Reviews by Author

Who’s That Knocking at My Door? (1967)

Who’s That Knocking at My Door? (1967)
AKA I Call First

Starring Zina Bethune, Harvey Keitel, Anne Collette, Lennard Kuras, Michael Scala, Harry Northup

Directed by Martin Scorsese

Expectations: Moderate and very interested to see where Scorsese began.

There’s no dispute that Martin Scorsese is one of the great American filmmakers, so watching his debut film for the first time is something of a loaded experience. Who’s That Knocking at My Door? is definitely not at the same level of quality that his later films deliver, but it shows flashes of his brilliance throughout (though, surprisingly, no Rolling Stones songs 🙂 ). Harvey Keitel also makes his debut here, so even if it’s not an exceptionally great film, it marks the beginning of two great careers in American cinema.

The story is rather loose and free-flowing, like something of an American take on the French New Wave style. There are also elements of the great neorealist Italian films of the ’50s and ’60s, so Who’s That Knocking at My Door? carries a distinctly European flair while also being rooted deep in its New York setting. While this is interesting and admirable, Scorsese is rather blunt about this, having Keitel go on and on about a picture of John Wayne in The Searchers appearing in a French magazine read by a woman he meets (and later falls in love with). At the time I just thought it was a way of Scorsese slipping in references to movies he liked, Tarantino-style (and it is some of that), but it’s clearly a way to push the film’s American identity forward while also tell us something about the main character’s psyche.

Man of Iron (1972)

Man of Iron [仇連環] (1972)
AKA Dirty Chan, Warrior of Steel

Starring Chen Kuan-Tai, Ching Li, Wong Chung, Chu Mu, Tin Ching, Bolo Yeung, Yeung Chi-Hing, Pao Chia-Wen, Chiang Tao, Li Min-Lang, Wang Kuang-Yu, Cheung Ging-Boh, Chan Chuen

Directed by Chang Cheh & Pao Hsueh-Li

Expectations: Moderate.

Man of Iron immediately sets itself up as a sequel to The Boxer from Shantung, but the only returning character is the street where everything happens. I’ve also heard the film referred to as a remake of the previous film, but this is also a misnomer as the stories are vastly different. The Boxer from Shantung is a re-telling of the classic gangster tale Scarface, but Man of Iron bears little resemblance to this rag-to-riches gangster tragedy. Instead, we just have Chen Kuan-Tai playing a character who wants to move up in the gangster hierarchy, but the characters themselves, while sharing some similar goals, are pretty far from being actually similar.

Man of Iron is set 20 years after the end of The Boxer from Shantung. The street and the people who populate it have moved on, and new gangs have grown to control the area. There are two major gang bosses: Chang Gen Bao (Chu Mu) and Yu Zhen-Ting (Yeung Chi-Hung). One day, Yu Chow-Kai (Tin Ching), the son of the gang boss Yu, is gambling and has all of his money taken by Qiu Lian-Huan (Chen Kuan-Tai), a man with a small gang of friends that’s tired of being small time. Yu’s son is a man who has inherited his place in the gangster world, so he is easily bested and intimated by Qiu, a man who has fought to be where he is.

The Evil Dead (1981)

Starring Bruce Campbell, Ellen Sandweiss, Richard DeManincor, Betsy Baker, Theresa Tilly

Directed by Sam Raimi

Expectations: One of my all-time favorites.

The Evil Dead. It’s hard to believe that this movie is 33 years old. It still elicits scares and laughs just as much as it did the first time I saw it all those years ago. But this re-watch was something extra special: I saw it on the big screen. This was a pleasure I had never experienced before, only discovering the film on VHS in the ’90s when a friend let me borrow it. While it’s cliché to say that the big screen made the film a much better experience, that’s exactly the case here. I’ve seen this movie more times than I could ever hope to count, but the theater experience still revealed to me things I had never taken the time to notice or care about specifically.

The first of these is the sound design. While the original soundtrack is only mono — and a fairly abrasive mono with all the shrieking and such — the sound design that accompanies the coming evil of the woods is paramount to the film’s success. The wonderfully inventive camerawork that Raimi uses to realize this spirit flying through the woods is impressive enough, but coupled with the sounds of voices and brooding synths it makes for something that you’ll never forget. I’ve always loved how alive the forest around the cabin in The Evil Dead felt, and I have to credit a lot of that atmosphere and staying power to the ever-present, excellent sound design.

Stephen reviews: Birth (1984)

birth_1 Birth [バース] (1984)
AKA World of the Talisman; Planet Busters

Starring Miina Tominaga, Kazuki Yao, Ichirō Nagai, Kaneto Shiozawa, Keiko Toda, Noriko Tsukase, Fuyumi Shiraishi

Directed by Shinya Sadamitsu

Sometimes I wonder why I dig through the bottom of the anime barrel, dredging up forgotten pieces of garbage that maybe should have stayed forgotten. But then I stumble upon one of those hidden gems that I never would have seen otherwise. Birth is one of those films that despite its low production quality is just so damn entertaining that all of its flaws are moot. Its rambunctious humor and action-driven narrative kept me in a perpetual state of giddy excitement.

There’s really not much of a plot here. It’s more of a string of intertwined chase scenes without much purpose aside from having a thrilling chase scene full of random sci-fi gadgets and vehicles. It starts with a small alien blob being chased by a slightly more anatomically defined alien critter, then moves on to a spaceship chasing a flying, glowing sword across the solar system, then shows off a cute blonde girl on a hover bike (which was clearly designed for maximum sexy posing and butt shots) getting chased by an asshole biker gang intercut with a guy on foot getting chased by a big robot with swords and guns. This is pretty much the first half-hour of the film, and there hasn’t been any kind of story going on other than “Run for your freaking life!”

Power of the Press (1943)

Starring Guy Kibbee, Gloria Dickson, Lee Tracy, Otto Kruger, Victor Jory, Larry Parks, Minor Watson

Directed by Lew Landers

Expectations: Moderate.

Power of the Press doesn’t bother with subtlety. It’s a film that focuses like a laser on the power that the press can wield and how constructive/destructive it can be in the right/wrong hands. It’s a story and a setting that makes the Sam Fuller connection seem like a given, but unfortunately little of Fuller’s biting social commentary or affecting dramatics make it to the screen here. Power of the Press is an enjoyable little movie, but it’s one so straightforward and obvious that it’s almost pointless to watch.

The film opens as John Carter (Minor Watson), the publisher of the New York Gazette, is about to give a speech about the freedom of the press. What stops him from heading out and delivering the speech is an editorial in a small Nebraska newspaper that was recently sent to him. The editorial was written by an old friend, Ulysses Bradford (Guy Kibbee), and it takes Carter to task for being at the head of a completely corrupt newspaper that cares little for the truth. Bradford writes that freedom of the press means freedom to tell the truth, not the freedom to twist the truth.

Return to Nuke ‘Em High Vol. 1 (2013)

Starring Asta Paredes, Catherine Corcoran, Clay von Carlowitz, Zac Amico, Stefan Dezil, Gabriela Fuhr, Vito Trigo, Mark Quinnette, Mike Baez, Reiki Tsuno, Tara E. Miller, Jim Sheppard, Debbie Rochon, Babette Bombshell, William Dreyer, Ron Mackay, Adam P. Murphy, Brenda Rickert, Lloyd Kaufman, Lemmy, Stan Lee

Directed by Lloyd Kaufman

Expectations: Super high! It’s the new Troma film!

Lloyd Kaufman’s films are all about excess in the name of fun, with moments of grossout gore, nudity and juvenile humor all amped up to levels that would make a nun’s black habit turn white. Return to Nuke ‘Em High is no different, so Troma fans can rest assured that this new film from Uncle Lloyd is the real deal. I absolutely loved it, and while I did have a couple of issues with it overall, it’s a great film that showcases everything you either love or hate about Troma. There’s never a middle ground with a Troma film, and this commitment to a truly independent vision of cinema is what keeps the fans loyal and hungry for more tromatic thrills.

Return to Nuke ‘Em High is kind of a remake of the original Class of Nuke ‘Em High (one of my favorite Troma films), but it’s also kind of a sequel too. It also goes the Citizen Toxie route and kind of brushes off whatever happened in the previous sequels to make things easier for the writing team. This is all lovingly and wonderfully rendered during the opening sequence of the film, which recaps the first film and introduces us to the current circumstances afflicting good ol’ Tromaville High School. I should also mention that calling Return to Nuke ‘Em High a remake of Class of Nuke ‘Em High doesn’t do justice to what Troma has created here. Return to Nuke ‘Em High is very much its own thing with a wealth of fresh, hilarious creativity, while also incorporating and re-inventing elements that existed in the original film.

Magazine Review: Full Moon Presents Delirium #1 (Feb/Mar 2014)

delirium-issue01-cover-email The last couple of years have been a great time to be a Full Moon fan. There have been many new films, and a lot of them have been great bursts of genre fun. There was also the debut of Full Moon Streaming, a Netflix-like venture that I was initially skeptical of, but after subscribing I can attest to its excellence and wealth of great content that extends throughout the entire Full Moon universe and beyond. And now Full Moon brings its fans yet another great new addition to its arsenal: Delirium magazine, edited by current Fangoria editor Chris Alexander.

Simply put, if you’re a Full Moon fan that likes a good horror mag (and who doesn’t), Delirium is a great magazine. But if you’re still on the fence about purchasing an issue or subscribing, you probably want more concrete details as to why it’s so great. First off, the printing itself is superb. This is a high-quality, full-color magazine printed on excellent quality paper with a thick card stock cover. If you were so inclined, these luscious pictures would be worthy of cutting out and placing on your bedroom wall or other such place of honor.

This reminds me of a time back when I was a young, budding horror fan. My friend used to bring his Fangorias to school and we’d cut out the best photos from them and tape them to our desks. Who knows why our 6th grade teacher allowed us to do this with gruesome images from various ’80s & ’90s horror films, but whatever, she let it slide and it will always be a treasured memory. Looking through Delirium brought back that surge of flipping through a horror mag, reminding me of the power that a simple printed picture used to contain. The availability of information and photos through the Internet has largely killed this periodical medium, but in my opinion it’s still worth saving and Delirium does a great job at that.