As I’m writing this, countless fans the world over are going to say goodbye to the original X-Men Franchise with Logan, the story of Wolverine’s trek across America with a young mutant girl capable of great destruction. While it’s a fantastic film, and one that every superhero fan should definitely see, it’s easy to lose sight of the fact that Logan is, in fact, the latest installment in a minor subgenre of sci-fi action films that’s slowly been trickling back to life: people-on-the-run-with-a-super-child. In addition to Logan, we saw it only recently with Midnight Special, which saw Joel Edgerton and Michael Shannon attempting to transport a psychic child to a special destination in Florida; and last year’s Netflix phenomenon Stranger Things was entirely built around this archetype, with the usual adult protector role switched out for the D&D boys.
Read MoreLady in White (1988) #BluRay
With the frequency with which Hollywood productions change or fall apart, the history of the industry is littered with “what ifs” and “almosts.” We’ll never get to see what would’ve happened had Alejandro Jodorowsky directed Dune; we’ll probably never see the result of Orson Welles filming Charles Williams’ Dead Calm. On the other hand, there are productions which do see it to fruition that are so out of the ordinary for their creators, or so far removed from any other films out there, that they function as the fulfilment of certain what-if scenarios without even involving any of the parties in question.
Read MoreGun Woman (2014) #BluRay
I’ve long lamented the dilution of the term “grindhouse” in the modern horror era. Thanks to the rampant reissuing of a very specific type of grindhouse film, modern filmmakers have come to the conclusion that everything showcased on 42nd Street was an over-the-top, endless bloodbath filled with gallows humor and devoid of any subtext, resulting in a slew of modern “grindhouse” movies built on precisely that formula. Thankfully, we have filmmakers like Kurando Mitsutake, whose Gun Woman—available from Scream Factory on Blu-ray—may be one of the finest true grindhouse offerings of the decade.
Read MoreThe Howling II: Your Sister is a Werewolf (1985) #BluRay
When someone with a resume like Christopher Lee is able to single out one of his films as being among the worst, you know you’ve got to take a look. Such is the case with 1985’s The Howling II, out from Scream Factory on Blu-ray. After reporter Karen White turns into a werewolf on live television, her brother Ben and coworker Jenny are contacted by Crosscoe, a sort of werewolf Van Helsing, who tells them that Karen’s transformation has cosmic implications.
Read MoreToolbox Murders 2 (2013) #BluRay
The saying goes “Ask and ye shall receive.” Toolbox Murders 2, out on Blu-ray from Scream Factory, woefully demonstrates that, unfortunately, sometimes you’ll receive even if you don’t ask. A re-imagining of the 70s proto-slasher, 2004’s Toolbox was perhaps one of the biggest disappointments of that decade, due to the unforeseen budget crunch that crippled it mid-production.
Read MoreThe Guardian (1990) #BluRay
Sometimes, lightning strikes twice. It happened for Coppola with Godfather I and II; it happened for James Cameron with Terminator I and II. For Martin Scorsese, it’s happened so many times that he spends his off-season working as an electrical conductor for Yellowstone.
Read MoreSleepaway Camp (1983) #BluRay
At their heart, the best horror movies aren’t really horror movies at all. It may sound like an odd assessment, but, even a cursory glance of the classics of the genre will turn up films that are, both literally and figuratively, about child abuse and neglect, infidelity and betrayal, post-traumatic stress disorder, the urban/rural culture clash, and the role of violent media in modern society. Horror is merely the medium in which these unsavory topics can be openly addressed and discussed; there’s only so much that polite society wants to acknowledge about itself, at least within the confines of normal, everyday, human interactions.
Read MoreCandyman: Farewell to the Flesh (1995) #BluRay
The 1990s was a difficult time for horror. After the monumental success it enjoyed in the 1980s, it appeared as if the genre had briefly lost its way, with the great wave of the slashers giving way to a veritable wasteland in the first half of the decade; and while Wes Craven’s Scream helped to make fright cinema relevant again, it wouldn’t be until the early 00s’ that consistently quality films began to appear again in the numbers they’d once enjoyed. As such, it makes sense that a confused, frustrated decade would give birth to some confused, frustrated franchises.
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