Some road trips are about self-discovery. Some are about sightseeing. And some are about unwittingly sharing the backseat of your car with a mullet-sporting serial killer and his childlike girlfriend who thinks Diet Dr. Pepper is a food group. Kalifornia (1993) firmly falls into the third category. Directed by Dominic Sena in his feature debut, … Read More “Kalifornia: A Road Trip with Brad Pitt, Juliette Lewis, and America’s Worst Airbnb Guests” »
The early ’90s were a strange time for horror. America was busy churning out slashers on life support and Stephen King TV miniseries that looked like they were shot in your neighbor’s basement. Meanwhile, across the world, New Zealand quietly gave us one of the most bizarre and beautiful Gothic horror films of the decade: … Read More “Jack Be Nimble (1993): A Gothic Fairy Tale Dipped in Battery Acid” »
Every once in a while, Hollywood—or in this case, a direct-to-video basement with a fog machine—decides to dig up a perfectly fine cult film and beat it to death with a sequel. Enter The Hidden II, a follow-up so unwanted and so half-baked that it makes you want to apologize to your VHS player for … Read More “The Hidden II (1993): Proof That Some Sequels Should Stay Hidden” »
If you ever wondered what would happen if The Lawnmower Man mated with Wes Craven’s Shocker in a RadioShack parking lot, you’d get Ghost in the Machine—a movie so dumb it makes Clippy from Microsoft Word look like HAL 9000. Directed by Rachel Talalay, this cinematic junk file tries to sell you the idea that … Read More “Ghost in the Machine (1993): When Your Microwave Has a Higher Body Count Than Jason Voorhees” »
Most Civil War movies are about brother fighting brother, but Ghost Brigade (1993) asks the question no historian dared scribble in the margins: what if both brothers came back as zombies and kept fighting anyway? It’s a film that blends history with horror, politics with pulp, and dignity with complete nonsense—and somehow manages to walk … Read More “Ghost Brigade: When the Civil War Met the Walking Dead” »
Some movies slip through the cracks of history because they’re underrated gems. Others, like Full Eclipse, were shoved into HBO’s late-night programming lineup because even the Syfy Channel said, “nah, that’s too dumb for us.” Directed by Anthony Hickox and starring Mario Van Peebles and Bruce Payne, this “sci-fi crime thriller” is proof that cocaine … Read More “Full Eclipse (1993): Bad Moon Rising on Basic Cable” »
Let’s get this out of the way up front: Double, Double, Toil and Trouble is less a Halloween movie and more a feature-length advertisement for the Olsen twins’ ability to squint adorably while reading lines written by someone who clearly lost a bet with Shakespeare. It’s 91 minutes of pumpkin-colored punishment, the cinematic equivalent of … Read More “Double, Double, Toil and Trouble (1993): The Olsen Twins vs. Evil, Bad Acting, and Viewer Patience” »
There’s something inherently fun about the word doppelgänger. It suggests mystery, horror, a psychological duel with yourself, maybe a German opera singer lurking in your mirror. Unfortunately, Avi Nesher’s Doppelganger: The Evil Within doesn’t lean into any of that—unless your idea of horror is watching Drew Barrymore fight her own career choices in 1993. This … Read More “Doppelganger (1993): Drew Barrymore Fights Her Evil Twin, the Script” »
Every so often, a film arrives that reminds you not all movies are meant to be watched—some are meant to be endured, like community service or an especially aggressive colonoscopy. Dollman vs. Demonic Toys (1993) is one such cinematic punishment. A movie so creatively bankrupt that it spends half its runtime showing you clips from … Read More “Dollman vs. Demonic Toys: When Cinema Stopped Trying” »
Some films are lost classics. Others are forgotten masterpieces waiting for rediscovery. And then there’s The Dead Talk Back — a film that was shoved into a broom closet in 1957, left to collect dust, and then against all odds, dug up in 1993 like a cinematic corpse that should have stayed six feet under. … Read More “The Dead Talk Back (1957/1993): When Movies Refuse to Stay Buried” »