Martin Scorcese has spent the last four decades creating work that has ranged from masterpieces to atrocities. For every Taxi Driver or Raging Bull, he has also been responsible for a Boxcar Bertha or The Last Waltz. He has become most known for his gangster epics, including Mean Streets, Goodfellas and The Departed, although he [...]
Published on: 4th March, 2010
Having been the author and inspiration for such classics as Carrie, Salem’s Lot and Christine, it was inevitable that one day Stephen King would try his hand at directing. He had, after all, expressed disappointment at Stanley Kubrick’s adaptation of The Shining, so by 1986 the time had come for him to show what he [...]
Published on: 3rd March, 2010
Forty-one year old Timothy Olyphant has been struggling for over a decade to find the suitable vehicle for his charming-yet-somewhat demented persona. Gone in 60 Seconds and Dreamcatcher, his career has recently flirted with the mainstream with roles in Hitman and Live Free or Die Hard. With neither assassin nor villain bringing him major success, [...]
Published on: 14th February, 2010
Much like the Hollywood of today, the early 1980s saw a sudden and somewhat brief revival of 3D, with even popular franchises such as Jaws and Friday the 13th jumping on the bandwagon. Following on from Damiano Damiani’s disturbing prequel Amityville II: The Possession (which surpassed the original in every way), cult producer Dino De [...]
Published on: 14th February, 2010
In the wake of the international success of George A. Romero’s seminal masterpiece Night of the Living Dead in the late 1960s, filmmakers around the world began to take a renewed interest in the tired zombie formula. Amongst those that would make an impact were Amando de Ossorio’s La noche del terror ciego (Tombs of [...]
Published on: 6th February, 2010
Many horror movies of recent years have promised to capture the raw feel and visual style of the late 1970s and early ’80s. The dawn of the home video, this was an era in which advancements in prosthetic effects and the accessibility of cult exploitation flicks caused a major revival in the genre. Whilst Adam [...]
Published on: 30th January, 2010
If Hollywood eventually lost faith in Roland Emmerich and decided to give him restricted budgets then the end result could be something like Quantum Apocalypse. Following the filmmakers obsession with mankind pulling together in order to overcome a natural disaster, Justin Jones’ relatively low budget thriller plays out like one-part The Day After Tomorrow and [...]
Published on: 24th January, 2010
Of all the actors to become stars of the action genre during the 1980s, none of them took their work quite so seriously as Steven Seagal. Whilst Arnold Schwarzenegger, Sylvester Stallone, Jean-Claude Van Damme and even Dolph Lundgren were aware of how over the top their work was and would at times even poke [...]
Published on: 21st January, 2010
Whilst claims that Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill! is a feminist movie seem a little inaccurate, there is no denying that exploitation king Russ Meyer loved women. Boasting big attitude and bigger cleavage, his output during the sixties and seventies help establish the nudie cuties and provide young actresses with more prominent roles. No longer were [...]
Published on: 20th January, 2010
Whilst Class of 1999 was less of an official sequel and more of a continuation of themes previously explored in Class of 1984, Class of 1999 II: The Substitute would eventually appear in 1994, rounding off the loose trilogy of movies that began with a stylish and intelligent exploitation thriller and came to a conclusion [...]