Roughly 20 minutes apiece, give or take, these rare scare films are hosted by a guy (or guys, as the identity changes; one has a lazy eye) introducing himself straight to the camera as only “the MGM reporter.” He interviews presumably real-life experts about criminal activities, and then we’re treated to a lengthy re-enactment of […]
mystery
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Seeking Justice
Now that he’s made two movies that have skipped wide theatrical openings this year on a quick route to video, as Trespass and Seeking Justice have, perhaps it’s time for him to step back and make his next few choices really, really carefully. Here’s the irony: Seeking Justice is one of the better things he’s […]
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D.O.A.
Dennis Quaid stars as English professor Dexter Cornell, who somehow contracts a fatal toxin that glows Re-Animator green and gives him 24 hours to live. Rather than just bang one of his students — well, he does that, too — he sets out to find who’s slipped him one mammoth mickey. And in doing so, […]
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Accident
Masterminded by a lonely, paranoid widowed man who looks like Dwight Schrute and goes by the name of The Brain (Louis Koo, Triple Tap), a group of four carries out hired hits by making them look like accidents, and remarkably, using no weapons. In the opening hit, for instance, a Triad gang boss is felled […]
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Sherlock Holmes: A Game of Shadows
It’s certainly not short on action; Holmes gets into a street brawl, disposes of a bomb and destroys a bachelor party, all before the main plot gets going. That involves what criminal mastermind Professor James Moriarty (Jared Harris, TV’s Mad Men) may have to do with anarchist activities around town, and what he wants with […]
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The Phantom of Crestwood
Some 55 years before Dino De Laurentiis failed to lure audiences into theaters with the promise of a seven-digit payday for one lucky viewer of the wretched Million Dollar Mystery, RKO and super producers David O. Selznick and Merian C. Cooper launched a different kind of contest. Leading up to Crestwood’s premiere, the story was […]
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Dark Crimes
Among the 50 titles here — yes, 50 — are some genuine classics, such as 1950’s D.O.A., Edward G. Robinson in 1947’s The Red House and Samuel Fuller’s The Naked Kiss, but I don’t recommend picking up this massive set for those three, as much better prints can be found from, respectively, Image Entertainment, Film Chest […]
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The House Across the Street / Homicide
House is the better of the two, opening on the suburbian utopia of Hopkins Street on the morning of April 20. It’s a placid existence, complete with home delivery from the milkman. But when a phony postal worker knocks off a would-be trial witness on the watch of a rookie cop, there goes the neighborhood. […]
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The Mystery of Edwin Drood
Despite leaving The Mystery of Edwin Drood incomplete when he died in 1870 (of all the nerve!), the book has hit the screen about half a dozen times since, most recently this two-hour version from the BBC, now on Blu-ray fresh from airing on PBS’ esteemed, enduring Masterpiece Classic showcase. Edwin Drood (Freddie Fox, The […]
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While the Patient Slept
The MOD DVD has the Federie clan gathering again on a dark and stormy night at the behest of patriarch Richard (Walter Walker, Dangerous) “to watch me die.” But first, he has something to say to everyone. Before he can, however, it’s R.I.P. via gunshot — oh, not for Richard, but one of his sons […]