Kenneth Branagh's second directorial effort makes his first one, Henry V, look downright modest. Any filmmaker (it bears repeating) will require no more taste or knowledge than the average high-school sophomore to think to impress somebody by aligning himself with Shakespeare. To attempt additionally to replicate the three-hatted juggling act …
Cheapo zombie comedy from New Zealand, in vigorously, aggressively bad taste. (That was the proud title of director Peter Jackson's first film: Bad Taste.) There are several laughs (the kung-fu clergyman: "I kick ass for the Lord!"), but nothing to compete with the quantities of blood, pus, severed limbs, entrails, …
Horror shocker with numerous actual shocks, from the maker of Raw Meat: Gary Sherman. While offering no narrative invention on the level of the earlier movie, this one nonetheless takes full advantage of the horror genre's -- and specifically the zombie subgenre's -- easy access to the subject of death. …
The trail of a cop killer leads from L.A. via Oklahoma to a White Supremacist enclave in Colorado. The sketchy policework is padded out and burdened down with moral righteousness about the mission itself and Wambaugh-esque bathos about the hero (divorce, drinking, overdue bills). Some odd bits of casting: William …
An old-fashioned damsel-in-distress story, scarcely surprising considering it's literally an old damsel-in-distress story. The novel on which it is based was finished in 1963 by Charles Williams, one of a legion of American thriller writers -- the Edgar Allan Poe Brigade -- better appreciated in other parts of the globe …
The scary (and gory) things on screen may be zombies, but the real monster here is the troll in the director’s chair. Jim Jarmusch and friends (Bill Murray, Adam Driver, Tilda Swinton, et alia) have a laugh at the audience’s expense with a film that starts off sounding good, looking …
Set in the 1860s, the fiercely independent French Canadian Vivienne Le Coudy embarks on a relationship with Danish immigrant Holger Olsen.
A brother and sister (Eric Bana and Olivia Wilde) are forced to adopt a strict “shoot now, ask questions later” policy after a casino robbery they masterminded goes terribly wrong. That same day, a boxer (Charlie Hunnam) freshly sprung from the clink accidentally kills his former associate. I suppose there …
Writer and director Karen Moncrieff, of Blue Car, goes at the title figure -- not just dead, but brutally murdered -- by way of five separate storylines, one after another, some more tangential than others, all populated by horridly stunted humans. Structurally intriguing, but grindingly grim and condescending. With Toni …
Cops and zombies, with a sense of humor that's supposed to be black but is really only dim. Treat Williams and Joe Piscopo are the plainclothes partners on the case, well paired for lantern jaws, though Williams can't match Piscopo's muscles, which the latter has obviously been working hard on …
An enterprising young newspaper reporter (Steve Talley) reluctantly joins forces with his daily’s ripened, gun-toting bad egg (Eric Roberts) to crack a 19-year-old racially motivated murder in Amos, Alabama. The Alabama Tourism Department has standing to bring suit against screenwriter Mark Ethridge for his mildewed depiction of the Deep South. …
Evil is afoot in Andrew Wyeth farm country, where a sect of isolationist religious fanatics identified as "Hittites" (they, we are told, "make the Amish look like swingers") keep guard against the influence of the "incubus," and turn a cold shoulder to the brazen Hollywood starlets who occupy the farms …
A free-willed automaton named Beebee, muttering and sputtering like a cousin to Popeye and Donald Duck, gets blown to bits by a reclusive old shotgun-toting hag -- a turn of events comparable to the deaths of Janet Leigh in Psycho and John Wayne in The Cowboys. But the teenage whiz …
Christmas action horror thriller directed by René Manzor.
Bloody story of a bootcamp for soldiers of fortune, where people are used for target practice. Directed by David A. Prior, starring Cameron Mitchell, Troy Donahue, Ted Prior, Fritz Matthews, and David Campbell.