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DanXIII

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4K Ultra HD Review: Maniac Cop 3: Badge of Silence (1992)

One voodoo rite later, Officer Matt Cordell (Robert Z’Dar), better known as the Maniac Cop, is resurrected from the grave and is back on the beat… and by beat, I mean beating people to death, of course… Meanwhile, Detective Sean McKinney (a returning Robert Davi… which after hearing his thoughts on Maniac Cop 2 I simply can’t believe… ) is dealing with the fallout of a robbery going very wrong… so wrong his protégé, Officer Kate Sullivan (Gretchen Becker) is left braindead and saddled with the rap of having shot both perpetrator and hostage (whom the press have no idea was actually an accomplice to the crime). As the body count rises in and around that harrowing hospital Kate now calls home, McKinney will be up to his hard-boiled ass in ghoulish goings on thanks to ol’ Maniac C-dawg and the homeless Houngan (Julius Harris) that’s pullin’ the strings! While not the stunt showcase the second entry in the series

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DanXIII

Feb 6, 2022

MoviesReviews

4K Ultra HD Review: Maniac Cop 2 (1990)

Following the demise of murder machine Officer Matt Cordell (Robert Z’Dar) Officers Jack Forrest (living legend Bruce Campbell) and Theresa Mallory (Hundra herself Laurene Landon) return to the force, but are assigned a shrink in the person of one Officer Susan Riley (Claudia Christian). This proves to be a moot point for our heroes however as Maniac Matt is back from the dead and he begins his murder biz once again resulting in their untimely demise. Now it’s up to Riley to contend not only with the resurrected Maniac Cop, but a stripper slashin’ lunatic named Turkell (Leo Rossi) prowling the streets… and that Manson mother fucker has teamed up with Cordell to form an evil alliance guaranteed to have the streets runnin’ red! Returning director William Lustig (Maniac) and writer Larry Cohen (let’s go with The Stuff this time) return to the scene of the crime with their follow up to 1988’s Maniac Cop (bet you didn’t see that

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DanXIII

Feb 6, 2022

From the Crypt

4K Ultra HD Review: The Toolbox Murders (1978)

A black garbed man drives through the streets of Los Angeles having all manner of dreadful flashbacks involving a fatal car accident before arriving at an apartment building (home to an inordinate amount of absolutely stunning women… and absolutely vomitus design choices) where he strolls on in, toolbox in hand, and straight up murders three women with various implements found therein, before pissing right the fuck off. Despite landlord Vance Kingsley (the legend that is Cameron Mitchell, he of Bava’s 1964 proto-giallo Blood and Black Lace fame… and countless more) ensuring the fuzz that his complex should never have befallen such tragedies since he does such thorough background checks, the same shit happens the following night, as our ski mask wearing psycho offs a chick who’s just tryin’ to flick the ol’ bean, before abducting young Laurie Ballard (Pamelyn Ferdin), which sends her brother Joey (Nicolas Beauvy) and Kingsley’s nephew Kent (Land of the Lost‘s… a.k.a. the greatest Wesley Eure)

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DanXIII

Feb 5, 2022

MoviesReviews

Short Film Review: Meat Friend (2022)

Ever wonder what ALF would be like if Gordon Shumway was constructed from 80/20 ground beef? No? Well you are readin’ the wrong column mother fucker! Speaking of “mother fucker”, those words start with the letters “M” and “F” just like the new short Meat Friend, which comes flingin’ our way from director/co-writer Izzy Lee! Meat Friend stars the eponymous creature (voiced and puppeteered by co-writer Steve Johanson), a living wad of hamburger meat with cataract eyes who befriends young Billie (a fantastic performance from child thespian Marnie McKendry), a kid that really needs to pick better people… or more accurately “ground chuck” to pal around with. To put it bluntly, Meat Friend is a Grade-A, U.S.D.A. approved psychopath and when he isn’t being resurrected (via Billie’s science prowess) after being rightfully tossed in the trash by Billie’s long-suffering mother (Megan Duffy), he’s giving life lessons learned straight from the streets of Hell and demanding strange meat-centric ceremonies take place!

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DanXIII

Feb 5, 2022

ForeignMoviesReviews

Blu-ray Review: Shock (1977)

Dora Baldini (Daria Nicolodi), her kiddo Marco (Beyond the Door‘s David Colin Jr.), and her new husband Bruno (we don’t talk about Bruno no no… okay, we do, and he’s played by Yor: the Hunter From the Future‘s Overlord himself, John Steiner) make the dumbass decision to move into the old house where Dora lived with her first husband Carlo, a Joe Dirt lookin’ heroin addicted son of a bitch who supposedly died at sea (the dead part is true, the sea is hazy… ). Minus the obvious psychological damage moving back into that space would cause anyone, ol’ Marco (who I’m kinda surprised they didn’t go with a Peter Bark style of situation with… if ya know, then ya know… but if not, watch Andrea Bianchi’s 1981 zombie sleaze-fest Burial Ground: The Nights of Terror… you’ll thank me for it later) seems to getting rather horny for Mommy Dearest… and as the days pass, Dora seems to be coming

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DanXIII

Jan 29, 2022

ForeignMoviesReviews

Blu-ray Review: Franco Noir (1962 – 1964)

Prolific cinematic maverick Jess Franco directed roughly 7,865 movies in his career, so it seems inevitable he would ply his trade with a lil’ film noir… and he sure as shit did! To that end we turn our putrid peepers towards Severin’s release of Franco Noir, a collection of two noir film’s Franco created between 1962 and 1963. Kicking things off we have 1962’s (or 1964’s… the box says ’62 IMDb says ’64… feel free to let me know) Death Whistles the Blues: Trafficking sumbitch Vogel (Georges Rollin) sells out his accomplices Castro and Smith (Manuel Alexandre) which results in Castro being ventilated by the boys in blue, and Smith coolin’ his joltin’ jets in prison. Well all things come to pass, and our man Smith finally sees the light of day again… and he is hellbent on settlin’ the score against Vogel, with only a blues tune to herald his coming to lay down an ultimate ass-whippin’! All manner

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DanXIII

Jan 29, 2022

ForeignMoviesReviews

Blu-ray Review: Sleep (2020)

Mona (Gro Swantje Kohlhof) heads to a hotel in the remote village of Stainbach after her mother, flight attendant Marlene (Sandra Hüller), falls victim to a severe mental episode while staying at the same location… a location that has been plaguing her chronic nightmares. Once there, Mona finds herself in a seeming fever dream filled with boars, ancient houses in the woods, and visions of suicides past that took place on those putrid premises… not to mention the hotel’s owners acting weird as all fuck… and those “sex” dreams… Will our hero uncover the town’s dark secret and how does it relate to her family? If there’s one thing director Michael Venus’ (who co-wrote the picture with Thomas Friedrich) Sleep is it’s dour… and weird… and a slow burn… alright, it’s a lot of fuckin’ things, including Grade-A fuckin’ excellent! Adding to the positives here is a stellar performance from Kohlhof who travels through this surreal misadventure in a perpetual

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DanXIII

Jan 23, 2022

ForeignMoviesReviews

Blu-ray Release: Disciples of Shaolin (1975)

After a serious case of credits with training montage we get down to the meat n’ potatoes of Disciples of Shaolin; namely the arrival of Shaolin-style kung-fu bumpkin Kuan (Alexander Fu Sheng, who tragically died at age 28 from injuries sustained in a car accident in 1983) who arrives in town in the hopes of obtaining work at the local textile mill via his friend/fellow Shaolin kung-fu disciple Huang (Chi Kuan-Chun). Spoiler: Kuan obtains a job at the textile mill. And, what a job it is; fuckin’ around with looms and blatantly showing off his marital arts prowess exactly as Huang asked him not to do. Good thing too, as it’s just this kind of ass-kickin’ showboating that quickly results in our hero becoming the right hand man to the boss of the factory himself! Now, why would the boss need someone with those skills so damn bad in an industry based on thread count and long-lasting fabric durability? Because

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DanXIII

Jan 22, 2022

IndieMoviesReviews

Blu-ray Review: Don’t Go in the House (1979)

After a work place accident in which he just stood idly by as a man went up in flames, delusional psycho/flame enthusiast Donny Kohler (The Soprano‘s Dan Grimaldi) returns home to find his beloved (not to mention horribly abusive) mother dead. It’s at this point the voices in his head take over and tell him he can both enjoy loud disco music (hey, I said he was a psycho) and should really consider making a flame proof room where he can burn women alive… as one does. Donny takes to that advice like a mother fucker, and begins piling up the BBQ… which he dresses and arranges in a room… but hey, he kept his Mom’s corpse too, so it’s kinda his thing… Speaking of dear ol’ mama, her voice soon begins a competition with the other voices in Donny’s deranged dome, and it isn’t long before our “hero” begins seeing visions of the walking dead! While definitely knowing which

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DanXIII

Jan 22, 2022

MoviesReviews

Blu-ray Review: Delirium (1979)

Charlie Gunther (Nick Panouzis) is back from ‘Nam with a head full of bad wiring and PTSD flashbacks for days… he also considers himself a real lady-killer… literally. As the female body count rises, Chuck gains notice from both the police and the local conglomerate of right wing businessmen that run a hidden cabal dedicated to eliminating rapists and murderers from the streets permanently utilizing ex-vets as their instruments of vigilante justice. That lil’ secret sect begins sweating bullets when Charlie goes rogue, which leads to the Colonel Kurtz surrogate Eric Stern (played to the hilt by the awesomely named Barron Winchester)… an ex-army muckety-muck who provides the vets for the aforementioned dirty work… going completely ballistic to maintain order among the chaos of his crumbling micro-empire. While all of this seems like an incredibly awesome grindhouse experience… and at times it is… the over-all experience runs a tad on the uneven side at times. Things start off promisingly enough

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DanXIII

Jan 16, 2022

DanXIII

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