Directed by Peter Carter | Starring Jeff East, Rod Steiger, Angie Dickinson, and a bunch of snow There are two kinds of fever you can get from spending too long in the wilderness: one is hypothermia, the other is Klondike Fever—and I’m still not sure which one’s worse. One kills you quickly. The other drags … Read More “Klondike Fever (1979): Gold, Cold, and a Whole Lotta Old” »
Directed by Claude Chabrol | Starring Isabelle Huppert, Stéphane Audran, Jean Carmet Claude Chabrol’s Violette is the cinematic equivalent of a poisoned macaron: it looks classy, smells vaguely French, and might kill you slowly from the inside. Based on the real-life case of Violette Nozière—France’s most notorious teenage parricide—this 1978 film serves up murder with … Read More “Violette (1978): Mommie Dearest, with Arsenic and Lace” »
Directed by Claude Chabrol | Starring Donald Sutherland, Aude Landry, Lisa Langlois Oh, Blood Relatives. A film so quiet, so somber, so Canadian that you could practically hear the apologetic rustle of a maple leaf every time someone died. Directed by the French master of moral ambiguity Claude Chabrol—here slumming it in English—and starring a … Read More “Blood Relatives (1978): Incest, Raincoats, and the Soft Murmur of Cinematic Drowsiness” »
Directed by Jim Wynorski | Starring Traci Lords, Arthur Roberts, Ace Mask Every few decades, someone decides to remake a 1950s sci-fi film, strip it down to its bare essentials, and then somehow remove even those. In walks Not of This Earth (1988), a Roger Corman-produced “remake” of his own 1957 cheapie, now repackaged with … Read More “Not of This Earth (1988): Roger Corman’s Latex-Fueled Misfire, Featuring Traci Lords and an Alien Who Forgot His Lines” »
Directed by Jim Wynorski | Starring Angie Dickinson, Robert Culp, Danielle Brisebois Ah, the glorious 1980s—an era where sequels were churned out with the care and finesse of a cafeteria meatloaf. And right there, flopped on your plastic tray, slathered in Corman-produced gravy, is Big Bad Mama II. It’s got shootouts. It’s got boobs. It’s … Read More “Big Bad Mama II (1987): A Sequel Nobody Asked For, Starring a Machine Gun and Angie Dickinson’s Brass Nerve” »
Directed by Nico Mastorakis | Starring Daniel Hirsch, Kelli Maroney, Nicole Rio If you’ve ever thought, What if Rambo got drunk and wandered into a rejected Friday the 13th sequel?, then congratulations: you might be Nico Mastorakis. Or you may have accidentally watched The Zero Boys, a film that somehow manages to make paramilitary cosplay, … Read More “The Zero Boys (1986): The Only Thing Missing Is a Script—and Talent, Budget, Logic, etc.” »
Directed by Terry Bedford | Starring Peter Coyote, Mel Smith, Billie Whitelaw There are bad movies. Then there are movies that feel like a long, slow hallucination triggered by eating expired cotton candy in a haunted fairground bathroom. Slayground is the latter. It’s noir if noir were concussed. It’s crime drama if the drama forgot … Read More “Slayground (1983): A Carnival of Confusion and Criminally Bad Decisions” »
Directed by Marc Rocco | Starring Catherine Mary Stewart, Cameron Dye, Steve Railsback There are movies about music that capture the soul of rock and roll. Almost Famous, Sid and Nancy, This Is Spinal Tap. And then there’s Scenes from the Goldmine, which captures the soul of being passed out backstage, face down in a … Read More “Scenes from the Goldmine (1987): Fool’s Gold and Rock n’ Roll Regret” »
A Firm Recommendation to Apply Ice to Your Eyeballs After Viewing Ah, Bodily Harm. A title that warns you upfront—and delivers. Watching this 1995 erotic thriller is like slipping into a warm bath of clichés, only to realize the water’s filled with expired body oil and half-written dialogue. It wants to be steamy, dangerous, and … Read More “Bodily Harm (1995): The Only Injury Here Is to Your Brain Cells” »
Directed by Thom Eberhardt | Starring Catherine Mary Stewart, Kelli Maroney, Robert Beltran The apocalypse has never looked so good. Night of the Comet is a gloriously weird slice of 1980s cinema that dares to ask: what if the end of the world came with shoulder pads, zombie mall cops, and a killer synth-pop soundtrack? … Read More “Night of the Comet (1984): Valley Girls, Zombies, and the End of the World” »
