Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 6th, 2003
Synopsis
Jenny Wright is Virginia. She works at a used bookstore by day, and by night freaks herselfout with the frightening books of Malcolm Brand. Her life becomes a nightmare when themonstrous protagonist of Brand’s I, Madman appears to her in the real world, and startsre-enacting his crimes. Appearing well before the postmodern exercises of the Screamseries, In the Mouth of Madness and Wes Craven’s New Nightmare, this littlefilm anticipates tha...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 3rd, 2003
Synopsis
Made at the height of Roger Corman’s successful Edgar Allan Poe series (with his perennialstar Vincent Price), these two pictures, while similar in tone to the Poe films, adapt two differentwriters. Tower of London, a remake of the Basil Rathbone/Boris Karloff film from 1935,is a version of Shakespeare’s Richard III, with Price taking on the role of the villainoushunchback, plotting and killing his way to the throne of England. The Haunted Palace,...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on September 3rd, 2003
Synopsis
Loosely (to put it mildly) based on a Bram Stoker novel, this is the tale of the town ofD’Ampton, where once there was a monster (a clear reference to the Lambton Worm of legend).Archaeologist Peter Capaldi digs up the skull of what appears to be a giant snake. He andaristocrat Hugh Grant come to realize that a snake-worshipping cult is active in the area, and theysuspect Lady Sylvia Marsh (Amanda Donohoe). They’re right: Donohoe is a snake-woman intenton sacrificing...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 28th, 2003
Synopsis
Mother Karen Black, father Oliver Reed, young son Lee Montgomery and great-aunt BetteDavis escape New York to spend the summer at a country home. They get the huge mansion fora song, but the only catch is that they have to look after the aged owner of the house. Black takescharge of providing for the unseen old woman, and soon becomes dangerously obsessed withthe house. Strange accidents befall the family, and with each bad thing that happens to them, thehouse, which...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 28th, 2003
Synopsis
People have been disappearing from the Russell Square station of the London Underground.The attention of the police is only really drawn, however, when one of the vanished turns out tobe a man well-placed in the Ministry of Defence. Inspector Donald Pleasance (wonderfullycranky and rude) is on the job. Meanwhile, two university students are also caught up in themystery. The reason people have been going missing is because they are being kidnapped andeaten by the last...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 27th, 2003
Synopsis
Richard Matheson, one of the most important talents in the horror field (his filmed novelsinclude Hell House, The Shrinking Man and I Am Legend -- the latterdone twice, as The Last Man On Earth and The Omega Man), scripts this twoblack comedies. In The Comedy of Terrors, Vincent Price is the scheming owner of afuneral home. He has taken over the business from doddering and deaf Boris Karloff, and,desperate for money, forces t...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 27th, 2003
Synopsis
A violent storm drops power lines into the swamp area of Fly Creek, Georgia. Driven madby the electricity, hundreds of thousands of giant, biting worms rise to the surface, and are heldback only by daylight. Three young people realize that something is up, but the adults won’tlisten, just as in The Blob, one of Squirm’s models. Come nightfall, the wormsattack. Squirm takes its time getting to the main event, and most of the build-up has aHardy Bo...
Posted in: Disc Reviews by David Annandale on August 26th, 2003
Synopsis
Egyptology professor Boris Karloff is on his deathbed. He has just spent his fortuneacquiring a jewel he believes will open up the gates of the afterlife for him, and he demands to beburied with it, threatening to come back from the grave if his wishes are denied. Naturally, thejewel is stolen, and as a group of interested parties descend on his mansion, Karloff rises. ThisBritish film, made in the wake of the huge success of the early Universal horror classics, is als...
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 David Annandale on August 9th, 2003
Synopsis
Dee Wallace is an intrepid TV reporter who tracks down a serial killer, and is almost killedfor her troubles. Traumatized, she withdraws to a rural resort, which at first seems idyllic.Gradually, evidence mounts that she is in fact staying in the middle of a werewolf colony. Stillone of the more satisfying werewolf films yet made (though Ginger Snaps has arguablycaptured the crown for best ever), Joe Dante’s film is a delight not only for the grislytransformations, b...
