The year is 1997. It’s been six years since Twin Peaks has gone off the air, but its influence is still present. There’s a string of shows and very special episodes with a…
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Reviews
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Over a year ago, my friend gave a bunch of us a very special gift. It was the gift of ninjas. Actual, real-life ninjas. We got gift certificates to a bujinkan…
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The description on the back of the VHS box reads: “A bloody film of suspense and passion in the style of Friday The 13th.” Noche Infernal is not in the style…
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You’ve got to pick your battles. No one understands this more than Ivan Cardoso. Before directing his own films, Cardoso was a protege of José Mojica Marins aka Coffin Joe. He…
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“Film critics are writers, and they are hostile and uneasy in the presence of a visual phenomenon.” That quote appears in Gregory Battock’s 1967 paperback, The New American Cinema. The speaker…
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Somewhere in New York City, men and women in strategically ripped clothing thrash around to the sound of beating drums. A witch doctor dances and waves around a bundle of sticks…
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Let’s get negative. The title track of The Velvet Underground’s White Light/White Heat LP kills me. It’s like a furious french kiss in broad daylight, sloppy and electrifying in its brevity…
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Originally published in Bleeding Skull! A 1980s Trash-Horror Odyssey. Truffaut. Godard. Malle. Rohmer. Ogroff. If you’re sharp, you’ve determined that we’re speaking French. And, if you’re even sharper, you’ve recognized five…
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The tagline on the VHS cover of Omega Cop says it all: “The year is 1999. John Travis is the toughest cop alive …He is the only cop alive!” Indeed, the…
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Let’s get dark. You know what’s great about Canadian ultra-obscurities? They’re always dependable. Whether setting out to mine luscious delirium (Things), debilitating gloom (Deadline), or concentrated shittiness (Survival 1990), our Great…
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The hoi polloi mingle at a black tie birthday party for a teenager. Think of it as a really fancy bat mitzvah, only Japanese. A singer belts out “Happy Birthday Dear…
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By the time the eleventh year of the ’80s rolled around, international leading man Richard Harrison had run the genre gamut from Herculean epics to spaghetti westerns to martial arts blowouts,…
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This movie has taught me two important things about phone sex: First of all, it’s not phone sex. It’s phone fantasy, which is, as we all know, pronounced “fawntasy.” Second, phone…
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Frank Harris’ My Life And Loves was published in 1925. Mr. Harris was famous because he had famous friends, and also because My Life was a 1000 page memoir about having…
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This is an updated version of a review that was originally published in Bleeding Skull! A 1990s Trash-Horror Odyssey. I was in fifth grade when I ran for vice president of…
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Originally published in Bleeding Skull! A 1980s Trash-Horror Odyssey. “If we lose the ozone layer, we’ll all become mutants.” Well, there you go. In 1986, writer-director Bret McCormick and partner Matt…
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A ruthless killer has slashed a young lady and wrapped her bloody body in a sheet. He leaves behind a note: “One down 13 to go. -Mac” Now a promise has…
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My cousin Brian appeared on a local Chicago television show called Kidding Around when he was in junior high. The show focused on ordinary kids doing extraordinary things. Brian’s talent was…
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There was a dark time in the 90s when everyone quoted Reservoir Dogs, especially the monologue about “Like a Virgin.” Holy shit, they’d say, that movie is so fucking good! Then…
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Pigs kind of has everything. It’s an early 70s cheapskate, promising pigs that eat people and a girl with a knife. When the end credits roll, it still kind of has everything.…