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DanXIII

1,295 stories

Movie Review: Realm of Shadows (2024)

Who got their relationship hoo-ha all mixed-up with supernatural shenanigans? Well the new anthology from filmmaker Jimmy Drain, Realm of Shadows for one… and lucky for you cats n’ creeps that’s the feature I’ll be slappin’ my putrid peepers on and given the ol’ standard substandard revoltin’ review treatment! After we are introduced to the Sisters of the Moon; a gaggle of gals, lead by the devilish Nalum (Erika Monet), hell bent on relating their visions of the battle for men’s souls as they struggle to obtain the mystical… and apparently pretty damn powerful Dagger of Destiny… from some priest-types. These visions form the basis of the stories presented for our vicious viewing pleasure! We are soon introduced to Malick (Drain), a dude with the hots for multiple ladies, which of course leads to raucous results once he makes his preternatural pick, followed by a journey into a relationship influenced by those witches mmentioned up yonder… so again, expect decidedly

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DanXIII

Jun 6, 2024

AdaptationBooksForeignMovies

Movie Review: Cemetery Man (1994) – Severin 4k/Blu-ray Combo

Michele Soavi’s (1987’s StageFright, 1989’s The Church) 1994 adaptation of Tiziano Sclavi’s Gothic novel Dellamorte Dellamore concerns the misadventures of one Francesco Dellamorte (Rupert Everett, My Best Friend’s Wedding) the caretaker of the local cemetery of the small, largely unpopulated town of Buffalora. While you would surmise that this would be a quiet, perhaps even boring job, there’s one catch… anyone buried within it’s confines comes back to life after seven days and must be put back down and made double dead before they can enjoy eternal rest. Helping Francesco with his daily routine is the child-like, mentally disabled Gnaghi (François Hadji-Lazaro), an incredibly sweet and helpful gentle giant who speaks only one word, “Gna” which can mean a multitude of things which only our hero can decipher. Things go from bizarre to surreal when Francesco falls for She (Anna Falchi), the widow of a rich ol’ coot who is obsessed with the dead. Eventually she is bitten by her

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DanXIII

Jun 1, 2024

MoviesReviewsThriller

Movie Review: Orphan (2009) – Scream Factory Blu-ray

Kate and John Coleman (played by The Conjuring series’ Vera Farmiga and Peter Sarsgaard respectively) are down in the dumps and sorta on the rocks after the stillborn death of their third child, so they decide to adopt the freakishly gifted Esther (Isabelle Fuhrman) from ye olde local orphanage. While their son, Daniel (Jimmy Bennett) is lukewarm to his new sister at best, his sister, the deaf mute Max (Aryana Engineer), couldn’t be more thrilled with Esther’s presence. Of course this being a fright flick and all, Esther has a few issues, and before long Kate is mega-suspicious that her brand-new terror tyke is much more than she seems, in the worst possible ways… a fact that the orphanage’s head honcho, Sister Abigail (CCH Pounder) confirms when she reveals the shaky past our girl had back home in Russia. Will Kate be able to convince the family that her feelings are correct, or will that home sweet home turn into

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DanXIII

Jun 1, 2024

DocumentariesForeignIndieMoviesReviews

Il Tempo del Sogna – Dream Time (2023) – Rustblade Blu-ray

There’s nothing that hits quite like Italian horror cinema of the ’80s to mid-’90s. It is often outrageous, spectacularly gore-drenched, surreal and completely one-of-a-kind (even when it lifts elements from Hollywood fright flick blockbusters)… and just as it was rockin’ and rollin’, the wheels came off the cart shortly after the release of Michele Soavi’s kinda-sorta Dylan Dog adaptation, Cemetery Man in 1994. How did this occur? Well, that is precisely what Nocturno magazine’s Davide Pulici aims to decipher in Claudio Lattanzi’s (1988’s Zombi 5: The Killing Birds) documentary Il Tempo del Sogna. Following the journey from Lamberto Bava’s 1985 monsterpiece Demons, with a special focus given to the troubled production of it’s second sequel (which would eventually be retooled into Soavi’s The Church in 1989), on through late-era Fulci, and to late in the game stragglers such as 1997’s The Wax Mask (directed by effects maestro Sergio Stivaletti) we hear first-hand accounts of both the production of beloved fright

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DanXIII

May 19, 2024

AdaptationMoviesReviewsThriller

Movie Review: The Cat and The Canary (1927) – Eureka Blu-ray

As per his dying wish, twenty years after rich eccentric geezer Cyrus West kicks the bucket, his relatives gather on a dark and stormy night for the reading of his will at his former arcane abode; a mansion that looks like German Expressionism mixed with Edgar Allan Poe aesthetics. Anyhow, this groovy gaggle of weirdos eventually discovers that Cyrus’ fortune is to be left to his niece Annabelle (prolific silent film actress Laura La Plante)… on the condition she be judged sane (something Cyrus himself would never be able to achieve) by the macabre medicine-man Doctor Ira Lazar (Lucien Littlefield). If she fails the exam, the riches will be given to the second choice family member who will be revealed in a separate sealed will… I mean for fuck’s sake dude, couldn’t you have just split that shit six ways among everyone and call it a day?! As if Annabelle isn’t under enough pressure from the threat of her remaining

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DanXIII

May 18, 2024

MoviesReviewsSci-Fi

Movie Review: Killer Klowns From Outer Space (1988) – Scream Factory 4k/Blu-ray Steelbook

After an absolute earworm banger of a theme song by punk outfit The Dickies, a big top from beyond the stars lands on Earth and dispenses monstrous alien clowns. Naturally it’s up to a gaggle of college kids to try and save the day by facing off against the bizarre creatures and their even more bizarre weapons (cotton candy guns, man eating shadow puppets, killer popcorn et. al.)! As if all of that monstrous madness wasn’t enough, our heroes are dogged constantly by the town’s egomaniacal cop, Officer Moonie (the legendary John Vernon, Animal House) who would be more than happy to lock our heroes up and you can bet your ass he does not believe their wild tales of grease-painted ghouls stalking the city streets! Can our heroes survive the night and send those ha-ha horrors packing, or will they be jailbirds before sun up? Surreal, hilarious, and filled to the rafters with over-the-top practical effects goodness; Killer Klowns

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DanXIII

May 12, 2024

IndieMoviesReviews

Movie Review: Deathdream (1974) – Blue Underground 4Kk/Blu-ray combo

Deathdream is the kind of flick that begins featuring the horrors of ‘Nam and the value of a man that can carve a roast all in equal measure (for the record, Roastmaster General’s son Andy is who we see buying the farm in Vietnam). Anyway, the family learns their son is dead and begins grieving… except later that night ol’ Andy comes home alive and…well alive anyway (after hitching a ride with a trucker who winds up dead after some high-larious antics at an all-night diner). Over the next few days Andy acts weird A.F.; he’s quiet, pale, and only offers a small smirk to anyone that talks to him…plus he picks up some new hobbies like wandering around cemeteries in the dead of night and simultaneously beating down androgynous kids who karate chop him with one hand while strangling a dog with the other (an underrated talent to be sure). Well, it turn out ol’ Awesome Andy is some

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DanXIII

May 11, 2024

ForeignMoviesReviewsSci-Fi

Movie Review: Black Mask (1996) – Eureka Blu-ray

Tsui Chik (Jet Li, the Once Upon a Time in China series, Lethal Weapon 4) is a librarian leading a low-key lifestyle… so much so, that you’d hardly guess he was a top-secret super-soldier. Speaking of that Captain America biz, his former unit was disbanded due to one of his comrades going completely apeshit and putting a murder on a cop which resulted in the entire organization being marked for extermination. Now, our hero managed to lead his teammates to safety, but years later it appears that his fellow super soldiers have gone on a gangland killing spree… and since these dudes are near invulnerable, the police are practically helpless in dealing with the sitch at hand. Tsui then does the only logical thing; he dresses up like Kato from The Green Hornet and proceeds to begin a quest to whip super-soldier ass under his secret superhero identity; the Black Mask! Director Daniel Lee’s (working from a screenplay by directors

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DanXIII

May 11, 2024

MoviesReviews

Movie Review: The Ring Collection – Scream Factory 4k/Blu-ray combo

A cursed videotape leads to supernatural shenanigans and wacky well-walkin’. I could be talking about Hideo Nakata’s 1998 influential J-Horror masterpiece Ringu… and while we will surely get back to Nakata soon enough, today we’ll be focusing our outre eye-balls on Gore Verbinski’s (Pirates of the Caribbean: The Curse of the Black Pearl and two of it’s sequels) 2002 Hollywood re-make, and it’s sequels, all of which are included in Scream Factory’s new 4k/Blu-ray combo box-set; The Ring Collection… like, what else did you think they would call it?!! Anyway, The Ring… Seattle-based investigative journalist Rachael (Naomi Watts) gets herself one hell of a mystery to solve after she’s asked to check into the circumstances that led to her niece’s bizarre demise. It’s a long and winding road to the truth… a truth that involves the decades old murder of a child with psychic abilities… and that child, Samara (Daveigh Chase) is thirsty for revenge from beyond the grave which

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DanXIII

May 8, 2024

MoviesReviews

Movie Review: Joysticks (1983) – MVD Rewind Blu-ray

Director Greydon Clark’s (Without Warning) arcade-centric sex comedy begins the only way it could, with a rocking song about both video games and jerking off simultaneously, before introducing a cast of characters you will surely recognize; we have the nerd, Eugene (Grease 2’s Leif Green), the latest employee to begin work at River City’s only arcade managed by popular, sexed-up, wise-ass Jefferson Bailey (Scott McGinnis) and featuring clientele that includes overweight slob/Bluto from Animal House surrogate Dorfus (Jim Greenleaf) along with a Franciscan Monk, a clone of Curly from The Three Stooges, as well as punk rock psycho/video game addict King Vidiot (The Monster Squad and Fright Night Part Two’s Jon Gries) and his appropriately named gang of female followers, The Vidiots… but we’ll get back to him… Anyway, that arcade, a true hot bed of fun and horniness, is also the favorite hang-out of Patsy Rutter (Corinne Bohrer), valley girl daughter of local tight-ass businessman Joseph Rutter (Joe Don

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DanXIII

Apr 27, 2024

DanXIII

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