To me, one of the high points this summer is the Blu-ray releases of two great William Castle films by Scream Factory. The Tingler (Scream Factory) A great 1959 William Castle film starring Vincent Price as a doctor studying “fear”…
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“Fix us a dvink,” says Renee Harmon, with her molasses-thick German accent, in the hilariously inept action movie Lady Street Fighter, given an astonishing Blu-ray restoration by AGFA. She plays Linda Allen, cop and kick-boxer who has made a date…
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What can you say about a 1972 film concerning a pretty, blonde L.A. socialite (who’s secretly a necrophiliac) which also co-stars Lyle Waggoner (of The Carol Burnett Show fame)? Well that’s what you get, and more, in the gloriously deranged…
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Dietrich & Von Sternberg In Hollywood (Criterion) A staggering box set of director Josef von Sternberg’s six films with his muse- Marlene Dietrich. There’s Morocco (1930), where the gorgeous Dietrich is singing in a Moroccan club in male drag and…
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Female Trouble (Criterion) John Waters’ hilariously prophetic dark comedy about the life and death of high school hellcat Dawn Davenport (Divine). From rebellious teen, to dissatisfied wife and mother, to her fateful meeting with beauty shop owners Donald & Donna…
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Gun Crazy (Warner Archive) There are film noir films and then there is Gun Crazy (1950), Joseph H. Lewis’s brilliant criminal couple-on-the-run film. It starred John Dall as a crack marksman who gets involved with a beautiful, but deadly, carnival…
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Suspiria (Synapse) The scariest and loudest horror movie about witchcraft ever made, by Italian maestro of menace Dario Argento (Deep Red). Jessica Harper stars as Suzy Bannion, an American girl, who arrives at a famed Tanz Akademie of dance in…
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In my eternal quest to find the diamonds at the bottom of cinema’s cesspool, I’ve made some interesting discoveries. For instance, I’ve found that many famous actresses who continued to perform into their autumn years valiantly took on any work…
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Remember when action movies were fun- not digital effects, fast editing and deafening sound? This thought came to mind while watching the new “Limited Edition” Blu-ray from Vinegar Syndrome of the great soul prison flick Penitentiary (1979), one of the…
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I don’t know about you, but when I’m out with someone and we’re deciding on which movie to see and they say: “Nothing serious or depressing- I only go to comedies…” it makes me want to whip out my…
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