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DanXIII

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Movie Review: High Crime (1973) – Blue Underground 4K/Blu-ray/CD combo

After losing the chief suspect in an extensive drug deal (following an absolutely batshit chase sequence that begins with a footrace and ends with a real bang… but more on that later), hot-headed and hard-assed Police Vice-Commissioner Belli (Franco Nero, 1966’s Django) tries to deduce who the new player in Gangland is… a player that does as they please without honor. Additionally the idea of upstart rivals for his business goes over like a fart in a submarine with old school mob boss Cafiero (Fernando Rey, The French Connection), but it’s only a matter of time before there’s a full on Mafia war going on all over town with gangsters getting offed left and right… in increasingly violent fashion. While the bad guy body-count rises, Belli continues to butt heads with his boss, Chief Commissioner Aldo Scavino (James Whitmore, The Shawshank Redemption) while caring for his young daughter, Anita (Stefania Girolami Goodwin, daughter of the picture’s director Enzo G. Castellari)

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DanXIII

Aug 15, 2024

IndieMoviesReviews

Movie Review: Cocaine Werewolf (2024) – Cleopatra Blu-ray

A lil’ disclaimer before we start… I have worked with at least 3 people (after seeing the credits it’s more) that are in or have worked on this film on projects of my own. It won’t influence my review, but if that turns you off and you skip this review, I get it. Moving on… Cocaine Werewolf begins the only way it could, with a lady propositioning a werewolf for sex… oral sex no less… oh, and it’s a case of mistaken identity. After that the werewolf interrupts some drug cartel biz, before putting the bite on a stranded stock broker named Jack (Brice Kennedy) who examines the aftermath and is delighted to find multiple bags of cocaine. Said businessman then transforms into another werewolf… but a werewolf with a drug habit… a habit which allows him to transform anytime he takes a snort in human form. Now a regular werewolf is one thing to contend with, but one that

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DanXIII

Aug 13, 2024

IndieMoviesReviewsSci-Fi

Movie Review: Terror Firma (2023) – MVD Blu-ray

Lola (Faye Tamasa) has arrived in a suburb of Los Angeles to stay with her brother, Louis (Burt Thakur). Seems prosaic enough, but there are a few hiccups. For one, Los Angeles is pretty much closed for business due to a mysterious governmental mandate which enforces folks staying within the confines of their homes… which is odd, but doesn’t hold a candle to the strangeness of Louis roommate, a man known as Cage (Robert Brettenaugh)… a kind of New Age observer of the human condition with next to zero social skills… additionally, he’s a pervert… a big one. Soon, shipments of food arrive along with an unmarked packet of strange seeds which Lola plants in the backyard which results in a hole appearing in the ground filled with a blood-like substance that tastes exactly like whatever the taster finds delicious… so naturally our heroes down that shit like shots, which results in some rather nasty crimson-hued hallucinations involving mysterious holes…

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DanXIII

Aug 13, 2024

ForeignIndieMoviesParanormalReviews

Movie Review: Demons and Demons 2 – Synapse 4K

Somethin’ monstrous is going down at the Metropol, a renovated theater holding a screening of a fright film involving a curse and the body of Nostradamus, and Cheryl (Natasha Hovey) and Kathy (Paola Cozzo) get caught up in the mask-based mayhem right quick! See the picture in question features a mask… a mask worn by a mysterious man (Michele Soavi, who directed 1989’s The Church, which was intended to be Demons 3) handing out tickets to the film in the “real world”, and the very same mask that scratches the hand of local prostitute/cinema enthusiast Rosemary (Rats: Night of Terror‘s Geretta Geretta) delivering some sort of bizarre infection that turns her into a pus-spewing, sharp-toothed demon… and she wastes no time infecting others! Soon Cheryl and company are up to their popcorn in murderous monsters, and the infection may soon spread to the city beyond! Directed and co-written by Lamberto Bava (along with co-writers Dario Argento (who also produced), Dardano

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DanXIII

Aug 13, 2024

IndieMoviesReviewsThriller

Movie Review: Death Bitch (2024)

Well the property values in ol’ South Bay are likely to go completely “tits up” as real estate agents surely (do not) say. Why you ask? Probably a bit of a side effect of having two murderers runnin’ rampant in the streets… but who knows, businesses have possibly left the area… dammit, now I’m trying to support my made-up premise… about the property values, not the murders… those are definitely going the fuck on! The two causes of the murderous mayhem are the appropriately named South Bay Slasher (Lawrence Waller) a real lady-killer… literally… the other, a female vigilante hell bent on skipping the whole middleman of “the Law” and going straight to capital punishment… but admittedly she has a reason for her actions… not that it justifies them… but c’mon, dig this: Alexis Walker (Linnea Swanson) is your average, everyday type of gal… she’s got a job, she’s a bit introverted, and, as is the way, her family was

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DanXIII

Aug 13, 2024

IndieMoviesReviews

Movie Review: Pale Horse (2024)

Eve (Taylor Plecity) has a pretty sweet job working for art dealer/gallery owner Vivian Stock (Eileen Dietz, The Exorcist and many, many more fright flicks) but things go from sweet to fuckin’ mega-sweet when the gallery takes on the wicked works of mysterious artist Sabian (Perish Dignam). Created in a studio where one must be blind to even enter, Sabian’s works are coffin framed, morbid, and completely irresistible to the art buying public at large, so the work sells out faster than hell. Speaking of “hell”, Sabian, unbeknownst to his faithful following, creates his masterpieces to further the aims of dark goddess Freda (Alexandra Bard) who feeds on the Satanic sexual desires stirred up by the artist’s paintings which she reciprocates with fame and fortune for our anti-hero. As Eve become absolutely fascinated by the artist, she travels ever-deeper into Sabian’s world where she begins to discover that even her own soul may be forfeit to Freda’s dark demands… and

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DanXIII

Aug 12, 2024

ForeignMoviesReviews

Box Set Review: Danza Macabra Vol. 3 – Severin Blu-ray

Remember way back to like last week (approx.) when I put a revoltin’ review upon Severin’s second collection of Italian Gothic fright flicks, Danza Macabra Volume 2? Well, it took so long for my arcane as to talk about that set, that a whole new third volume has been conjured forth… this time with a change of scenery as we’re going to Spain baby! First up, Disc One contains 1971’s Necrophagus… Aristocrat Michael Sherrington (Bill Curran) heads back to the town in which his wife Elizabeth has expired after an emergency cesarean to remove her dead fetus… seems wholesome enough so far… Once there he goes sleuthin’ around the place seeking answers about just how his wife died… but beyond the basics, the whole town seems rather tight-lipped (and downright sinister) about the whole, sordid affair… especially family physician Dr. Lexter (Frank Braña) and cemetery caretaker Mr. Fowles (Víctor Israel), as well as Michael’s in-laws and his mother, Lady Anne

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DanXIII

Aug 3, 2024

ForeignMoviesReviews

Box Set Review: Danza Macabra Volume 2 – Severin 4K/Blu-ray

Remember way back to like last year when Severin released their collection of Italian Gothic fright flicks in a handy box set called Danza Macabra? Well, they went and released a second volume (and because I’m woefully behind, a third set as well… review coming soon) so lets do the film by film bag, shall we? First up is Antonio Margheriti’s (Yor: The Hunter From the Future) and Sergio Corbucci’s (1966’s Django) Castle of Blood from 1964, doubtless an answer to then-popular Edgar Alan Poe adaptations coming from legendary producer Roger Corman… hell, Poe even appears as a character in this very narrative (played by The Bloodstained Butterfly’s Silvano Tranquilli)! Speaking of Poe as we are, he’s balls deep into describing the final act of his story Berenice to his chum Lord Thomas Blackwood (Umberto Raho, The Last Man on Earth) when they are joined by journalist Alan Foster (Georges Rivière) who believes that the supernatural is a load of

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DanXIII

Jul 13, 2024

AdaptationBooksMoviesReviewsSci-Fi

Movie Review: Phantoms (1998) – Scream Factory 4K/Blu-ray combo

Hey, it’s Joe Chappelle’s (Halloween: The Curse of Michael Myers) adaptation of horror author Dean R. Koontz’s (who also wrote the screenplay) Phantoms… a movie I have seen exactly once upon it’s release (now considerably more thanks to this review) and couldn’t get into (mostly because I was too busy making out with my ghoul-friend at the time). Now, some of you cats n’ creeps may only know this flick as the subject of a punchline in one of Kevin Smith’s anecdotal tales (although him making fun of anyone’s picture is the glassiest of glass houses considering the cinematic shits he’s delivered as of late), but at it’s core, Phantoms is a solid- enough supernatural shocker. M.D. Jennifer Pailey (Joanna Going) decides to bring her troubled sister Lisa (Rose McGowan, Scream, Planet Terror) on a sabbatical to the remote Colorado town she calls home, but as is the way, most of the town is dead… not like in a “slow

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DanXIII

Jul 11, 2024

ForeignIndieMoviesReviews

Movie Review: Dracula, Prisoner of Frankenstein (1972) – Severin Blu-ray

Drac (Jess Franco regular Howard Vernon, who’s appearance here proves my words, as this too is a Franco flick) is back, and he’s doing his fang bang schtick on ye local comely lasses… an action that really sticks in the ass of Dr. Jonathan Seward (Alberto Dalbés)… here filling the traditional Van Helsing role… so much so that he takes a carriage ride to Dracula’s castle and straight up stakes the mother sucker turning him into an ex-bat! Well, nightmare over… right? Wrong. Before the pillow is even cold, Dr. Frankenstein (Dennis Price, who would return to the role in Franco’s The Erotic Rites of Frankenstein a year later in 1973), and his unfortunately horny assistant Morpho (Luis Barboo) slide their asses on into the castle, and immediately reawaken the Doctor’s Monster (Fernando Bilbao) whom they’ve conveniently brought along. Said Monster then ambles into town and abducts a showgirl (who’s eventual corpse is the only thing to quench Morpho’s unholy

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DanXIII

Jul 10, 2024

DanXIII

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