Summer of Fear (1978): Witchy Women, Equestrian Jealousy, and Lee Purcell’s Hair Stealing the Spotlight Back in the days when made-for-TV movies came with more melodrama than logic and less budget than a used horse trailer, Summer of Fear emerged from the cauldron of 1978 like a lukewarm spell gone slightly sideways. Based on the … Read More “Summer of Fear (1978): Witchy Women, Equestrian Jealousy, and Lee Purcell’s Hair Stealing the Spotlight” »
There are surfing movies, and then there’s Big Wednesday — the one where the party dies, the keg is empty, Vietnam knocks on the beach shack door, and nobody’s tan ever quite looks the same again. Part elegy, part wave-chasing daydream, Big Wednesday is the kind of movie that starts with beer bongs and ends … Read More “Big Wednesday (1978): A Bromantic Eulogy for Surfboards, Sunburns, and America’s Lost Innocence” »
There’s a specific corner of late-‘70s cinema that exists in the foggy limbo between Grease and disco-era afterschool specials, and Almost Summer parks itself there like a bored lifeguard waiting for a shift change. It’s not quite a comedy, not quite a drama, and not quite interesting enough to be either. But bless its bellbottomed … Read More “Almost Summer (1978): The Student Council Election That No One Asked For” »
There’s something almost poetic about a movie where the average man, played by Charles Bronson, spends 95% of his time worrying about watermelon crops—and 5% battling Mafia hitmen. It’s like The Godfather by way of a seed-spitting contest. Middle America meets organized crime, and the result is Mr. Majestyk — a lean, mean, melon-growing machine with … Read More “Mr. Majestyk – When Melons Meet Mobsters, and Bronson Just Wants to Farm in Peace” »
Kid Blue is the kind of movie that feels like someone tried to remake Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid after an acid trip and a bar fight. It’s part Western, part satire, part midlife crisis, and part “what in tarnation did I just watch?” This isn’t your grandpappy’s shoot-’em-up. Hell, it’s barely a Western. … Read More “Kid Blue (1973): A Western That Took Too Many Mushrooms on the Way to the Saloon” »
Some Westerns ride in with guns blazing. Dirty Little Billy shows up with bad skin, a hacking cough, and a ratty pair of boots that haven’t touched a bar of soap since the Civil War. It’s not pretty. It’s not heroic. It’s not even particularly fun. But somehow, in all its muddy, miserable glory, it’s … Read More “Dirty Little Billy (1972): The Spittoon-Stained Origin Story You Didn’t Ask For, but Kinda Admire Anyway” »
Let’s be honest — some movies don’t age like wine. They age like milk left in the sun. Stand Up and Be Counted is one of those films. Released in 1972 with all the subtlety of a NOW rally outside a hardware store, this is what Hollywood thought feminism looked like when it was still … Read More “Stand Up and Be Counted (1972): Feminism’s Big Screen Soft Launch, Sponsored by Shampoo Commercials and Empty Slogans” »
There are bad horror movies, and then there’s Necromancy — a film so sluggish, so narratively confused, it feels like it was shot on NyQuil in a basement with a Ouija board made from leftover deli meat. You’d expect a film about occult rituals and resurrecting the dead to at least try to be spooky. … Read More “Necromancy (1972): Orson Welles Phones It In From the Afterlife” »
Grindhouse, the 2007 collab from Pulp Fiction’s Quentin Tarantino and Death Proof director Robert Rodriguez, is a cinematic B-movie fever dream—a sweaty, rubber-scented tribute to 1970s exploitation flicks. The concept? Two full-length B-movie homages—Planet Terror and Death Proof—wrapped in trailers so gleefully rough-and-ready they look like someone burrowed them up from a cult cinema graveyard. … Read More “Grindhouse (2007) — A Double Feature That’s Equal Parts Love Letter and Lemon” »
Pale Blood is like biting into a jelly donut and discovering it’s mostly air. There’s a hint of flavor, a splash of gore, and some cool ideas bleeding around the edges, but the center? Hollow, my friend. Hollow like a vampire’s pulse. This is a movie that says, “Let’s make a vampire thriller,” and then … Read More “Pale Blood (1990): A Vampire Film That Could Use a Shot of Hemoglobin” »
