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Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: American Horror Project: Volume 2 (1970 -1977)

A few years back, those freaky fiends at Arrow Video released a collection of three lesser-seen fringe fright flicks under the name American Horror Project: Volume 1. As you can tell by the title of this review, they have gone done and released a new collection of weird ass shit, and it’s up to your’s cruelly to take the ol’ deep dive and see what these putrid pictures are all about! First up we get: Dream No Evil (1970): An orphan girl spends her days keepin’ the faith that her daddy dearest will re-appear and sweep her away. Well that shit doesn’t come to pass; but she does get adopted and joins a revivalist Preacher in his carny existence. A few doomed romances later, and our heroine finds her daddy all right…laid right out on the mortician’s (who is also a pimp…because…well…) slab. Anyway, her grief resurrects him and he goes on a murder spree as one does. On the

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jun 26, 2019
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: Nightmare Cinema (2018)

Five strangers end up in an abandoned theater where a strange projectionist (the one and only Mickey mother fuckin’ Rourke) shows them some fright flicks that contain each of their deepest fears. Thus begins Nightmare Cinema; the latest arcane anthology that weaves five terror tales balls deep in the ol’ horror biz! The first story is titled The Thing in the Woods (directed by Alejandro Brugués) and it begins with us thrown directly into the third act of a slasher picture already in progress. Our spunky final girl is on the run from the wicked Welder (and his implements of bodily harm) who has managed to kill nearly all her friends. Unfortunately for that masked maniac, our heroine is more than capable of putting up quite the fight…and then something turns this already pitch-perfect stalk n’ slay pastiche into a real thing of beastly beauty. Full of great grizzly gore, excellent shifting of paradigms, and an ability to bring some

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jun 24, 2019
Horror Fuel

Short Film Review: After Her (2018)

Hailey (Natalia Dyer) and Callum (Christopher Dylan White) are best buds who make an excursion to the woods…woods where Hailey has discovered some strange object that she decides to keep…what could go wrong? Fuckin’ plenty, that’s what. You see, after that fateful day, ol’ Hay-hay is never heard from again…but she haunts Callum’s dreams like a pro. Flash forward five years Callum returns home and ends up continuing the search for his long lost friend…which brings him back to those wicked woods, and in contact with that outre object mentioned up yonder…which rends reality apart! Let me tell ya; Writer/Director Aly Migliori has created one hell of a fantastic piece of psychotronic cinema with After Her! Filled to bursting with missed phone calls, strange artifacts, and metaphysical/cosmic ponderings…this short film is everything a fan of H.P. Lovecraft or Silent Hill could love…but the story presents an extra layer when it adds in a dash of J.M. Barrie to the mix

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jun 14, 2019
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: Frankenstein Created Woman (1967)

Baron Frankenstein (the legendary Peter Cushing) is resurrected from the dead (what a twist!) by his colleague Dr. Hertz (Thorley Walters) as part of an experiment involving the retention of one’s soul over a specified period of death (science…dodgy…making my…brain seize). So what does ol’ Franky-baby do when he’s up and about? Well he goes out for dinner…yeah, not really what I was expecting either…but eventually he gets up to the devil’s business we paid for as Hertz’s assistant Hans (Robert Morris) is wrongfully accused of murder and executed…which causes his girlfriend, the lovely yet disfigured Christina (Susan Denberg) to commit suicide…and the doomed lovers become the Baron’s next pet project. Soon ol’ Chrissy is back among the living; her face fixed, her hair now blonde (science!), and her subconscious packed fat with Hans’ soul…and this comely lass is hellbent on murderous revenge! Now you may wonder how a Frankenstein pic will fair with nary a stitched together man-monster shamblin’

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jun 13, 2019
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: The Andromeda Strain (1971)

The US Air Force’s Project Scoop deploys a small unit to retrieve a satellite that has crashed back to Earth near Piedmont, New Mexico. Sounds easy enough; except the entire town is now dead A.F. and the folks sent to investigate end up the same thanks to something that hitched a ride on said satellite. Enter: Dr. Jeremy Stone (Arthur Hill) who warned this type of shit would go down years previous and was ostracized for his trouble. Now Uncle Sam comes practically begging for his assistance; and that of his team; Drs. Dutton, the brassy Leavitt and Hall (David Wayne, Kate Reid, and James Olson, respectively) and ships them off to the high tech underground facility known as Wildfire. Once there the work begins (after a series of wacky…and hilarious tests and decontamination protocols) to isolate the lethal life form (which of course is mutating) while determining why two people from Piedmont (an old drunk and a six-month-old baby)

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jun 9, 2019
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: Trapped Alive (1988)

One cold and frosty night; two comely lasses, Robin and Monica (Sullivan Hester and Laura Kallison) are making their way to a soiree when they are carjacked by a terrifying trio (well, two of them are scary anyway) of escaped convicts (one of whom is so strong he can keep a vehicle from moving simply by holding on it’s bumper). Now you may say to yourself “Hey, that could make for an okay fright flick…a bit overdone perhaps, but solid nonetheless.” Well, you may say that, but Trapped Alive certainly isn’t listening…I mean it can’t “listen” really; it’s a movie filmed over three decades ago, and…where the fuck was I? Oh yeah; so that vehicle goes of the road and crashes into an abandoned mine shaft…well, not really “abandoned” as it’s home to a cannibalistic mutant, as is the way (and definitely spices up the proceedings). Thankfully for our heroines, the local sheriff (Randy Powell) is on the case…and by

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jun 4, 2019
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: Lords of Chaos (2018)

Ol’ Øystein “Euronymous “Aarseth (Rory Culkin) lives a rather bland existence in late ’80’s Norway doing the typical teen biz; drinking, smoking, starting Mayhem…a legendary Satanic Black Metal band…the usual. The days are filled with fun, gifts of crucified mice from fanatical fans, and endless practice sessions. Enter: new vocalist Pelle ‘Dead’ Ohlin (Jack Kilmer)…a real ray of sunshine that brings with him a heavy cloud of darkness and depression…and a real move forward for the band musically and visually. Of course tragedy soon follows and things begin to really go off the rails once the eager-to-please Kristian ‘Varg’ Vikernes (Emory Cohen) makes the scene along with some radical ideas (read: fucked-up) that soon have him and Euronymous at odds and things falling desperately out of control (to put it mildly). First things first; does Lords of Chaos fuck with the facts surrounding Mayhem? Sure it does…but this is a movie version of reality, not a documentary…and what a movie

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jun 1, 2019
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: Earthquake (1974)

Ahh…the classic, star-studded disaster movie; they sure don’t make them like that anymore…well, sure they do make star-studded movies that are disasters, just not specifically about disasters. This seems like a long reach for a chuckle from you lot, so let’s just jump into my revoltin’ review of 1974’s Earthquake! Our story begins with Graff (Charlton fuckin’ Heston baby) getting nagged by his wife Remy (Ava Gardner)…because that’s what the kids dig; hen pecked husbands and their pill-poppin’ wives. Following that we get a “high speed” police chase (complete with Zsa Zsa Gabor’s bush…technically a hedge) and that heart-warming ol’ chestnut; a dead child, a mustachioed Marjoe Gortner giving a lady with a sky-high perm (Dallas‘ Victoria Principle) a big slab of his free meat (it involves store credit), Richard Roundtree sportin’ the slickest motorcycle threads/Black Vulcan costume known to mankind and doing his best Evel Knievel bit, Walter Matthau dressed like a pimp sipping booze…pretty much every rando (and

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jun 1, 2019
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: Room 37: The Mysterious Death of Johnny Thunders (2019)

On April 23rd, 1991, former New York Dolls guitarist and notorious heroin addict Johnny Thunders was found dead at the St Peter House in New Orleans. How this happened as long been one of rock n’ roll’s greatest unsolved mysteries, as an autopsy report found only a minimal amount of drugs in his system (he was attempting to get clean at the time)…but murder has always been a strong contender in his demise. Written and directed by The Cordero Brothers, Room 37: The Mysterious Death of Johnny Thunders presents a fictionalized version of the events surrounding Johnny’s (played to razor sharp perfection by Leo Ramsey) exit from this mortal coil. As our protagonist rolls into town he’s a broken man; his wife has left him, he hasn’t seen his kid in ages, and he’s trying to give up chasing the dragon. Johnny manages to continue his career in The Big Easy, and find some small companionship with hotel staffer Iris

Continue reading →
DanXIII
May 18, 2019
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: Double Face (1969)

Tycoon John Alexander (the ever sedate and totally sane Klaus Kinski) has found himself in a marriage with the comely Helen (Margaret Lee) who gets the seven year itch five years t early and begins an affair with her friend Liz. John gets wise to this but Helen soon finds herself tits up as her car crashes due to an explosive device planted on the vehicle. How does our hero deal with his never-ending grief at his wife’s demise? Why by attending one of those “hippie parties” that the kids are so into these days, with a chick that decided to take up residence at his pad while he was away. At that soiree John featuring a chick (sporting a veil) with the same ring and scar Helen had! John then attempts a mad quest to find the woman… Since Double Face contains elements of murder and mystery, and was directed by Italian Riccardo Freda, you may expect this flick

Continue reading →
DanXIII
May 18, 2019

More from #review

Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: American Horror Project: Volume 2 (1970 -1977)

A few years back, those freaky fiends at Arrow Video released a collection of three lesser-seen fringe fright flicks under the name American Horror Project: Volume 1. As you can tell by the title of this review, they have gone done and released a new collection of weird ass shit, and it’s up to your’s cruelly to take the ol’ deep dive and see what these putrid pictures are all about! First up we get: Dream No Evil (1970): An orphan girl spends her days keepin’ the faith that her daddy dearest will re-appear and sweep her away. Well that shit doesn’t come to pass; but she does get adopted and joins a revivalist Preacher in his carny existence. A few doomed romances later, and our heroine finds her daddy all right…laid right out on the mortician’s (who is also a pimp…because…well…) slab. Anyway, her grief resurrects him and he goes on a murder spree as one does. On the

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jun 26, 2019
Horror Fuel

Movie Review: Nightmare Cinema (2018)

Five strangers end up in an abandoned theater where a strange projectionist (the one and only Mickey mother fuckin’ Rourke) shows them some fright flicks that contain each of their deepest fears. Thus begins Nightmare Cinema; the latest arcane anthology that weaves five terror tales balls deep in the ol’ horror biz! The first story is titled The Thing in the Woods (directed by Alejandro Brugués) and it begins with us thrown directly into the third act of a slasher picture already in progress. Our spunky final girl is on the run from the wicked Welder (and his implements of bodily harm) who has managed to kill nearly all her friends. Unfortunately for that masked maniac, our heroine is more than capable of putting up quite the fight…and then something turns this already pitch-perfect stalk n’ slay pastiche into a real thing of beastly beauty. Full of great grizzly gore, excellent shifting of paradigms, and an ability to bring some

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jun 24, 2019
Horror Fuel

Short Film Review: After Her (2018)

Hailey (Natalia Dyer) and Callum (Christopher Dylan White) are best buds who make an excursion to the woods…woods where Hailey has discovered some strange object that she decides to keep…what could go wrong? Fuckin’ plenty, that’s what. You see, after that fateful day, ol’ Hay-hay is never heard from again…but she haunts Callum’s dreams like a pro. Flash forward five years Callum returns home and ends up continuing the search for his long lost friend…which brings him back to those wicked woods, and in contact with that outre object mentioned up yonder…which rends reality apart! Let me tell ya; Writer/Director Aly Migliori has created one hell of a fantastic piece of psychotronic cinema with After Her! Filled to bursting with missed phone calls, strange artifacts, and metaphysical/cosmic ponderings…this short film is everything a fan of H.P. Lovecraft or Silent Hill could love…but the story presents an extra layer when it adds in a dash of J.M. Barrie to the mix

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jun 14, 2019
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: Frankenstein Created Woman (1967)

Baron Frankenstein (the legendary Peter Cushing) is resurrected from the dead (what a twist!) by his colleague Dr. Hertz (Thorley Walters) as part of an experiment involving the retention of one’s soul over a specified period of death (science…dodgy…making my…brain seize). So what does ol’ Franky-baby do when he’s up and about? Well he goes out for dinner…yeah, not really what I was expecting either…but eventually he gets up to the devil’s business we paid for as Hertz’s assistant Hans (Robert Morris) is wrongfully accused of murder and executed…which causes his girlfriend, the lovely yet disfigured Christina (Susan Denberg) to commit suicide…and the doomed lovers become the Baron’s next pet project. Soon ol’ Chrissy is back among the living; her face fixed, her hair now blonde (science!), and her subconscious packed fat with Hans’ soul…and this comely lass is hellbent on murderous revenge! Now you may wonder how a Frankenstein pic will fair with nary a stitched together man-monster shamblin’

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jun 13, 2019
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: The Andromeda Strain (1971)

The US Air Force’s Project Scoop deploys a small unit to retrieve a satellite that has crashed back to Earth near Piedmont, New Mexico. Sounds easy enough; except the entire town is now dead A.F. and the folks sent to investigate end up the same thanks to something that hitched a ride on said satellite. Enter: Dr. Jeremy Stone (Arthur Hill) who warned this type of shit would go down years previous and was ostracized for his trouble. Now Uncle Sam comes practically begging for his assistance; and that of his team; Drs. Dutton, the brassy Leavitt and Hall (David Wayne, Kate Reid, and James Olson, respectively) and ships them off to the high tech underground facility known as Wildfire. Once there the work begins (after a series of wacky…and hilarious tests and decontamination protocols) to isolate the lethal life form (which of course is mutating) while determining why two people from Piedmont (an old drunk and a six-month-old baby)

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jun 9, 2019
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: Trapped Alive (1988)

One cold and frosty night; two comely lasses, Robin and Monica (Sullivan Hester and Laura Kallison) are making their way to a soiree when they are carjacked by a terrifying trio (well, two of them are scary anyway) of escaped convicts (one of whom is so strong he can keep a vehicle from moving simply by holding on it’s bumper). Now you may say to yourself “Hey, that could make for an okay fright flick…a bit overdone perhaps, but solid nonetheless.” Well, you may say that, but Trapped Alive certainly isn’t listening…I mean it can’t “listen” really; it’s a movie filmed over three decades ago, and…where the fuck was I? Oh yeah; so that vehicle goes of the road and crashes into an abandoned mine shaft…well, not really “abandoned” as it’s home to a cannibalistic mutant, as is the way (and definitely spices up the proceedings). Thankfully for our heroines, the local sheriff (Randy Powell) is on the case…and by

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jun 4, 2019
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: Lords of Chaos (2018)

Ol’ Øystein “Euronymous “Aarseth (Rory Culkin) lives a rather bland existence in late ’80’s Norway doing the typical teen biz; drinking, smoking, starting Mayhem…a legendary Satanic Black Metal band…the usual. The days are filled with fun, gifts of crucified mice from fanatical fans, and endless practice sessions. Enter: new vocalist Pelle ‘Dead’ Ohlin (Jack Kilmer)…a real ray of sunshine that brings with him a heavy cloud of darkness and depression…and a real move forward for the band musically and visually. Of course tragedy soon follows and things begin to really go off the rails once the eager-to-please Kristian ‘Varg’ Vikernes (Emory Cohen) makes the scene along with some radical ideas (read: fucked-up) that soon have him and Euronymous at odds and things falling desperately out of control (to put it mildly). First things first; does Lords of Chaos fuck with the facts surrounding Mayhem? Sure it does…but this is a movie version of reality, not a documentary…and what a movie

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jun 1, 2019
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: Earthquake (1974)

Ahh…the classic, star-studded disaster movie; they sure don’t make them like that anymore…well, sure they do make star-studded movies that are disasters, just not specifically about disasters. This seems like a long reach for a chuckle from you lot, so let’s just jump into my revoltin’ review of 1974’s Earthquake! Our story begins with Graff (Charlton fuckin’ Heston baby) getting nagged by his wife Remy (Ava Gardner)…because that’s what the kids dig; hen pecked husbands and their pill-poppin’ wives. Following that we get a “high speed” police chase (complete with Zsa Zsa Gabor’s bush…technically a hedge) and that heart-warming ol’ chestnut; a dead child, a mustachioed Marjoe Gortner giving a lady with a sky-high perm (Dallas‘ Victoria Principle) a big slab of his free meat (it involves store credit), Richard Roundtree sportin’ the slickest motorcycle threads/Black Vulcan costume known to mankind and doing his best Evel Knievel bit, Walter Matthau dressed like a pimp sipping booze…pretty much every rando (and

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jun 1, 2019
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: Room 37: The Mysterious Death of Johnny Thunders (2019)

On April 23rd, 1991, former New York Dolls guitarist and notorious heroin addict Johnny Thunders was found dead at the St Peter House in New Orleans. How this happened as long been one of rock n’ roll’s greatest unsolved mysteries, as an autopsy report found only a minimal amount of drugs in his system (he was attempting to get clean at the time)…but murder has always been a strong contender in his demise. Written and directed by The Cordero Brothers, Room 37: The Mysterious Death of Johnny Thunders presents a fictionalized version of the events surrounding Johnny’s (played to razor sharp perfection by Leo Ramsey) exit from this mortal coil. As our protagonist rolls into town he’s a broken man; his wife has left him, he hasn’t seen his kid in ages, and he’s trying to give up chasing the dragon. Johnny manages to continue his career in The Big Easy, and find some small companionship with hotel staffer Iris

Continue reading →
DanXIII
May 18, 2019
Horror Fuel

Blu-ray Review: Double Face (1969)

Tycoon John Alexander (the ever sedate and totally sane Klaus Kinski) has found himself in a marriage with the comely Helen (Margaret Lee) who gets the seven year itch five years t early and begins an affair with her friend Liz. John gets wise to this but Helen soon finds herself tits up as her car crashes due to an explosive device planted on the vehicle. How does our hero deal with his never-ending grief at his wife’s demise? Why by attending one of those “hippie parties” that the kids are so into these days, with a chick that decided to take up residence at his pad while he was away. At that soiree John featuring a chick (sporting a veil) with the same ring and scar Helen had! John then attempts a mad quest to find the woman… Since Double Face contains elements of murder and mystery, and was directed by Italian Riccardo Freda, you may expect this flick

Continue reading →
DanXIII
May 18, 2019
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