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DanXIII

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Movie Review: Cuadecuc Vampir (1971)/Umbracle (1972) – Severin Blu-ray

Jess Franco made himself an adaption of Bram Stoker’s classic fang bang terror tome Dracula back in 1970 (refresh your memory on that release, the Christopher Lee starring Count Dracula, right here) and hired Spanish filmmaker Pere Portabella to film a lil’ behind-the-scenes action for what was supposed to be turned into a documentary concerning the film’s creation… but it wasn’t and here we are… Instead, Portabella conjured forth 1971’s Cuadecuc, Vampir; a black and white, hour-and-change, nearly silent (there is ambient (frequently not very) musical accompaniment, and closing remarks from Lee however) experimental film that certainly does present a fly-on-the-wall glimpse (no matter how impressionistic) into the film’s production along with it’s own loosey-goosey narrative. To that end we get a visual tone-poem showcasing cast and crew toiling away… and it is a fascinating, if unconventional viewing experience. Additionally, viewing Franco’s footage in stark, crisp (sometimes purposefully over-exposed) chiaroscuro gives it that classic Universal monster movie vibe! But wait,

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DanXIII

Jan 26, 2024

AdaptationBooksMoviesReviews

Movie Review: Silver Bullet (1985) – Scream Factory 4K/Blu-ray Combo

What do you get when you combine Corey Haim, Gary Busey, werewolves and The King of Horror himself? Horror fans will immediately guess 1985’s fright flick Silver Bullet. And non-horror fans… well I have no idea what they would think… and what the hell are they doing on this website anyway? Anyway, Scream Factory have unleashed a 4k/Blu-ray combo release of Silver Bullet, and yours cruelly is going to slap his putrid peepers upon it! In the quaint small town of Tarker’s Mills nothing exciting seems to happen… until the murders begin that is! Enter: Marty Coslaw (Corey Haim, The Lost Boys), a wheelchair (a motorized number which just so happens to be named Silver Bullet) bound lad who lives with his family… including his beloved (by Marty only) freeloading drunk of an uncle, Red (Gary Busey) smack dab in the middle of The ‘Mills. Being an ‘80s movie (based on an ‘80s book… novella, whatever… it’s Stephen King’s 1983-released

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DanXIII

Jan 20, 2024

ForeignMoviesReviews

Movie Review: México Bárbaro II (2017) – Unearthed Films Blu-ray

Being the forgetful fiend that I am, yours cruelly oft forgets that our pals South of the Border can deliver the gory goods among the best of them… and Unearthed Film’s new Blu-ray release of arcane anthology México Bárbaro II (the follow up to 2014’s México Bárbaro) reminded me with a nice, big, bloody open-handed slap right across my putrid puss! Let’s put our eerie eyeballs on the sinister segments that comprise this fright flick one by one and see just what makes this picture tick! La Leyenda De Juan Soldado: Coming from writer/director Abraham Sánchez; our first yarn concerns a soldier by the name of Juan (Uri Meza), who is accused of rape and left to die in the desert by his commanding officer. The thing is, our hero is innocent… so naturally the denizens of hell give him a chance to settle the score with those that wronged him! Entertaining, fast-paced, and full of a pseudo-EC Comics vibe

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DanXIII

Jan 20, 2024

IndieMoviesReviews

Movie Review: Blood Feast (2016) – Synapse 4K

Back in the far-flung past of 1963, Godfather of Gore Herschell Gordon Lewis unleashed Blood Feast; a blood-soaked tale of an Egyptian caterer who serves up feasts of human flesh, upon unsuspecting drive-in goers, and the world of horror films got that much more extreme. As is the case in the horror biz, it was high time for the picture to get the ol’ remake treatment ‘round 2016 courtesy of writer/director Marcel Walz (along with co-writer Philip Lilienschwarz)… and it’s this version that got the deluxe 4K treatment recently thanks to the fine fiends over at Synapse Films. Moving the action from Florida to Paris, our tale follows Fuad Ramses (Robert Rusler, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge) who have transplanted his wife Louise (Caroline Williams, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2) and daughter Penny (Sophie Monk, The Hills Run Red) to France where he has established a restaurant that serves homesick American tourists authentic diner food. Sounds solid

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DanXIII

Jan 16, 2024

ForeignMoviesReviews

Box Set Review: Cushing Curiosities (1960 – 1974) – Severin

You know what’s better than a flick featuring good ol’ Peter Cushing? A flick featuring Peter Cushing you haven’t seen 3,457 times! To that end Severin’s new boxset, Cushing Curiosities; a 6 disc collection of Cushing-starring rarities will fit that bill nicely indeed! The whole shebang kicks off with 1960’s Cone of Silence… Cushing stars as pilot Clive Judd; a douche-par-excellence that has nothing better to do than fuck with an investigation into a fatal airline disaster. Why would he do that you may ask? Well, he kinda-sorta had everything to do with it and he’s sweating that shit in a major way. Defending the pilot of the doomed craft, Captain George Gort (Bernard Lee) by name, is Captain Hugh Dallas (Michael Craig)… but how pure are his motives what with his being in a romance with Gort’s daughter, Charlotte (Elizabeth Seal)? Directed by Charles Frend (Scott of the Antarctic,The Cruel Sea), Cone of Silence is a solid courtroom-centric thriller

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DanXIII

Jan 13, 2024

ForeignMoviesNews

Richard Glenn Schmidt Gets Down with Murder and Mad Men in Giallo Meltdown 2

If you dig on my style of revoltin’ reviewin’ then let me clue you in on the latest book of fright flick commentary from my putrid pal Richard Glenn Schmidt; Giallo Meltdown 2! Unsurprisingly (unless you are incredibly dense or incredibly easily surprised), Giallo Meltdown 2 is the sequel to Richard’s 2015 beastly book of spaghetti shockers, Giallo Meltdown, and continues the author’s trademark stream of consciousness reviewing style! To add to that, picture sitting around the ol’ terror tube with a group of fiendish friends watching a seemingly endless parade of Italian crime thrillers while everyone offers up their thoughts on the picture at hand often to hilarious effect… this is that shit right there, but in book form! Of course I have already slapped my eerie eyeballs over each and every wicked word of this vicious volume, and it gets my sinister seal of approval both for fans of the genre looking for suggestions for film’s they may

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DanXIII

Jan 5, 2024

ForeignIndieMoviesReviews

Movie Review: The Fifth Thoracic Vertebra – Indiepix DVD

When you sit down to The Fifth Thoracic Vertebra, the debut feature from South Korean Director Park Sye-young, you may think you are settling in to a take on George Barry’s 1977 killer bed flick, Death Bed: The Bed That Eats. Since both features contain killer beds… or more specifically in this film’s case a killer mattress… but the two experiences couldn’t be more different. While Death Bed is a more conventional horror movie, The Fifth Thoracic Vertebra is a melancholy, though completely bizarre, treatise on loneliness and emotion. Following the life cycle of a creature born of fungus that inhabits a mattress owned originally by a couple in a rather crummy relationship, the narrative moves from owner to owner (usually after it feeds on someone), allowing us to experience their sad existences. All of that packs quite an emotional punch that in a conventional drama would be almost overbearing in it’s depressive aesthetic, but since this is ostensibly a

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DanXIII

Jan 4, 2024

IndieMoviesReviewsShort FilmsThriller

Short Film Review: Guest 2 (2023)

Remember like four years ago when I clued you beautiful cats n’ creeps in about writer/director Finn Callan’s sinister short Guest? Probably not, but click that highlighted text and you can catch right the hell up! Now that all of that biz is out of the way, let’s dive in to Callan’s follow up, the appropriately titled Guest 2; a longer (but still “short” in the “it’s not quite feature length” sense) deeper dive into the wicked world established in the frightful first go-around! Siblings Jill (Jennifer English) and Ethan (Simon Bigg) are tasked with setting up a support group confab, but E-Dawg has been shirking those responsibilities and sequestered himself in his room. Fed up with such bullshittery, Jill runs the group solo-style and becomes acquainted with with Mia (Natasha Biggs), a woman dealing with severe loneliness and isolation. Unfortunately for Jill, Mia hasn’t been suffering as all alone as she thinks… and soon the preternatural presence, the eponymous

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DanXIII

Jan 3, 2024

Movies

Movie Review: Doctor Butcher M.D. / Zombie Holocaust (1982/1980) – Severin 4K Ultra HD

How to even begin a review of 1980’s Doctor Butcher M.D.? I know, let’s start with it’s original Italian version known as Zombie Holocaust (also included in this hefty release from Severin!)… Down Manhattan way, a hospital worker has been making a habit out of eating parts of cadavers, and when discovered takes a dive out of a window and turns into a mannequin that loses it’s arm upon impact with the ground, only to have the limb back right as rain when the shot switches back to the actor… but I digress… Witness to the suicide is Morgue Assistant/New-Age Anthropologist Lori (Alexandra Delli Colli, who would go on to appear in 1982’s Lucio Fulci slasher The New York Ripper) who recognizes a phrase the dying man utters… a phrase common to the Maluku islands where she just so happens to have conveniently grew-up. Before long she teams up with Dr. Peter Chandler (Ian McCulloch who starred in Fulci’s 1979

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DanXIII

Dec 23, 2023

AdaptationForeignIndieMoviesReviews

Movie Review: Count Dracula (1970) – Severin 4K

What do you get when you combine Sir Christopher Lee, legendary horror/exploitation filmmaker Jess Franco, the madman that was Klaus Kinski, and an absolute fang-banger of Gothic literature? Why you get a surprisingly more faithful than most, though by no means complete, retelling of Bram Stoker’s 1897 literary masterpiece Dracula of course! After encountering a number of locals that look at him like a dead man walking, lawyer Jonathan Harker (Fred Williams) continues to the Borgo Pass where he is met by a mysterious coachman that takes him to his destination; the castle of Count Dracula (Lee), an aging aristocrat who wishes to secure property in England with Harker’s assistance. Right from the get-go things are off with ol’ Drac, as he casts no reflection in mirrors, has fangs like a wolf, gets excited around blood, and sleeps in a stone coffin… oh, he also has a trio of brides that sleep in coffins and eat the babies of the

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DanXIII

Dec 23, 2023

DanXIII

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