more
Film Review: The Fall of House of Usher (1960)
Arguably, the best films of Roger Corman’s career were his adaptations of the works of Edgar Allen Poe he made with AIP. They had some of the highest on-screen production values of the films he directed, and had some of the finest actors he ever worked with – especially this film’s stand out star, Vincent Price. Read more
Film Review: Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956)
It’s interesting having viewed the original Invasion of the Body Snatchers after I’ve seen the remake. It’s interesting to see how many beats the remake cribbed from the original, but which executes on them so very differently, with a different emotional payoff. Read more
Film Review: Death Valley (1982)
What’s worse than a horror film that’s bad? A horror film that’s bad because it’s boring and annoying. This is the issue with Death Valley, a slasher film with an interesting concept, that fails in the execution in multiple respects. Read more
Film Review: Phase IV
Phase IV is an underrated, very weird film – the only dramatic film directed by Saul Bass, who is best known as designing the movie posters and opening credits sequences for the films of Alfred Hitchcock. Read more
Film Review: Dark Angel (1990)
Dark Angel (originally released as I Come in Peace in the US) is the film I wish Predator 2 was. Read more
Film Review: Mr. Vampire (1980)
Jackie Chan, as a performer, is frequently compared with Buster Keaton and, as I’ve mentioned in my own review of Police Story at Letterboxd, Charlie Chaplin.
Well, Mr. Vampire, a martial arts horror-comedy film produced by Jackie Chan’s friend and fellow member of the Five Little Fortunes, is what I’d probably describe as the Hong Kong equivalent of the Abbott and Costello Meet… movies. Read more
Film Review: The Brood
This Halloween we have a review of another Cronenberg film, with The Brood. Read more
Film Review: The Island (1980)
This film is not good. Read more
Film Review: Blood and Lace (1971)
There’s a bit in an episode of Studio 60 on the Sunset Strip where the characters on the series serial-numbers-filed-off version of Saturday Night Live are working on a sketch for Thanksgiving where the turkey spurts absurd, Army of Darkness levels of blood when carved. The bit is not shown, only talked about – with one of the characters commenting about the Prop guy thinking the level of blood is unrealistic with the comment”If it’s just a realistic amount of blood, then it’s… extremely disturbing…”
That is, perhaps, Blood and Lace‘s greatest strength, and its weakness. Read more
Film Review: Maniac (1934)
This film is freaking weird. Read more
Film Review: Demon Seed
Man, this movie is freaking weird.
I should mention in advance, that I should give a trigger warning for this film. The movie has extensive scenes of domestic violence, both physical and psychological, caused not by a human, but by an artificial intelligence. Read more
Film Review: Videodrome
Videodrome is the weird stuff. It’s one of those movies that I’d held off on watching because of the film’s reputation for gore, and horrific content that would melt your mind and would leave you with nightmares. Read more
Movie Review – Edge of Sanity (1989)
Edge of Sanity is an interesting, but flawed film, taking the Jack the Ripper case, and combining it with Robert Lewis Stephenson’s classic work of Victorian horror – The Strange Case of Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde. Read more
Movie Review – Kuroneko
This time I’m reviewing another Japanese Horror film – Kuroneko. Read more
Movie Review – Black Sabbath
I haven’t done a movie review in a while and it’s October, so this week I’m reviewing a horror anthology film from Mario Bava, starring Boris Karloff.
Manga Review: The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, Vol. 2
The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery Service, Volume 2 by Eiji Otsuka
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
The Kurosagi Corpse Delivery service is a very interesting manga to describe, in terms of being a horror manga that contains elements of the supernatural, but is ultimately bases its horror out of what people do to each other, then it does with the actions of the restless dead – though those elements are there. Read more