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DanXIII

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Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: The Wild, Wild World of Jayne Mansfield (1968)

Jayne Mansfield, apparently quite the international jet-setter, is kind enough to take us along on her last tour around the globe. Make sure you take your Dramamine as I suspect this is going to be a bumpy-ass ride… We start off in Rome, where Jayne just putzes around nearly deserted streets (in black and white footage… remember this)… but c’mon, Jayne is a big star, they aren’t really selling it… oh, wait… thankfully stock footage of countless people looking at… something… has been spliced in (via color footage). Ciao Bella Mrs. Mansfield… After more stock footage, some people eventually show up and Jayne gets her ass pinched (which may be more stock footage… but definitely involves a look-alike) in the middle of the afternoon, watches some ladies take their clothes off, fills us in on the games of the coliseums (via scenes from an old Hercules picture and a rando soccer game), fantasizes about dragons and ancient orgies (thankfully not

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jul 12, 2020
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: Mondo Balordo (1964)

After a big spoon of hippie-dippy bullshit (set to some pseudo-Vic Damone crooning) that attempts to rationalize the horrors we will doubtfully soon witness, Mondo Balordo gets underway… … and in less than five minutes we get handicapped, and possibly deranged, people busking, a man that can inflate his stomach to asinine degrees, and sex with a midget prostitute… fuck me (but not like our little person harlot), this is going to be a bumpy ride… oh, and Boris Karloff of all people is mixed up in this too… Moving on we get a thick stew of Hercules flick stock-footage, exercises to reinvigorate the tiddies of ol’ biddies, strip shows, light S&M, female rasslin’ … and so much, much more. Also a blonde-haired Buddy Holly clone sings some song that is an unholy combination of ’50’s rock mixed with the manic energy of Guitar Wolf set to images of native peoples dancing to god knows what… honestly, that was my

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jul 11, 2020
Horror Fuel

DVD Review: Game of Death (2020)

Game of Death goes as follows: a group of hard partyin’ millennial-types do the whole gamut of drinkin’ druggin’ and dirty lovin’ until they find something new to occupy their vacuous noodles; namely playing a board game that requires the players to kill one another or else the game will do the murder biz via making the player’s heads explode! Now, will our hapless heroes have the stones to play the game to it’s conclusion, or will they all end up a heap of headless hosers? Before we get to the one glaring negative with this fright flick, let’s start with some good vibes, shall we? The concept of the killer game, and how it’s presented is tight and outta sight, and the story itself (courtesy of scribes Edouard H. Bond, Sebastien Landry, Laurence Morais-Lagaceis, and Philip Kalin-Hajdu) is aces, as is the slick n’ stylish direction from Landry and Morais-Lagaceis that blends elements of found footage, animation, 8-bit graphics

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jul 11, 2020
Horror Fuel

Book Review: Jack Kirby the Epic Life of the King of Comics (2020)

Jack Kirby is the single greatest comic book creator that ever lived. Period, full fuckin’ stop. You can disagree of course, and of course you would be wrong… I mean come the hell on; the dude created The Avengers, The Incredible Hulk, and most importantly to me, The X-Men, and roughly eleven-billionty others (including the genius of his New Gods work for DC, and creations for animation)… and his place in history is well-and-duly preserved, not to mention his influence on modern cinema with all of those Marvel flicks comin’ out every 15 seconds (well they were before the world temporarily turns upside down). So that brings us to Jack Kirby the Epic Life of the King of Comics; the new four-color opus from Tom Scioli (American Barbarian, G.I. Joe vs. Transformers, Go-bots, and Fantastic Four Grand Design to name a few), a genius-level creator in his own right… and one of my all-time favorite artists around today, who (not)

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jul 11, 2020
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Horror Fuel

Blu-Ray Review: Ozone (1995)

There’s a new drug on the mean streets called Ozone, and it has the nasty habit of making those that take it explode… and those are the lucky ones! Enter: Detective Eddie Boone (James Black), who finds himself injected with Ozone while on a bust that also results in his partner, Mike (Tom Hoover) being maimed and abducted by a gang of Ozone “zombies”. Now Boone must search for his partner while suffering nightmarish Ozone hallucinations, and contending with the monstrous mutant addicts that stand in his way! Shot on Super VHS-C, for next to no cash, Ozone is punk rock fright flick filmmaking at it’s best! Director/Co-writer J.R. Bookwalter (along with Co-writer David A. Wagner) creates a truly unique vision of endless mutations, body-melts, Cenobite-style punks, and gallons of grizzly gore (most realized via excellent practical effects work, though some early CG “morphs” are utilized as well) that parade around a world just a few minutes ahead of our

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jul 11, 2020
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: Parts Unknown (2018)

Parts Unknown focuses on a family of wrestlers; huge-ass Hermann (William DeCoff), annoying-as-fuck wimp-ass Harvey (Alexander Hauck), crazy-ass Kitty (Sarah Michelle), Kitty’s rival/best friend Lacey (Lizzie Havoc), and hunky outsider Karl who’s hobbies include getting wasted as all fuck and bitching about their now non-existent wrestling careers. That would all be fine-and-dandy, but life becomes hard for these folks when Harvey kills a cop… and Karl shoots himself and undergoes a body melt. Okay, pretty dicey territory, but I’m sure they can survive this. Oh, but I forgot to mention… that ex-cop mentioned above was tossed into a nearby swamp by our “heroes” and is soon back in revenge-bent spirit format… oh and there’s a lizard headed swamp demon that Lacey decides to appease via dopey dudes she lures to their doom. Yeah, we got a wickedly weird one here cats n’ creeps. Let’s get the obvious and negative horse shit shoveled right quick, shall we? First things first, in

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jul 8, 2020
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: The Beach House (2019)

Emily and Randall, two outrageously attractive young people (portrayed by Liana Liberato and Noah Le Gros respectively) flee ye olde rat race to vacay at a beach house owned by Randall’s kith and kin. Sound relaxin’ amirite cats n’ creeps? Well it ain’t, because another couple, Jane (Maryanne Nagel) and Mitch (Jake Weber), have parked their asses there as well. Despite their gaps in age, the two couples shoot the shit, ingest some edibles… just normal gettin’ to know ya bullshit. Speaking of normal, nearly every event that happens after that point is decidedly not that thing, as a mysterious fog envelopes the island bringing with it rapidly mutating sea life, alien pods, and some good ol’ body horror; as those that breathe deep on the island begin to undergo unearthly transformations! The Beach House could best be described as Cronenberg by way of Lovecraft, but with a faux modern coat of paint. Now, let’s focus on that “faux” part

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jul 6, 2020
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: Useless Humans (2020)

You know what can fuck up a birthday party six ways to Sunday? If you said “aliens” you are both fuckin’ insane, and just the right kind of audience for the flick covered in today’s review; Useless Humans! As I mentioned above; it’s birthday time for our hapless hero Brian (Josh Zuckerman), and his bestest pals are throwing him a bash to celebrate turnin’ the big three oh! Drinkin’ and generally ass-foolery ensue until an alien antagonist crashes the shin-dig… and this creepy creature has one mood; completely pissed-off! Now instead of flip-cup and bong rips, it’s going to be a night of saving the fuckin’ world from a threat beyond the stars! Useless Humans has a lot going for it boils n’ ghouls! First of all, the ensemble cast assembled for this silly sci-fi fracas is top-notch; they’re funny, engaging, and they get you to care about their plight… which is good considering the craziness of their sitch! Speaking

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jul 6, 2020
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: Solid Metal Nightmares: The Films of Shinya Tsukamoto

Shinya Tsukamoto is one of cinema’s most daring auteurs, willing to tackle any number of dark subjects through a multitude of genres, and Arrow Video’s new box set; Solid Metal Nightmares: The Films of Shinya Tsukamoto will surely show you that in spades! Starting things off, Disc 1 (of 4 total) contains Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989), Tetsuo II: Body Hammer (1992), and The Adventure of Denchu-Kozo (1987). Tetsuo: The Iron Man features Tomorô Taguchi as a businessman that has the misfortune of committing vehicular homicide on the metal fetishist (Tsukamoto, who as you will see acts in nearly all of his films), a strange vagrant that is slowly becoming more machine than man… a condition he can spread like a disease as our hero soon comes to realize, as not only is he becoming a cyborg (complete with a whirling drill for a cock) but those around him are too… and they are out for his blood… or oil…

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jul 2, 2020
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: Scarred (2016)

Lets cut right to the chase, and lay down the plot for ol’ Scarred in a nasty nutshell; masked lunatic Jonah has a wild hair up his arcane ass about killing the beautiful people… so naturally a gaggle of photogenic victims arrive on the scene to help ol’ Joltin J fill his kill card with the quickness! So right off the bat you just know what you’re in for with this fright flick; namely boobs and bloodshed… and indeed Scarred delivers on that front with ghoulish gusto… unfortunately the folks these sinister shenanigans happen to aren’t the most interesting or endearing protagonists out there in stalk n’ slay land, but they look good and do what’s required of them; namely be scared shitless and scream a lot (and that’s my way of saying the actors do their best with the material given). Who is interesting however is Jonah, our masked maniac of the hour; who comes complete with a tragic

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jun 27, 2020

More from DanXIII

Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: The Wild, Wild World of Jayne Mansfield (1968)

Jayne Mansfield, apparently quite the international jet-setter, is kind enough to take us along on her last tour around the globe. Make sure you take your Dramamine as I suspect this is going to be a bumpy-ass ride… We start off in Rome, where Jayne just putzes around nearly deserted streets (in black and white footage… remember this)… but c’mon, Jayne is a big star, they aren’t really selling it… oh, wait… thankfully stock footage of countless people looking at… something… has been spliced in (via color footage). Ciao Bella Mrs. Mansfield… After more stock footage, some people eventually show up and Jayne gets her ass pinched (which may be more stock footage… but definitely involves a look-alike) in the middle of the afternoon, watches some ladies take their clothes off, fills us in on the games of the coliseums (via scenes from an old Hercules picture and a rando soccer game), fantasizes about dragons and ancient orgies (thankfully not

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jul 12, 2020
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: Mondo Balordo (1964)

After a big spoon of hippie-dippy bullshit (set to some pseudo-Vic Damone crooning) that attempts to rationalize the horrors we will doubtfully soon witness, Mondo Balordo gets underway… … and in less than five minutes we get handicapped, and possibly deranged, people busking, a man that can inflate his stomach to asinine degrees, and sex with a midget prostitute… fuck me (but not like our little person harlot), this is going to be a bumpy ride… oh, and Boris Karloff of all people is mixed up in this too… Moving on we get a thick stew of Hercules flick stock-footage, exercises to reinvigorate the tiddies of ol’ biddies, strip shows, light S&M, female rasslin’ … and so much, much more. Also a blonde-haired Buddy Holly clone sings some song that is an unholy combination of ’50’s rock mixed with the manic energy of Guitar Wolf set to images of native peoples dancing to god knows what… honestly, that was my

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jul 11, 2020
Horror Fuel

DVD Review: Game of Death (2020)

Game of Death goes as follows: a group of hard partyin’ millennial-types do the whole gamut of drinkin’ druggin’ and dirty lovin’ until they find something new to occupy their vacuous noodles; namely playing a board game that requires the players to kill one another or else the game will do the murder biz via making the player’s heads explode! Now, will our hapless heroes have the stones to play the game to it’s conclusion, or will they all end up a heap of headless hosers? Before we get to the one glaring negative with this fright flick, let’s start with some good vibes, shall we? The concept of the killer game, and how it’s presented is tight and outta sight, and the story itself (courtesy of scribes Edouard H. Bond, Sebastien Landry, Laurence Morais-Lagaceis, and Philip Kalin-Hajdu) is aces, as is the slick n’ stylish direction from Landry and Morais-Lagaceis that blends elements of found footage, animation, 8-bit graphics

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jul 11, 2020
Horror Fuel

Book Review: Jack Kirby the Epic Life of the King of Comics (2020)

Jack Kirby is the single greatest comic book creator that ever lived. Period, full fuckin’ stop. You can disagree of course, and of course you would be wrong… I mean come the hell on; the dude created The Avengers, The Incredible Hulk, and most importantly to me, The X-Men, and roughly eleven-billionty others (including the genius of his New Gods work for DC, and creations for animation)… and his place in history is well-and-duly preserved, not to mention his influence on modern cinema with all of those Marvel flicks comin’ out every 15 seconds (well they were before the world temporarily turns upside down). So that brings us to Jack Kirby the Epic Life of the King of Comics; the new four-color opus from Tom Scioli (American Barbarian, G.I. Joe vs. Transformers, Go-bots, and Fantastic Four Grand Design to name a few), a genius-level creator in his own right… and one of my all-time favorite artists around today, who (not)

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jul 11, 2020
Horror Fuel

Blu-Ray Review: Ozone (1995)

There’s a new drug on the mean streets called Ozone, and it has the nasty habit of making those that take it explode… and those are the lucky ones! Enter: Detective Eddie Boone (James Black), who finds himself injected with Ozone while on a bust that also results in his partner, Mike (Tom Hoover) being maimed and abducted by a gang of Ozone “zombies”. Now Boone must search for his partner while suffering nightmarish Ozone hallucinations, and contending with the monstrous mutant addicts that stand in his way! Shot on Super VHS-C, for next to no cash, Ozone is punk rock fright flick filmmaking at it’s best! Director/Co-writer J.R. Bookwalter (along with Co-writer David A. Wagner) creates a truly unique vision of endless mutations, body-melts, Cenobite-style punks, and gallons of grizzly gore (most realized via excellent practical effects work, though some early CG “morphs” are utilized as well) that parade around a world just a few minutes ahead of our

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jul 11, 2020
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: Parts Unknown (2018)

Parts Unknown focuses on a family of wrestlers; huge-ass Hermann (William DeCoff), annoying-as-fuck wimp-ass Harvey (Alexander Hauck), crazy-ass Kitty (Sarah Michelle), Kitty’s rival/best friend Lacey (Lizzie Havoc), and hunky outsider Karl who’s hobbies include getting wasted as all fuck and bitching about their now non-existent wrestling careers. That would all be fine-and-dandy, but life becomes hard for these folks when Harvey kills a cop… and Karl shoots himself and undergoes a body melt. Okay, pretty dicey territory, but I’m sure they can survive this. Oh, but I forgot to mention… that ex-cop mentioned above was tossed into a nearby swamp by our “heroes” and is soon back in revenge-bent spirit format… oh and there’s a lizard headed swamp demon that Lacey decides to appease via dopey dudes she lures to their doom. Yeah, we got a wickedly weird one here cats n’ creeps. Let’s get the obvious and negative horse shit shoveled right quick, shall we? First things first, in

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jul 8, 2020
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: The Beach House (2019)

Emily and Randall, two outrageously attractive young people (portrayed by Liana Liberato and Noah Le Gros respectively) flee ye olde rat race to vacay at a beach house owned by Randall’s kith and kin. Sound relaxin’ amirite cats n’ creeps? Well it ain’t, because another couple, Jane (Maryanne Nagel) and Mitch (Jake Weber), have parked their asses there as well. Despite their gaps in age, the two couples shoot the shit, ingest some edibles… just normal gettin’ to know ya bullshit. Speaking of normal, nearly every event that happens after that point is decidedly not that thing, as a mysterious fog envelopes the island bringing with it rapidly mutating sea life, alien pods, and some good ol’ body horror; as those that breathe deep on the island begin to undergo unearthly transformations! The Beach House could best be described as Cronenberg by way of Lovecraft, but with a faux modern coat of paint. Now, let’s focus on that “faux” part

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jul 6, 2020
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: Useless Humans (2020)

You know what can fuck up a birthday party six ways to Sunday? If you said “aliens” you are both fuckin’ insane, and just the right kind of audience for the flick covered in today’s review; Useless Humans! As I mentioned above; it’s birthday time for our hapless hero Brian (Josh Zuckerman), and his bestest pals are throwing him a bash to celebrate turnin’ the big three oh! Drinkin’ and generally ass-foolery ensue until an alien antagonist crashes the shin-dig… and this creepy creature has one mood; completely pissed-off! Now instead of flip-cup and bong rips, it’s going to be a night of saving the fuckin’ world from a threat beyond the stars! Useless Humans has a lot going for it boils n’ ghouls! First of all, the ensemble cast assembled for this silly sci-fi fracas is top-notch; they’re funny, engaging, and they get you to care about their plight… which is good considering the craziness of their sitch! Speaking

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jul 6, 2020
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: Solid Metal Nightmares: The Films of Shinya Tsukamoto

Shinya Tsukamoto is one of cinema’s most daring auteurs, willing to tackle any number of dark subjects through a multitude of genres, and Arrow Video’s new box set; Solid Metal Nightmares: The Films of Shinya Tsukamoto will surely show you that in spades! Starting things off, Disc 1 (of 4 total) contains Tetsuo: The Iron Man (1989), Tetsuo II: Body Hammer (1992), and The Adventure of Denchu-Kozo (1987). Tetsuo: The Iron Man features Tomorô Taguchi as a businessman that has the misfortune of committing vehicular homicide on the metal fetishist (Tsukamoto, who as you will see acts in nearly all of his films), a strange vagrant that is slowly becoming more machine than man… a condition he can spread like a disease as our hero soon comes to realize, as not only is he becoming a cyborg (complete with a whirling drill for a cock) but those around him are too… and they are out for his blood… or oil…

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jul 2, 2020
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: Scarred (2016)

Lets cut right to the chase, and lay down the plot for ol’ Scarred in a nasty nutshell; masked lunatic Jonah has a wild hair up his arcane ass about killing the beautiful people… so naturally a gaggle of photogenic victims arrive on the scene to help ol’ Joltin J fill his kill card with the quickness! So right off the bat you just know what you’re in for with this fright flick; namely boobs and bloodshed… and indeed Scarred delivers on that front with ghoulish gusto… unfortunately the folks these sinister shenanigans happen to aren’t the most interesting or endearing protagonists out there in stalk n’ slay land, but they look good and do what’s required of them; namely be scared shitless and scream a lot (and that’s my way of saying the actors do their best with the material given). Who is interesting however is Jonah, our masked maniac of the hour; who comes complete with a tragic

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jun 27, 2020
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