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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

MoviesReviews

Blu-ray Review: Phantom of the Mall: Eric’s Revenge (1989)

Phantom of the Mall… that’s one of the most ’80s concepts I can possibly imagine, so let’s see what the age of rampant consumerism and questionable fashion choices has wrought this time, shall we? A new mall is being opened (which those in charge think will actually help juvenile delinquency… ) and gal-pals Melody (Kari Whitman) and Susie have just become full-fledged employees… but that’s no big deal as the place let’s Pauly fuckin’ Shore (as Buzz) dish out scoops in the food court, which if his well-known habit of “wheezin’ the juice” is considered, will have that place shut down by the Board of Health by noon… You know what else might make the mall’s progress a bit dicey? Melody’s old flame Eric (Derek Rydall) is prowling the mall’s ventilation ducts putting a murder on anyone unfortunate enough to cross his path! Why is Eric so pissed? Well, he’s been completely disfigured courtesy of a mysterious house fire (a

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DanXIII

Jan 15, 2022

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

MoviesNewsStreaming TVThriller

Arrow Announces January Releases (Guide)

Arrow Video is excited to announce the January 2022 lineup of their new subscription-based ARROW platform, available to subscribers in the US, Canada, the UK, and Ireland. The January 2022 lineup leads with the ARROW release of Stefan Lernous’ hilarious and toe-curling debut feature Hotel Poseidon, which made its world premiere at Brussels International Festival of Fantastic Film and screened at Fantasia International Film Festival in Montreal and Grimmfest in the UK. The film will debut on ARROW January 3 with a host of exclusive extras. January 3 will see the arrival of Hotel Poseidon (UK/US/CA/IRE) and Mario Bava’s final feature Shock (UK/US/CA/IRE), where a woman is haunted by a series of nightmares and hallucinations. January 3 kicks off ARROW’s Seasons for 2022 with New Year Body Transformation. This New Year, how about a new you? Well, on ARROW that doesn’t mean some dodgy weight-loss fad – but sprouting teeth and claws to become the creature of the night you

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Kelli Marchman McNeely

Dec 16, 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

News

4k-UHD Review: Children of the Corn (1984)

Burt (Peter Horton) and Vicky (The Terminator franchise’s Linda Hamilton) are a hot, young, upwardly-mobile couple headin’ cross country to Seattle where ol’ Burt is all hot n’ horny to begin his career as a physician. Along the way they run over a kid in Nebraska as one does, and find themselves lost in the seemingly abandoned town of Gatlin. Well, as fate, and Stephen King (yup, this is based on a short story by the monstrous maestro himself from 1977) would have it, the town’s children have murdered each and every adult in town, and are really into cornfield sacrifices to an evil deity known as “He Who Walks Behind the Rows”. Chief among that corn-based antichrist’s arcane acolytes are the Preacher-man… err, child Issac (John Franklin) and his enforcer Malachi (Courtney Gains, he of The ‘Burbs fame), and both are hell-bent on making Burt and Vicky the latest offerings to their dark god, but unexpected help may turn

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DanXIII

Nov 21, 2021

IndieReviews

Blu-ray Review: Cold War Creatures: Four Films from Sam Katzman (1955 – 1957)

Producer Sam Katzman was responsible for a stunning array of poverty-row shockers, and this new box set from Arrow Video (along with MVD Entertainment) brings forth the creepy cream of the crop! Without further arcane ado, let’s dip out terror toes in this putrid pond, shall we? First comes Creature with the Atom Brain (1955): Gangsters are being found tits up, with radioactive dead man’s fingerprints found all over the scene, so the police are baffled. How is this a thing? Well, exiled gangster Frank Buchanan (Michael Granger) hooks up with Wilhelm Steigg (Gregory Gaye), a Nazi mad scientist who is trying to create a new mindless work force created from the bodies of the dead. Frank likes the sound of that shit, believe you me, and before long him and Dr. Feelbad are back in the States and putting a murder on each and every gangster that has ever crossed Buchanan… wait, why are the police angry this dude

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DanXIII

Sep 5, 2021

Reviews

4k UHD Review: Dune (1984)

Holy hell, how in the shit am I going to condense down David Lynch’s adaptation of Frank Herbert’s 1965 epic sci-fi novel; Dune for the sinister synopsis portion of this revoltin’ review?!! Umm, so the Emperor of the Universe (José Ferrer) decides that the two most powerful houses in the galaxy; the noble House Atreides and the vile House Harkonnen… the latter of which is about to be relieved of their duty running the day to day of the harvesting and processing of the most precious item in all of space; the Spice Melange (which can be used to “fold” space making travel times nearly non-existent) on the dessert world of Arrakis by the Atreides (who have been developing a fighting system based on sound) by command of the Emperor… which will not only put the House Atreides so far away that they can’t possibly cause him static… and just to make sure they won’t, he has plans of returning

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DanXIII

Sep 4, 2021

IndieReviews

Blu-ray Review: Weird Wisconsin: The Bill Rebane Collection (1965 – 1988)

Bill Rebane; that Wisconsin bred mother fucker of a regional schlock-meister… I love him, and I wager after you park your ass in front of this rich motherload of drive-in awesome-fuckery flyin’ your way from Arrow Video (along with MVD Entertainment) you will too! Kicking off the collection is 1965’s cobbled together mess-terpiece, Monster a Go-Go: A space capsule (pronounced here as cap-soool, which was too much for me) tumbles back to Earth and the astronaut inside goes missing. Coincidentally, a ten foot tall, radiation scarred mutant begins wandering about, just waiting to put the gruesome murder biz upon anyone that stands in his way of… well, wandering around killing people mostly… In a flash of cinematic Frankenstein frenzy, the Godfather of Gore himself; Herschell Gordon Lewis acquired the footage to an unfinished Rebane picture from 1961, added some new footage and narration (provided by H.G. Lewis himself), and released the jarring results to horror hounds everywhere back in ’65!

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DanXIII

Sep 3, 2021

ForeignMoviesReviewsThriller

Blu-ray Review: No One Heard The Scream (1973)

Jet-setting, gold diggin’ beauty Elisa (Carmen Sevilla delivering the sexy in spades) peeps her neighbor Miguel (Vincente Parra), chucking his dead wife, Nuria (María Asquerino) down an elevator shaft… but it’s a double-peep back-fire as Miguel sees her seeing him and forces her to help him thus making her an accomplice and more likely to keep her flappin’ yapper closed, ya see? As you may not expect, Elisa digs on this action and goes balls deep in helping Miguel keep that lil’ indiscretion on the down low… until she doesn’t and tries to kill him… and then things go completely sideways. Spanish giallo (sort of) ensues! Coming hot on the heels of the previous year’s Cannibal Man (which I set my eerie eyeballs right here), but predating perhaps his most well-known work; the juvenile delinquent pictures he dove head first into in the early ‘80s (and which I covered right here), Eloy de la Iglesia’s No One Heard the Scream

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DanXIII

Aug 28, 2021

Arrow Video

More from Arrow Video