Monsters, Guns, Laughs, Strangeness. These are the things that make up this week’s list of cinema. Some classy, some nit so much. Let us dive in to another week of what’s coming to the video store…
Starring Charles Bronson, a LAPD detective is on the trail of a very handsome young man who had been seducing and slashing many young women to death. J. Lee Thompson (1983)
In the far Northern Hemisphere, the small town of Barrow, Alaska, experiences a solid month of darkness every year. Though most of the residents head south for the winter, some townspeople remain behind. However, those that stay regret their decision when, one year, hungry vampires descend on Barrow to feed. Sheriff Eben (Josh Hartnett), his wife (Melissa George) and a dwindling band of survivors must try to last until dawn breaks over Barrow’s monthlong twilight.
In this Bollywood horror, a woman fights to protect her daughter from her abusive husband’s vengeful ghost, a supernatural horror rooted in domestic trauma and possession. Bipasha Basu, Nawazuddin Siddiqui, Doyel Dhawan, Suparn Verma, 2013.
The Lone Rangers need their demo tape played at a radio station so they take it hostage and hilarity follows…
Unfolding in a series of eight mythic vignettes, this late work by Akira Kurosawa was inspired by the beloved director’s own nighttime visions, along with stories from Japanese folklore. In a visually sumptuous journey through the master’s imagination, tales of childlike wonder give way to apocalyptic apparitions: a young boy stumbles on a fox wedding in a forest; a soldier confronts the ghosts of the war dead; a power-plant meltdown smothers a seaside landscape in radioactive fumes. Interspersed with reflections on the redemptive power of creation, including a richly textured tribute to Vincent van Gogh (who is played by Martin Scorsese), Akira Kurosawa’s Dreams is both a showcase for its maker’s artistry at its most unbridled and a deeply personal lament for a world at the mercy of human ignorance.
Whole Lotta Alien…
Starring Rock Hudson, an upper-class widow falls in love with a much younger, down-to-earth nurseryman, much to the disapproval of her children and criticism of her country club peers. Douglas Sirk (1955)
Three women. Three separate lives. Three unique versions of fear … whi ch become a single journey into terror.
Harry Angel (Mickey Rourke) is a private detective contracted by Louis Cyphre (Robert De Niro) to track down the iconic singer Johnny Favorite. However, everybody that Angel questions about Favorite seems to meet a tragic demise. Eventually the trail leads Angel to New Orleans where he learns that Favorite had dabbled in the black arts. As Favorite’s whereabouts and true identity become clear, Angel learns that being hired by Cyphre was not a random choice.
Strange but tender story of a man who, after losing his job, his girlfriend, and his apartment in a single day, attempts to restart his life, but is sidetracked by a woman who shares his unorthodox habit – a proclivity for eating hair. Xander Robin (2016)
Molly, former prostitute, leaves her street life with help from Lt. Andrews. She studies law and leads a normal life. When Andrews is killed by a brutal gang, she returns to the streets as Angel to find his killers. Robert Vincent O’Neil (1985)
Double feature of George Miller’s Babe films.
70’s crime thriller inspired by the life & hard boiled career of Eddie Egan (also the inspiration of Popeye Doyle from the French Connection). Robert Duvall, Howard W. Koch, 1973.
Japanese sci-fi, three aliens travel to Earth in preparation for a mass invasion, taking possession of human bodies. Kiyoshi Kurosawa (2017)
Nice, normal-looking Leslie Vernon (Nathan Baesel) has an obsession with movie-style slashers like Michael Myers, Jason Voorhees and Freddy Krueger. Leslie decides to follow in the footsteps of his heroes, and, ever the self-promoter, invites a documentary filmmaker (Angela Goethals) and her crew to follow him around as he constructs his own grisly legacy.
The Blue Thunder Unit of the Los Angeles Police Department operates a special helicopter, equipped with miraculous facilities including its being able to run almost noiselessly.
Starring Isabella Rossellini, Kyle MacLachlan, Dennis Hopper. A severed human ear found in a field leads a young man to investigate a mysterious nightclub singer and the criminals who kidnapped her child. David Lynch (1986)
In the dystopic masterpiece Brazil, Jonathan Pryce plays a daydreaming everyman who finds himself caught in the soul-crushing gears of a nightmarish bureaucracy. This cautionary tale by Terry Gilliam, one of the great films of the 1980s, now ranks alongside antitotalitarian works by the likes of George Orwell, Aldous Huxley, and Kurt Vonnegut Jr. And in terms of set design, cinematography, music, and effects, Brazil, a nonstop dazzler, stands alone.
In the 1930s Chicago, groundbreaking scientist Dr. Euphronious brings a murdered young woman back to life to be a companion for Frankenstein’s monster. What happens next is beyond what either of them could ever have imagined.
This whimsically edgy comedy, directed by Jamie Babbit, follows teenager Megan (Natasha Lyonne), whose suburban existence filled with friends, cheerleading, and all-American fun is upended when her straight-laced parents suspect she may be a lesbian. In a panic, they send her to True Directions, a “rehabilitation” camp run by the strict and prudish Mary (Cathy Moriarty), to mount an intervention led by counselor Mike (RuPaul Charles). Megan dutifully follows the program until she develops feelings for another camper (Clea DuVall) in this timeless, satirical romantic-comedy about self-acceptance and love, also costarring Eddie Cibrian, Melanie Lynskey, and Michelle Williams.
Young orphan Sheeta and her kidnapper, Col. Muska, are flying to a military prison when their plane is attacked by a gang of air pirates led by the matronly Dola. Escaping from a midair collision via a magic crystal around her neck, Sheeta meets fellow orphan Pazu and the pair join forces to discover the mystical floating city of Laputa while pursued by both Muska and the pirates, who lust for the city’s myriad treasures.
An achingly romantic neon dream, Alan Rudolph’s comic and cutting exploration of the mysteries of human desire established him as one of the most boldly idiosyncratic independent auteurs of the 1980s. At the smoky dive Eve’s Lounge, a collection of strangers—including an insecure radio sexpert (Geneviève Bujold), a commitment-phobic former sex worker (Lesley Ann Warren), and a globe-trotting mystery man (Keith Carradine)—become entangled in a web of passion, jealousy, and self-discovery. Grooving to the rhythms of Teddy Pendergrass’s sexy slow jams, Choose Me exists on its own offbeat wavelength—knotty, surprising, and deeply tender in its vision of lost souls wounded by love yet still reaching out for human connection.
In this darkly comedic horror from Spain, new parents argue over the purchase of a hideous coffee table which leads them on a breathtakingly sick journey. Caye Casas, 2022.
A young woman (Meiko Kaji), trained from childhood as an assassin and hell-bent on revenge for her father’s murder and her mother’s rape, hacks and slashes her way to gory satisfaction. Rampant with inventive violence and spectacularly choreographed swordplay, Toshiya Fujita’s pair of influential cult classics Lady Snowblood and Lady Snowblood: Love Song of Vengeance, set in late nineteenth- and early twentieth-century Japan, respectively, are bloody, beautiful extravaganzas composed of one elegant widescreen composition after another. The first Lady Snowblood was a major inspiration for Quentin Tarantino’s Kill Bill saga, and both of Fujita’s films remain cornerstones of Asian action cinema.
Without remembering how they got there, several strangers awaken in a prison of cubic cells, some of them booby-trapped. There’s onetime cop Quentin (Maurice Dean Wint), scientist Holloway (Nicky Guadagni), young math genius Leaven (Nicole de Boer), master of escapes Rennes (Wayne Robson), autistic savant Kazan (Andrew Miller) and architect Worth (David Hewlett), who might have more information on the maze than he lets on. The prisoners must use their combined skills if they are to escape.
Kiyoshi Kurosawa’s arresting international breakthrough established him as one of the leaders of an emerging new wave of Japanese horror while pushing the genre into uncharted realms of philosophical and existential exploration. A string of shocking, seemingly unmotivated murders—each committed by a different person yet all bearing the same grisly hallmarks—leads Detective Takabe (Koji Yakusho) into a labyrinthine investigation to discover what connects them, and into a disturbing game of cat and mouse with an enigmatic amnesiac (Masato Hagiwara) who may be evil incarnate. Awash in hushed, hypnotic dread, Cure is a tour de force of psychological tension and a hallucinatory journey into the darkest recesses of the human mind.
Thrillingly demented thriller about a brilliant scientist left for dead returns to exact revenge on the people who burned him alive. Liam Neeson, Frances McDormand, Colin Friels, Sam Raimi, 1990.
David Byrne meets America’s fractious political moment with the transcendent power of song in this ecstatic documentary of the Broadway adaptation of his acclaimed American Utopia tour. Captured with immersive immediacy by director Spike Lee, this uplifting spectacle interweaves twenty-one songs, both new and classic, with Byrne’s singular observations on the state of the nation—its perils, promises, and possibility for transformation. Choreographed by Annie-B Parson with the inventive minimalism that has become a signature of Byrne’s live performances, David Byrne’s American Utopia moves between moments of communal exuberance and hymnlike grace, making the case for music as an agent of protest, change, and above all unity.
Ranger guides (David Carradine, Claudia Jennings) on horseback wield transparent swords against 30th-century motorcycle gladiators.
DEATHSTALKER (1983):
Deathstalker is a mighty warrior chosen to battle the evil forces of a medieval kingdom who sets off on a journey to the most challenging tournament in the land. To the winner will go the throne of the evil wizard, the ultimate mystical power and the love of the beautiful Princess Codille. But first Deathstalker must prove himself worthy of his legacy…and treachery lurks at every turn.
DEATHSTALKER II (1987):
Deathstalker has a mission: to save the kingdom from the wicked grip of the immoral wizard Jerak and his queen, Sultana, who have ruled the land by creating an evil twin of the lovely Princess Evie. Capturing the real Princess Evie, Deathstalker must now return her to her rightful place of power—but the swordsman’s battle has just begun.
Demon of Paradise (1987) is a Filipino-American B-movie creature feature about an ancient, reptilian humanoid monster named Akua that is awakened in Hawaii by illegal dynamite fishing. The creature terrorizes a local resort, prompting a sheriff and a herpetologist to stop it
An on-the-lam punk rocker and a young woman obsessed with his band unexpectedly fall in love and go on an epic journey together through America’s decaying Midwestern suburbs.
An indebted ex-boxer and his volatile brother find themselves trapped by a botched drug deal in a garage, facing gang reprisals and fraying loyalty. Patrick Muldoon, Michael Beach, Denise Richards, Kevin Interdonato, 2026.
Director Jim Jarmusch followed up his brilliant breakout Stranger Than Paradise with another, equally beloved portrait of loners and misfits in America. When fate lands three hapless men—an unemployed disc jockey (Tom Waits), a small-time pimp (John Lurie), and a strong-willed Italian tourist (Roberto Benigni)—in a Louisiana prison, a singular adventure begins. Described by Jarmusch as a “neo-Beat noir comedy,” Down by Law is part nightmare and part fairy tale, featuring sterling performances and crisp black-and-white photography by esteemed cinematographer Robby Müller.
Award winning Japanese film about an experimental staging of an Anton Chekhov play and the intertwined relationships of the play’s director, the actor and the chauffeur. Ryusuke Hamaguchi, 2021.
Rainer Werner Fassbinder was commissioned to make a working-class family drama for German public television what he created was this film which depicted social realities in West Germany from a critical perspective. Gottfried John, Hanna Schygulla. 1972.
The Bob Hope of bosomy camp horror comedy! Set in Victorian times, Elvira & her maid end-up spending the night at an old creepy castle when they hitch a ride with a local. Written by John Paragon. Richard O’Brien, Mary Scheer, 2001.
David Lynch’s 1977 debut feature, Eraserhead, is both a lasting cult sensation and a work of extraordinary craft and beauty. With its mesmerizing black-and-white photography by Frederick Elmes, evocative sound design, and unforgettably enigmatic performance by Jack Nance, this visionary nocturnal odyssey remains one of American cinema’s darkest dreams.
Nothing else has ever looked or felt like director René Laloux’s animated marvel Fantastic Planet, a politically minded and visually inventive work of science fiction. The film is set on a distant planet called Ygam, where enslaved humans (Oms) are the playthings of giant blue natives (Draags). After Terr, kept as a pet since infancy, escapes from his gigantic child captor, he is swept up by a band of radical fellow Oms who are resisting the Draags’ oppression and violence. With its eerie, coolly surreal cutout animation by Roland Topor; brilliant psychedelic jazz score by Alain Goraguer; and wondrous creatures and landscapes, this Cannes-awarded 1973 counterculture classic is a perennially compelling statement against conformity and violence.
The film that started it all… the genre of “Spaghetti Western” was born, The Man with No Name was introduced and the iconic talents of star Clint Eastwood and director Sergio Leone.
A Northern California fishing town, built 100 years ago over an old leper colony, is the target for revenge by a killer fog containing zombie-like ghosts seeking revenge for their deaths.
Iconic Italian western starring Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef. Two bounty hunters with the same intentions team up to track down a Western outlaw. Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Sergio Leon, 1965.
A young aspiring musician finds himself far out of his element after he joins an eccentric pop group led by the enigmatic Frank, who wears a giant fake head. As the band prepare to record their debut album, their personal issues generate tension.
In the dying days of World War II, a battalion of Russian soldiers find themselves lost in enemy territory. Stumbling upon a village decimated by an unseen terror, they’re lured into the secret lab of a deranged scientist (Hellboy’s Karel Roden) and forced to face off against his army of horrific flesh-and-metal war machines. Leaderless and faced with dissention amongst their dwindling ranks, the Russians must find the courage to face down this terrifying new menace – or die trying. A nightmarish fantasy thrill ride unlike any other, Richard Raaphorst’s FRANKENSTEIN’S ARMY is a delirious plunge into the darkest depths of insanity.
A disturbingly prescient ecofeminist parable and a brain-wave-scrambling cyberpunk fantasia, the debut feature from new-media pioneer Shu Lea Cheang merges a bold vision of resistance with an exuberant early-internet aesthetic. In a dystopian-chic New York where sushi joints and toxic-waste sites exist side by side, a lesbian couple (Sarita Choudhury and Erin McMurtry) turn to the hacker underground to solve their daughter’s disappearance, in the process exposing a conspiracy involving corporate greenwashing and tainted fish. Swinging between outré satire and agitprop, Fresh Kill sounds the alarm about a capitalist system that pollutes everything from our waterways to our bodies to our minds.
Once an architect, Frank Bannister (Michael J. Fox) now passes himself off as an exorcist of evil spirits. To bolster his facade, he claims his “special” gift is the result of a car accident that killed his wife. But what he does not count on is more people dying in the small town where he lives. As he tries to piece together the supernatural mystery of these killings, he falls in love with the wife (Trini Alvarado) of one of the victims and deals with a crazy FBI agent (Jeffrey Combs).
Jim Jarmusch combined his love for the ice-cool crime dramas of Jean-Pierre Melville and Seijun Suzuki with the philosophical dimensions of samurai mythology for an eccentrically postmodern take on the hit-man thriller. Forest Whitaker, Henry Silva, 1999.
Godzilla (a.k.a. Gojira) is the roaring granddaddy of all monster movies. It’s also a remarkably humane and melancholy drama, made in Japan at a time when the country was reeling from nuclear attack and H-bomb testing in the Pacific. Its rampaging radioactive beast, the poignant embodiment of an entire population’s fears, became a beloved international icon of destruction, spawning more than thirty sequels. A thrilling, tactile spectacle that continues to be a cult phenomenon, the original 1954 Japanese version is presented here, along with Godzilla, King of the Monsters, the 1956 “Americanized” version.
The beloved Spaghetti Western classic! Clint Eastwood, Lee Van Cleef, Eli Wallach, Sergio Leone, 1967
It tells the story of Fossey, who came to Africa to study the vanishing mountain gorillas, and later fought to protect them.
Take the conventions of the American teen movie, transpose them to Los Angeles’s freaky fringes, anchor them in an unapologetic vision of sexual fluidity, and top it all off with heavy doses of Gen X disillusionment, gonzo violence, and hallucinogenic surrealism, and you’ll end up with something like these audacious transgressions from New Queer Cinema renegade Gregg Araki. Gleefully mixing slacker irony with raw sincerity, Godardian cool with punk scuzz, the savagely subversive, hormone-fueled films that make up the Teen Apocalypse Trilogy pushed 1990s indie cinema into bold new aesthetic realms, while giving blistering expression to adolescent rage and libidinal desire.
Harmony Korine’s debut feature is an audacious, lyrical evocation of America’s rural underbelly, and an elegy in the southern-gothic tradition of William Faulkner and William Eggleston. Shot in Korine’s native Nashville—standing in for the tornado-ravaged Xenia, Ohio—the rough-hewn film follows two young friends, Tummler and Solomon, as they ride around town, huffing glue and hunting stray cats, their every local encounter charged with vaudevillian anarchy as well as deep pathos. At once transgressive and empathetic, disturbing and undeniably beautiful, Gummo is a one-of-a-kind portrait of angelic and devilish souls caught in a cultural void, circumscribed by poverty and the depleted, alienated spiritual life of late-twentieth-century America.
A brutally sadistic rape leads to a series of bizarre gory murders during a midnight disco bowl-a-rama at a popular bowling alley. Ryan Nicholson (2008)
Remaster of John Woo’s high-octane Hong Kong genre defining thriller about a fearless cop and an undercover agent who face a ruthless gang. Chow Yun-fat, Tony Leung, Philip Kwok, John Woo, 1992
The one the only…A Canadian Classic!
Swedish documentary. Fictionalized documentary showing the evolution of witchcraft, from its pagan roots to its confusion with hysteria in modern Europe. Benjamin Christensen (1922)
Indescribable psychedelic Japanse ghost tale that’s equal parts absurd and nightmarish, Scooby Doo and Mario Bava. Nobuhiko Obayashi, 1977.
The notorious exploitation shocker, remastered in UHD! A sadistic camp commandant subjects prisoners to cruel experiments in a notorious cult classic. Dyanne Thorne, Joe Cirillo, Don Edmonds, 1975
Ilsa returns as the ruthless harem keeper in this lurid, over-the-top sequel, running a Middle Eastern slave ring while a secret agent investigates. Dyanne Thorne, Victor Alexander, Michael Thayer, Richard Kennedy, Don Edmonds, 1974
Starring Sam Neill and Jürgen Prochnow, an insurance investigator begins discovering that the impact a horror writer’s books have on his fans is more than inspirational. John Carpenter (1994)
A mad scientist’s monstrous botanical creations terrorise tourists on a remote island in this poorly dubbed Spanish‑Italian cult schlock. Cameron Mitchell, Elisa Montés, Jorge Martín, Mel Welles, 1967.
The Last Temptation of Christ, by Martin Scorsese, is a towering achievement. Though it initially engendered enormous controversy, the film can now be viewed as the remarkable, profoundly personal work of faith that it is. This fifteen-year labor of love, an adaptation of Nikos Kazantzakis’s landmark novel that imagines an alternate fate for Jesus Christ, features outstanding performances by Willem Dafoe, Barbara Hershey, Harvey Keitel, Harry Dean Stanton, and David Bowie; bold cinematography by the great Michael Ballhaus; and a transcendent score by Peter Gabriel.
A love letter to video rental stores and the B-movie treasures that lined their walls, Cody Kennedy & Tim Rutherford’s debut feature, The Last Video Store, is a genre-loving blast of pure joy: “a real treasure trove for genre fans, both new and old.
With a plan to exact revenge on a mythical shark that killed his partner, oceanographer Steve Zissou rallies a crew that includes his estranged wife, a journalist, and a man who may or may not be his son. Bill Murray, Owen Wilson, Wes Anderson, 2004.
American underground new wave masterpiece where invisible aliens in a tiny flying saucer come to Earth looking for heroin. They land on top of a New York apartment and find that absorbing humans during orgasm is better then heroin. Slava Tsukerman (1982)
A combustible performance from Bob Hoskins is the fuse that lights this underworld saga, a landmark of British crime cinema. Hoskins plays Harold Shand, an ambitious London mobster who, just as he attempts to close a major real-estate deal with the American Mafia, finds his crime empire rocked by a string of attacks, sending him on a ruthless quest to find out who’s responsible. Abetted by an ice-cool performance from Helen Mirren as Shand’s in-command moll, The Long Good Friday is not only a gripping gangster thriller but also a vivid portrait of late-1970s Britain—a powder keg of cultural and political tensions on the verge of explosion.
One of the David Lynch’s most potent cinematic dreamscapes is a mesmerizing meditation on the mysterious nature of identity dressed as sci-fi neo noir. Patricia Arquette, Robert Blake, Bill Pullman, Marilyn Manson, Jack Nance, David Lynch, 1997
French Foreign Legion drama in which an ex-West Point cadet leads a potpourri of thieves, murderers, exiles, and aristocrats seeking adventure on a semi-suicidal mission to protect an archaeological dig in the Moroccan wilderness.
Underground lesbian filmmakers who create extreme fetish films audition numerous up-and-coming talent with the help of their freaky assisstant. Shane Beasley, Shelby Lyn, Dave Parker, Scott Swan. 2009.
Starring Emilio Estevez, a group of people try to survive when machines start to come alive and become homicidal. Stephen King (1986)
In a small Korean province in 1986, two detectives struggle with the case of multiple young women being found raped and murdered by an unknown culprit. Bong Joon Ho, 2003.
Martin Scorsese emerged as a generation-defining filmmaker with this gritty portrait of 1970s New York City, one of the most influential works of American independent cinema. Set in the insular Little Italy neighborhood of Scorsese’s youth, Mean Streets follows guilt-ridden small-time ringleader Charlie (Harvey Keitel) as he deals with the debts owed by his dangerously volatile best pal, Johnny Boy (Robert De Niro), and pressure from his headstrong girlfriend, Teresa (Amy Robinson). As their intertwined lives spiral out of control, Scorsese showcases his precocious mastery of film style—evident in everything from his propulsive editing rhythms to the lovingly curated soundtrack—to create an electrifying vision of sin and redemption.
When struggling photographer Leon Kaufman (Bradley Cooper) meets the owner of a prominent art gallery, he sees a chance for the success that has, so far, eluded him. Determined to show the darker side of humanity for his debut showing, Leon crosses paths with Mahogany (Vinnie Jones) a serial killer who preys on late-night subway commuters. His fascination with Mahogany pulls him — and his lover (Leslie Bibb) — deep into an evil abyss.
A love story in the city of dreams . . .
Blonde Betty Elms (Naomi Watts) has only just arrived in Hollywood to become a movie star when she meets an enigmatic brunette with amnesia (Laura Harring). Meanwhile, as the two set off to solve the second woman’s identity, filmmaker Adam Kesher (Justin Theroux) runs into ominous trouble while casting his latest project. David Lynch’s seductive and scary vision of Los Angeles’s dream factory is one of the true masterpieces of the new millennium, a tale of love, jealousy, and revenge like no other.
In this adaptation of William S. Burroughs’s hallucinatory, once-thought unfilmable novel Naked Lunch, directed by David Cronenberg, a part-time exterminator and full-time drug addict named Bill Lee (Robocop’s Peter Weller) plunges into the nightmarish Interzone, a netherworld of sinister cabals and giant talking bugs. Alternately humorous and grotesque—and always surreal—the film mingles aspects of Burroughs’s novel with incidents from the writer’s own life, resulting in an evocative paranoid fantasy and a self-reflexive investigation into the mysteries of the creative process.
This media satire, directed by Sidney Lumet from a brilliantly incisive script by Paddy Chayefsky, is an X-ray of the corrupted soul of a corporate-dominated America, startlingly prescient in its anticipation of today’s outrage-driven news cycle. At a struggling television network, ambitious executive Diana Christensen (Faye Dunaway) finds herself with a hit on her hands when disgruntled newscaster Howard Beale (Peter Finch) goes off script, transforming himself into a mad-as-hell prophet railing against the ills of modern society. But can she control the populist revolution they have unleashed on the airwaves? Garnering four Oscars, including for Dunaway, Finch, and Chayefsky, this no-holds-barred New Hollywood classic remains as fearlessly funny as it is unnervingly relevant.
American professor John Holden arrives in London for a parapsychology conference, only to find himself investigating the mysterious actions of Devil-worshipper Julian Karswell. Jacques Tourneur (1957)
Quintessential 80s gory horror! A party at an abandoned funeral parlor and former lair of a serial killer on Halloween night unleashes a gory living hell. Linnea Quigley, Kevin Tenney, 1988.
Against the dreary backdrop of Southeast London’s concrete housing estates, the lives of three underclass Brits come crashing down. Gary Oldman’s conversational, improvisatory script follows his characters wretched lives in crowded council flats, tawdry Piccadilly strip joints, with truly outstanding acting and honesty.
An obsessive college freshman joins her university’s rowing team and undertakes an extreme physical and psychological journey to make it to the top varsity boat, no matter the cost. Lauren Hadaway, 2021.
The film follows a group of friends picnicking on a sunny day who are accosted by a group of menacing men. The leader of these thugs, who has an intimidating and sadistic hold over his followers, forces the group into a clearing to submit to his will.
One of the most eccentric comedies of the 1980s, Pee-wee’s Big Adventure is a pop-culture touchstone that helped make a manic oddball named Pee-wee Herman—the creation and alter ego of actor-comedian Paul Reubens—into an icon for outsiders of all ages. It also established the distinctive style of director Tim Burton, whose eye-popping visual sense is already on full display in this, his first feature film. Following the gleefully irreverent Pee-wee as he embarks on a road trip to recover his beloved stolen bicycle, the movie unfolds with the antic invention of a live-action cartoon, combining a gallery of memorably wacky characters, colorful, kitschy Americana, and surreal flights of fancy into a joyously uninhibited paean to creativity and the spirit of childhood.
The plot follows a member of a Japanese idol group who retires from music to pursue an acting career. As she becomes a victim of stalking by her obsessive fan.
On an isolated island in Brittany at the end of the eighteenth century, a female painter is obliged to paint a wedding portrait of a young woman. Adèle Haenel, Noémie Merlant, Céline Sciamma, 2019
Collection of three of Peter Mettler’s short films. ‘Scissere’ (1982), ‘Eastern Avenue’ (1985) & ‘Baliflim’ (1997).
A Jewish-American princess, Judy Benjamin (Goldie Hawn), is devastated when her husband (Albert Brooks) drops dead on their wedding night. While she grieves a duplicitous recruiter for the Women’s Army Corps convinces her to enlist. Judy thinks her enlistment is like a vacation but Captain Lewis (Eileen Brennan) quickly dashes her hopes of an easy time. As Judy goes through basic training like any other grunt, she becomes a good soldier and develops a sense of self-esteem.
One Of The Best Crime Trilogies Made. Period.
Akira Kurosawa’s brilliantly conceived retelling of Shakespeare’s KING LEAR magically mixes Japanese history, Shakespeare’s plot and Kurosawa’s own feelings about loyalty in the epic masterpiece, RAN. Set in 16th century Japan, RAN relates the tale of how an ageing ruler, Lord Hidetora (Tatsuya Nakadai), announces his intention to divide his land equally among his three sons. Hidetora’s decision to step down unleashes a power struggle among the three heirs when he falls prey to the false flattery bestowed upon him by the two older sons and banishes the youngest for speaking the truth. That ruthless betrayal ultimately drives Hidetora insane, destroying his entire family and kingdom. Deep human emotion and outstanding acting combine to create one of the most acclaimed foreign films of all time.
A grieving mother hunts her daughter’s killer across branching realities, repeatedly killing him while drifting through a multiverse that offers no stable escape from loss or violence. Michaela McManus, Jeremy Holm, Kevin & Matthew McManus, 2025.
A quintessential cult film of the 1980s, Alex Cox’s singular sci-fi comedy stars the always captivating Harry Dean Stanton as a weathered repo man in a desolate Los Angeles, and Emilio Estevez as the nihilistic middle-class punk he takes under his wing. The job becomes more than either of them bargained for when they get involved in repossessing a mysterious —and otherworldly—Chevy Malibu with a hefty reward attached to it. Featuring the ultimate early-eighties LA punk soundtrack, this grungily hilarious odyssey is also a politically trenchant take on President Reagan’s domestic and foreign policies.
Pier Paolo Pasolini’s notorious final film, Salò, or The 120 Days of Sodom, has been called nauseating, shocking, depraved, pornographic . . . It’s also a masterpiece. The controversial poet, novelist, and filmmaker’s transposition of the Marquis de Sade’s eighteenth-century opus of torture and degradation to Fascist Italy in 1944 remains one of the most passionately debated films of all time, a thought-provoking inquiry into the political, social, and sexual dynamics that define the world we live in.
One of the most thrilling movie epics of all time, Seven Samurai tells the story of a sixteenth-century village whose desperate inhabitants hire the eponymous warriors to protect them from invading bandits. This three-hour-plus ride from Akira Kurosawa—featuring legendary actors Toshiro Mifune and Takashi Shimura—seamlessly weaves philosophy and entertainment, delicate human emotions and relentless action, into a rich, evocative, and unforgettable tale of courage and hope.
Fugitives drive nitroglycerin through South American hell, each mile cracking their souls. Based on *The Wages of Fear*. Roy Scheider, Bruno Cremer, Francisco Rabal, William Friedkin, 1977
Hang on to your knickers, pump up your platforms and fasten your seat belts, because the Spice Girls – Emma Bunton (Baby Spice), Geri Halliwell (Ginger Spice), Melanie Brown (Scary Spice), Melanie Chisholm (Sporty Spice) and Victoria Addams (Posh Spice) – are taking center stage in their feature film debut “Spice World,” a roller coaster ride which will spice up your life and open your eyes very wide!
Andrei Tarkovsky’s final Soviet feature is a metaphysical journey through an enigmatic postapocalyptic landscape, and a rarefied cinematic experience like no other. A hired guide-the Stalker-leads a writer and a scientist into the heart of the Zone, the restricted site of a long-ago disaster, where the three men eventually zero in on the Room, a place rumored to fulfill one’s most deeply held desires. Adapting a science-fiction novel by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, Tarkovsky created an immersive world with a wealth of material detail and a sense of organic atmosphere. A religious allegory, a reflection of contemporaneous political anxieties, a meditation on film itself-Stalker envelops the viewer by opening up a multitude of possible meanings.
In the sleazy, foreboding world of winos, derelicts and drifters in lower Manhattan, two young runaways – eighteen-year-old Fred (Mike Lackey) and his younger brother, Kevin (Mark Sferrazza) – live in a tire hut in the back of an auto wrecking yard. Life is hard, but the most lethal threat to the boys is the mysterious case of “Tenafly Viper” wine in Ed’s liquor store window.
German spallter horror about a young woman is trapped by a mad scientist in a hidden lab, facing horrific experiments that test the limits of her body and spirit. Andreas Schnaas
Mondo Macabro presents TAHKHANA: THE DUNGEON / PURANI HAVELI: THE MONSTER WAKES – Bollywood horror Double Bill.
TAHKHANA: THE DUNGEON – Two sisters, separated as children, share the secret of a hidden treasure. Years later, their secret falls into the hands of a bunch of sleazy adventurers who are determined to claim the riches for themselves. What none of them know is that the treasure is guarded by a hideous monster, animated by the blood of a vengeful black magician.
The film unites much of the cast of PURANA MANDIR and is like a classic gothic novel, with its use of secret passages, lockets, hidden treasure, lost siblings etc., etc. There is no lengthy comic sub-plot and the film, at two hours, is of reasonably modest length for a Bollywood movie. Much of the action takes place underground, in the dungeon of the title. This allows for some tense set pieces and a claustrophobic atmosphere that mark this one out from the more familiar Ramsay fare.
PURANI HAVELI: THE MONSTER WAKES – A girl takes a group of her friends to visit an old mansion in the country, owned by her family. Unbeknown to any of them, the mansion is haunted by an evil entity. Many years before, the monster was trapped inside the mansion by an elderly man who now acts as its guardian. When he is killed, the evil is released and all who come near the mansion are its potential victims.
The tale of an eccentric band of culinary ronin who guide the widow of a noodle shop owner on her quest for the perfect recipe, this rapturous “ramen western” by Japanese director Juzo Itami is an entertaining, genre-bending adventure underpinned by a deft satire of the way social conventions distort the most natural of human urges, our appetites. Interspersing the efforts of Tampopo (Nobuko Miyamoto) and friends to make her café a success with the erotic exploits of a gastronome gangster and glimpses of food culture both high and low, the sweet, sexy, and surreal Tampopo is a lavishly inclusive paean to the sensual joys of nourishment, and one of the most mouthwatering examples of food on film ever made.
‘TerrorVision’ – A family’s new satellite TV system starts receiving signals from another planet, and soon it becomes the passageway to an alien world. ‘The Video Dead’ – A family takes delivery of a new TV set, unaware that it is the gateway by which killer zombies enter the world.
Nicolas Cage’s triumphant cult performance as a yuppie who becomes a blood slave to a sexy vampire. Maria Conchita Alonso, Jennifer Beals, Robert Bierman, 1988.
With this passion project, screenwriter-producer-director Martin Rosen brilliantly achieved what had been thought nearly impossible: a faithful big-screen adaptation of Richard Adams’s classic British dystopian novel about a community of rabbits under terrible threat from modern forces. With its naturalistic hand-drawn animation, dreamily expressionistic touches, gorgeously bucolic background design, and elegant voice work from such superb English actors as John Hurt, Ralph Richardson, Richard Briers, and Denholm Elliott, Watership Down is an emotionally arresting, dark-toned allegory about freedom amid political turmoil.
When Max Renn goes looking for edgy new material for his sleazy cable TV station, he stumbles across the pirate broadcast of a hyperviolent torture show called “Videodrome.” His attempts to unearth the program’s origins send him on a hallucinatory journey into a shadow world of right-wing conspiracies, sadomasochistic sex games, and bodily transformation. Starring James Woods and Deborah Harry, Videodrome is one of the most original and provocative works from writer-director David Cronenberg, and features groundbreaking makeup effects by Academy Award winner Rick Baker.
Shot for $2000 on video in the enchanted forests of Florida, WAY BAD STONE is the unofficial Dungeons & Dragons adaptation that you’ve been waiting for. The story follows Aladar, a wizard seeking revenge against a gang barbarians—and one demon—who stole a magic stone. Directed by Archie Waugh and co-produced/written by Jan and Janne Skipper, this bewitching passion project features raucous Ren Faire dialogue, splattery violence, and a powerful dungeon synth soundtrack. It’s the perfect complement to your next regularly scheduled LARP campaign.
After serving prison time for a self-defense killing, Sailor Ripley (Nicolas Cage) reunites with girlfriend Lula Fortune (Laura Dern). Lula’s mother, Marietta (Diane Ladd), desperate to keep them apart, hires a hit man to kill Sailor. But he finds a whole new set of troubles when he and Bobby Peru (Willem Dafoe), an old buddy who’s also out to get Sailor, try to rob a store. When Sailor lands in jail yet again, the young lovers appear further than ever from the shared life they covet.
When their fathers vanish in northern Alaska, a determined daughter and an oil heir must outwit a prehistoric monster stalking the wilderness in this creature feature. Brittany Allen, Eric Nelsen, William Sadler, Gene Gallerano, William Pisciotta, 2026.
And there we go guys. Movies should be here Thursday/ Friday. Cheers!
