Bob Rafelson and a great ensemble cast demonstrate that Atlantic City during the winter in the 1970s is a terrible time and place to hatch a madcap real estate scheme.
Faraway signals from way-out cinema
Bob Rafelson and a great ensemble cast demonstrate that Atlantic City during the winter in the 1970s is a terrible time and place to hatch a madcap real estate scheme.
The rare b-grade action film that delivers what its title promises and its box art fails to convey: actual blood on actual hands!
It’s a bit counterintuitive, but transparent masks are visually disturbing. In this 1981 short film, they transform a simple story with stiff dialogue into an otherworldly and unsettling nine minutes of moralistic terror.
All of the genre elements of this film — martial arts, blaxploitation, gang warfare, police procedural, and man-in-a-suit monster tropes — work well individually and in combination. Of course they do! People are out there eating Mountain Dew & Doritos donuts for fuck’s sake.
This is an action film featuring the sort of hero who strains spaghetti on his kitchen countertop instead of doing it in the sink, and gets hit by two speeding cars in a row before bounding off into the woods like a fucking deer.
American cowboys have whisky, James Bond has the martini, and Euro-Cops have J&B. The Greek protagonist of 1985’s CRIME KILLER, has ouzo, the anise-flavored liqueur best served before, during, or after a meal.
A kickboxing movie which teaches us that even if your father hates your lifestyle choices, and your karate teacher threatens to kill you over your accomplishments, and your girlfriend sees no future with you, you should still pursue your dreams.
Bizarre, terrifying, and humorous, 1963’s ONE GOT FAT is a horror movie masquerading as a bike safety film.
Have you ever seen a cinematic hero voluntarily crash through a patio door window to jump-kick a guy standing in a living room with no furniture? THE MASTER DEMON may be your only chance.
Nearly two decades after creating the horror classic, CARNIVAL OF SOULS, director Herk Harvey terrified machinery operators the world over with this violent safety film.
An aspiring writer arrives in the big city. The arrival of a mysterious VCR and television in his room correlates with a manic wave of creativity that may not be entirely fiction.
The criminal activity in Chinatown is escalating and the city’s police department doesn’t have enough resources. Violent gangs perform complex Tai Chi routines with impunity. Thugs in latex Halloween masks kidnap kids in broad daylight. Only a hero with a simple plan can make things right. 1991’s LETHAL NINJA spreads the havoc.
DANCE OR DIE is that rare American independent film that wants us to look at a table full of narcotics and say, “Ha! Cocaine! No big deal.”
Years before it was a hotbed of technological innovation and unaffordable housing, the San Francisco Bay Area was the “headquarters of occult and metaphysical activity in the United States.” This is just one of many bizarre assertions by the creators of the 1972 religious short film, THE OCCULT: AN ECHO FROM DARKNESS, that makes it perfect viewing for the spooky season.
While the Halloween costumes of today are often clever, shameless, or absurdly referential, their burlap and paper counterparts from last century still hold the all-time crown for creepy (doing an online image search for “creepy vintage halloween costumes” is the new “Bloody Mary”)! The main character in 1953’s HALLOWEEN PARTY brandishes one such mask in a way that inadvertently sets off a chain of events which concludes with him wearing a straw hat and made up in his mother’s lipstick.