The Breaking Glass Pictures release is not to be confused with the FX hit series American Horror Story, although I’m sure Breaking Glass won’t mind if any potential renters do. Early in the no-budget picture, the main character tells his girfriend, “Anything to do with paranormal activity is really hot right now,” and that feels […]
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My Amityville Horror
Now a father himself of two teenagers, Lutz — a dead ringer for actor Michael Chiklis (Parker) — recounts what he, his siblings, his mom and his wretched stepfather went through in the Long Island home at 112 Ocean Ave., reportedly haunted because of the six murders that occurred there. Whether speaking to a psychiatrist, […]
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The Fog
The picture depicts a supernatural takeover of the sleepy California coastal town of Antonio Bay by a band of ghost pirates seeking revenge for their deaths 100 years prior. They menace the entire populace, but for the purposes of this story, Carpenter focuses primarily on the DJ of the lighthouse radio station (Adrienne Barbeau, Swamp […]
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42
And that’s fine with me. 42 — the number Robinson wore on his uniform — tells an important story that, almost inconceivably, has eluded big-screen treatment since Robinson himself starred in 1950’s The Jackie Robinson Story. Relative unknown Chadwick Boseman (TV’s Persons Unknown) gives a stirring, if uncomplicated, performance as the supremely gifted ballplayer who […]
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The Naked Jungle
Back in print through Warner Archive, the meat-and-taters adventure is based on Carl Stephenson’s classic short story “Leiningen Versus the Ants” of two decades prior. Heston is the clenched-jaw Leiningen, owner of a cocoa plantation in South America, and so lonely and away from civilization that he has to mail-order a wife, played by Parker. […]
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Slumming it
In the past year, Feed the Children has changed both its focus and its leadership. Now it hopes to educate people about its mission by recreating the atmosphere of an African slum inside an Oklahoma City warehouse. After walking through a hallway lined with pictures of kids in Feed the Children programs, visitors see a […]
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Love Is All You Need
Luckily, the film is smarter than the average adult-oriented romantic dramedy, and not just because it speaks in three tongues. The main reason for its ultimate (if unspectacular) success is its director and co-writer, Susanne Bier, who won an Academy Award for the Danish drama In a Better World, deservedly named 2010’s Best Foreign Language […]
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The Town That Dreaded Sundown
Like Boggy Creek, 1976’s Sundown states it is based on a true story. Unlike Boggy Creek, Sundown actually is. Better late than never, it makes a simultaneous DVD and Blu-ray release courtesy of Shout! Factory. Set in postwar Texarkana, the film depicts the fear that gripped that the heretofore optimistic town of 40,000 after a […]
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H.P. Lovecraft’s Cool Air
They have something to do with a 5,000-year-old Egyptian relic called the Horns of Werethekau and one Dr. Torres who has the power to resurrect the dead, but you’re likely to have forgotten that when the opening credits finally finish up four minutes later. And you’re equally likely to forget the entire movie 82 minutes […]
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Police Story / Police Story 2
It’s the next one that does. Fast-forward at least a decade later. In college, a friend showed me a VHS tape of an episode of The Incredibly Strange Film Show, a British documentary miniseries. Chan was that ep’s subject, and clips from 1985’s Police Story — and maybe even 1988’s Police Story 2, if memory […]