Original Cinemaniac

Movie Reviews by Dennis Dermody

Sam Pasco and Ironmaster

            Talk about going down the rabbit hole. I just finished this terrific book about Italian exploitation director Umberto Lenzi (Seven Blood-Stained Orchids/Orgasmo/The Tough Ones/Cannibal Ferox) by Troy Howarth called “Make Them Die Slowly” and I was catching up with other…
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Winter Kills at the Film Forum

            Winter Kills is a brilliant 1979 paranoid political thriller by novice director William Richert, which got great reviews but was pulled from theaters after a short run. It also has garnered a well-deserved cult following.             Jeff Bridges plays the brother of an assassinated…
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Beethoven’s Nephew

            I think it was my sadness reading about the death of the sublime Jane Birkin that encouraged me to revisit a 1985 film she was in that was directed by Paul Morrissey– Beethoven’s Nephew. I remember loving the movie when…
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Fear the Night

            Maggie Q plays a toughened, yet damaged, Iraqi war veteran named Tes who begrudgingly accompanies her sisters to their parents’ farmhouse way out in the desert for a bachelorette party. Her sister Beth (Kat Foster), a Stepford Wife with an…
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Beau is Afraid

            One of the best films people didn’t see in theaters recently was Beau is Afraid. It’s coming on on Blu-ray on July 11 from Lionsgate and I urge you to experience it’s maniacal charms. Directed by Ari Aster’s it’s about…
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