Cult

REVIEW – Maximum Overdrive

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 [...]

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REVIEW – Faster, Pussycat! Kill! Kill!

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 [...]

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REVIEW – Killer Car

Published on: 16th January, 2010

Along with Jesus Franco, cult French director Jean Rollin is one of the most overrated filmmakers in horror history. His movies are often banal, ridiculous, boring, incoherent and tedious, lacking any real redeeming features and serve as a reminder as to why the horror genre is given such a negative response from the majority [...]

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REVIEW – The Hitcher

Published on: 13th January, 2010

What Steven Spielberg’s Duel did for driving through the desert, Robert Harmon’s The Hitcher did for picking up strangers. Taking elements from road movies, slashers and even The Terminator, Rutger Hauer’s crazed antagonist was an unstoppable killing machine, intent on challenging the young hero to defend himself and defeat him. Supposedly inspired by [...]

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REVIEW – Mad Max 2: The Road Warrior

Published on: 7th January, 2010

George Miller’s breakthrough movie Mad Max became an unexpected success when it was released in 1979 and transformed its lead actor, Mel Gibson, into a huge star. Its performance at the box office and critical reaction prompted the filmmakers to return to the character just two years later, expanding the post-apocalyptic road movie element [...]

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REVIEW – The Exterminator

Published on: 6th January, 2010

Way back in the late 1970s and early ’80s vigilantes were all the rage. Following in the footsteps of the likes of Death Wish, Rolling Thunder and Mad Max was James Glickenhaus’ 1980 thriller The Exterminator. Starring Robert Ginty (who sadly passed away this year), Samantha Eggar and genre favourite Christopher George (City [...]

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REVIEW – Mutant

Published on: 30th December, 2009

The arena for low budget filmmaking was so vast during the 1980s that the drive-ins became awash with countless cheap productions: some exceeding their limitations whilst others worthy of nothing more than a bargain bin. One above average was Night Shadows, also known as Mutant, which was released with little fanfare in 1984 and [...]

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REVIEW – Basket Case

Published on: 29th December, 2009

The success of The Last House on the Left and The Texas Chainsaw Massacre in the mid-1970s convinced many young wannabe filmmakers that with just a camera, a few thousand dollars and no studio support they could produce movies that had a chance of being picked up by distributors and make a modest profit. [...]

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REVIEW – Shogun Assassin

Published on: 28th December, 2009

The existence of Japanese samurai movies broke into western pop culture during the 1970s but it was the release of 1980’s Shogun Assassin that they enjoyed mainstream success. Having starred as Bobby, the innocent city slicker forced to turn into a monster to defend himself from a clan of inbred cannibals, in Wes Craven’s low [...]

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REVIEW – Assault on Precinct 13

Published on: 28th December, 2009

Before introducing the world to Michael Myers and Snake Plissken, cult filmmaker John Carpenter had first entered the film industry with his student sci-fi spoof Dark Star. For his studio debut, he reworked Howard Hawks’ western classic Rio Bravo into an urban thriller that would first showcase his obsession with the John Wayne-style antihero. [...]

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