Most of the output of horror studio Blumhouse does little for me.  There is the occasional high-concept fare, but I find most of their stuff to be the kind of unmarkable fright films I never find scary.  You can keep your twitchy, fast-slow-fast, spider-walking all over the walls and ceilings undead things. So it really […]

Nice seems to often to be used as a derogatory term.  That’s a shame, because sometimes one wants a movie that is simply “nice”. 1938’s Penny Paradise is such a film, an effortless confection that is very easy to watch and which is quite enjoyable.  The plot ties itself into some interesting knots I was […]

If there’s one thing I can say about the sci-fi movies Roger Corman produced in the late 70’s and early 80’s aren’t, it’s that they aren’t boring.  Not that they’re necessarily any good.  At least 1978’s Starcrash is rated PG.  I didn’t care to experience any more gory excess like what filled Forbidden World, or […]

I was too old for it when it was a thing, but I remember Where In the World Is Carmen Sandiego? was big thing with kids at one time.  1957’s Pickup Alley is like Where In the World Is Trevor Howard?, which I doubt would be as popular.  Also, Howard plays an international narcotics trafficker, […]

If there’s one thing a movie like 2015’s The Revenant always does for me, is it reminds me I would be completely useless at any moment in history prior to…let’s say the middle of the 20th century.  I am barely a functioning human being as it is, even with all the technological advances we have […]

When I was a really little kid, I thought the front yard of my grandparent’s house was huge.  Admittedly, the house is set further back from the street than any other in that neighborhood, but it didn’t take me long to realize the yard was nowhere near as large as elementary-school-aged me believed. All it […]

2017’s Suburbicon feels like somebody trying too hard to be the Coen brothers, something which never works out well.  What is really confusing is director George Clooney authored the script with the brothers, so now we have the Coens participating in a poor imitation of themselves.  Matt Damon stars in this alongside Julianne Moore and, […]

1973’s The Loreley’s Grasp was made by the same people who made 1974’s remarkably bad Night of the Sorcerers.  The only reason I watched the earlier movie is because it was paired with the later film on the same Shout Factory disc.  I set my expectations extremely low going in, and only watched this so […]

1957’s The Long Haul is a UK noir starring Victor Mature as an American who, upon getting his discharge from the service, finds himself making house in Liverpool with his wife (Gene Anderson) and son (Michael Wade).  She arranges a job driving long-haul trucks for her uncle (Wensley Pithey). Mature is less than thrilled with […]

While watching 1973’s The Final Programme, I found myself desperate to know if this was a completely ad-libbed movie.  Despite having some attractive, and expensive-looking sets, this is a movie where characters go from one location to another but often without any reason I could discern.  They exchange dialog, but without any real communication seeming […]

Mill Creek is a media distributor which gets a great deal of cinema and television onto DVD and bluray, much of which would be unlikely to find release on physical media if not for them.  They get a lot of flak for most of their releases being bare bones.  I have also read complaints about […]

Legendary UK film studio Hammer continues to fascinate me.  Though largely known for their horror output, that really only began in earnest with 1958’s Horror of Dracula.  Prior to that, and continuing for some time after, the studio was more focused on science fiction.  In 1955, the studio had a major success with their film […]

2024’s Stopmotion recently left me frustrated, and I thought hard about why that was.  I didn’t find anything in it to be scary, but there were some respectably creepy moments.  It is very much in the mold of contemporary, art-house horror, yet it still has more of a plot than many similar films I have […]

Irene Dunne used to be a huge star, so much so that she was billed over Cary Grant for screwball comedy classic The Awful Truth in 1937.  She was still top-billed in the similarly madcap Lady in a Jam five years later, though this is nowhere near as sharp as that earlier film. Something feels […]