There are bad horror films that make you question why you wasted 90 minutes of your life, and then there are the rare ones that feel like stumbling across an artifact in the woods—mud-caked, eerie, and humming with something just a little unholy. Eyes of Fire, Avery Crounse’s 1983 folk horror oddity, belongs to the … Read More “Eyes of Fire (1983): America’s First Haunted House Was the Frontier” »
Some horror movies terrify you with their imagery. Others crawl under your skin with atmosphere and dread. And then there are movies like Deadly Lessons, a 1983 made-for-TV horror “thriller” that dares to bore you to death. Broadcast on ABC—yes, network TV thought this was a good idea—this limp excuse for a slasher flick offers … Read More “Deadly Lessons (1983): When the Real Horror Is Surviving 96 Minutes of This” »
There’s something charming about Cross Country (1983), a Canadian erotic crime thriller that plays like a road movie conceived after one too many late-night viewings of Body Heat and Smokey and the Bandit. Directed by Paul Lynch—the man who gave us Prom Night—this movie proves that Canada in the 1980s was perfectly capable of producing … Read More “Cross Country (1983): Sex, Hitchhikers, and Michael Ironside’s Permanent Scowl” »
There are bad horror movies, and then there are horror movies that feel like a prank the cast is playing on the audience. The Being (1983), Jackie Kong’s directorial debut, is firmly in the second category. It’s not so much a movie as it is a dare: How long can you watch before you start … Read More “The Being (1983): Idaho Potatoes, Nuclear Waste, and the Monster Nobody Ordered” »
By 1983, the Amityville house had already burned through more sequels and spinoffs than most suburban cul-de-sacs burn through “For Sale” signs. You’d think by then audiences would have grown tired of the Dutch Colonial with the beady-eyed windows, but no. Hollywood—much like the evil entity under the floorboards—just kept dragging the corpse of this … Read More “Amityville 3-D (1983): The House That Won’t Stay Dead—And Thank God For It” »
There are bad movies, and then there are movies that feel like they were made by accident—like someone tripped over a camera in the dark, caught some footage, and thought, “Well, let’s just splice it together and call it a slasher.” Unhingedfalls firmly into the latter category. This 1982 “slasher” (and I use the term … Read More “Unhinged (1982) – A Slasher Film in Search of a Reason to Exist” »
If Japanese wrestling ever needed a mob boss, Masahiro Chono filled the role in spades. Born in Seattle but forged in the crucible of New Japan Pro-Wrestling, Chono grew from clean-cut prospect to leather-clad menace, the kind of man who could walk into an arena wearing shades at midnight and make the whole building flinch. … Read More “Masahiro Chono: The Godfather in Black” »
Christophe Gans’ Brotherhood of the Wolf is a psychotic matinee stitched together with velvet gloves and muddy boots. It’s 18th-century France, but only if you imagine France through the cracked lens of a deranged comic book artist. There’s powdered wigs, there’s secret societies, there’s martial arts in the rain, and yes, a beast in the … Read More “Brotherhood of the Wolf (2001): A French Monster Dressed in Silk and Blood” »
Tall, blonde, and radiant, Lana Clarkson built a devoted cult following with her roles in fantasy-adventure films. Off-screen, she had a warm smile and a larger-than-life personality that lit up every room she entered. Friends recall that at nearly six feet tall – often even taller in heels – and with an infectious laugh, “everybody … Read More “Lana Clarkson: Hollywood Dreams, Cult Movie Stardom, and a Tragic End” »
Emerge from the haze of 1970s softcore cinema and you’ll find Uschi Digard – a woman who spent her career baring all on screen while keeping her real self tucked mysteriously away. In her heyday, Uschi was the ultimate contradiction: an intellectual polyglot raised under strict European nuns who became a top-heavy queen of American … Read More “The Wild Life and Wry Legacy of Uschi Digard” »
