Posted in: Disc Reviews by Gino Sassani on August 21st, 2003
Decades before The Blair Witch Project drew attention to the small independent filmmaker, George Romero and a small band of Pittsburgh natives took the horror genre by surprise with the stunning and atmospheric Night of the Living Dead. Day of the Dead was the third and (so far) final entry into the Romero zombie trilogy. Romero admits that this is the least acclaimed film in the series while professing that it is his own favorite. There is absolutely no question that makeup magician Tom Savini did some of his greatest work in this film.
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 18th, 2003
Angel: Season Two (a spinoff from the wildly popular Buffy the Vampire Slayer) follows the continuing adventures of Angel (David Boreanz), the vampire who searches for redemption while battling otherworldly demons and spirits on behalf of man. Angel and his team of modern day Ghostbusters find ways to track down trouble before it gets out of control, giving each episode an action-packed and imaginative flair, with numerous long-term story arcs running throughout the season. The overall theme of the en...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 12th, 2003
Synopsis
Michael Kremko plays Adam, dashing young priest. Nadia Mansouri is a young woman whohas a crush on him. Her name is Eve. Get it? If you don’t, Jake Simons as a gay dancechoreographer helpfully points out the symbolism for us. Sure enough, Adam is tempted from thestraight and true path and begins a torrid affair with Eve. The jealous Simons starts underminingthe two characters. The dialogue is banal, even as it has pretensions to deal with Really BigIssues of faith and free ...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 12th, 2003
Synopsis
Claudia Draper (Barbra Streisand) has been charged with first-degree manslaughter. Hermother and stepfather try to have her declared incompetent to stand trial, so she will go to apsychiatric hospital rather than jail. Claudia refuses to be railroaded, punching out her lawyer incourt. Public defender Richard Dreyfuss winds up saddled with her case, and decides to fight forStreisand’s right to have her day in court. The role of Claudia is big, scenery-chewing exercisefor Str...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 10th, 2003
Synopsis
Peta Wilson takes on the role previously incarnated by Anne Parillaud and Bridget Fonda.Once a street person, Nikita is forcibly recruited by an ultra-secret government organization andtrained as an assassin. Many adventures ensue. While Wilson certainly has the requisitetoughness and sexiness demanded by the role, the character herself has been largely defanged. Inits film incarnations, the story already ran into problems in the second half, as the formerlyferocious street...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 9th, 2003
Synopsis
In Ghoulies, a young man inherits a run-down home, only to succumb gradually tohis warlock legacy, summoning the title creatures and turning them loose on his friends. TheGhoulies strike back in the sequel, this time finding their way into a carnival and creating no endof havoc there. Neither film takes itself seriously -- how could they, with little rubbery puppetsfor monsters. There is something likeable about the enthusiastically silly cheese up there on thescreen...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 8th, 2003
Synopsis
There are four 90-minute telefilms here: “The Hound of the Baskervilles,” “The Sign ofFour,” The Case of the Whitechapel Vampire,” and “The Royal Scandal.” They are of varyingand iffy degrees of fidelity to the Conan Doyle stories. Starring as Sherlock Holmes and Dr.Watson are, respectively, Matt Freuer and Kenneth Welsh, who essay British accents to varyingdegrees of success. Ex-Max Headroom Freuer puts plenty of energy into his role, but takes it soover-the-top that he co...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by Archive Authors on August 7th, 2003
Extreme sports films come in two flavors first there are the sport specific show off films and then there are the documentary like Ultimate X that show what extreme sports are about. Keep Your Eyes Open rides the line between these two types of films, it looks at six of the wildest sports out there by looking at the athletes. We get an understanding of what motivates them, how they got into it and we also get lots of footage of them doing what they do. Starring Marc Frank Montoya and Mike and Tina Basich (snowboardin...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 6th, 2003
Synopsis
Our two heroines head out to the Dutch countryside for a holiday. They run into car trouble,and blunder into The Texas Chainsaw Massacre, or so the available evidence would haveone believe. They stop at the wrong gas station, and it isn’t long before first one, then the otherare prisoners of a deranged family and their masked, hulking youngster. You’ve seen this before,and done so much better.
Audio
Both 5.1 and 2.0 soundtracks are available,...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 6th, 2003
Synopsis
When a strange formula (cooked up in beakers and coloured a bright green) gets into thesewage system and is consumed by escaped lab rats, trouble ensues for a small group of young(and inexpensive) actors. At the climax, they have to face off against a super-rat, whose costumemakes the inside-out bear of Prophecy look like a high point of SFX technology.Extremely cheap, but not without some amusement for connoisseurs of bad film.
Audio
The sou...
