I don’t know why I never got around to seeing the THE CROW sequel from the director of SIX-STRING SAMURAI. Always was curious. Still took me 19 years. Lance Mungia’s THE CROW: WICKED PRAYER, just like the previous one, was meant for theaters, but I think it only played somewhere around here? Wiki(dprayer)pedia says its theatrical run was only in Seattle and only for one week, and I do remember seeing an ad for it and being confused, but I was thinking it was in Eastern Washington. Anyway, I didn’t go.
URBAN LEGEND (1998) is, to my mind, one of the most “obviously we’re making this because of the success of SCREAM” horror movies that exists. It’s another young-people-whodunit-slasher, with a similarly constituted cast of pretty young movie and TV stars, but instead of killings inspired by horror movie tropes, these ones are based on popular urban myths. At the time I think I took it as dumb but pretty enjoyable, which is also how I feel about it now, and about many non-classic slasher movies. Like most of them it benefits from age – it’s a time capsule now rather than the latest the genre has to offer, so we have different expectations for it. (read the rest of this shit…)
A RETURN TO SALEM’S LOT is Larry Cohen’s weirdo theatrically-released sort-of-sequel to Tobe Hooper’s TV mini-series of the Stephen King book. But really it just takes the location – the tiny town of Jerusalem’s Lot, Maine – and the idea of doing a vampire story there. It’s not the same vampire or the same type of vampire. It doesn’t connect, from what I remember. But I like that.
Joe Weber (Cohen’s muse Michael Moriarty) is an anthropologist working on a CANNIBAL HOLOCAUST type documentary when he finds he has to come home to look after his troublemaking teenage son Jeremy (one-time actor Ricky Addison Reed, who IMDb claims was cast to play Robin in Tim Burton’s BATMAN in scenes that were never filmed). Joe brings his son to the old, recently-inherited fixer-upper in his birth-town of Salem’s Lot (as some but not all abbreviate it). (read the rest of this shit…)
Before Riverdale, before the Marvel Cinematic Universe, before Christopher Nolan Batman, before 9-11 even, there was a different type of comic book movie: JOSIE AND THE PUSSYCATS. Inspired by the Archie comic book and Hanna-Barbera cartoon, writer/directors Harry Elfont & Deborah Kaplan told a goofy version of the little-rock-‘n-roll-band-tested-by-overnight-superstardom story.
Actually maybe we should forget about comics and consider this timeline: it was a year before American Idol started. The Spice Girls had packed it up the year before. NSYNC and Backstreet Boys were still popular. The movie seems to offer the Pussycats as a refreshing alternative for teenage girls to obsess over instead of boy bands, but it should be noted that Destiny’s Child, Alicia Keys, Jennifer Lopez, Janet Jackson, Brandy, Madonna, Mary J. Blige, Pink, and Aaliyah (plus Britney Spears and Jessica Simpson) all had hits that year. But I guess the Pussycats do stand out by playing instruments. Their songs are kind of sassy pop punk, not good in my opinion but not as intolerable as some in-movie music. (read the rest of this shit…)
From the director of PUNISHER #2 and the star of PUNISHER #3 comes a solid, entertaining period gangster movie. It’s a biopic of Danny Greene, an Irish American union president, gang enforcer and dodger of car bombs in Cleveland, Ohio circa early ’60s through late ’70s. If it had been done as two separate movies maybe it would’ve got an arthouse release and some critical respect, but they did it as one so it was barely released by Anchor Bay and nobody ever heard of it. (read the rest of this shit…)
What this movie is about is pie fucking. There is a kid who fucks a pie in it. There is also a guy who fucks a grapefruit apparently but you don’t see that. But this guy fucks a pie.
The version I saw is the unrated DVD, which I guess has extra pie fucking footage. in the original apparently it was a standing up with the pie position, wheras here it is a missionary position with the kid mounting the pie. The cover of the unrated DVD shows all the young gals on the cover but don’t be fooled, none of them do any pie fucking in the movie, it is only this one guy. (read the rest of this shit…)
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Recent commentary and jibber-jabber
CJ Holden on In a Violent Nature: “Okay, I did not expect to enjoy it as much as I did, which is why I waited so long…” Oct 11, 03:56
bastardjackyll on Ogroff: “Recommendation: Evil Laugh. Cheaply made, but it has a likeable cast and interesting premise. It’s schlock, but they put in…” Oct 10, 20:54
Skani on Backrooms: “As I suggested previously, I saw it saying more about denial and illusion vs. self-awareness and moving forward. It’s about…” Oct 10, 20:14
so-and-so on Backrooms: “so that would be implicit, not explicit” Oct 10, 16:45
Hagen on Ogroff: “Also, sorry, I have got to ask: Ogroff’s mask was made by cutting apart an old leather football (soccer ball),…” Oct 10, 13:04
Hagen on Ogroff: “Would ‘Anatomie’ qualify? It is a German slasher from 2000. It has Franka Potente (two years after Run Lola Run,…” Oct 10, 12:49
Martijn on Ogroff: “The Dutch slasher Intensive Care (1991) was released by Vinegar Syndrome recently. George Kennedy shows up in it! Another Dutch…” Oct 10, 08:25
Curt on Ogroff: “I found a YouTube bootleg of this and just finished watching it. I was torn between being bored as hell…” Oct 10, 05:44
Birch on Backrooms: “I think we’re having two different conversations, to be honest with you. Much in the way that I don’t think…” Oct 10, 04:08
M on Ogroff: “The BS restoration played this year’s Fantastic Fest!” Oct 10, 03:35
Birch on Ogroff: “Knife+Heart is not vintage and I’m not sure the slasher aspect of it is it’s strongest suit but it’s the…” Oct 10, 03:30
Callum Mackinnon on Ogroff: “I think Hell’s Ground is an amazing underappreciated slasher… https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0887973/” Oct 10, 02:55
PetrosMT on Onslaught: “First movie in my life that a gave a 5 to and have not regretted seeing. I can’t really write…” Oct 9, 19:12
Mr. Majestyk on Ogroff: “I have seen OGROFF. I remember it being a sort of primordial IN A VIOLENT NATURE: an open-world take on…” Oct 9, 18:06
Curt on Ogroff: “U-matic was a large videotape format that TV stations and colleges used to use. The tape inside the large cassettes…” Oct 9, 14:49
URBAN LEGEND (1998) is, to my mind, one of the most “obviously we’re making this because of the success of 
A RETURN TO SALEM’S LOT is Larry Cohen’s weirdo theatrically-released sort-of-sequel to Tobe Hooper’s TV mini-series of the Stephen King book. But really it just takes the location – the tiny town of Jerusalem’s Lot, Maine – and the idea of doing a vampire story there. It’s not the same vampire or the same type of vampire. It doesn’t connect, from what I remember. But I like that.
Before 
From the director of 
What this movie is about is pie fucking. There is a kid who fucks a pie in it. There is also a guy who fucks a grapefruit apparently but you don’t see that. But this guy fucks a pie.
