The Brain is, first and foremost, a film about control. Through the lens of speculative horror, director Ed Hunt pokes at the porous boundaries between mass media and individual agency, using a literal monstrous cerebrum as both antagonist and metaphor. In less capable hands – or even in more capable hands – this premise might … Read more
Jack Sholder’s follow-up to The Hidden is a quality buddy cop actionner starring Kiefer Sutherland as an undercover dick with a ‘tude and a ‘stash, and Lou Diamond Phillips as his Native American parter-in-crime-solving sidekick. It’s a shame that it falls through the genre cracks so often, it’s a taut copper caper with plenty of … Read more
Tim Burton’s Batman (1989) cast a very long shadow. It redefined what a superhero movie could be and set a tone that every comic book film of the 90s could (and did) effortlessly follow. Even the sequels couldn’t escape its influence, doubling down on spectacle and style until Batman and Robin eventually collapsed under the … Read more
There, wolf. If you’re a teenage zombie, your best friend’s a vampire, and your stepmother’s an alien, then you might want to sink your teeth into this long-forgotten mixed bag of mon-com kibble. My Mom’s A Werewolf (1989) is a Crown International release, which tells you what you need to know: fast, cheap, and chasing … Read more
The doctor is in… sane. That’s right, Dr. Giggles was discharged to home video today back in 1993, after an October 23rd, 1992 theatrical procedure. I have a special chamber in my heart for pre-Scream 90’s slashers. They tried so very hard to find relevance after the genre had proverbially jumped the shark at the … Read more
By the late 1980s, AIP had the model figured out. Shoot cheap. Sell loud. Ship it to video stores packed with big guns, bigger hair, and titles with the word “deadly” stamped on. Founded around 1986 by David Winters, David A. Prior, and Peter Yuval, AIP (that’s Action International Pictures, not the classic but defunct … Read more
I’ve said it before, ’95 was an amazing year for soundtracks, and Johnny delivered the goods with its blend of alterno techno-industrial that still screams peak 90s. This is from back when Hollywood didn’t quite understand cyberpunk. It understood fear of technology, of information slipping out of control, of the future likely giving us brain … Read more
The Witches of Eastwick hit home video today in 1988, after a June 1987 theatrical release. Now that’s one tough cocktail to mix – part psychodrama, part romantic comedy, part FX showcase, part power fantasy, part accidental allegory about small-town rot – and while a lot of it spills out of the shaker, when you … Read more
Diary of a Hitman showed up at exactly the wrong time and with the wrong attitude. This isn’t the clean, rain-slicked noir revival of the late ‘80s, and it’s not the neurotic, self-aware post-Tarantino 90s hitman boom of Grosse Point Blank and The Big Hit. It’s stuck in between – too slow for action junkies, … Read more
The early ’90s marked the high-water era of straight-to-video martial arts cinema. After the global success of Bloodsport (1988), major and minor B production companies recognized that audiences would reliably rent low-cost, high-kicking films so long as the selling points were clear: fighting, attitude, and more fighting. Theatrical cred was no longer necessary as shelf … Read more