Blog Archives
Graphic Horror: Ritual
Ritual 2002
While a lot of people are familiar with the great television series Tales From the Crypt that ran for seven seasons on HBO, there are slightly fewer people who realize that they made a feature length film towards the end of their run called Demon Knight. Even fewer people realize that they made another movie the next year starring Dennis Miller called Bordello of Blood. And not even I realized that they had a this as a third movie to round out the trilogy. But when Bordello of Blood was a disaster at the box office, those plans were scrapped and the film, possibly still at the script stage was sold to Universal who stripped out all the references to the Cryptkeeper and Tales From the Crypt and released it as a solo film several years later. It wasn’t until even later that the Tales From the Crypt presents was restored when it was released on DVD and the Cryptkeeper scenes added back for the release, albeit with a very low budget version of the Cryptkeeper puppet that was also used in the DVD release of the television series which was around the same time. And after all this passing around, was the movie actually worth it? Not really. It felt like one of the mediocre episodes of the show drawn out into an hour forty-five. Mysteries were confusing for the sake of being a reveal closer towards the end, but it just made things confusing rather than interesting. And the final payoff was pretty weak anyway. I almost would have rather seen the Tales From the Crypt name left off of this movie.
Read the rest of this entry
Filmwhys Extra #16 Batman in Animation
Episode 16 of Filmwhys Extra where my guest is DJ Valentine from Simplistic Reviews and we spend some time discussing Batman’s various appearances in all the different direct to home video DC Animated titles like Under the Red Hood, The Dark Knight Returns, and Gotham Knight. We talk about our favorites, the voice actors, the animation, and try to cover all of the titles that have included Batman in them aside from some of the earlier spinoff titles from the television series.
Read the rest of this entry
Filmwhys #38 Perfect Blue and the Dark Knight
Welcome back to another Batman themed episode, and one of only a small handful of times where I can arguably have the better argument of a movie that someone should have seen by now. Episode 38 of the Why Haven’t You Seen This Film Podcast where my guest is Elwood Jones from From the Depths of DVD Hell who asks me why I haven’t seen Perfect Blue, one of the older and well respected anime movies that was a strong influence on Darren Aronofsky’s Black Swan. And in return, I get to ask him why he hasn’t seen arguably the greatest superhero movie of all time, the Dark Knight.
Read the rest of this entry
Graphic Horror: The Scribbler
The Scribbler 2014
For a couple years now I’ve avoided falling into the trap that nearly every other movie blog falls into during this time of year: reviewing horror movies for October. But since I started my Graphic Horror tag this past March, I thought it was due time to go further into the very shallow selection of horror movies and thrillers adapted from graphic novels and comic books. To kick things off, I’m taking a look at the movie that just released on VOD a couple weeks ago adapted from Daniel Schaffer’s comic the Scribbler. The story itself is a weird mix of Girl, Interrupted, Fight Club, and the Cell. Katie Cassidy in the lead role was one of the best parts of the movie, though I thought things got a little muddled in the direction. It also had a rather surprising and unusual turn towards the end that I will be discussing, so spoilers abound. Overall I enjoyed it, but the concept felt a bit stronger than the execution.
Read the rest of this entry
Mercury Man
Mercury Man 2006
It’s October, so you know what that means? Horror movies! And this year I am going to be no different, but before I get to some horror and thriller movies based on some graphic novels, I used my free month of Netflix to check out a superhero film that I didn’t have on my list and hadn’t seen around anywhere else. It’s a Thai movie from 2006 that could easily be considered a Thai variation of a Wuxia movie which I don’t cover here, but still draws enough inspiration from Western superhero movies that I thought I had to include it. It also follows pretty closely to the standard superhero origin story, though with a lot more martial arts fight sequences rather than superpower showcases. Also, while the film is mostly in Thai with subtitles, when the villains are speaking to each other, they tend to speak in heavily accented English for reasons I never quite understood. It was different enough to be a refreshing change of pace compared to most of the superhero movies I see, but in the end it still followed the same basic story arc.
Read the rest of this entry
Superhero Shorts: Spawn: The Recall
Welcome to another edition of Superhero Shorts where I take a look at a superhero themed short film and as a few questions of its creator. This time around I’m talking with Michael Paris about his short film set in the Spawn universe with an original character as well as an appearance by Spawn himself. It’s a film that was two years in the making due to all the visual effects that Paris did all on his own. As usual, you can watch it below or you can check it out at the official website, and you can also check out Michael Paris’s earlier work at his own website.
Read the rest of this entry
Filmwhys Extra #15 Batman Quadrilogy
Episode 15 of the Why Haven’t You Seen This Film Podcast show between the shows, an extra episode where we are talking about the Tim Burton and Joel Schumacher Batman films. With my are guests Jason Soto from Your Face!, The Vern from Vern’s Video Vortex, and Will Kouf from Silver Emulsion.
Read the rest of this entry
Filmwhys #37 When Harry Met Sally… and Batman Begins
Welcome back to another episode of Filmwhys starting off my first event here on the show. For the next five weeks I’ll be taking a look at plenty of Batman, and what better place to start then at the beginning. At least the beginning of Christopher Nolan’s trilogy. My guest is Jess from French Toast Sunday who asks me why I haven’t seen the classic romantic comedy for people who don’t necessarily like romantic comedies When Harry Met Sally… and in return I ask her why she hasn’t seen the beginning of Christopher Nolan’s epic Dark Knight Trilogy, Batman Begins.
Read the rest of this entry
Superhero Shorts: Super Zero
It seems like it’s been a little while since my last installment of Superhero Shorts, where I take a look at a superhero themed short film and ask a few questions of the creator. But I’ve got a couple for you here in the near future starting off with Super Zero here today from writer/director Mitch Cohen where he takes the zombie apocalypse and throws in a schlubby gamer geek with a knack for gadgets and brain cancer who ends up being a Bad-Ass Zombie slaying superhero. As usual, you can watch the short below, or you can visit Mitch’s YouTube channel.
Read the rest of this entry
Sin City
Sin City 2005
After hearing the reviews for the disappointing sequel Sin City: A Dame To Kill For I had decided to wait to revisit the original movie until after seeing it for myself. I thought that doing it this way around would remind myself of how good it could have been rather than setting myself up for disappointment. And in that respect it worked exactly the way I hoped it would. There are still a handful of issues that I noticed in the sequel that were also present in the original, but for the most part, the original still holds up almost 10 years later while the sequel is the one that feels dated. I don’t specifically remember seeing this when it was originally in theaters. I was a fan of Robert Rodgriguez from Desperado and From Dusk Till Dawn but knew nothing about the Sin City books. But I liked it enough to get the three disc DVD edition that has a version where you can see the four stories individually and extended. It also came with a mini reprint of the comics used in the movie so you can see how visually similar they ended up being. There’s just something about this movie that can be felt, the actors are better, the cinematography is better, there’s just a more intense feeling that everyone involved knew they were doing something different. This was an experiment in filmmaking, the digital cameras were fresh. Rodgriguez was able to change up his style of directing, letting the cameras roll continuously and let the takes flow naturally. There was just an unspoken buzz in the air that can still be felt, something that was absent in A Dame to Kill For.
Read the rest of this entry
Flights, Tights, and Movie Nights 