Debuting on Blu-ray in Synapse Films’ “Special Meltdown Edition,” the 1987 skid-row epic centers on an auto junkyard populated by homeless winos. One of them, who looks like famed Torgo from Manos: The Hands of Fate, finds that a decades-old bottle of Tenafly Viper purchased at the local liquor store causes those who drink it […]
Synapse
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Chiller: The Complete Television Series
And, as with any media in the omnibus format, some episodes clearly work better than others. The irony is that Chiller begins to find its footing as the hours click by, yet it’s all over and done with after five. The two-disc set contains the entire quintet of the supernatural stories. The first, “Prophecy,” […]
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The Definitive Document of the Dead
By the film’s own opening-crawl admission, Document is intended as a teaching tool, so its nature is purposely freeform — and how! Narrated by the late Susan Tyrell (until the new sections), the film captures Romero and friends at work on 1978’s Dawn of the Dead, the now-classic sequel to 1968’s classic Night of the […]
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Twins of Evil
At the quaint European village of Karnstein arrive identical twin sisters Maria and Frieda Gellhorn (real-life sibs and 1970 Playboy centerfolds Mary and Madeleine Collinson). Newly orphaned, the beautiful young women come from Venice to live with their Aunt Katy (Kathleen Byron, The Elephant Man) and Uncle Gustav (the legendary Peter Cushing). Upon seeing them […]
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Zoom In: Sex Apartments
The 1980 Japanese film is part of Impulse Pictures’ “Nikkatsu Erotic Films Collection,” which would equate to a hard-R rating here. While nudity is often, it’s all above-the-belt, frontally speaking, and this work in particular is like a Skinemax flick with an actual plot, and where sex is integral to the story. Well, sorta. That […]
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Red Scorpion
Nearly two years later, Synapse Films comes to the rescue, not only bringing it back on DVD, but debuting it on Blu-ray — and in an uncensored cut, no less! Now that I’ve watched it, I can say with certainty it’s the best action movie ever produced by a notorious federal felon (Jack Abramoff, who […]
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42nd Street Forever: Blu-ray Edition
That adds up to nearly four hours of absolutely outrageous ads. Trust me: Whether you watch in a single sitting or several, it’s a real car-chasing, cycle-revving, bomb-exploding, fist-punching, karate-chopping, foot-kicking, gun-shooting, knife-throwing, laser-blasting, woman-screaming, race-baiting, acid-pouring, eye-gouging, head-chopping, phallus-castrating, breast-squeezing, bed-writhing, succubus-sucking, wrist-tying, drug-injecting, butt-whipping, panty-ripping, bikini-filling, disco-dancing, jail-busting, snake-attacking, robot-battling, voodoo-pinning, slime-invading, dominatrix-singing, […]
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Gurozuka
While 2005’s “Gurozuka” isn’t a carbon copy of “The Ring,” I doubt there will be many American reviews that fail to drop the name. Uh, including this one. The females-only film follows two high school groups — the do-gooder, two-member Movie Club and the snooty, three-member Drama Club — as they venture deep into the […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Gurozuka
While 2005’s “Gurozuka” isn’t a carbon copy of “The Ring,” I doubt there will be many American reviews that fail to drop the name. Uh, including this one. The females-only film follows two high school groups — the do-gooder, two-member Movie Club and the snooty, three-member Drama Club — as they venture deep into the […]
Posted inArts & Culture
Intruder
Such was the world of “Intruder,” the directorial debut of Scott Spiegel, forever a god among cult filmdom for co-scripting “Evil Dead II.” That sequel, of course, was directed by longtime pal Sam Raimi, who grew up shooting homemade shorts with brother Ted, Spiegel and Bruce Campbell. “Intruder” is a feature-length version of the inventive, […]