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DanXIII

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Movie Review: Videodrome (1983) – Criterion 4K/Blu-ray

Max Renn (James Woods, John Carpenter’s Vampires) is the president of tiny UHF station CIVIC-TV; a channel that stays afloat thanks to it’s regular broadcasts containing ample amounts of those hoary ol’ chestnuts, sex and violence! Bored with the normal softcore smut he’s is offered for broadcast, Mmax turns his eyes skyward for inspiration… namely by using CIVIC-TV’s big-ass satellite dish to find new programs that’ll excite both himself and his viewers. To that end, he gets turned on to Videodrome; a plot-less torture program… most likely unsimulated… that is broadcast from Pittsburgh. Along the way he gets his new sadomasochistic girlfriend, the radio host Nicki Brand (Blondie’s Debbie Harry) who gets it in her head that she wants to try and audition for the show. His investigation as to the show’s origin brings him to The Cathode Ray Mission; a homeless shelter that seeks to rehabilitate derelicts through constant exposure to television… and was the home of the TV-based

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DanXIII

Mar 1, 2024

MoviesParanormalReviewsThriller

Movie Review: Don’t Look Now (1973) – Criterion Collection 4K/Blu-ray

After the tragic drowning death of their daughter, John Baxter (Donald Sutherland) and his wife Laura (Julie Christie) head to Venice from their home in England as John has been hired to restore an ages-old church to it’s former glory. I’m sure all that water in Venice will help them forget the soggy misery of the past… Even if a change of location would help them, the psychic visions of blind Heather (Hilary Mason… a familiar face to fans of Charles Band’s pre-Full Moon outfit Empire Pictures for her appearances in Stuart Gordon’s Robot Jox and Dolls) will bring those memories right back as she claims she can see their daughter, whom she describes with chilling accuracy. This begins taking a toll on Laura, which isn’t really helped by the continued presence of Heather and her sister Wendy (Clelia Matania) who hold a séance to help Laura communicate with her daughter beyond the veil. Soon Laura is shipped back to

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DanXIII

Feb 25, 2024

IndieMoviesReviews

Movie Review: Lycan Colony (2006) – Visual Vengeance Blu-ray

A child is cornered by hunters before being rescued by a large, wolf-like creature (I could have just said werewolf, but I like making shit hard on myself) who rips them hombres a new asshole real speedy-like! Next up we meet Dr. Dan (Bill Sykes); a former hot-shot surgeon/drunk, now self-exiled to a small rural town where he is allowed to practice medicine as long as he attends local AA meetings. Along the way, his son Stewart (Ryan O Roy) is bitten by an overly-horny townie girl, Sarah (Libby Collins), and before long turns real hairy… and fang-y… because unbeknownst to Dan’s family, he has escaped his troubles only to find himself doctoring smack-dab in the middle of a town of werewolves… werewolves who mostly want to live in peace with humanity… but of course there is a certain number among them that are more than happy to use human’s as cattle… chief among them pub owner Zev (Steve Pascucci

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DanXIII

Feb 25, 2024

MoviesReviewsThriller

Movie Review: Cutting Class (1989) – MVD Rewind 4K/Blu-ray

Opening like a live-action adaptation of the classic video game Paperboy, the daily news is shown kissing pavement accompanied by the sound of a sack of bricks hittin’ a dirt road. Why do I mention it? Well One, it comes back later loud n’ proud to signify all manner of things getting tossed to the ground, and Two I found it funny as balls. What does any of that have to do with the plot synopsis of the film that usually appears ‘round these parts? Absolutely nothing. Moving on… Oh wait, yes it does… said newspapers contain a headline about a local boy being released from ye olde asylum and apparently a killing was involved… we’ll get back to that one soon, believe you me! Coincidentally, District Attorney William Carson III (Martin Mull, Clue) is murdered on a camping trip. This is of course unbeknownst to his daughter Paula, portrayed by popular late ‘80s scream queen Jill Schoelen (The Stepfather,

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DanXIII

Feb 25, 2024

IndieMoviesReviews

Movie Review: Willy’s Wonderland (2021) – Scream Factory 4K

A man, let’s just call him The Janitor (Nicholas Cage)… since that’s about it as far as names go for this fella, gets stranded in a rural town after a set of misplaced spike bars, owned by the towns rather intense Sheriff (Beth Grant), blows out the tires of his super-charged sports car. This poses a problem as the silent stranger is low on the dough, so the town’s “cash only” mechanic takes our hero to meet Tex Macadoo (Ric Reitz), the proprietor of the soon-to-re-open Chuckie Cheese surrogate, Willy’s Wonderland, and he has a proposition for ol’ “Jan”; namely if he spends the night cleaning up the place he can have the tires free of charge. Small problem with that particular task; Tex fails to mention that Willy Weasel and all of his putrid pals come to life and these arcane automatons are out for blood! Credit where credit is due; The Janitor can definitely take care of himself,

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DanXIII

Feb 14, 2024

IndieMoviesTrue Crime

Movie Review: The Black Mass (2023) – Cleopatra Blu-ray

This is one of those rare revoltin’ reviews where I discuss the execution of a film way more than it’s plot, but as your arcane asses read on I think you’ll see why… The long and short of director/co-writer Devanny Pinn’s The Black Mass is as follows: Early in 1978, down Florida way, a true psychopath, Ted by name (Andrew Sykes), spends his morning stealing I.D.s and cash from people’s pockets and begins a day of stalking young women from a nearby sorority from the comfort of his VW Beetle and creeping on them… which never leads to anything super good, that’s for fuckin’ sure… and it well and truly doesn’t here either. Now the difference in this familiar narrative is the way in which the material is presented. For starters we get to witness the slice of life, day to day minutiae of a serial killer at work… from picking pockets, to methodically stalking sorority sisters, to even the

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DanXIII

Feb 11, 2024

IndieMoviesReviews

Movie Review: The Devil’s Partner/Creature From The Haunted Sea (1961) – Film Masters Blu-ray

Old man Pete Jensen performs one of those Satanic ceremonies that are all the rage with the ladies in the Bridge Club… or apparently with crazy ol’ coots who spend their days living off the grid, performing Black Masses, and absolutely pissing off a sizable portion of the population of Furnace Flats down New Mexico way. Anyway, Pete dies and before you can say “Faustian Deal” his young nephew Nick Richards (Ed Nelson) blows into town and takes up residence in Pete’s rustic shit shack… where he almost immediately meets and gets the hornies for Nell Lucas (Jean Allison), the daughter of the town’s doctor, Doc Lucas (Edgar Buchanan). Although smitten with the lass, Nick is cock-blocked by her beau, auto-mechanic David Simpson (Richard Crane), so he does what any sane, rational individual would do… he performs a magic ritual which causes David’s German Shepard to go completely insane and brutally maim him. Get this, Nick also commits other magic

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DanXIII

Feb 6, 2024

ForeignMoviesReviews

Movie Review: The Blue Jean Monster (1991) – 88 Films Blu-ray

Police Officer Fui-On Shing (Tsu Hsiang, The Killer, A Better Tomorrow) is having himself quite the day. After visiting a Buddhist temple that forewarns him of ill luck headin’ his way sooner rather than later, he ditches his pregnant wife Chu (Siu-Fung Wong) to follow up on a lead on a bank heist supplied to him by his teenage orphan sidekick/ridiculous individual par excellence Power Steering (Wai-Kit Tse). After a chase, Shing gets the drop on the criminals at a construction site, but ends up getting a palette of rebar dropped on him instead. Left for dead, a magic cat sits on him (I have no idea) after which he is struck by lightning. As it would with anyone, both of those things result in his super-powered zombie resurrection… and he’ll stay a member of the walking dead as long as he keeps shocking himself with electric jolts. Along the way he gets mixed up with Power Steering’s kinda girlfriend

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DanXIII

Feb 2, 2024

AdaptationBooksMoviesReviewsThriller

Movie Review: Thinner (1996) – Scream Factory Blu-ray

Corpulent lawyer Billy Halleck (Robert John Burke, Dust Devil, Robocop 3) spends his days drinking smoothies in an effort to shed some pounds, fucking that up by eating massive quantities of food, and getting mafioso-types off the hook legally… while not starring at the asses of the more comely members of the group of wandering Romany folk that have rolled into town. Speaking of those folk, Billy manages to run over one of them with his car while getting a blow job from his wife, Heidi (Michael McDowell)… and since he’s buddy-buddy with The Man he gets off scot-F’n-free… but not before the tribe’s elder, Tadzu (Michael Constantine), touches Billy. Before you can say “Slimfast” ol’ Billy-boy begins shedding pounds lickety-split, even though he hasn’t curbed his eating a damn bit… and get this, other folks the Elder touched have been afflicted with horrible maladies six ways to Sunday! Will are hero find a way to remove the curse, or

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DanXIII

Jan 27, 2024

IndieMoviesReviews

Movie Review: A Creature Was Stirring (2023) WellGo USA Blu-ray

Nurse Faith (Chrissy Metz) lives with her daughter Charm (Annalise Basso, Oculus), who suffers from an unnamed malady that requires her to soak in a tub filled with ice cold water in order to keep her ever-rising body temperature down… when she’s not locked in her room behind a rather imposing door. While that biz is going down, Missionary Liz (Scout Taylor-Compton, Rob Zombie’s Halloween) and her brother Kory (Connor Paolo) just break right on in to Faith’s house seeking shelter from the snowstorm that rages outside. Eventually they end up being invited, begrudgingly, to stay… but not before Faith fucks up Kory’s leg with a spike-studded baseball bat. I guess it’s always good to keep a steady supply of potential victims around, because as the title of the film would suggest… or more accurately flat-out tells you… there’s a creature roaming this feature, and it’s a real demonic doozy and a fuckin’ half, believe you me! Who will survive

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DanXIII

Jan 27, 2024

DanXIII

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