MOTM: "Who Can Kill a Child?" (¿Quién puede matar a un niño?)

An eerie lullaby leads a savage parade of dark black-and-white images depicting kids ravaged by war, abuse and pestilence in the opening scenes of this icy Spanish thriller, the implication being that what is about to unfold in this movie is not entirely without karmic recourse.

Forget the corny international titles plaguing this film. “Isle of the Damned.” “Death is Child’s Play.” “The Killer’s Playground.” “Lucifer’s Curse.” Somehow, the production company American International thought the name “TRAPPED!” sounded good.

Movie of the Month: "Lifeforce"

“Lifeforce” could not be considered a good movie in even the loosest version of the classical sense. Its troubled past would at least suggest as much.

Klaus Kinski, Sir Anthony Hopkins and Terence Stamp either refused to participate in the project or simply fell through the cracks altogether. James Horner was approached for the soundtrack but passed. The roughly $25 million budget recouped only about half of that during its box office run. Over 1,000 actresses (pardon my anachronism?) were screened before the role of “Space Girl” was filled, which is odd considering she only has about four lines of dialogue and spends the great majority of the film in her birthday suit. Oh, and did I mention that the alien ship was modeled after an artichoke? 

Review: "Predators" 7/14/10

You...one....ugly...mothaf*cka...

The law of averages gives us a cheap, mathematical kind of hope. But it’s hope nonetheless. After two films of such stunningly bad quality as "AVP" and "AVPR", I was starting to wonder if 20th Century Fox had forever squandered one of the most beloved creature-feature franchises this planet has ever known. But just as I was about to rig up another Paul W.S. Anderson dummy in effigy, I happened to stumble upon Nimrod Antal’s “Predators”, a surprisingly faithful reboot of John McTiernan’s singular action classic (let’s face it, the 80’s was only man enough to only handle one Predator).

“Original Spit: A Tribute (of sorts) to Meir Zarchi’s Legacy and the Path of American Horror”

Wakka wakka?

(Warning: Contains some graphic material.)

Speaking of graves, I’m not quite so sure that silent actor Buster Keaton could have envisioned the things his grand-daughter would be doing in “Day of the Woman”. In fact, before his porkpie hat blew sky high upon his discovery of the dirty, dirty truth, he might even be inclined to mistake the film for one of those delightful runaway comedies like his “Seven Chances”, given the truculent little title might suggest the possibility of a hard-headed female love interest. Or maybe a hilarious romantic role reversal? But, for those of you who know what Meir Zarchi’s “I Spit on Your Grave” is all about and why it has remained famous all these years, then you’ll know there’s definitely a...reversal.

Reviews: "Drag Me To Hell" - 3/21/10

It was only a matter of time before Sam Raimi’s inner perversions caught back up with him. Honestly it’s been quite a while since he’s seen anything close to the horror genre and if big industry success has taught us anything in the past, it’s that once a guy (or gal) grows a big budget there doesn’t seem to be any turning back to the kinds of small cookie productions that got them there in the first place. Yet that’s exactly what Raimi has done here.