Ever since you were a little kid, you were probably freaked out by
what was moving--or what looked like it was moving--in your bedroom at
night. That's the joy of SHADOW PUPPETS, taking the worst of the fear
of the unknown and packaging it into movie form. Not to give too much away, but several people find themselves
trapped in an abandoned insane asylum. They have no idea who they are,
where they came from, or what they're doing whereever it is they are.
So, when they start gathering together in an attempt to find their way
out and recover their lost memories, it's not going to be too much of a
surprise that a lot of them will start dying. And now, they have to
not only get out, but also get out alive.
Continue reading "SHADOW PUPPETS" »
When I first slipped this into my DVD player, I thought I'd finally gone completely over the edge. It looked like yet another Ulli Lommel
shitheap, with its poor video quality and its heavy dependence on
gratuitious violence and gore. Not to mention the necessity of text
crawls to advance the plot--it's standard Lommel to not even bother
giving up the plot with things like exposition and character
development. No, you see, these things just get in the way of
reasonably attractive young actresses getting strangled and rendered,
so why bother? But no...unless "Max Nikoff" is a psuedonym for "Ulli Lommel"--and
frankly I wouldn't be a bit surprised if it were--this is just another
godawful shitheap of a movie that has absolutely nothing to do with Ulli Lommel and instead with Nola Roeper and the Hollywood House of Horror.
Continue reading "MUMMY MANIAC" »
Once again, Anchor Bay salvages the darkest depths of 1980s video
store fare to recover a classic. Funny, but they very seldom seem to
dredge the turkeys out of the lake, rather sticking to fantastic
treasure ships. And this one will be no different--welcome to Lamberto
Bava and Dario Argento's great Italian nightmare, DEMONS. In a move that displays why the video store is your greatest and
safest entertainment value, DEMONS offers a special treat--a free
screening of a horror film at the local theatre, the Metropol, courtesy
of a guy in a truly freaky metal half-mask. Those expecting a simple
night at the movies couldn't be more wrong, as in short order, people
abruptly start turning into insane monstrousities bent on murder and
destruction. Okay, the premise is pretty flimsy, but we're not here
for a deep and involved storyline--we're here to watch people try and
survive the theatre of horrors!
Continue reading "DEMONS (1985)" »
