If you're interested in 80s zombie movies, do yourself a favor and check out my review of Zombie Lake. It's a staple of the genre, and is worth a watch if that's your thing. Also, reading about/seeing that will set the table for this, my review of the very similar Oasis of the Zombies. Also known as The Treasure of the Living Dead, it has a lot of connections to Jean Rollin's 1981 horror click, as both were written by Jesus Franco, the Spanish actor, director, writer, producer, you name...Read the entire review

A young man is driving down the road in the middle of the night when he comes upon a beautiful woman (Brigitte Lahaie), clad only in a nightgown, wandering in the street, crying for help. She is disoriented, but identifies herself as Elizabeth (or Elysabeth, according to IMDb) and claims to be alone. The man, Robert (Vincent Gard re), drives her back to Paris, but when they arrive, Elizabeth cannot remember where she lives, and by the time they reach Robert's apartment, she no longer remembers anything earlier than the moment Robert picked her up, including her identity. In an excellent display of ingenuity, she insists on making love to Robert, hoping the memory will stick, but when he leaves for work afterward, that too disappears.

Jean Rollin's La Nuit des Traqu es, or The Night of the Hunted, has a great hook in the horror of amnesia. Having seen so many goofy thrillers where am...Read the entire review

The Movie:

Directed by Jean Rollin in 1978, The Grapes Of Death is an interesting mix of Night Of The Living Dead and I Drink Your Blood, a horror movie with an environmental twist and a uniquely French tone. The picture begins with an opening scene in which a few men in rural France are dealing with some pesticides in use all around the grape fields of this particular area, known for its wineries.

From here we cut to a train where two pretty young women are travelling - Elizabeth (Marie-Georges Pascal) and her friend (Evelyne Thomas). When Elizabeth's friend leaves their car for a minute, a strange man comes in and sits in the seat opposite. Here we see something happen to him; his face is changing and starting to show signs of decomposition, almost like he's starting to rot. Understandably freaked out by this, Elisabeth runs from the car and he gives chase. A...Read the entire review

Justifiably obscure, Zeta One (1969) is an alleged spy spoof/sci-fi sex comedy, made for just 60,000, but which still managed to attract name talent very familiar to British audiences. Neither fish nor fowl, the film tries to be several things at once but fails miserably at absolutely everything and is nearly unwatchable. It is, however, a peculiar artifact of its time and place, and not completely without interest.

Kino's Blu-ray of Zeta One, released under its "Jezebel" label, offers a pretty good 1080p transfer of this 1.66:1 Tigon British Film production. A trailer is included.

British secret agent James Word (charisma-free Robin Hawdon, When Dinosaurs Ruled the Earth) returns home to his swingin' bachelor pad, resembling a college freshman...Read the entire review

The Movie:

Alternately known as The Treasure Of The Living Dead, Jess Franco's 1982 film Oasis Of The Zombies isn't likely to ever top anyone's list of greatest zombie movies ever made but if you enjoy whatever it is that Franco brings to his filmography that makes his pictures so enigmatic, odds are pretty good you'll enjoy this low budget quickie he did for Eurocine.

When the film begins, two young women in tight tops and short shorts get out of their jeep and wander through an oasis in the middle of a desert. They talk to one another about the pros and cons of having arrived here - one girl things it's great, a nice romantic spot, the other complains that she should have stayed back at the hotel. As the camera pans around we see remnants of Nazi activity - pieces of vehicles with World War II era German insignias on them, and a skull or two. Soon enough, the hands...Read the entire review

Well, I'll say this for Zombie Lake: truth in advertising.

[click on the thumbnail to enlarge]

The Movies:

While notorious British filmmaker Pete Walker got his start making cheap sexploitation films, it's his horror movies that are best known as they had a tendency to be rather controversial with little regard for social taboos of the time. His first horror film, or more realistically his first thriller, was Die Screaming Marianne, a decent first effort that entertains but fails to fire on all cylinders such as better known efforts from the man like The Confessional which are teamed up with more established classics from his filmography, Schizo and House Of Whipcord for a Blu-ray debut through Kino and Redemption Films. Here's a look at the four movies that make up this collection, each one housed on its own disc with its own extra features...

House Of Whipcord:

Walker's attempt to take on the women in prison movies that have proven po...Read the entire review

I know I said I needed my filth a little less dirty...but this is ridiculous. Kino Lorber's Redemption Films imprint has released Exorcism (original title: L' ventreur de Notre-Dame...as well as Exorcisme et Messes Noires, Chains and Black Leather, El S dico de Notre-Dame, Sexorcismes, and Demoniac, among fifteen more, probably), Jess Franco's 1975 hard/softcore/R-rated Exorcist knock-off (in name only, really) starring wife Lina Romay, Lynn Monteil, Catherine Lafferiere, Sam Maree, and Franco himself in the lead role. This particular version of Exorcism apparently is one of many that have been floating around since the movie premiered back in 1975, the various cuts marked by the level of hard or softcore porn inserted into the narrative. Maybe I'm numbed by the last Franco movie I recently watched, Female Vampire, but this pa...Read the entire review

The Movie:
French art house director Jean Rollin can be something of an acquired taste. His fantasy horror films are often chock full of nubile young women in various states of undress, but just as often slow moving, confusing and obscure. Nevertheless, he has influenced a lot of more mainstream filmmakers, such as Rob Zombie (if he can be described as mainstream), who named a song after the film under review today, The Living Dead Girl

The Living Dead Girl itself is a little hard to classify. As the title implies, it's a story of a young woman who returns from the dead, but sort of as a hybrid between a vampire and a zombie. Catherine (Francoise Blanchard) died young, but is revived after a few years when some clumsy chemical plant workers accidentally spill some nasty barrels they are trying to secrete in her crypt. The fumes from the chemicals wash over Catherine, and she...Read the entire review

Well...at least I didn't have to take a lot of notes. Kino Lorber's Redemption Films imprint has released Female Vampire (original title: Les avaleuses...as well as The Bare-Breasted Countess, The Black Countess, The Loves of Irina, Erotic Kill, Erotikill, and The Swallowers), Jess Franco's 1973 soft-core porn vampire flick starring his future wife Lina Romay, Jack Taylor, Alice Arno, Monica Swinn, Jean-Pierre Bouyxou, and Franco himself. Basically plotless, Female Vampire heavily relies on two of Franco's mainstays―atmosphere and sex―and judged on those counts, it still doesn't work (and god help me if I ever have to hear that horrible "Debbie Does the entire Peanuts Gang" score again). The shorter, sexless, more bloody Erotikill version of Female Vampire is included here, along with some ot...Read the entire review

The Movie:
Mario Bava made a number of films, some quite good, some only fair. Hatchet for the Honeymoon is perhaps in the middle of the pack. It's not brilliant, but is quite interesting. It's a lower budget film for him, but he proves that he has the cinematic chops, even when he doesn't have a lot of money.

One thing that is unique about Hatchet among giallo films is that the audience knows right away who the killer is: fashion designer John Harrington (Stephen Forsyth) admits up front in narration that he is a serial killer, talking over footage of him actually killing a young couple on a train. So, this isn't a mystery film per se. We already know the culprit. The interesting thing is why he is doing it. Every young girl he kills (always newlyweds, or girls wearing wedding dresses) reveals a bit more to John of the blurred memories of his mother's death.

His psycholog...Read the entire review

The Movie:

Directed by Jess Franco in 1973, Female Vampire tells the story of Countess Irina Karlstein (Lina Romay), the last surviving descendent of a line of vampires known to have lived on the island of Madeira where Irina currently resides. Mute, she is unable to talk, but agrees to an interview with a reporter who has her answer her questions simply by nodding for yes or shaking her head for now. Through the interview, we get the impression that she is sad and lonely, despite not wanting for money or attention as the vampiric curse that has been put upon her since birth prevents her from finding any sort of meaningful relationship.

Around this time, a mysterious string of murders starts happening in Madeira where various male and female victims turn up dead, apparently having passed on in the middle of the act of intercourse. Eventually a Dr. Roberts (Jess Franco) lear...Read the entire review

The Movie:

Alternately known as Demoniac and The Sadist Of Notre Dame, Jess Franco's Exorcism may sound like one of the many countless knock offs of William Friedkin's The Exorcist that were coming out of both European and North American film markets in the mid-seventies, but the fact of the matter is that it really doesn't share any similarities with that picture.

When the movie begins in Paris, a crowd of people have gathered in an underground nightclub to watch a naked woman (Lina Romay) get strapped to a giant wooden cross where a tall blond sacrifices her to some dark, evil god - or at least that's what it looks like, it's all for show. The crowd seems to enjoy the show quite a bit, but there is at least one man - a defrocked priest who has recently come out of an insane asylum named Paul Vogel (Jess Franco) - who takes great offense to this. Mathi...Read the entire review

The Movie:

Mario Bava's Hatchet For The Honeymoon is an interesting film to try and pin down. The storyline works in elements from Giallo films like the director's own seminal Blood And Black Lace but then twists in some supernatural elements as well, making for a film that's definitely its own beast. At the same time, the director's stamp is all over it, making it simultaneously unusual and familiar to those familiar with the man's output.

The story revolves around a handsome young man named John Harrington (Stephen Forsyth) who inherited a woman's fashion business. We learn fairly early on here that John is a bit off kilter as we see him murder a bride and groom he encounters on a train. John's business dealings keep him in contact with plenty of attractive young women who work as models in the fashion industry - pretty young Helen (Dagmar Lassander) being a partic...Read the entire review

The Movie:

Just as well known as The Young Playmates, director Val Guest's 1974 sex comedy Au Pair Girls follows four lovely young ladies who travel to London to work as Au Pair Girls - young women who work as servants doing light housework for well to do families who, in exchange for the work, put them up. The four women the film is centered around are Randi (Gabrielle Drake, she of UFO fame), Astrid (Anita Sector), Nan (Me Me Lay - or Me Me Lai, take your pick - she's the one who popped up in Last Cannibal World , The Man From Deep River and Eaten Alive) and Christa (Nancie Wait). There isn't a whole lot of plot to the picture, it's more or less a series of sexualized escapades in which the titular young ladies inevitably end up in various states of undress.

Randi heads out into the countryside to spend some quality time with the son of ...Read the entire review

When film criticism began being taken seriously, critics first turned their attentions to great genre directors like Howard Hawks, Alfred Hitchcock and John Ford. Gradually, heretofore-ignored lower-budget filmmakers like Samuel Fuller and Roger Corman were recognized, and the search for diamonds deeper in the rough continued, and has continued in the generations of movie scholars that followed. Within the horror movie genre, the last quarter-century has seen a complete reappraisal of Italian director-cameraman Mario Bava, whose best films, lo and behold, inarguably are masterpieces of style. For genre fans particularly, seeing good 35mm prints and video transfers of their original Italian versions was, truly, a revelation.

The rediscovery of Mario Bava in turn spurred another mad scramble to uncover the Next Big Thing. An encyclopedia of horror movies edited by Phil Hardy teased its readers with d...Read the entire review

Here's the thing about classic horror movie fans: they'll eagerly sample absolutely everything, no matter how awful, how outr . I've known many such fans who will spend a considerable sum acquiring an obscure Turkish Dracula movie, suffer gladly through the worst David F. Friedman or Al Adamson thriller, or watch Return of the Ape Man annually. But, suggest watching something like Citizen Kane or Casablanca and they wince like the Our Gang kids swallowing a spoonful of castor oil.

Nevertheless, this strange loyalty certainly has benefitted the horror movie genre. Of the hundreds upon hundreds of horror movies released between, say, 1930-1980, the number that haven't made it to DVD and/or Blu-ray is relatively small, certainly compared to other movie genres covering the same time frame. That so many of these releases offer films in their original languages, uncut, in widescreen w...Read the entire review

"They'll never believe this at the Yard."
"They'll never believe it anywhere."

Redemption, Kino Lorber's fun releasing arm that handles all those great, schlocky British horror titles from the 60s and 70s, has released The Blood Beast Terror, that not-so-great, schlocky 1967 monster movie from tryer Tigon British Film Productions, starring icon Peter Cushing, Robert Flemyng, Wanda Ventham, Vanessa Howard, and Glynn Edwards. Released here in the States in 1968 as The Vampire-Beast Craves Blood, The Blood Beast Terror Should Have Craved a Better Screenwriter because plot holes big enough to fly a king-sized killer moth through pepper this ultimately silly exercise in sub-Hammer lepidopterous porn. A pristine new widescreen transfer from the original negative helps a lot, though, so fans of this genre will at least want to take a look.

Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=56226 Mon, 13 Aug 2012 18:30:38 PDT Highly Recommended

The Movie:
A few films have been made about the misadventures of Burke and Hare, two Irish immigrants to Scotland that turned to murder to procure bodies to sell to Edinburgh medical students, but 1971's Burke & Hare, directed by Vernon Sewell, is perhaps the oddest of the lot.

William Burke (Derren Nesbitt) is a down on his luck cobbler who lives in the lodging house of his friend William Hare (Glynn Edwards). When one of the elderly lodgers passes away, Hare gets the idea that instead of carting him to the mortuary, he and Hare ought to sell him to medical students, to try and recoup some of the money the fellow owed. At first, Burke is hesitant, but seeing as both are in need of funds, they give it a go, doing their best to be discrete and avoid detection by the authorities, since the selling of cadavers is severely restricted, though most people look the other way. The stude...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=57188 Sun, 22 Jul 2012 06:38:42 PDT Highly Recommended

Tramps. The Jezebel line, that impudent offshoot of Redemption Films and Kino Lorber, has released Permissive and That Kind of Girl: Perils of Promiscuity Double Feature, an entertaining double header of vintage exploitation thrills featuring Permissive, the depressing 1970 U.K. grinder about the amoral, vicious world of rock groupies, and That Kind of Girl, the 1963 U.K. cult programmer that warns of the shameful perils of VD (...although if you have to get syphilis, you'll want to get it from a p.o.a. like Margaret Rose Keil). No extras for these good-looking remastered cult items, but content is strong enough to warrant a buy for those who love these vintage forays into mixed-message titillation. Let's look briefly at each feature.

PERMISSIVE

Na ve, inexperienced country girl Suzy (Maggie Stride) arrives in London...Read the entire review

]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=55679 Sat, 14 Jul 2012 00:17:27 PDT Recommended

Burke and Hare! Beware of the them,
Burke and Hare! The pair of them;
Out to snatch your body from you!

The horror film genre was never more prolific than in the early 1970s, when dozens upon dozens of lower-budgeted horror movies emanating from Europe but most especially Britain created an enormous glut that, among other things, probably accelerated the near-collapse the British film industry. Most of these horror films were pretty dreary and desperate. Few broke new ground but nearly all tried to spice things up with a bit more violence and a lot more nudity than had been allowed just a few years before.

Somewhat lost in this mad scramble of production was the very peculiar Burke & Hare (1972), an independent feature not made by any of the companies one usually associates with such pictures, notably Hammer, Amicus, or Tigon.

The film is a serious and historical...Read the entire review

]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=55808 Thu, 05 Jul 2012 18:05:06 PDT Rent It

The Movie:

Directed by Vernon Sewell for Tigon in 1968, The Blood Beast Terror (also known under the even more salacious title of Blood Beast From Hell) features a lot of highly regarded members of the vintage British horror scene of the day but fails to hit the heights of other more highly regarded efforts from Hammer, Amicus and even Tigon's own output like Witchfinder General. It does, however, have enough going for it that fans of British horror will want to check it out, if only to decide for themselves.

The storyline is set in Victorian times where a killer is afoot on the streets of London, leaving young men dead and drained of all of their blood. Obviously the powers that be want to put a stop to this and so Inspector Quennell (Peter Cushing) is called in to investigate the murders and see if he can put together the pieces of this bizarre puzzle. A few cl...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=56477 Fri, 08 Jun 2012 11:50:39 PDT Recommended

The Rape of the Vampire:
Casual Jean Rollin fans will be up to their elbows in WTF dealing with this, the director's first full-length feature. Though containing many of Rollin's themes and obsessions - basically naked vampires - the movie goes so far beyond crackpot that it's almost impossible to dig into for most viewers. Serious scholars, or those suffering from an overdose of cold medication, will find their money's worth in this melodramatic tale of naked vampires. Others might become lost and aggravated.

With plenty of black-and-white ambience and style, Rollin starts on a strong note. Four comely, scantily clad lasses wander around the French countryside, claiming to be vampires. They shuffle slowly through a field, often pausing to genuflect in front of a creepy statue. Soon enough, disbelieving psychiatrist Thomas (Bernard Letrou) and compatriots arrive to settle the girls' hash. B...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=56237 Thu, 24 May 2012 04:04:43 PDT Recommended

Demoniacs:
French arthouse horror king Jean Rollin really went off the rails with this 1974 head-scratcher. Not only does the director ignore his standard story, (childlike pair of girls finds enclave of vampires) but he also makes a movie to which you need to pay attention if you want to understand it. (All of his other films are impossible to understand whether you pay attention or not.) Rollin's palette full of style is still in effect, however, and most of his favorite tropes are along for the ride. The Demoniacs, over time, has become rather comic, so if you're in the mood for some campy, sexy, macabre fun - or you're a Rollin fanatic - his creepy girls will give you a run for your money.

Hailed by Video Watchdog honcho Tim Lucas as "a Poe-like study of guilt and revenge" The Demoniacs can undeniably fit into that comparison. A small band of lazy, landlubber pirates lure ...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=56230 Tue, 22 May 2012 13:44:46 PDT Highly Recommended

Requiem For A Vampire:
Sometimes I wonder if French auteur Jean Rollin, as a Euro-Horror icon, wasn't just coasting on the strength of racy lobby cards. I first caught wind of the master through such stills from his 1982 release, The Living Dead Girl. Provocative title? Check! Picture of a hot naked blond woman covered in blood? Check-a-roonie! However, those who are familiar with his work know things aren't exactly as aggressive as Rollin's lobby cards might make you think. You need to have a seriously open mind, probably tons of caffeine, and a dedicated appreciation for cinema with a capitol 'C' if you want to penetrate Rollin's obtuse horrors, including Requiem For a Vampire, which nicely features much of Rollin's kinky quirks and quixotic work.

So, have you got your art-house hats on? Popcorn with nutritional yeast and balsamic vinegar? Then let's begin. Requiem - ...Read the entire review

]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=54993 Wed, 16 May 2012 18:59:26 PDT Highly Recommended

The Movie:

Jean Rollin's oddball blend of art, horror and eroticism in fantastic cinema is not for all tastes. Many viewers are alienated by his work, many find it tedious, dull, and hard to follow, sometimes making no sense at all. For some people, however, it doesn't get much better than a Jean Rollin film. If you're able to connect on whatever level Rollin is speaking on, and you're able to look past the preconceived notions of what a horror movie should or should not be, you'll find a world of gorgeous compositions, gothic atmosphere thick enough that you'll need a chainsaw to cut through it, plenty of interesting characters and some truly memorable set pieces. A prime example of how all of that can come together in some of Rollin's films is his 1973 'evil pirates versus ghosts' film, Les Demoniaques (which Kino/Redemption have re-titled The Demoniacs, in keeping with pre...Read the entire review

]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=54994 Tue, 15 May 2012 14:15:41 PDT Highly Recommended

The Movie:

The first feature film made by the late Jean Rollin was 1968's The Rape Of The Vampire, a bizarre black and white 'melodrama in two parts' (according to the on screen text that appears at the beginning of the movie - and it does have two distinct parts) that was originally intended to be nothing more than a collection of additional footage that producer Sam Selsky (credited on screen as $am $elsky) intended to splice into a film he had acquired entitled Vampire, Spawn Of The Devil. This was basically just the French dubbed version of 1943's Dead Men Walk, which starred George Zucco which was too short to hit the requisite ninety minute feature length running time Selsky knew would be required to get anything out of this picture at the French box office. Rollin was employed as an editor at the time and accepted Selsky's offer to pad out the American film, but...Read the entire review

]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=54992 Tue, 15 May 2012 04:14:53 PDT Highly Recommended

The Movie:

Also well known as Virgins And Vampires and released on VHS in the U.S. by Something Weird Video under the far more exploitative Caged Virgins moniker, this earlier effort from French filmmaker Jean Rollin is high on powerful imagery, but short on linear storytelling. Basically a series of well executed dream like set pieces, 1973's Requiem For A Vampire is the story of two female thieves named Marie and Michelle (Marie-Pierre Castel and Mireille Dargent). When we first meet them they're decked out in clown garb and on the run from the local police who are keen to catch for reason explained later in the plot. When their male driver gets shot and dies, the girls end up burning their car and hiding out in a nearby French chateau (much like the character in Fascination) where they soon encounter its primary resident, the last of the vampires, and his loy...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=56014 Tue, 08 May 2012 03:55:14 PDT Rent It

London In The Raw/ Primitive London Double Feature:
London In The Raw
Mondo Movie enthusiasts will find little to be enamored of as they dive down to the bottom of the barrel with this documentary. Purporting to show the seamy underbelly of London in the swinging sixties, this 80-minutes of mostly recreated flotsam might have been somewhat shocking to yokels from way back when, but said yokels would have to be pretty damn sheltered to get their kicks watching zippy dorks singing songs of political satire in nightclubs.

With dour narration, we delve into those unsavory places (or: unsavoury, if you will) where adults like to have fun. But first, we must contend with pointed commentary on life in contemporary London, involving such outr incidents as kids in uniforms going to school. Further explaining the vagaries of life in the big city, video of a weird old bum playing a p...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=54868 Mon, 30 Apr 2012 16:58:10 PDT Recommended

The Movie:

While best known as one of the greatest cinematographers of all time, the late, great Jack Cardiff also had a few interesting directorial credits to his name, the best known probably being 1968's Girl On A Motorcycle, which he also shot.

The film follows a woman named Rebecca played by Marianne Faithfull who, through voice over, tells us her story which we witness through a carefully staged series of flashbacks. When we meet her, she's just been wed but soon decides to leave her husband, Raymond (Roger Mutton), behind as she jumps on a motorcycle and zooms across the German countryside to visit her old lover, Daniel (Alain Delon), a university scholar. As far as the storyline goes, there are few twists and turns but that's more or less it.

Opening with a fantastic psychedelic acid dream in which the fetchingly beautiful Faithfull sees herself riding around on...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=54597 Wed, 18 Apr 2012 18:16:10 PDT Recommended

Completely mad, boring at times, a bit exploitative at times, ineptly-made, and dream-like. Redemption has re-released (oh my god...not because one of the Real Housewives of Beverly Hills is in it, did they???) Killer's Moon, the 1978 U.K. horror exploitation number that has garnered a small but loyal following across the pond. Directed and co-written on the cheap by Alan Birkinshaw (with an assist on the screenplay from his sister Fay Weldon, for christ's sake), Killer's Moon is a tough call as a "good" movie, but it does have something going on in it that I found fascinating...although I'm not sure I can quite put down in words, exactly what that "something" may be. Plenty of extras here, but I'm assuming they're the same ones that were found on Redemption's 2008 release. A nice transfer helps.

Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=54866 Mon, 16 Apr 2012 19:14:17 PDT Highly Recommended

The Movie:
They don't often make films like The Asphyx anymore, and haven't since Hammer Studios closed its doors. (Though they have recently reopened, perhaps holding out some hope.) Victorian gothic horror movies aren't in fashion these days, but in the seventies they abounded, and this film is a fine example.

Wealthy amateur inventor and psychical researcher Hugo Cunningham (Robert Stephens) believes he is entering a new and happy chapter in his life. His children, son Clive, daughter Christina and adopted son Giles (Ralph Arliss, Jane Lapotaire and Robert Powell) are all grown and successful, and he has just introduced them to his wife to be Anna (Fiona Walker). Everyone is happy, and he has plenty of free time to pursue his hobby, photographing people at the moment of their deaths, in pursuit of his psychic researches. He notices a distinct smudge in these photos that appea...Read the entire review

]]> Blu-ray http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=54548 Sat, 14 Apr 2012 09:39:49 PDT Highly Recommended

The interesting, anomalous science fiction horror film The Asphyx (1973), a picture unjustly all but forgotten until recently, was the product of several converging trends. For starters, during 1970-1972 probably more horror movies were made than at any other time in the history of cinema, about 200 during those three years alone. They were being made all over the world, from Spain to Japan, America to the Philippines, but the plurality came from Britain. However, the market for these same lower-budgeted films quickly dried up. The glut and sameness of product didn't help, but mainly the market was evolving in new directions. Drive-ins and downtown theaters specializing in such films were closing or switching to other kinds of pictures (blaxploitation, hard-core porno). Big studio movies like The Exorcist (1973), Jaws (1975), and The Omen (1976), as well as ultra-cheap but v...Read the entire review

]]> DVD Video http://www.dvdtalk.com/reviews/read.php?ID=55522 Sat, 07 Apr 2012 15:00:53 PDT Rent It

The Tagline:

THE THRILLING REMAKE OF THE HITCHCOCK CLASSIC

The Movie:

Suspicion, as Horizon Movies' tagline for this newly minted home video release of a 1988 English production suggests, is a remake of a vintage Alfred Hitchcock thriller of the same name starring Cary Grant and Joan Fontaine. While I've seen a number of Hitchcock's thrillers over the years, I have to confess that I didn't see this one, so I can't necessarily comment upon how the remake reflects the original. Matt Hinrichs, a fellow DVD Talk reviewer, has, however, and you can read his thoughts between the two in his review of Suspi...Read the entire review

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