Miguel as portrayed by Anthony Dileo in 1985’s Day of the Dead. My favorite George Romero heel. He might have once been a swell guy, and certainly Sarah thought so for a while, but by the time we’re aquatinted with the private, he’s been beaten into this loathsome, abusive and pathetic character. A shattered, self-loathing … Read more
Empire’s Last Stand in B-Movie History It was the end of an era. David (Puppet Master) Schmoeller’s film was the last officially completed Empire Picture before the company was seized and folded into Epic. It’s this same financial snafu that left other Charles Band productions like Arena and Robot Jox in release purgatory. Cacacombs was … Read more
Bargain Bins, Box Art, and B-Movie Gold “Cellar Dweller (1988) is one of those classic rental titles that seemed to fall through the floorboards for almost 20 years. After the Empire collapse, and later the New World implosion, the only copies you could find were the bargain-bin dwelling low quality EP ‘Starmaker’ re-issues from ‘91. … Read more
Art Deco, Ghosts and Theatrics “From here on, it gets really scary!” That’s the immortal Geoffrey Rush as Stephen Price, channelling Vincent Price (in spirit and surname), in William Malone’s House on Haunted Hill (1999). This film is one of those rare late-90s horror gems that somehow manages to be campy, grotesque, and genuinely creepy … Read more
Horror, Humanity, and Mid-90s Morality I love horror anthologies, it’s easily one of the best go-to genres for a late night Halloween spook-a-thon. And while the 90s experienced a bit of a drought, one the better ones to come out of the decade was Rusty Cundieff’s Tales from the Hood. See, I’m one of those … Read more
A Valentine’s Day Classic With Bite The Silence of the Lambs was released on home video today in 1991, after a February 14th theatrical release. Valentine’s Day. Best enjoyed with some Fava beans and a nice Chianti. I like to keep this timeless classic on the ‘Ed Gein’ shelf along with Psycho, Texas Chainsaw Massacre, … Read more
The Depths of the Underwater-Aliens Craze By the late 80s, ‘Alien Knockoffs’ had been a video store staple for almost a decade, hell, it’s practically its own sub-genre. Thanks to Roger Corman and other low-budget auteurs, the Horror section was replete with titles like Galaxy of Terror, Forbidden World, Inseminoid, The Terror Within, Creature… But … Read more