“One of these days I’m going to write a song that makes someone want to cry.” — Neil Diamond, Teen Screen Magazine, March 1967 When The Neil Diamond Collection arrived in the mail last month, I had forgotten I ever ordered it. For most of my 39-ish years, Neil Diamond was simply never on…
All posts tagged review
The Italian Horror Blogathon: Dario Argento’s Jenifer and Pelts
Italian director Dario Argento is known for his giallo films featuring excessive style, bloodshed and sex. His surrealist and controversial horror thrillers of the 1970s are often cited as some of the most influential films by modern horror filmmakers. In the mid-2000s, Argento directed two episodes of the Showtime “Masters of Horror” series. While not…
The Torture in Store: Ken Russell’s Gothic (1986)
Gothic is a wild mix of the beautiful and the grotesque, intriguing philosophical questions and empty MTV-era visuals, cloaked in an impossible melange of cobwebs and goats and sex and leeches. The film borrows thematic styles at whim, everything from David Lynch to Fellini’s exquisitely debauched Casanova (1976) to Hammer studios’ signature colorful lighting palette.…
Berserk (1967)
In 1962, the cult mainstay Whatever Happened to Baby Jane? launched a genre of campy horror films starring actresses who were best known for their classic Hollywood films of two, three, or even four decades earlier. Joan Crawford was one of the queens of this new genre and starred in several B-grade horror flicks. Berserk…
The Unknown (1927)
Related: the first of what should be many Flickr sets: The Unknown. *** There are, apparently, multiple prints of the Lon Chaney classic The Unknown (1927), though sorting the whole situation out is difficult to the point of impossible. In June and December of 1997, TCM showed an amber tinted print of The Unknown (1927)…
The Faculty (1998)
The Faculty is a star-studded horror comedy featuring Piper Laurie, Salma Hayek, Famke Janssen, Robert Patrick, Bebe Neuwirth, Usher Raymond, Elijah Wood Jr., Clea DuVall… …and Josh Hartnett’s ridiculous hair. This is a fun film, so much better than I expected after the critical evisceration it endured on release in 1998. There is a lot…
The Lady in White (1988)
Be ye warned: There be spoilers. I don’t reveal the murderer, but I reveal a lot of important plot points. The Lady in White (1988) was mentioned in a double feature post last year on the now-defunct The Dark Sublime, and was accompanied by screencaps of delicious fall scenery — I knew I had…
The Dick Van Dyke Show Blogathon: The Masterpiece & The Man From My Uncle
This is my entry for Ivan’s Dick Van Dyke Show Blogathon, celebrating the revolutionary sitcom that first aired 50 years ago today! “The Masterpiece” Season 3, Episode 2 Rob sidesteps the ottoman! He then spazzes out and almost falls on Laura. “The Masterpiece” was the second episode of season 3, nestled between the classics…
Slither (2006)
Slither (2006) is a witty horror homage, borrowing elements from various zombie movies as well as Squirm, The Brood, Night of the Creeps, The Blob, and a dozen others. It’s filled with little in-jokes, such as Rob Zombie as the voice of Dr. Karl, Troma founder Lloyd Kaufman in a tiny cameo, and I…
Count Dracula (1977)
At 56 years of age when this 1977 BBC adaptation of the Bram Stoker novel was filmed, the desire to pun that Louis Jourdan is “long in the tooth” is too great to deny. Yet his older-than-usual Count has a weighty, experienced presence that is an absolute delight to watch. He is everything a…