Reviews

A truly stunning simulacrum of a 1970s giallo. The illusion is so convincing that I'd never have guessed it was made last year.

If you're not a fan of gialli, this one will do nothing to change your mind. It has no interest in covering new ground or breaking the well-worn mold, but if you treasure the thought of exploring a whole new one, this is the movie for you.

If we were judging by looks alone, this would be a solid ten, but some story issues (and not ones really typical of or inherent in the genre in my view) require a deduction.

I may change my mind on subsequent viewings, but I'd rate this a must-see for giallo fans. Non fans might be able to use this as a gateway, but it's probably better to start with the real thing.

While not as bad as the B.C. Thanksgiving special, which is truly horrible, this really isn't very good. Both the animation and the story are a vast improvement over the Thanksgiving effort, but the payoff, while strangely interesting in its attempt to make a point without resolving the fundamental time and space issues that recur in the B.C. universe, is spectacularly bizarre- especially in light of the overtly (and, I've always assumed, wantonly anachronistic) Christian elements of the comic strip.

I have both these atrocities on (a single) LaserDisc. They've not been released any other way as far as I know, and that's probably for the best, but if anyone ever needs evidence that B.C. isn't even a second rate property, look no further. There're good reasons this isn't aired every December.

I did enjoy the "B.C.'s Quest for Tires" video game on the Commodore 64 when I was a kid, though, so maybe it's not all bad. But still, Johnny Hart, Charles Schultz you ain't.

I knew this movie wouldn't be good, but I was utterly unprepared for the intense lack of either humor or horror.

In one scene, in an attempt to parody SCREAM, a character describes the rules to survive a parody. Ha ha. They forgot the first rule: know the material. And the second: be funny.

The movie spends a lot of time showing people using or holding alcohol, as if that were, in itself, funny or typical of dead teenager movies. Ditto for guns in schools, teenage pregnancies, masturbation, and extremely unlikely names.

This film is more a parody of what people who don't watch dead teenager movies think they're like than what they actually are. Not only does it miss the mark by a mile, but it has no sense of when to stop. The alleged "gags" are predictable, interminable, and extremely unfunny.

I am extremely angry that millions of dollars were spent on the production of this film that could have gone to something more useful.

Note to Stephen Nemeth, USA Network, and Lions Gate Films: I'll make you a better movie for a tenth the price. Give me a call.

Although the audio and video quality of this short isn't even up to the standards of its day (the documentary on the other side of the disc looks and sounds much better), Herbert's explanation is clear and extremely accessible. The disc plays as well now as it did twenty years ago, and the contents help to explain how and why.

This was a pilot for Fox that only aired once. It's basically another version of HBO's "Tales from the Crypt" with a different host (live, not animatronic). It's named after another of Gaines' EC comics which featured more action-oriented stories.

After Fox didn't pick it up, the two stories were repackaged as episodes of "Tales from the Crypt" and are aired that way to this day.

I don't believe the original version is available anywhere unless you taped it off the air as I did. When I find that tape, I'll fill in the rest of this page. :-)

The two episodes probably don't stick out among the regular "Tales from the Crypt" ones, and the show won't be back, so there's not much to review. It's more of a footnote to the HBO series.

I recently bought a bunch of Argento movies on laserdisc because I'd seen a few and really liked them. I was pleased to find that the new titles in my collection are really good as well.

This film was Argento's first as director, and it's easy to see how he got work after that- it's great. It begins with an intriguing premise- that a witness to an attack saw more than he perceived- and pays off with a nice thriller.

My only beef is that I rewatched the beginning after it was over and, well, try it for yourself.

If you liked this and can stomach some much more extreme gore, try TENEBRAE. Maybe you shouldn't watch them back-to-back as I did, but give it a spin some time.

I wrote the alternate versions section, and I'll add here that the director's cut (GHOST BRIGADE on laserdisc, I don't know if you can get it anywhere else) is much better than the version called THE KILLING BOX, which I've seen on cable.

I don't much care for the shorter version because it tries to make the "good guy" better (by skipping his drug habit) and the "bad guys" worse (by not developing them as characters). All it really does is make the whole thing much more flat and the ending less interesting.

See if you can track down the longer version if the idea of a Civil War horror movie, or even another spin on HEART OF DARKNESS / APOCALYPSE NOW appeals to you. The other version's probably not worth your time.