Cory Callahan’s Yellow Future clocks in at around nine minutes and aside from being an incredible throwback to Italian cinema’s giallo period, it’s a remarkably polished film that achieves a lot in such a short amount of time. Callahan’s Kaleidoscopic eye and original soundtrack sets the tone for a futuristic story about a madman killing actresses in Los Angeles. A determined detective is out to stop the killer, who believes he is a true artist and murder is the highest art form.
In the opening scene, Callahan immediately establishes his connection to giallo cinema by showing the masked killer slipping into …read more

My familiarity with the nunsploitation genre has mainly been with the Italian and Spanish films. This makes sense to me because of the influence Catholicism has had on the population. However, upon viewing Norifumi Suzuki’s School of the Holy Beast, it seems that I have some uncharted territory to explore in Japan.
Nunsploitation had its peak in the 70’s and explored the conflicted lives of sexy nuns, who were either tormented by their vows of celibacy or happy to rebel against it–naked. While directors like Joe D’Amato and Jess Franco were taking their audiences inside the repressive exploits of young women …read more

Recent films like Paranormal Activity and The House of the Devil owe a debt of gratitude to Herk Harvey’s cult classic, Carnival of Souls. The film was made for a mere $33,000 and relies on dramatic black-and-white photography and a dreamy atmosphere to conjure the horror beneath the everyday. A young organist’s life is transformed after a car crash and she becomes haunted by a ghostly figure.
From the start of the film (there are no opening credits) we are jolted into Mary Henry’s (Candace Hilligoss) world. A drag race sends Mary’s car plummeting into a river, but she mysteriously survives …read more

The Diablo Cody (Juno) penned high school horror flick Jennifer’s Body will be released on DVD and Blu-ray December 29 and features an all-new unrated extended cut. I didn’t see the movie in theaters so this was my first viewing of the film and I went straight for the sexy, unrated gore. I’m sad to say I don’t have a Blu-ray player but the features that come with it look decent–including video diaries, deleted scenes, a gag reel and a few documentary featurettes. My DVD featured an audio commentary which I had no desire to listen to after watching Megan Fox …read more

I was able to catch an early screening of Universal Pictures’ The Fourth Kind in New York City last weekend and have been avoiding writing my review since then. There were parts of the movie that I found absolutely frightening but the film’s gimmicky technique was completely distracting which left me annoyed and disappointed.
‘The fourth kind’ is a term used to describe an alien abduction. The film is set in modern day Nome, Alaska where supposedly since the 1960’s, a large number of the population is reported missing every year. Milla Jovovich plays psychologist Dr. Abigail Tyler who began videotaping sessions with traumatized …read more

Admittedly, my only experience with the Wrong Turn series was the original and aside from Eliza Dushku looking bored as usual, I was surprisingly entertained. I skipped the second installment for no particular reason, but may have to watch it to get my Henry Rollins fix. Fast forward to now and when I received my DVD in the mail I was curious to see where things left off with the creepy hillbillies that torture and murder innocents in the woods.
Wrong Turn 3: Left for Dead starts out with a bang–slaying the scantily clad within the first five minutes of the …read more

Ti West’s latest film, The House of the Devil, struck a chord with me having grown up in the midst of the infamous Satanic Panic. There is an impenetrable psychosexual anxiety surrounding the time that in many ways still haunts me to this day. Oh, and just to be clear, I never believed I was ravaged by the horned god and his stealthy cohorts as hot as that sounds. You need not hark back to the sordid days of satanic sacrifice to fully appreciate West’s film—a masterfully crafted genre piece that perfectly embodies a sense of dread and slow-boiled terror. …read more

Is it possible to hate the artist but love the art? This was the conversation I recently had with friends over dinner. Of course, Roman Polanski’s recent arrest by Swiss police was mentioned. And then I brought up Lars von Trier’s latest film Antichrist, which elicited controversy at the Cannes Film Festival and beyond.
A leader of the contentious (and oft called pretentious) Dogme 95, producer of hardcore porn (Zentropa) and self proclaimed best director in the world–von Trier is truly a man of extremes. People either hate him or think he’s an absolute genius. He has admitted to suffering from …read more

Paranormal Activity is one of those movies I feared I might not like after the hype that surrounded it started to grow, daily. I’ve had that experience with several flicks before and it’s such a bummer. I really wanted to like this film. I thought Paramount’s marketing strategy was sharp and director Oren Peli’s DIY approach won me over, but every time someone else would rave about the scare factor, I would cringe. It’s 3:07 AM right now and I can finally say with certainty that the scare is there. Paranormal Activity stays with you long after leaving the theater and …read more

It’s a double feature for me this evening and Zombieland started things off right! A perfect balance of many dualities; horror/comedy, hero/sidekick, monster/human, romance/action–Zombieland offers a little something for everyone.
Woody Harrrelson and Jesse Eisenberg are the perfect odd couple as Tallahassee and Columbus, who meet during their travels post apocalypse and tag team zombies across America. Tallahassee “goes hulk” on every zombie he comes across, but underneath his outrageous behavior he’s hurting as much as Columbus–his anxious and phobic counterpart. Still, hilarity ensues as kill after kill, our dynamic duo kick some serious ass and make us laugh like hell along …read more