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DanXIII

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Movie Review: The Black Mass (2023) – Cleopatra Blu-ray

This is one of those rare revoltin’ reviews where I discuss the execution of a film way more than it’s plot, but as your arcane asses read on I think you’ll see why… The long and short of director/co-writer Devanny Pinn’s The Black Mass is as follows: Early in 1978, down Florida way, a true psychopath, Ted by name (Andrew Sykes), spends his morning stealing I.D.s and cash from people’s pockets and begins a day of stalking young women from a nearby sorority from the comfort of his VW Beetle and creeping on them… which never leads to anything super good, that’s for fuckin’ sure… and it well and truly doesn’t here either. Now the difference in this familiar narrative is the way in which the material is presented. For starters we get to witness the slice of life, day to day minutiae of a serial killer at work… from picking pockets, to methodically stalking sorority sisters, to even the

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Feb 11, 2024

Movie Review: The Devil’s Partner/Creature From The Haunted Sea (1961) – Film Masters Blu-ray

Old man Pete Jensen performs one of those Satanic ceremonies that are all the rage with the ladies in the Bridge Club… or apparently with crazy ol’ coots who spend their days living off the grid, performing Black Masses, and absolutely pissing off a sizable portion of the population of Furnace Flats down New Mexico way. Anyway, Pete dies and before you can say “Faustian Deal” his young nephew Nick Richards (Ed Nelson) blows into town and takes up residence in Pete’s rustic shit shack… where he almost immediately meets and gets the hornies for Nell Lucas (Jean Allison), the daughter of the town’s doctor, Doc Lucas (Edgar Buchanan). Although smitten with the lass, Nick is cock-blocked by her beau, auto-mechanic David Simpson (Richard Crane), so he does what any sane, rational individual would do… he performs a magic ritual which causes David’s German Shepard to go completely insane and brutally maim him. Get this, Nick also commits other magic

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Feb 6, 2024

Movie Review: The Blue Jean Monster (1991) – 88 Films Blu-ray

Police Officer Fui-On Shing (Tsu Hsiang, The Killer, A Better Tomorrow) is having himself quite the day. After visiting a Buddhist temple that forewarns him of ill luck headin’ his way sooner rather than later, he ditches his pregnant wife Chu (Siu-Fung Wong) to follow up on a lead on a bank heist supplied to him by his teenage orphan sidekick/ridiculous individual par excellence Power Steering (Wai-Kit Tse). After a chase, Shing gets the drop on the criminals at a construction site, but ends up getting a palette of rebar dropped on him instead. Left for dead, a magic cat sits on him (I have no idea) after which he is struck by lightning. As it would with anyone, both of those things result in his super-powered zombie resurrection… and he’ll stay a member of the walking dead as long as he keeps shocking himself with electric jolts. Along the way he gets mixed up with Power Steering’s kinda girlfriend

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Feb 2, 2024

Movie Review: Thinner (1996) – Scream Factory Blu-ray

Corpulent lawyer Billy Halleck (Robert John Burke, Dust Devil, Robocop 3) spends his days drinking smoothies in an effort to shed some pounds, fucking that up by eating massive quantities of food, and getting mafioso-types off the hook legally… while not starring at the asses of the more comely members of the group of wandering Romany folk that have rolled into town. Speaking of those folk, Billy manages to run over one of them with his car while getting a blow job from his wife, Heidi (Michael McDowell)… and since he’s buddy-buddy with The Man he gets off scot-F’n-free… but not before the tribe’s elder, Tadzu (Michael Constantine), touches Billy. Before you can say “Slimfast” ol’ Billy-boy begins shedding pounds lickety-split, even though he hasn’t curbed his eating a damn bit… and get this, other folks the Elder touched have been afflicted with horrible maladies six ways to Sunday! Will are hero find a way to remove the curse, or

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 27, 2024

Movie Review: A Creature Was Stirring (2023) WellGo USA Blu-ray

Nurse Faith (Chrissy Metz) lives with her daughter Charm (Annalise Basso, Oculus), who suffers from an unnamed malady that requires her to soak in a tub filled with ice cold water in order to keep her ever-rising body temperature down… when she’s not locked in her room behind a rather imposing door. While that biz is going down, Missionary Liz (Scout Taylor-Compton, Rob Zombie’s Halloween) and her brother Kory (Connor Paolo) just break right on in to Faith’s house seeking shelter from the snowstorm that rages outside. Eventually they end up being invited, begrudgingly, to stay… but not before Faith fucks up Kory’s leg with a spike-studded baseball bat. I guess it’s always good to keep a steady supply of potential victims around, because as the title of the film would suggest… or more accurately flat-out tells you… there’s a creature roaming this feature, and it’s a real demonic doozy and a fuckin’ half, believe you me! Who will survive

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 27, 2024

Movie Review: Cuadecuc Vampir (1971)/Umbracle (1972) – Severin Blu-ray

Jess Franco made himself an adaption of Bram Stoker’s classic fang bang terror tome Dracula back in 1970 (refresh your memory on that release, the Christopher Lee starring Count Dracula, right here) and hired Spanish filmmaker Pere Portabella to film a lil’ behind-the-scenes action for what was supposed to be turned into a documentary concerning the film’s creation… but it wasn’t and here we are… Instead, Portabella conjured forth 1971’s Cuadecuc, Vampir; a black and white, hour-and-change, nearly silent (there is ambient (frequently not very) musical accompaniment, and closing remarks from Lee however) experimental film that certainly does present a fly-on-the-wall glimpse (no matter how impressionistic) into the film’s production along with it’s own loosey-goosey narrative. To that end we get a visual tone-poem showcasing cast and crew toiling away… and it is a fascinating, if unconventional viewing experience. Additionally, viewing Franco’s footage in stark, crisp (sometimes purposefully over-exposed) chiaroscuro gives it that classic Universal monster movie vibe! But wait,

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 26, 2024

Movie Review: Silver Bullet (1985) – Scream Factory 4K/Blu-ray Combo

What do you get when you combine Corey Haim, Gary Busey, werewolves and The King of Horror himself? Horror fans will immediately guess 1985’s fright flick Silver Bullet. And non-horror fans… well I have no idea what they would think… and what the hell are they doing on this website anyway? Anyway, Scream Factory have unleashed a 4k/Blu-ray combo release of Silver Bullet, and yours cruelly is going to slap his putrid peepers upon it! In the quaint small town of Tarker’s Mills nothing exciting seems to happen… until the murders begin that is! Enter: Marty Coslaw (Corey Haim, The Lost Boys), a wheelchair (a motorized number which just so happens to be named Silver Bullet) bound lad who lives with his family… including his beloved (by Marty only) freeloading drunk of an uncle, Red (Gary Busey) smack dab in the middle of The ‘Mills. Being an ‘80s movie (based on an ‘80s book… novella, whatever… it’s Stephen King’s 1983-released

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 20, 2024

Movie Review: México Bárbaro II (2017) – Unearthed Films Blu-ray

Being the forgetful fiend that I am, yours cruelly oft forgets that our pals South of the Border can deliver the gory goods among the best of them… and Unearthed Film’s new Blu-ray release of arcane anthology México Bárbaro II (the follow up to 2014’s México Bárbaro) reminded me with a nice, big, bloody open-handed slap right across my putrid puss! Let’s put our eerie eyeballs on the sinister segments that comprise this fright flick one by one and see just what makes this picture tick! La Leyenda De Juan Soldado: Coming from writer/director Abraham Sánchez; our first yarn concerns a soldier by the name of Juan (Uri Meza), who is accused of rape and left to die in the desert by his commanding officer. The thing is, our hero is innocent… so naturally the denizens of hell give him a chance to settle the score with those that wronged him! Entertaining, fast-paced, and full of a pseudo-EC Comics vibe

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 20, 2024

Movie Review: Blood Feast (2016) – Synapse 4K

Back in the far-flung past of 1963, Godfather of Gore Herschell Gordon Lewis unleashed Blood Feast; a blood-soaked tale of an Egyptian caterer who serves up feasts of human flesh, upon unsuspecting drive-in goers, and the world of horror films got that much more extreme. As is the case in the horror biz, it was high time for the picture to get the ol’ remake treatment ‘round 2016 courtesy of writer/director Marcel Walz (along with co-writer Philip Lilienschwarz)… and it’s this version that got the deluxe 4K treatment recently thanks to the fine fiends over at Synapse Films. Moving the action from Florida to Paris, our tale follows Fuad Ramses (Robert Rusler, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge) who have transplanted his wife Louise (Caroline Williams, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2) and daughter Penny (Sophie Monk, The Hills Run Red) to France where he has established a restaurant that serves homesick American tourists authentic diner food. Sounds solid

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 16, 2024

Box Set Review: Cushing Curiosities (1960 – 1974) – Severin

You know what’s better than a flick featuring good ol’ Peter Cushing? A flick featuring Peter Cushing you haven’t seen 3,457 times! To that end Severin’s new boxset, Cushing Curiosities; a 6 disc collection of Cushing-starring rarities will fit that bill nicely indeed! The whole shebang kicks off with 1960’s Cone of Silence… Cushing stars as pilot Clive Judd; a douche-par-excellence that has nothing better to do than fuck with an investigation into a fatal airline disaster. Why would he do that you may ask? Well, he kinda-sorta had everything to do with it and he’s sweating that shit in a major way. Defending the pilot of the doomed craft, Captain George Gort (Bernard Lee) by name, is Captain Hugh Dallas (Michael Craig)… but how pure are his motives what with his being in a romance with Gort’s daughter, Charlotte (Elizabeth Seal)? Directed by Charles Frend (Scott of the Antarctic,The Cruel Sea), Cone of Silence is a solid courtroom-centric thriller

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 13, 2024

More from DanXIII

Movie Review: The Black Mass (2023) – Cleopatra Blu-ray

This is one of those rare revoltin’ reviews where I discuss the execution of a film way more than it’s plot, but as your arcane asses read on I think you’ll see why… The long and short of director/co-writer Devanny Pinn’s The Black Mass is as follows: Early in 1978, down Florida way, a true psychopath, Ted by name (Andrew Sykes), spends his morning stealing I.D.s and cash from people’s pockets and begins a day of stalking young women from a nearby sorority from the comfort of his VW Beetle and creeping on them… which never leads to anything super good, that’s for fuckin’ sure… and it well and truly doesn’t here either. Now the difference in this familiar narrative is the way in which the material is presented. For starters we get to witness the slice of life, day to day minutiae of a serial killer at work… from picking pockets, to methodically stalking sorority sisters, to even the

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Feb 11, 2024

Movie Review: The Devil’s Partner/Creature From The Haunted Sea (1961) – Film Masters Blu-ray

Old man Pete Jensen performs one of those Satanic ceremonies that are all the rage with the ladies in the Bridge Club… or apparently with crazy ol’ coots who spend their days living off the grid, performing Black Masses, and absolutely pissing off a sizable portion of the population of Furnace Flats down New Mexico way. Anyway, Pete dies and before you can say “Faustian Deal” his young nephew Nick Richards (Ed Nelson) blows into town and takes up residence in Pete’s rustic shit shack… where he almost immediately meets and gets the hornies for Nell Lucas (Jean Allison), the daughter of the town’s doctor, Doc Lucas (Edgar Buchanan). Although smitten with the lass, Nick is cock-blocked by her beau, auto-mechanic David Simpson (Richard Crane), so he does what any sane, rational individual would do… he performs a magic ritual which causes David’s German Shepard to go completely insane and brutally maim him. Get this, Nick also commits other magic

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Feb 6, 2024

Movie Review: The Blue Jean Monster (1991) – 88 Films Blu-ray

Police Officer Fui-On Shing (Tsu Hsiang, The Killer, A Better Tomorrow) is having himself quite the day. After visiting a Buddhist temple that forewarns him of ill luck headin’ his way sooner rather than later, he ditches his pregnant wife Chu (Siu-Fung Wong) to follow up on a lead on a bank heist supplied to him by his teenage orphan sidekick/ridiculous individual par excellence Power Steering (Wai-Kit Tse). After a chase, Shing gets the drop on the criminals at a construction site, but ends up getting a palette of rebar dropped on him instead. Left for dead, a magic cat sits on him (I have no idea) after which he is struck by lightning. As it would with anyone, both of those things result in his super-powered zombie resurrection… and he’ll stay a member of the walking dead as long as he keeps shocking himself with electric jolts. Along the way he gets mixed up with Power Steering’s kinda girlfriend

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Feb 2, 2024

Movie Review: Thinner (1996) – Scream Factory Blu-ray

Corpulent lawyer Billy Halleck (Robert John Burke, Dust Devil, Robocop 3) spends his days drinking smoothies in an effort to shed some pounds, fucking that up by eating massive quantities of food, and getting mafioso-types off the hook legally… while not starring at the asses of the more comely members of the group of wandering Romany folk that have rolled into town. Speaking of those folk, Billy manages to run over one of them with his car while getting a blow job from his wife, Heidi (Michael McDowell)… and since he’s buddy-buddy with The Man he gets off scot-F’n-free… but not before the tribe’s elder, Tadzu (Michael Constantine), touches Billy. Before you can say “Slimfast” ol’ Billy-boy begins shedding pounds lickety-split, even though he hasn’t curbed his eating a damn bit… and get this, other folks the Elder touched have been afflicted with horrible maladies six ways to Sunday! Will are hero find a way to remove the curse, or

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 27, 2024

Movie Review: A Creature Was Stirring (2023) WellGo USA Blu-ray

Nurse Faith (Chrissy Metz) lives with her daughter Charm (Annalise Basso, Oculus), who suffers from an unnamed malady that requires her to soak in a tub filled with ice cold water in order to keep her ever-rising body temperature down… when she’s not locked in her room behind a rather imposing door. While that biz is going down, Missionary Liz (Scout Taylor-Compton, Rob Zombie’s Halloween) and her brother Kory (Connor Paolo) just break right on in to Faith’s house seeking shelter from the snowstorm that rages outside. Eventually they end up being invited, begrudgingly, to stay… but not before Faith fucks up Kory’s leg with a spike-studded baseball bat. I guess it’s always good to keep a steady supply of potential victims around, because as the title of the film would suggest… or more accurately flat-out tells you… there’s a creature roaming this feature, and it’s a real demonic doozy and a fuckin’ half, believe you me! Who will survive

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 27, 2024

Movie Review: Cuadecuc Vampir (1971)/Umbracle (1972) – Severin Blu-ray

Jess Franco made himself an adaption of Bram Stoker’s classic fang bang terror tome Dracula back in 1970 (refresh your memory on that release, the Christopher Lee starring Count Dracula, right here) and hired Spanish filmmaker Pere Portabella to film a lil’ behind-the-scenes action for what was supposed to be turned into a documentary concerning the film’s creation… but it wasn’t and here we are… Instead, Portabella conjured forth 1971’s Cuadecuc, Vampir; a black and white, hour-and-change, nearly silent (there is ambient (frequently not very) musical accompaniment, and closing remarks from Lee however) experimental film that certainly does present a fly-on-the-wall glimpse (no matter how impressionistic) into the film’s production along with it’s own loosey-goosey narrative. To that end we get a visual tone-poem showcasing cast and crew toiling away… and it is a fascinating, if unconventional viewing experience. Additionally, viewing Franco’s footage in stark, crisp (sometimes purposefully over-exposed) chiaroscuro gives it that classic Universal monster movie vibe! But wait,

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 26, 2024

Movie Review: Silver Bullet (1985) – Scream Factory 4K/Blu-ray Combo

What do you get when you combine Corey Haim, Gary Busey, werewolves and The King of Horror himself? Horror fans will immediately guess 1985’s fright flick Silver Bullet. And non-horror fans… well I have no idea what they would think… and what the hell are they doing on this website anyway? Anyway, Scream Factory have unleashed a 4k/Blu-ray combo release of Silver Bullet, and yours cruelly is going to slap his putrid peepers upon it! In the quaint small town of Tarker’s Mills nothing exciting seems to happen… until the murders begin that is! Enter: Marty Coslaw (Corey Haim, The Lost Boys), a wheelchair (a motorized number which just so happens to be named Silver Bullet) bound lad who lives with his family… including his beloved (by Marty only) freeloading drunk of an uncle, Red (Gary Busey) smack dab in the middle of The ‘Mills. Being an ‘80s movie (based on an ‘80s book… novella, whatever… it’s Stephen King’s 1983-released

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 20, 2024

Movie Review: México Bárbaro II (2017) – Unearthed Films Blu-ray

Being the forgetful fiend that I am, yours cruelly oft forgets that our pals South of the Border can deliver the gory goods among the best of them… and Unearthed Film’s new Blu-ray release of arcane anthology México Bárbaro II (the follow up to 2014’s México Bárbaro) reminded me with a nice, big, bloody open-handed slap right across my putrid puss! Let’s put our eerie eyeballs on the sinister segments that comprise this fright flick one by one and see just what makes this picture tick! La Leyenda De Juan Soldado: Coming from writer/director Abraham Sánchez; our first yarn concerns a soldier by the name of Juan (Uri Meza), who is accused of rape and left to die in the desert by his commanding officer. The thing is, our hero is innocent… so naturally the denizens of hell give him a chance to settle the score with those that wronged him! Entertaining, fast-paced, and full of a pseudo-EC Comics vibe

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 20, 2024

Movie Review: Blood Feast (2016) – Synapse 4K

Back in the far-flung past of 1963, Godfather of Gore Herschell Gordon Lewis unleashed Blood Feast; a blood-soaked tale of an Egyptian caterer who serves up feasts of human flesh, upon unsuspecting drive-in goers, and the world of horror films got that much more extreme. As is the case in the horror biz, it was high time for the picture to get the ol’ remake treatment ‘round 2016 courtesy of writer/director Marcel Walz (along with co-writer Philip Lilienschwarz)… and it’s this version that got the deluxe 4K treatment recently thanks to the fine fiends over at Synapse Films. Moving the action from Florida to Paris, our tale follows Fuad Ramses (Robert Rusler, A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge) who have transplanted his wife Louise (Caroline Williams, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2) and daughter Penny (Sophie Monk, The Hills Run Red) to France where he has established a restaurant that serves homesick American tourists authentic diner food. Sounds solid

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 16, 2024

Box Set Review: Cushing Curiosities (1960 – 1974) – Severin

You know what’s better than a flick featuring good ol’ Peter Cushing? A flick featuring Peter Cushing you haven’t seen 3,457 times! To that end Severin’s new boxset, Cushing Curiosities; a 6 disc collection of Cushing-starring rarities will fit that bill nicely indeed! The whole shebang kicks off with 1960’s Cone of Silence… Cushing stars as pilot Clive Judd; a douche-par-excellence that has nothing better to do than fuck with an investigation into a fatal airline disaster. Why would he do that you may ask? Well, he kinda-sorta had everything to do with it and he’s sweating that shit in a major way. Defending the pilot of the doomed craft, Captain George Gort (Bernard Lee) by name, is Captain Hugh Dallas (Michael Craig)… but how pure are his motives what with his being in a romance with Gort’s daughter, Charlotte (Elizabeth Seal)? Directed by Charles Frend (Scott of the Antarctic,The Cruel Sea), Cone of Silence is a solid courtroom-centric thriller

Continue reading →
DanXIII
Jan 13, 2024
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