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DanXIII

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Blu-ray Review: Giallo Essentials: Yellow (1973 – 1975)

Remember like 5 fuckin’ days ago (give or take) when I reviewed the first edition of Arrow Video’s new Giallo Essentials collections (that one dubbed “red”)? If not head here… All caught up? Peachy. Let’s dive in to the sinister selections present in round two… the “yellow” set (fitting as how “giallo” literally means “yellow”… but I’ll let you discover the German origins of that one on your own… ), if you will… First up comes 1974’s After a naked pregnant woman is found hung from the rafters in an attic (and not unlike an overcrowded submarine, she is packed to the gills with semen), Inspector Silvestri (Claudio Cassinelli) and Assistant District Attorney Vittoria Stori (Giovanna Ralli) spring into action. As the duo dig deeper they discover the victim was part of an under-age teenage prostitution ring whose “clients” (read: abusers) are some of your garden variety high society perverts. As the search widens, the bodies begin piling up…thanks to

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DanXIII

Dec 19, 2021

ForeignMoviesReviews

Blu-ray Review: The Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch (1968)

After we see a hairy-handed mystery figure commit murder by straight up throwing snakes at women, we get down to brass tacks with the main narrative of long-time Gamera series director Noriaki Yuasa’s 1968 supernatural shocker, The Snake Girl and the Silver-Haired Witch. Sayuri (Yachie Matsui) has lived most of her life in an orphanage, but that’s about to change as she is reclaimed by her estranged (emphasis on strange) family, and sent off to live with them which makes her pretty damn happy. That’ll change. You see, the family has secrets… even among themselves… for instance, Sayuri has a sister named Tamami (Mayumi Takahashi) that lives exclusively in the attic after her death was faked two years previous in a mental institution, where she was being treated for her snake obsession. Add to the mix Sayuri’s perpetually missing father, her mentally addled mother, and the governess that is supposed to be taking care of the children (yet she’s seldom

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DanXIII

Dec 18, 2021

ForeignMoviesReviews

Blu-ray Review: Beyond Darkness (1990)

After a doozy of an opening sequence where a priest, Father George (David Brandon) hears a death row confession from a child murdering, bald headed follower of an evil deity known as Ameth as she’s led away to the electric chair followed by the ghosts of her victims, we get into the monstrous meat and putrid potatoes of Beyond Darkness. A priest, Peter (Gene LeBrock… the community theater Christopher Reeve with just a dash of Tom Cruise for funsies), and his family; wife Annie (Friday the 13th Part VIII: Jason Takes Manhattan‘s Barbara Bingham), son Martin (that hospitality pissing mother fucker from Troll 2 himself, Michael Paul Stephenson), and their daughter Carole (Theresa Walker), a fart lovin’ girl that has a desire to dry her hair, but can’t remember the name of a hair dryer… you know what, Carole may have some sort of juvenile Alzheimer’s as she also can’t find her mouth in the dark… move into a house

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DanXIII

Dec 18, 2021

MoviesReviews

Blu-ray Review: Retribution (1987)

Suicidal artist George Miller (Dennis Lipscomb, who gives the frowniest performance since Mark Frost in Brian Yuzna’s Faust: Love of the Damned) takes a swan dive off a tall building, but after a brief stay-over in The Who’s laser-light tunnel (previously utilized for fucking by Frank Langella in John Badham’s 1979 adaptation of that grand-pappy of all vampire whoppers, Dracula)… which is populated by a screaming, floating zombie head… our hero is revived and sent to stay in an institution. Once there he gets wellish (minus those nightmares where he’s a murderous lunatic) and soon returns to his apartment in the same shitty building he jumped off when this whole debacle began! So about those “nightmares”… George keeps getting involved with random people… and he makes them kill themselves with his newly-acquired glow-y green eyes and evil-ass voice… in-between attending a “welcome home” party in his honor where hookers and little people in fireman’s helmets cavort to records that were

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DanXIII

Dec 18, 2021

MoviesReviews

Short Film Review: Button Man (2021)

Two sisters, Lydia (Melissa Claire) and Jade (Stephanie Panozzo) by name, head out into the wicked woods ror a lil’ of that sweet ass R&R. It takes about one hot second for these ladies to realize they are up to their elbows in the deepest of shit as the forest is fully stocked with human remains and terrible traps a-plenty… not to mention the eponymous Button Man (Don Bridges); a legendary psycho made flesh who marks his potential prey by leaving buttons on their eyes. Seriously, does anything good ever happen in the fuckin’ woods? The first thing you’ll notice about ol’ Button Man is that the cinematography is tight n’ outta sight… unless you are blind… wait, how are you reading this shit if you’re blind… Anyway, this flick looks like a million bucks thanks to cinematographers Jamie ‘Pees’ Lehman (I have no idea how this fella got that nickname, but I’m sure it’s a tale that wouldn’t leave

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DanXIII

Dec 15, 2021

IndieMovies

Blu-ray Review: The Collingswood Story (2002)

Rebecca (Stephanie Dees) is more than anxious to get the hell out of dodge and take up residence in a new off campus apartment house many states away from her hometown`. Thankfully she can still keep in touch with her Juggalo townie potential love interest Johnny (Johnny Burton) via a webcam based video messaging service (more on that in a bit). Speaking of Johnny, that hombre does not trust Rebecca a single bit… thanks in part to the advice of his perpetually wasted-off-his-ass buddy Billy (Grant Edmonds and his balls), so he decides to hire an online psychic, Madam Vera (Diane Behrens) to hopefully straighten things out (an amateur Don Ho and the American antecedent to Alan Moore are also involved). Of course this all goes completely to shit, as the psychic reveals that Rebecca has just moved to the most evil place in all of New Jersey… and that’s sayin’ somethin’… Collingswood (a mere “G” away from a Dan

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DanXIII

Nov 28, 2021

ForeignMoviesParanormalReviews

Blu-ray Review: 1974: La posesión de Altair (2016)

Newlyweds Manuel (Rolando Breme), a camera buff, and school teacher Altair (Diana Bovio) are just two crazy kids who are high on life, a life that couldn’t be a more typical blend of birthday parties, puppies, and boudoir role-play. Of course that shit begins to go south rather quickly as odd occurrences begin happening such as birds turning into ape-shit cannibals (much more than they normally already are), phone calls that only contain strange noises, and bad dreams with onset nosebleeds and sleepwalking (never a good sign in our beloved horror biz). Oh, about those “dreams”… well, they begin to tell Altair to do things… admittedly seemingly random tasks like painting bricks that arrived mysteriously one day out of the blue… and soon our heroine is acting 100% fuckin’ Grade-A bizarre… or is she? A little detective work from Manuel, along with his pal Callahan (Guillermo Callahan) reveal a troubled past, but are those events at all responsible for the

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DanXIII

Nov 27, 2021

MoviesReviews

Blu-ray Review: Elvira’s Haunted Hills (2001)

After an uproarious intro from the Mistress of the Dark herself, we dive right into the meat and potatoes (and what potatoes they are) of Elvira’s Haunted Hills; her second frightful feature film (following 1988’s Elvira: Mistress of the Dark) now available on Blu-ray thanks to those delicious devils o’er at Scream Factory! Elvira (Cassandra Peterson) and her maidservant/comedic foil Zou Zou (played to absolute perfection by Mary Jo Smith) are on their way to Paris (where our titular heroine can perform in a can-can revue) via the Carpathian mountains in the year 1851. After a disagreement with an innkeeper our heroes et off on foot where they are soon picked up by a carriage occupied by Dr, Bradley Bradley (Scott Atkinson in the Price role) who is en route to a nearby castle occupied by the intense-as-fuck Lady Ema Hellsubus (Mary Scheer) and her sound-adverse husband Lord Vladimir Hellsubus (Rocky Horror Picture Show mastermind Richard O’ Brien in the

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DanXIII

Nov 27, 2021

DocumentariesMoviesReviews

Blu-ray Release: Dark Shadows and Beyond: the Jonathan Frid Story (2021)

You lot know I love me some Dark Shadows; Dan Curtis’ ground-breaking 1960’s soap opera filled to the brim with Gothic atmosphere, witches, werewolves, and of course vampires, and it’s with that last denizen of the creature feature that the series featured it’s most enduring icon, the undead Lord of Collinwood, Barnabas Collins… played by to suave perfection by Jonathan Frid… speaking of which… Dark Shadows and Beyond: the Jonathan Frid Story, the new Blu-ray documentary release from MPI Pictures will either delight you with tales of showbiz and theater, or aggravate you if you want to know the man himself. What this film does right is explores in great detail the entire breadth of Frid’s work, from stage, to television, to movies, and back again; the man was an impressive actor with dozens of memorable performances under his belt before he even slipped in those enamel canines and set about putting the bite on Collinsport, Maine. Of course much

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DanXIII

Nov 27, 2021

ForeignMoviesReviews

Blu-ray Review: Sailor Suit & Machine Gun (1981)

Since the head honcho of a local Yakuza family just shook hands with the ol’ Grim Reaper, the next in line to take the reigns is none other than his estranged daughter… spunky, goofy, pretty fuckin’ ridiculous in every respect, high school student Izumi Hoshi (idol singer Hiroko Yakushimaru)! Cue stupid-ass record scratch sound effect here. Izumi is more than ready to become a delinquent, and immediately abandons school (though the sailor suit remains… and yes, she weilds a rather angry machine gun as well at times)… though at first she isn’t sure that livin’ in a gangsta paradise is for her… but soon she actually takes to the role and ,along with a quartet of henchmen, begins to become a presence in the underworld… but will she manage to keep ahead of the game, or be swallowed by it? I have to tell you, reading that above synopsis I wouldn’t blame you for expecting a wall-to-wall, live-action anime style

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DanXIII

Nov 27, 2021

DanXIII

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