Strange times keep demanding the strange and forgotten movies to get us through it all. This week more “fill in the blank to your collection” cinema hits the shop and also makes for good rentals in this chilling out at home infront of our TVs times. So let’s take a look at some forgotten films…
One of my favourite film collections returns to the shop! Collection of 6 short horror films directed by some of Spain’s best genre directors: Álex de la Iglesia (Perdita Durango), Narciso Ibáñez Serrador (Who Can Kill A Child), Paco Plaza & Jaume Balagueró (REC). 2006.
Taking place in Russia this is a movie I recommend to people looking for a good creepy flick dealing with the paranormal, good atmosphere, and leaving the past behind. Recommended viewing!
Before Panos Cosmatos made the now cult classic MANDY he debuted as a director with this jam. Despite being under heavy sedation, a young woman tries to make her way out of the Arboria Institute, a secluded, quasifuturistic commune.
I love these sweet double feature discs. You litterally pop them in and you are at the movies. Opening with a couple of old school shorts, trailers, and intermission it makes you feel like you are at a drive in. As for the two films in this set some fun times. First up is BLOOD FREAK: A biker comes upon a girl with a flat tire and offers her a ride home. He winds up at a drug party with the girl’s sister, then follows her to a turkey farm owned by her father, a mad scientist. The father turns the biker into a giant turkey monster who goes after drug dealers. After that we have Karen Black in THE PYX: A police detective uncovers a sinister occult explanation behind the mysterious death of a heroin-addicted prostitute.
40 years ago one of my all time favourite films ever was released. There are few movies in life that can just put you in a good mood because of brilliant comedic acting, great music, and a serious craving to order 3 Orange Whips. This is that movie. Jake Blues, just released from prison, puts together his old band to save the Catholic home where he and his brother Elwood were raised.
This is such an underrated gem. Take Kurt Russell and throw him into a film that feels like a mix between old school Hitchcock with a 90s action movie. Fuck yes Kurt, fuck yes! A man searches for his missing wife after his car breaks down in the middle of the desert.
God Bless Charlie Band for milking it for all it’s worth. In an unknown dystopian future, a drifter with an unusually high-tolerance to pain is held captive in a horrific hospital by The Circle of Psycho Surgeons. Charles Band (2018)
Italian horror starring John Saxon, Elizabeth Turner. Two Viet Nam vets that bring back contagious virus that turn people into cannibals when bitten. Antonio Margheriti (1980)
Solid evil kid movies are tough to come by these days but this little flick from a few years ago is still one that works very well for me. When these kids turn it’s the parents that have to make the choice whether to kill the kids they have raised or not. Bummer choice.
Ah the 70s…some interesting low budget genre flicks were hitting drive in theatres back then. And The Corpse Grinders was no exception. When the Lotus Cat Food Company finds itself in financial trouble, the owners decide to find a new, cheap source of meat — the local graveyard. Only one problem — soon cats develop a taste for human flesh, and tabbies are tearing out throats all over town.
For every 5 zombie flicks made 4 are shit. And sometimes a movie is made in the genre that really has no other value than to entertain you for a couple hours with some fun gore and cheap laughs. A best seller still at the videostore for the last decade DANCE OF THE DEAD is just a fun time at the movies. On the night of the big High-School Prom, the dead rise to eat the living, and the only people who can stop them are the losers who couldn’t get dates to the dance.
And speaking of zombie flicks… Two women try to survive a zombie apocalypse in an abandoned resort. Wych Kaosayananda (2020)
It’s hard to believe that JAWS came out 45 years and it’s still the best shark film ever made. Like seriously, no one has come close. But if I was forced to pick a second favourite it’s DEEP BLUE SEA. This film is a straight up guilty pleasure and always a welcome return to the shop.
Starring Mel Gibson, Vince Vaughn. Once two overzealous cops get suspended from the force, they must delve into the criminal underworld to get their just due. S. Craig Zahler (2018)
Dinger and Bobby’s adventure start when a pair of magical sunglasses arrive at the door. Their mundane lives in L.A. get a crazy twist-but soon enough, they’ve got thugs on their trail who want the valuable pair for themselves. Under hot pursuit, it’s one crazy antic after another as the troublesome twosome scramble to keep their hot commodity out of the wrong hands.
Who’s The Boss indeed. Bringing back the lovely Alyssa Milano for the 25th anniversary of this saucy number. An 18-year-old college freshman is seduced by a handsome vampire lover who introduces her to a dark world of carnal desires.
David Lynch’s breakthrough feature is both a lasting cult sensation and a work of extraordinary craft and beauty. Jack Nance, Charlotte Stewart, David Lynch, 1977
15 years in the making! A strange, gory film meticulously pored over by oil dynasty scion Andrew Getty in his mansion by the until his death hastened by meth addiction! Sean Patrick Flanery, Michael Berryman, 2017.
Kiefer is one evil bastard in this flick! When the courts fail to keep behind bars the man who raped and murdered her daughter, a woman seeks her own form of justice.
My favourite Dr. Who and Dr. Sam Loomis combine forces in this cult classic from the 70s.
Great movie with a great soundtrack. Adam Wingard’s beauty of a film THE GUEST. A soldier introduces himself to the Peterson family, claiming to be a friend of their son who died in action. After the young man is welcomed into their home, a series of accidental deaths seem to be connected to his presence.
A transgender punk-rock girl from East Berlin tours the U.S. with her band as she tells her life story and follows the former lover/band-mate who stole her songs. John Cameron Mitchell (2001)
An outrageous ride through the wild world of the exploitation films of the Godfather of Gore, Herschell Gordon Lewis.
Christopher Lloyd stars in this thriller set in a small Midwestern town, where a troubled teen with homicidal tendencies must hunt down and destroy a supernatural killer whilst keeping his own inner demons at bay.
High def version of Oshima’s still controversial film about the insatiable sexual desire of a pair destructive lovers. 1976.
Classic 80s! A test pilot is miniaturized in a secret experiment, and accidentally injected into a hapless store clerk.
Three of the most popular girls at Reagan High accidentally kill the prom queen with a jawbreaker when a kidnapping goes horribly wrong.
80’s sword & sorcery film about an evil bishop and a ragtag group who seek to depose him. Matthew Broderick, Rutger Hauer, Michelle Pfeiffer, Richard Donner, 1985.
Oskar, an overlooked and bullied boy, finds love and revenge through Eli, a beautiful but peculiar girl.
Behind the scenes chronicle of how clash of vision, bad creative decisions, lack of interest and really bad weather plagued the disastrous production of the infamous 1996 remake of The Island of Dr. Moreau.
Japanese monster sci-fi, A giant, ancient moth begins to attack Japan when coming to the rescue of it’s two, foot-tall worshippers who were taken by shipwreck survivors. Ishirô Honda (1961)
A deadly infection breaks out in Manhattan, causing humans to devolve into blood-thirsty rat creatures. Six recently evicted tenants must survive the night and protect their downtown apartment building as the city quickly spirals out of control.
Italian thriller. The owner of a prestigious New York ballet school teams up with a male model to solve a series of bizarre murders of a few of the students. Lucio Fulci (1984)
A decades-old folk tale surrounding a deranged murderer killing those who celebrate Valentine’s Day turns out to be true to legend when a group defies the killer’s order and people start turning up dead. George Mihalka (1981)
David Cronenberg’s hallucinatory take on William S. Burroughs’ unfilmable novel. Peter Weller, Judy Davis, Ian Holm, 1991.
Ten teenagers party at an abandoned funeral parlor on Halloween night. When an evil force awakens, demonic spirits keep them from leaving and turn their gathering into a living Hell.
A vagabond swordsman is aided by a beautiful ninja girl and a crafty spy in confronting a demonic clan of killers – with a ghost from his past as their leader – who are bent on overthrowing the Tokugawa Shogunate.
A depressed musician reunites with his lover. Though their romance, which has already endured several centuries, is disrupted by the arrival of her uncontrollable younger sister.
When a female rock band use an infamous old piece of sheet music to record their new album in an old mansion, they accidentally open a portal to hell. Luigi Cozzi (1989)
Two adults and a juvenile burglar break into a house occupied by a brother and sister and their stolen mutant children and can’t escape. Then things get worse. Brandon Quintin Adams, Everett McGill, Wendy Robie, 1991.
Two young seamen from WWII get caught in a violent tornado-like vortex created by an experimental radar test and fall through a time warp to a different era – 1984. Michael Pare, Nancy Allen.
A unique Euro-western with the hero as an astrologist who wears a leopard suit. Eugenio Martín (1968)
Curious kids unearth the barrels that helped revive the dead of the first film, which proves the second time’s an undead charm. Ken Wiederhorn (1988)
Includes: 20 Million Miles to Earth / The Giant Claw / It Came from Beneath the Sea / Mothra.
Dark and subversive comedy where dueling gangs of clowns are pitted against each other in this outrageously funny comedy written by, directed by, and starring Bobcat Goldthwait (1991)
A director makes a movie based on a murder he committed. Zoe Tamerlis, Eric Bogosian, Brad Rijn, Kevin O’connor, Larry Cohen, 1984
Giallo overload! Includes: FIFTH CORD / FORBIDDEN PHOTOS OF A LADY ABOVE SUSPICION / PYJAMA GIRL CASE.
Yugoslavian director Dušan Makavejev’s 1974 film is a ‘full-throated shriek in the face of bourgeois complacency and movie-watching’.
This unnerving horror anthology is crafted by 14 directors who explore mankind’s most bizarre and frightening phobias. (2017)
English language remake / sequel to the blistering original, finds director Shinya Sukamoto still obsessed with delirious editing, eardrum-crunching soundtrack & bio-metallic machine men. 2009.
Harrowing documentary-style account of a nuclear holocaust and its effect on the working class city of Sheffield, England, and the eventual long-term effects of nuclear war on civilization. Mick Jackson, 1984.
Korean action horror. While a zombie-virus breaks out in South Korea, a couple of passengers struggle to survive on the train from Seoul to Busan. Sang-ho Yeon (2016)
30 years ago Tremors came out. So here are the first four on Blu Ray again.
A computer hacker is abducted into the digital world and forced to participate in gladiatorial games where his only chance of escape is with the help of a heroic security program.
A priest and two Vatican exorcists must do battle with an ancient satanic force to save the soul of a young woman.
Not for the squeamish and you will need a shower after watching these. 3 film collection depicting brutal murders, gore covered nudity, & people vomiting to death. There might be a story about a bulimic young runaway who sold her soul to Satan, but it’s hard to stay focused what with all the vomiting and torture.
Astronauts landing on Venus encounter dangerous creatures and almost meet some sexy Venusian women who like to sun-bathe in hip-hugging skin-tight pants and seashell brassieres.
The urban jungle of 1963 New York’s gangland subculture, this coming of age teenage movie is set around the Italian gang the Wanderers falling in love, surviving in school and defending their turf. Philip Kaufman (1979)
A faithful big-screen adaptation of Richard Adams’s classic British dystopian novel about a community of rabbits under terrible threat from modern forces. Martin Rosen, 1978.
Starring Fred Savage. A boy and his brother run away from home and hitch cross country with the help of a girl they meet to compete in the ultimate video game championship. Todd Holland (1989)
A Roger Corman Women In Prison Triple Feature! Includes the classic Jack Hill directed Big Doll House starring Pam Grier / Big Bird Cage / Women in Cages.
An inheritance leads a young man and his friends to an abandoned resort inhabited by two sketchy caretakers and a clan of mutant cannibals.
Two teenage yoga enthusiasts team up with a legendary man-hunter to battle with an ancient evil presence that is threatening their major party plans. Kevin Smith (2016)
Starring Rob Lowe, Patrick Swayze, a skilled young hockey prospect hoping to attract the attention of professional scouts is pressured to show that he can fight. Peter Markle (1986)
And there it is. This week’s batch of random viewing hitting the shop. Cheers!
