Jack sholder's 80's classic "ALONE IN THE DARK" is a unique slasher gem with some real substance to it! An intelligent scary film with a great little twist & only one weakness keeping it from being flawless & thats the unrealistic,un-emotional,overacting,bad dialog haveing,useless,annoying little blonde girl!(if she had any more dialog it may have ruined the movie!) With that said Martin Landau is truly excellent & scary as hell as The Preacher! This one is a horror fan must!
A Notch above the typical 80's Slasher
I was so glad to see this film finally get the DVD treatment. It's another one of those forgotten 80's slashers like "Madman" and "The Prowler", that were overlooked at the box office, but are such a pleasure to find on the video store shelves. What I like most about "Alone in the Dark" is that it's not just your usual teens-in-peril-here-comes-the-masked-killer movie. There is an actual storyline here, with a pretty cool plot, and one really great twist. "Alone in the Dark" does a great job of building up suspense, which is a lost art that you don't get with today's films. Instead of things jumping out at you to get scares, "Alone in the Dark" creates a creepy atmosphere that continually builds throughout the film, with almost no cheap scares along the way. If you are a fan of 80's horror this is one you should be sure to pick up.
"There Are No Crazy People, Doctor. We're All Just...On Vacation..."
Infinitely better than the unrelated 2005 stinkbomb (based on a video game) that shares the same name, 1982's "Alone In The Dark" works as either/or a slasher/suspense film and succeeds marvelously.
Four loonies escape from an asylum/halfway house (during a city-wide power outage) to hunt down and terrorize the psychiatrist they believe murdered their original doctor. These psychos are known as Frank Hawke (a delusional war vet, played by Jack Palance), pyromaniacal religous zealot Byron, aka 'Preacher' (played ghoulishly by Martin Landau), Skagg/'The Bleeder' (who doesn't like people to see his face, and at one point anticipates the third entry of the 'Friday The 13Th' franchise by donning a hockey mask!) and 'Fatty', an enormously strong (and corpulent) child molester. Fatty is played aptly by Erland Van Lidth, who played 'Terror' in the immortal 50's/60's-set gang movie "The Wanderers" (released in 1979).
All these actors, as well as those who play their victims, etc., do a good job. The story is pretty basic, since this was made early in the days of the slasher craze and movies like this weren't required to have all kindsa 'bells and whistles'. There IS a bit of a twist involving the 'Bleeder' character, and the ending is weird and ambiguous, but otherwise "Alone In The Dark" is as direct as you could want. But simple though it may be, it pretty much ROCKS! Much of this is due to the legitimacy provided by the cast, which also features Donald ("Halloween" franchise) Pleasence as a zonked-out psychiatrist. The kills are as reasonably bloody as a genre fan could hope for, and there is a lot of tension created through the pacing and the characterization, especially by Palance, who seems ever on the verge of snapping. Also features the requisite nudity/sex scene found in genre films of this era, courtesy of a very cute babysitter. While all the standard pieces to your typical slash-fest are present, it never feels cheap or gratuitous; it's just loads of fun, a movie about "voyagers" (as Pleasence's character refers to the psychos) on a murderous field trip. It manages to address all the conventions of a genre picture without seeming stale or generic, and I give it much respect for that.
The film, helmed by Jack (dir.,"Nightmare On Elm St. Pt. 2") Sholder, also features a great, melancholy synth-type score appropriate for the time frame. The DVD looks great, with a nice and colorful picture transfer. It makes for an enjoyable, scary, and classy horror film experience.
"Just Before Dawn" falls into the same type of horror movie as "American Gothic," "Motel Hell," "Texas Chainsaw Massacre," "Wrong Turn," and "Deliverance" only it is more like the typical unoriginal slasher flick than the four above mentioned movies are. However, what makes this movie worth watching is the eerie atmosphere permeating throughout it and the lonely isolation of the dark mountains and forests and man's (and woman's) vulnerability against the primitive forces of nature as represented in the inbred redneck psychopathic brothers that spend the entire movie stalking and hunting a group of young adults spending a few nights camping in the wilderness. The only reason I gave this movie three stars instead of four is because the story was one I had seen a million times before and the... More Info about this DVD Director(s): Jeff Lieberman DVD Release Date: Released the 26 July 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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FROM A WHISPER TO A SCREAM is one of the most disgusting, horrifying, and just plain nasty movies I have ever seen. It touches on subjects such as incest, necrophelia, and also has some strange stories that include voodoo, a traveling carnival, and a bunch of depraved and creepy kids (a la Children of the Corn). If you like horror movies, though, and think you can stomach this, I say give it a try.
It was a nice suprise to see one of my all time favorites, Vincent Price, presenting the four-part anthology. His atmospheric voice and often creepy face are perfect for a movie like this.
The stories revolve around the fact that Price's niece is presently being executed for murder. Price is explaining to a reporter how it is not her fault she is like that, but... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Vincent Price - Clu Gulager Director(s): Jeff Burr DVD Release Date: Released the 20 September 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Bolstered by the success of 28 Days Later, Shaun of the Dead, the Resident Evil movies and the hit remake of his own Dawn of the Dead, George A. Romero returns to the horror subgenre he invented with Land of the Dead. The fourth installment in Romero's zombie cycle (and the first since 1985's Day of the Dead) presents a logical progression of events since 1968's horror classic Night of the Living Dead: Zombies (also known as "stenches" for their rotting odor) are the dominant population, and they've begun to show signs of undead intelligence and gathering power. The wealthiest survivors live comfortably in a luxury high-rise within a barricaded safe zone, ignoring the horrors of the outside world while armed scavengers stage raids in the... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Simon Baker - John Leguizamo - Asia Argento Director(s): George A. Romero DVD Release Date: Released the 18 October 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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Earlier this week I watched a thoroughly disgusting movie called Slugs (1987)...and tonight I watched Xtro (1983), another sloppy charmer featuring some wildly visceral and repugnant imagery. It's not that I mind the gross out stuff so much, but too much of it does create a strain on my gag reflex...oh well, don't weep for me, Argentina, as I follow the path, regardless of mucky entrails I may stumble over and slimy gristle I may slip on, in my perpetual endeavors in acquiring true, cinematic enlightenment. Co-written and directed by Harry Bromley Davenport (Xtro II: The Second Encounter, Xtro 3: Watch the Skies), the film features Philip Sayer (Slayground), Bernice Stegers (Sky Bandits), Danny Brainin ("John and Yoko: A Love Story"), Simon Nash (Brazil), and former Bond girl Maryam... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Philip Sayer DVD Release Date: Released the 20 September 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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"Hammer Horror Series" presents some of the studios best films from the early sixties period, though they might not be the most familiar to Hammer fans. A few, in fact, might come with baggage attached, but this collection dispells some of that baggage. In particular, Hammer's "Phantom of the Opera" has suffered more abuse over the years than any other of its films. The hard truth is, it's pretty good. The reason it has such a bum reputation might be because most people first saw it on television, which seriously impaired it. In it's proper aspect ratio, and with the extra scenes filmed for American TV left out, it's really pretty good. Not perfect, but pretty good. The biggest liability with the film are the horrendous opera sequences. "Evil of Frankenstein" has similarly been... More Info about this DVD Actor(s): Herbert Lom - Heather Sears Director(s): Terence Fisher DVD Release Date: Released the 06 September 2005 Usually ships in 24 hours
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