The film is more crime drama than crime action, but relax: The Stath still gets to kick ass aplenty. He’s Joey, a former Special Forces soldier on the lam from a court martial. Homeless and haunted by the demons of Afghanistan, he becomes a muscle for Chinese mob and finds himself strangely attracted to a […]
Lionsgate
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Gallowwalkers
And Snipes’ signature character of Blade will come to mind. As that Marvel Comics hero was cursed with vampirism, this film’s hero harbors a curse that turns the dead into the undead. Therefore, High Noon of the Living Dead would not be an inaccurate title for Gallowwalkers. Not to overpraise the film, but with its […]
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Black Rock
Like a gender-reversed Deliverance, three friends (Straw Dogs‘ Kate Bosworth, Childrens Hospital‘s Lake Bell and Aselton) motorboat to the titular isle for a gals-only camping trip. When three hunters cross their path, Abby (Aselton) spontaneously invites them to share their campfire and liquor. The guys accept, but after the very married Abby gets very drunk […]
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The Last Stand
In his first starring role in a decade, the former governor of California plays Sheriff Ray Owens, the lovable law enforcer of Sommerton, Ariz., where nothing ever happens except a parade — that is, until the FBI starts to transfer Mexican cartel boss Cortez (the Benicio Del Toro-esque Eduardo Noriega of Blackthorn) from Las Vegas […]
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Texas Chainsaw
“This is the true sequel,” Texas Chainsaw asserts. To prove it, the first three minutes serve as a Reader’s Digest encapsulation of the original before picking up right where it left off. Leatherface (Dan Yeager) and the surviving members of his Sawyer clan come under siege by an angry redneck squad of vengeance. In the […]
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Curandero: Dawn of the Demon
Certainly releasable, but only a goatee hair above watchable, the horror film is co-produced by Machete man Robert Rodriguez (no relation), who also wrote the original screenplay — “original” only in terms of it being rewritten, as there’s nothing new you haven’t seen 100 times before. To less adventurous viewers, I suppose the story’s being […]
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The Bay
Inspired by an actual event in which fish and birds inexplicably turned up dead in mass quantities, the movie takes place in Claridge, Md., as the Chesapeake Bay celebrates Independence Day in 2009. Much of the footage we see comes courtesy of TV news intern Donna Thompson (Kether Donohue, Pitch Perfect) via a WikiLeaks-esque site, […]
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Black’s Game
1. Among its producers is Nicolas Winding Refn, the filmmaker who steered Drive straight to the top of my list of 2011’s best films. 2. It opens with a title card that translates to “BASED ON REAL HARDCORE SHIT.” 3. See No. 2; repeat as necessary. Based on a novel based on a true story, […]
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The Possession
Now that the former has followed the latter onto Blu-ray and DVD, the difference is startlingly clear: The Possession is by far the superior ghost story. I’d expect nothing less from Evil Dead mastermind Sam Raimi, who produced it under his Ghost House Pictures banner, which has brought some of the better entries in the […]
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Hansel & Gretel: Warriors of Witchcraft
Another: H&G: WOW is directed by David DeCoteau, whose dirt-cheap filmography includes 1313: Giant Killer Bees! (exclamation theirs), Test Tube Teens from the Year 2000 and the forthcoming A Talking Cat!?! (exclamations and question mark theirs). In this flaccid effort, Hansel and Gretel Jonah and Ella (real-life sibs Booboo and Fivel Stewart, respectively) play orphan […]