Well another week is upon us and the cinema gravy train keeps rolling in! A bunch of titles, new and old, are blessing the shop later this week so let’s see what to expect…
Brave explorers are headed for the far reaches of the galaxy in the continuation of the story that began with “2001: A Space Odyssey.” Their destination is Jupiter, where the Russian and American astronauts will conduct their investigation. Drs. Heywood Floyd (Roy Scheider), Walter Curnow (John Lithgow) and R. Chandra (Bob Balaban), along with shipmates Tanya (Helen Mirren) and Dave (Keir Dullea), aim to uncover what led to disaster for the deceased astronauts who preceded them.
In the far Northern Hemisphere, the small town of Barrow, Alaska, experiences a solid month of darkness every year. Though most of the residents head south for the winter, some townspeople remain behind. However, those that stay regret their decision when, one year, hungry vampires descend on Barrow to feed. Sheriff Eben (Josh Hartnett), his wife (Melissa George) and a dwindling band of survivors must try to last until dawn breaks over Barrow’s monthlong twilight.
Based on the bestseller by Elmore Leonard, when a LA entrepreneur has his life overturned when 3 hooded blackmailers appear with a video tape of him with his mistress he goes on the offensive. Roy Scheider, Ann-Margret, Kelly Preston, John Frankenheimer.
Space colonizers come face to face with the most terrifying life-form in the universe while scavenging the deep ends of a derelict space station.
The award winning documentary celebrates some of the unsung action stars of the late eighties and early ninety in the North American Pictures Catalog. From Cynthia Rothrock and Bolo Yeung to Billy Blanks the film explores the martial arts craze in the U.S. and the ferocious appetite of video store customers for these titles. Featuring Lloyd Kaufman (Troma President), John Brennan (The Last Drive-in), Debbie Rochon (Toxic Avenger IV), Tim Kulig (MacLeod) and James Richardson (VHS Massacre Too). From director Thomas Seymour (VHS Massacre 1&2) Trailer, Audio Commentary from the Director/Producer, Extended Interviews with Lloyd Kaufman, Debbie Rochon. (Additional 24 minute documentary MacLeod: There Can Be Only One, (Additional 80 minute Action film) Fountain of Death 2006
Wim Wenders pays loving homage to rough-and-tumble Hollywood film noir with The American Friend, in this loose adaptation of Patricia Highsmith’s novel Ripley’s Game. Dennis Hopper, Bruno Ganz.
The closer we look, the less we know in Justine Triet’s masterful Palme d’Or–winning Anatomy of a Fall, an eerily riveting courtroom thriller that examines the line where truth becomes fiction and fiction becomes truth. When Sandra Voyter (a transfixing Sandra Hüller), a writer who turns the material of her life into autofiction, is put on trial for the suspicious death by defenestration—or was it suicide?—of her husband, it opens up an inquiry that will turn a troubled home inside out. Tapping into the minimalist intensity of a chamber drama—and using intricate, elliptical editing—Triet constructs a mystery that is ultimately less about a death than about the hidden lives we lead.
Biopic on the street artist who soars from subway walls to gallery fame, but genius and self-destruction prove an inseparable mix in 1980s New York. Jeffrey Wright, Benicio del Toro, Julian Schnabel, 1996.
42 9th graders are sent to a deserted island. They are given a map, food, and various weapons. An explosive collar is fitted around their neck. If they break a rule, the collar explodes. Their mission: kill each other and be the last one standing. The last survivor is allowed to leave the island. If there is more than one survivor, the collars explode and kill them all.
Lauded American architect Stourley Kracklite has been invited to Rome to supervise the construction of a new building being modeled after the work of famed 18th-century builder Etienne-Louis Boullée, whose structures have served as Kracklite’s primary source of creative inspiration. Accompanied on his trip by his newly pregnant wife Louisa, Kracklite soon begins suffering from stomach pains, being constantly undermined by his subordinates, a possible affair blossoming between his wife and a work rival, and an obsession with the stomach of Caesar Augustus. His life continues down a path of obsession and self-destruction while wandering through the beautiful architecture and atmosphere of both ancient and modern Rome.
A lonely boy befriends Ben, the rat leader of the swarm of rats trained by Willard Stiles from the original film Willard. Ben becomes the boy’s best friend, protecting him from bullying and keeping his spirits up in the face of a heart condition. However, things gradually take a downward turn as Ben’s swarm becomes violent, resulting in several deaths.
A single mother and a childless morgue technician are bound together by their relationship to a little girl they have reanimated from the dead. Commentary with director/co-writer Laura Moss, executive producer/co-writer Brendan J. O’Brien, actress Marin Ireland, actress Judy Reyes and medical advisor Emily Ryan
Medically Squeamish: The Making of Birth/Rebirth – a 40 minute documentary featuring new video interviews with Lura Moss, Brendan J. O’Brien, costume designer Annie Simon, and editor Taylor Mason
Two girls must battle a mysterious evil force when they get left behind at their boarding school over winter break. Emma Roberts, Lauren Holly, James Remar, Oz Perkins, 2015.
A blaxploitation classic! An 18th century African prince, turned into a vampire by Dracula, finds himself in modern day Los Angeles. Denise Nicholas, Vonetta McGee, Gordon Pinsent, 1972.
An ambitious one of a kind adult film that is a loving tribute to 1930s comic books and cinematic serials. Britton Jonathan Ford, Jacqueline Lorians, Ron Jeremy, 1982
A young actor’s obsession with spying on a beautiful woman neighbour leads him into a tangle of murder where he must prove his own innocence while battling crippling claustrophobia. Brian De Palma (1984)
When a group of cannibal savages kidnaps settlers from the small town of Bright Hope, an unlikely team of gunslingers, led by Sheriff Franklin Hunt (Kurt Russell), sets out to bring them home. S. Craig Zahler, 2015.
A tough female ex con and her lover concoct an elaborate scheme to steal millions of stashed mob money and pin the blame on a crooked boyfriend. Jennifer Tilly, Gina Gershon, Joe Pantoliano, Wachowskis, 1996.
A horror classic containing one of the most visceral and nauseating scenes in movie history, The Brood follows a man’s investigation into his ex-wife’s placement at an experimental institute. He discovers her progeny of sexless, dwarflike mutants who are born for the sole purpose of acting out Nola’s violent fantasies of revenge. Can he stop Nola’s Brood before they kill again?
A visionary Hungarian architect and his wife flee post-war Europe to build a modernist masterpiece in the US, facing mysterious benefactor, betrayal and corruption. Joel Edgerton, Marion Cotillard, Mark Rylance, Brady Corbet, 2024.
Senator Walter Chalmers (Robert Vaughn) is aiming to take down mob boss Pete Ross (Vic Tayback) with the help of testimony from the criminal’s hothead brother Johnny (Pat Renella), who is in protective custody in San Francisco under the watch of police lieutenant Frank Bullitt (Steve McQueen). When a pair of mob hitmen enter the scene, Bullitt follows their trail through a maze of complications and double-crosses. This thriller includes one of the most famous car chases ever filmed.
Nerdy high schooler Ronald Miller (Patrick Dempsey) rescues cheerleader Cindy Mancini (Amanda Peterson) from parental punishment after she accidentally destroys her mother’s designer clothes. Ronald agrees to pay for the $1,000 outfit on one condition: that she will act as though they’re a couple for an entire month. As the days pass, however, Cindy grows fond of Ronald, making him popular. But when Ronald’s former best friend gets left behind, he realizes that social success isn’t everything.
Based on Clive Barker’s horror legend The Candyman, a murderous soul with a hook for a hand, is accidentally summoned to reality by a sceptical grad student researching the monster’s myth. Bernard Rose (1992)
During a winter road trip, young couple Cliff (Schitt’s Creek’s Eugene Levy) and Gloria (Black Christmas’ Andrea Martin) get lost and make an unplanned stop in Farnhamville, Ontario, a snowy small town known as “The Friendly City.” When they hear the legend of three local women with a history of murdering men, they playfully investigate. But to their horror, it seems the killers are still active, police and other locals are complicit, and they’re all feasting on the victims. When the cannibals develop an appetite for Cliff and Gloria, they race to get on the road – before they get on the menu.
During a rescue mission into the Amazon rainforest, a professor stumbles across lost film shot by a missing documentary crew whose goal was to study the region’s indigenous cannibalistic tribes.
A quintessential exploitation filmmaker, the late Joel M. Reed’s filmography traversed just about every corner of genre filmmaking, from ultra-gory horror with BLOODSUCKING FREAKS to oddball action with THE G.I. EXECUTIONER. But at the start of his career, like so many working in B-movies, Reed helmed a set of sexploitation films. However, not content to simply offer T&A with a flimsy storyline, Reed instead created what rank as two of the most jaw dropping and demented such efforts ever produced, both of which at last come to Blu-ray, newly scanned and restored in 4K from their 35mm camera negatives from Distribpix + Something Weird.
A wisecracking slacker and a lonely rich girl find adventure, romance, and roller skates in a department store after hours. Frank Whaley, Jennifer Connelly, Bryan Gordon, 1991.
A young woman in a small Kansas town survives a drag race accident, then agrees to take a job as a church organist in Salt Lake City. En route, she becomes haunted by a bizarre apparition that compels her toward an abandoned lakeside pavilion. Made by industrial filmmakers on a modest budget, the eerily effective B-movie classic Carnival of Souls was intended to have “the look of a Bergman and the feel of a Cocteau”-and, with its strikingly used locations and spooky organ score, it succeeds. Herk Harvey’s macabre masterpiece gained a cult following on late-night television and continues to inspire filmmakers today.
In early-1970s Las Vegas, low-level mobster Sam “Ace” Rothstein (Robert De Niro) gets tapped by his bosses to head the Tangiers Casino. At first, he’s a great success in the job, but over the years, problems with his loose-cannon enforcer Nicky Santoro (Joe Pesci), his ex-hustler wife Ginger (Sharon Stone), her con-artist ex Lester Diamond (James Woods) and a handful of corrupt politicians put Sam in ever-increasing danger. Martin Scorsese directs this adaptation of Nicholas Pileggi’s book.
Producer Val Lewton redefined the horror genre with this stylish and subtle horror film about a woman who fears she becomes a feline predator when intimate. Kent Smith, Simone Simon, Jacques Tourneur.
From Don Siegel, the legendary director of The Shootist, Coogan’s Bluff, The Black Windmill and Two Mules for Sister Sara comes this tough-as-nails action classic about a small-time crook who outfoxes the mob and the law.
80’s horror about 8 teenagers trapped after hours in a high tech shopping mall pursued by murderous, out of control security robots. Jim Wynorski, 1986.
A decommissioned army android retired from slaughtering the nation’s enemies, refurbished as a toy-store display Santa run amuck with an axe in this lean Christmas horror. Riley Dandy, Sam Delich, Jonah Ray, Joe Begos, 2022.
This legendary film from Soviet director Elem Klimov is a senses-shattering plunge into the dehumanizing horrors of war. As Nazi forces encroach on his small village in Belorussia, teenage Flyora (Alexei Kravchenko, in a searing depiction of anguish) eagerly joins the Soviet resistance. Rather than the adventure and glory he envisioned, what he finds is a waking nightmare of unimaginable carnage and cruelty—rendered with a feverish, otherworldly intensity by Klimov’s subjective camera work and expressionistic sound design. Nearly blocked from being made by Soviet censors, who took seven years to approve its script, Come and See is perhaps the most visceral, impossible-to-forget antiwar film ever made.
When churlish mobster Albert Spica (Michael Gambon) acquires an upscale French restaurant in London, he dines there nightly, effectively scaring off the clientele with his bad manners. His wife, Georgina (Helen Mirren), is especially disgusted by him, and soon begins an affair with another restaurant guest, Michael (Alan Howard). Despite their efforts to keep it a secret, however, Spica finds out about their trysts, and he plans to exact a terrible revenge.
Apocalyptic ‘60s sci-fi spectacle where a doomsday plan to reach Earth’s core instead rips the planet apart with glorious model work destruction. Dana Andrews, Janette Scott, Kieron Moore, Andrew Marton, 1965
Director Sam Raimi’s sci-fi action movies featuring Liam Neeson and Larry Drake: DARKMAN (Sam Raimi 1990), DARKMAN 2 (Bradford May 1995) DARKMAN 3 (Bradford May 1996)
A small group of military officers and scientists dwell in an underground bunker as the world above is overrun by zombies. George A. Romero, 1985.
In late 20th century Britain, a spectacular meteor shower unexpectedly renders most of humanity blind, leading to the collapse of society overnight. Unaware of this, Bill Masen (John Duttine) has retained his sight by virtue of being in hospital with his eyes bandaged at the time of the shower.
America, 1976. The last day of school. Bongs blaze, bell-bottoms ring, and rock and roll rocks. Among the best teen films ever made, Dazed and Confused eavesdrops on a group of seniors-to-be and incoming freshmen. A launching pad for a number of future stars, the first studio effort by Richard Linklater also features endlessly quotable dialogue and a blasting, stadium-ready soundtrack. Sidestepping nostalgia, Dazed and Confused is less about “the best years of our lives” than the boredom, angst, and excitement of teenagers waiting . . . for something to happen.
Double feature of ultra violent / ultra gory horror films from Hong Kong’s Golden Harvest Studio: Devil Fetus / Her Vengeance
A film about what could happen if the wrong person pushed the wrong button — and it played the situation for laughs. U.S. Air Force General Jack Ripper goes completely insane, and sends his bomber wing to destroy the U.S.S.R. He thinks that the communists are conspiring to pollute the “precious bodily fluids” of the American people.
A loan officer who evicts an old woman from her home finds herself the recipient of a supernatural curse. Desperate, she turns to a seer to try and save her soul, while evil forces work to push her to the breaking point. Sam Raimi (2009)
Brian De Palma (Carrie) ascended to the highest ranks of American suspense filmmaking with this virtuoso, explicit erotic thriller. At once tongue-in-cheek and scary as hell, Dressed to Kill revolves around the grisly murder of a woman in Manhattan, and what happens when her psychiatrist, her brainiac teenage son, and the prostitute who witnessed the crime try to piece together what happened while the killer remains at large. With its masterfully executed scenes of horror, voluptuous camera work, and passionate score, Dressed to Kill is a veritable symphony of terror, enhanced by vivid performances by Angie Dickinson (Rio Bravo), Michael Caine (Alfie), and Nancy Allen (Blow Out).
Alejandro Jodorowsky’s legendary surreal, biblical spaghetti “eastern” midnight movie follows a gunfighter as he reaches the top and becomes a holy man. 1970.
When scientist Seth Brundle (Jeff Goldblum) completes his teleportation device, he decides to test its abilities on himself. Unbeknownst to him, a housefly slips in during the process, leading to a merger of man and insect. Initially, Brundle appears to have undergone a successful teleportation, but the fly’s cells begin to take over his body. As he becomes increasingly fly-like, Brundle’s girlfriend (Geena Davis) is horrified as the person she once loved deteriorates into a monster.
In this cult classic, a shy, lonely film buff embarks on a killing spree against those who browbeat and betray him, all the while stalking his idol, a Marilyn Monroe lookalike. Dennis Christopher, Tim Thomerson, Gwynne Gilford, Vernon Zimmerman, 1980.
This French Sci-Fi classic is a bizarre and beautifully animated futuristic story on a faraway planet, where blue giants rule and oppressed humanoids rebel against the machine-like leaders. René Laloux (1973)
Classic cult movie from acclaimed filmmaker Paul Morrissey reframes deranged scientist Frankenstein attempting to create a new master race, of which he will be the leader. Includes original 3D version. Udo Kier, Joe Dallesandro, 1973.
Based very loosely on a story by H. P. Lovecraft, a group of scientists create a resonator to stimulate the pineal gland, and open up a door to a parallel (and hostile) universe. Jeffrey Combs, Barbara Crampton, Stuart Gordon, 1986.
“Fargo” is a reality-based crime drama set in Minnesota in 1987. Jerry Lundegaard (William H. Macy) is a car salesman in Minneapolis who has gotten himself into debt and is so desperate for money that he hires two thugs (Steve Buscemi), (Peter Stormare) to kidnap his own wife. Jerry will collect the ransom from her wealthy father (Harve Presnell), paying the thugs a small portion and keeping the rest to satisfy his debts. The scheme collapses when the thugs shoot a state trooper.
Starring Gabriel Byrne, five famous friends spend a hallucinogenic evening confronting their fears in a frenzy of shocking lunacy and horrifying visions as Mary Shelley conceives Frankenstein on a night in Lord Byron’s home. Ken Russell (1986)
Take the conventions of the American teen movie, transpose them to Los Angeles’s freaky fringes, anchor them in an unapologetic vision of sexual fluidity, and top it all off with heavy doses of Gen X disillusionment, gonzo violence, and hallucinogenic surrealism, and you’ll end up with something like these audacious transgressions from New Queer Cinema renegade Gregg Araki. Gleefully mixing slacker irony with raw sincerity, Godardian cool with punk scuzz, the savagely subversive, hormone-fueled films that make up the Teen Apocalypse Trilogy pushed 1990s indie cinema into bold new aesthetic realms, while giving blistering expression to adolescent rage and libidinal desire.
Filmmakers Quentin Tarantino and Robert Rodriguez pay tribute to exploitation films of the 1970s with two features in one. Tarantino directs Death Proof, a slasher film, and Rodriguez directs Planet Terror, a zombie movie. Fictitious ads and movie trailers run during each feature’s intermission.
Mathieu Kassovitz took the film world by storm with La haine (Hate), a gritty, unsettling, and visually explosive look at racial and cultural volatility in modern-day France, specifically the low-income banlieues on Paris’s outskirts. Aimlessly passing their days in the concrete environs of their dead-end suburbia, Vinz (Vincent Cassel), Hubert (Hubert Koundé), and Saïd (Saïd Taghmaoui)—white, black, and Arab—give human faces to France’s immigrant and otherwise marginalized populations, their resentment at their situation simmering until it reaches a boiling point. A work of tough beauty, La haine is a landmark of contemporary French cinema and a gripping reflection of its country’s ongoing identity crisis.
Because Hell would not have him, Michael Myers survived the mine explosion thought to have killed him. One year later, his traumatised young niece Jamie (Danielle Harris, Rob Zombie’s Halloween) is horrified to discover she has a telepathic bond with her evil uncle … and that Uncle Michael is on his way back to Haddonfield. But Dr. Loomis (the legendary Donald Pleasence) has a new plan to destroy The Boogey Man in his childhood home using Jamie as bait. Tonight, the carnage begins again: Michael Myers is back with a vengeance! Ellie Cornell and Beau Starr return for this hit sequel that features grisly gore by K.N.B. EFX Group (The Walking Dead, Army Of Darkness).
A grand-scale adventure as only Akira Kurosawa could make one, The Hidden Fortress stars the inimitable Toshiro Mifune as a general charged with guarding his defeated clan’s princess (a fierce Misa Uehara) as the two smuggle royal treasure across hostile territory. Accompanying them are a pair of bumbling, conniving peasants who may or may not be their friends. This rip-roaring ride is among the director’s most beloved films and was a primary influence on George Lucas’s Star Wars. The Hidden Fortress delivers Kurosawa’s trademark deft blend of wry humor, breathtaking action, and compassionate humanity.
Fun blaxploitation film about a federal agent whose daughter dies of a heroin overdose is determined to destroy the drug ring that supplied her with the drugs. Billy Dee Williams, Richard Pryor, Sidney J. Furie, 1973.
Gruesome Hong Kong CAT3 horror about a shoe factory owner, driven by perverse desires, begins a horrifying spree of brutally murdering and skinning women to create high heels. 1996.
In five audacious episodes, failed architect and arch-sociopath Jack recounts the elaborately orchestrated murders—each, as he views them, a towering work of art—that define his “career” as a serial killer. Mixing pitch black humor, transcendent surrealism, and renegade musings on everything from history to architecture to cinema, von Trier fashions a radical, blazingly personal inquiry into violence, art, and the twin acts of creation and destruction.
Japanese anime. When a young woman lacking self confidence is cursed with an old body by a spiteful witch, her only chance of breaking the spell lies with a self-indulgent young wizard and his companions in his walking castle. Hayao Miyazaki (2004)
From the director / star of the Lake Michigan Monster, a live action Looney Tunes meets Guy Maddin story of a drunken applejack salesman who must go from zero to hero and become North America’s greatest fur trapper by defeating hundreds of beavers.
Starring Sam Neill and Jürgen Prochnow, an insurance investigator begins discovering that the impact a horror writer’s books have on his fans is more than inspirational. John Carpenter (1994)
Starring Jeff Goldblum and Michelle Pfeiffer, a down and out man suddenly has a beautiful young lady jump onto his car and he finds himself being chased by four Iranians. What follows is a wild chase through the streets of Los Angeles. John Landis (1985)
When a demon takes possession of her, high-school hottie Jennifer (Megan Fox) turns a hungry eye on guys who never stood a chance with her before. While evil Jennifer satisfies her appetite for human flesh with the school’s male population, her nerdy friend, Needy (Amanda Seyfried), learns what’s happening and vows to put an end to the carnage.
The JORDAN PEELE COLLECTION!
An uncompromising masterpiece of tension and all-too-realistic violence! A gang of masked men break in and take an entire family hostage demanding the father hand over everything or his family dies. Miguel Angel Vivas, 2010.
With her Oscar-winning turn in Klute, Jane Fonda arrived full-fledged as a new kind of movie star. Bringing nervy audacity and counterculture style to the role of Bree Daniels—a call girl and aspiring actor who becomes the focal point of a missing-person investigation when detective John Klute (Donald Sutherland) turns up at her door—Fonda made the film her own, putting an independent woman and escort on-screen with a frankness that had not yet been attempted in Hollywood.
A rapturously stylized quartet of tales of demonic comeuppance and spiritual trials, featuring colorfully surreal sets, luminous cinematography, existentially frightening and meticulously crafted. Masaki Kobayashi, 1964.
A live broadcast of a late 70s talk show goes awry when the troubled host unleashes the evil inhabiting a young woman. David Dastmalchian, Laura Gordon, Ian Bliss, Fayssal Bazzi, Cameron Cairnes, Colin Cairnes, 2022.
Mathilda (Natalie Portman) is only 12 years old, but is already familiar with the dark side of life: her abusive father stores drugs for corrupt police officers, and her mother neglects her. Léon (Jean Reno), who lives down the hall, tends to his houseplants and works as a hired hitman for mobster Tony (Danny Aiello). When her family is murdered by crooked DEA agent Stansfield (Gary Oldman), Mathilda joins forces with a reluctant Léon to learn his deadly trade and avenge her family’s deaths.
All 8 of the indefatigable Leprechaun series! He’s been to outer space and back to the hood, but will he ever find his gold?
A sexy space vampire comes to earth and begins to transform the population of London into zombies. From director Tobe Hooper and writer Dan O’Bannon. Steve Railsback, Mathilda May, Peter Firth, 1985.
Meek flower shop assistant Seymour (Rick Moranis) pines for co-worker Audrey (Ellen Greene). During a total eclipse, he discovers an unusual plant he names Audrey II, which feeds only on human flesh and blood. The growing plant attracts a great deal of business for the previously struggling store. After Seymour feeds Audrey’s boyfriend, Orin (Steve Martin), to the plant after Orin’s accidental death, he must come up with more bodies for the increasingly bloodthirsty plant.
Delightfully eccentric culture-clash comedy about a Texas oil executive dispatched by his crackpot boss to a remote seaside village in Scotland with orders to buy out the town and develop the region for an oil refinery. Burt Lancaster, Peter Riegert, 1983
Brilliant triple feature of depressing 70s Sci-Fi!
With a screenplay penned by the author himself, Stanley Kubrick brings Vladimir Nabokov’s controversial tale of forbidden love to the screen. Humbert Humbert (James Mason) is a European professor who relocates to an American suburb, renting a room from lonely widow Charlotte Haze (Shelley Winters). Humbert marries Charlotte, but only to nurture his obsession with her comely teenage daughter, Lolita (Sue Lyon). After Charlotte’s sudden death, Humbert has Lolita all to himself — or does he?
Based on the best-selling manga series, the six intensely kinetic Lone Wolf and Cub films elevated chanbara to bloody, new heights. The shogun’s executioner, Itto Ogami (Tomisaburo Wakayama), takes to wandering the countryside as an assassin-along with his infant son Daigoro (Akihiro Tomikawa) and an infinitely weaponized perambulator-helping those he encounters while seeking vengeance for his murdered wife. Delivering stylish thrills and a body count that defies belief, Lone Wolf and Cub is beloved for its brilliantly choreographed and unbelievably violent action sequences as well as for its tender depiction of the bonds between parent and child.
Gruesome stop-motion fever dream produced, written, directed, designed and largely animated by legendary visual effects maestro Phil Tippett off and on for roughly 30 years. Alex Cox, Niketa Roman, Satish Ratakonda, Phil Tippett, 2021.
French torture horror about a woman, a victim of abuse, who’s desire for revenge takes her on a terrifying journey into a living hell of depravity. Pascal Laugier, 2008.
Starring Emilio Estevez, a group of people try to survive when machines start to come alive and become homicidal. Stephen King (1986)
After a powerful storm damages their Maine home, David Drayton (Thomas Jane) and his young son head into town to gather food and supplies. Soon afterward, a thick fog rolls in and engulfs the town, trapping the Draytons and others in the grocery store. Terror mounts as deadly creatures reveal themselves outside, but that may be nothing compared to the threat within, where a zealot (Marcia Gay Harden) calls for a sacrifice.
The members of a dysfunctional family find themselves mysteriously trapped in an antiquated furniture store when their elderly matriarch suddenly refuses to get up from one of the display couches. Ewan McGregor, Ellen Burstyn, Niclas Larsson, 2023.
All-ages animated masterpiece featuring the voices of Tim Daly, Lea Salonga, and real-life sisters Dakota and Elle Fanning, in one of their earliest roles.
A trio of stories following 3 very different visitors to Memphis connected by a sleazy hotel and the spirit of Elvis Presley. Jim Jarmusch, Screamin’ Jay Hawkins, Joe Strummer, Cinqué Lee, 1989.
Thrill me! When an alien experiment goes awry, it crashes to Earth in 1959 and infects a young college student. Twenty-seven years later, his cryogenically frozen body is thawed out by fraternity pledges … and the campus is quickly overrun by alien creatures whose victims turn into zombies! Fred Dekker’s (The Monster Squad, RoboCop 3) thoroughly enjoyable throwback chiller deftly mixes all sorts of genres while simultaneously having fun with them (the college and all the leading characters are named after famous horror movie directors).
A young man set up as the fall guy in a string of brutal slasher murders decides he’ll hide by sneaking into the forbidden subterranean realm of Midian where shape-shifting beings—The Nightbreed—dwell.
Here are four tales of horror, complete with shocking twists that will freeze the scream in your throat! First, a routine trip to the market becomes a night of terror when a young housewife is stalked by an escaped psychopath. Then, a teenage arcade whiz meets his match when the ultimate video game turns lethal. Next, a priest questions his faith in God only to encounter demonic evil on a lonely desert road. Finally, a suburban family finds that their household rat problem is much bigger than humanly possible.
Prince Amleth is on the verge of becoming a man when his father is brutally murdered by his uncle, who kidnaps the boy’s mother. Two decades later, Amleth is now a Viking who raids Slavic villages. He soon meets a seeress who reminds him of his vow — save his mother, kill his uncle, avenge his father.
Dae-Su is an obnoxious drunk bailed from the police station yet again by a friend. However, he’s abducted from the street and wakes up in a cell, where he remains for the next 15 years, drugged unconscious when human contact is unavoidable, otherwise with only the television as company. And then, suddenly released, he is invited to track down his jailor with a denouement that is simply stunning.
In Los Angeles, a trio of bickering cocaine-dealing partners massacre a family and commence a feverish cross- country odyssey while a trio of cops await them. Bill Paxton, Cynda Williams, Billy Bob Thornton, Carl Franklin, 1992.
Kaneto Shindo’s chilling retelling of the nightmarish folktale of an impoverished older woman, her daughter-in-law and a bedraggled neighbour fresh from battle that they both desire. 1964.
Having brought British cinema into exalted realms of fantasy and imagination, Michael Powell took a dark detour into obsession, voyeurism, and violence with this groundbreaking metacinematic investigation into the mechanics of fear. Armed with his killer camera, photographer and filmmaker Mark Lewis (Carl Boehm) unleashes the traumas of his childhood by murdering women and recording their deaths—until he falls for his downstairs neighbor, and finds himself struggling against his dark compulsions. Received with revulsion upon its release only to be reclaimed as a masterpiece, the endlessly analyzed, still-shocking Peeping Tom dares viewers to confront their own relationship to the violence on-screen
A psychopathic killer stalks a Boston campus, brutally slaughtering nubile young college co-eds, collecting body parts from each victim to create the likeness of his mother who he savagely murdered with an axe when he was ten years old! PIECES is a wild, unrated gorefest, with enough splatter and sleaze to shock the most jaded horror fan.
Documentary-like drama about a young Swedish woman who struggles to find agency as porn actress in the difficult, male-dominated LA Porn industry. Sofia Kappel, Zelda Morrison, Evelyn Claire, Ninja Thyberg, 2021.
All Four Prom Nights together!
Beloved cult horror about a group of teens who inadvertently kill the child of a backwoods witch who unleashes a monstrous demon called Pumpkinhead to exact her revenge. Lance Henriksen, Jeff East, Stan Winston, 1988
A collection of Godfrey Reggio’s Qatsi Trilogy: 1983’s Koyaanisqatsi (the title is a Hopi word that means “life out of balance”) to 1988’s Powaqqatsi (“life in transformation) to 2002’s Naqoyqatsi (“life as war”). Scored by Philip Glass.
A quintessential cult film of the 1980s, Alex Cox’s singular sci-fi comedy stars the always captivating Harry Dean Stanton as a weathered repo man in desolate downtown Los Angeles, and Emilio Estevez as the nihilistic middle-class punk he takes under his wing. The job becomes more than either of them bargained for when they get involved in reclaiming a mysterious—and otherworldly—Chevy Malibu with a hefty reward attached to it. Featuring the ultimate early-eighties L.A. punk soundtrack, this grungily hilarious odyssey is a politically trenchant take on President Reagan’s domestic and foreign policy.
Blu-Ray edition of Roman Polanski’s controversial, chilling tale of a fragile, frigid young beauty cracking up over the course of a terrifying weekend. Catherine Deneuve, 1965.
Imaginatively evoking the inner landscape of human beings longing to connect, to love and feel loved, the film is a parable of happiness gloriously found and tragically lost. “Requiem for a Dream” tells parallel stories that are linked by the relationship between the lonely, widowed Sara Goldfarb and her sweet but aimless son, Harry. The plump Sara, galvanized by the prospect of appearing on a TV game show, has started on a dangerous diet regimen to beautify herself for a national audience.
All The Rockys!
At the 1982 Cannes Film Festival, Wim Wenders asked such filmmaking luminaries as Michelangelo Antonioni, Rainer Werner Fassbinder, Jean-Luc Godard, Yılmaz Güney, Werner Herzog, Steven Spielberg, and Susan Seidelman to ponder the question “Is cinema a language about to get lost, an art about to die?” Forty years later—adopting the same minimalist, fixed-camera format as Wenders—Lubna Playoust poses the same question to a group of contemporary auteurs, including David Cronenberg, Claire Denis, Asghar Farhadi, James Gray, Lynne Ramsay, and Wenders himself. Together, Wenders’ Room 666 (Chambre 666) and Playoust’s Room 999 (Chambre 999) capture the unfiltered perspectives of pathbreaking filmmakers on the state of the industry as well as the upheavals brought on by various new technologies and methods of distribution—in the process touching on large-scale issues of politics, culture, and the meaning (and continued relevance) of cinema in two distinct eras, nearly half a century apart.
A punk rocker & his girlfriend steal a corpse for a little light necrophilia and find that it is infected with a flesh eating virus, setting off a gory chain of chaos in this no-budget splatterfest. Billy Scam, Tiffany Stinky, Marcus Koch, 1999
Tensions run high as producer Lorne Michaels and a ferocious troupe of young comedians and writers prepare for the first broadcast of “Saturday Night Live” on Oct. 11, 1975.
When disillusioned Swedish knight Antonius Block (Max von Sydow) returns home from the Crusades to find his country in the grips of the Black Death, he challenges Death (Bengt Ekerot) to a chess match for his life. Tormented by the belief that God does not exist, Block sets off on a journey, meeting up with traveling players Jof (Nils Poppe) and his wife, Mia (Bibi Andersson), and becoming determined to evade Death long enough to commit one redemptive act while he still lives.
Gorgeous and adventure-filled animated adaptation of the children’s book The Borrowers from master animator Hiromasa Yonebayashi and Studio Ghibli.
On Christmas Eve, a group of young guys meet two gorgeous girls who invite them to spend the weekend in the country, where they meet Joseph a creepy, unkempt man whose pregnant wife remains hidden in the large house. Joseph’s behavior becomes increasingly erratic and the young friends realize their host has made a pact with the devil and all hell is about to break loose.
Definitive horror starring Jodie Foster and Anthony Hopkins, a young F.B.I. cadet must receive the help of an incarcerated and manipulative cannibal killer to help catch another serial killer, a madman who skins his victims. Jonathan Demme (1991)
A mother-and-son team of strange supernatural creatures move to a small town to seek out a young virgin to feed on. Mick Garris (1992)
Sorority boss Babs (Robin Rochelle) orders pledges (Linnea Quigley, Brinke Stevens) to steal a bowling trophy, but they drop it and free an imp.
A kung-fu artist (Samo Hung) gets help from a sorcerer when he battles zombies in an abandoned temple.
Adapting a science-fiction novel by Arkady and Boris Strugatsky, Andrei Tarkovsky’s final Soviet feature is a metaphysical journey through an enigmatic post apocalyptic landscape. 1979.
Fading actress Elisabeth Sparkle becomes distressed when her chauvinistic boss fires her from her aerobics show. She soon injects herself with a mysterious serum that promises a younger, better version of herself, but things go horribly wrong.
It’s the first week of winter in 1982. An American Research Base is greeted by an alien force, that can assimilate anything it touches. It’s up to the members to stay alive, and be sure of who is human, and who has become one of the Things.
In 1984, it was aired on the BBC and shocked tens of millions of UK viewers. Four months later, it was broadcast in America and became the most watched basic cable program in history. It remains one of the most acclaimed made-for-television movies ever. THREADS is a docudrama about the effects of a nuclear attack on the working-class city of Sheffield, England as the fabric of society unravels.
Monte Hellman’s masterpiece! A nearly dialogue-free existential road-race drama. James Taylor, Dennis Wilson, Warren Oates, Laurie Bird.
Vietnam War hero Kowalski (Barry Newman) has become a pill-addicted driver for hire. Transporting a car from Colorado to California, he enlivens the journey by making a wager with his drug dealer: If the trip takes under 15 hours, Kowalski’s latest amphetamine purchase is free. But Kowalski’s recklessness on the road results in a much-publicized police chase. Radio jock Super Soul (Cleavon Little) covers the pursuit and turns Kowalski, who refuses to pull over, into a martyr for freedom.
OG Trilogy together!
Season Hubley (Hardcore) stars as Princess, a loving single mom by day, a Hollywood prostitute by night. But when a volatile cop (Gary Swanson, The Bone Collector) uses her to trap a sadistic killer, Princess becomes the prey of a psychotic pimp named Ramrod (a mind-blowing, take-no-prisoners performance by Wings Hauser, The Siege of Firebase Gloria). Tonight, the neon jungle of Los Angeles will explode in an orgy of vengeance and violence. And the only outlaws more desperate than the hustlers and the freaks who rule the streets are the Vice Squad. “You may think you’ve heard of every sickness and perversion movies like to titter about,” wrote Rex Reed in The New York Daily News, “but there are quite a few in Vice Squad you’ve never dreamed possible!” Scarface’s Pepe Serna, original MTV VJ Nina Blackwood and Beverly Todd (Lean on Me) co-star in this vicious ’80s action smash from the creator of the “schoolgirl hooker” hit Angel and the director of Dead & Buried and Wanted: Dead or Alive.
Horror comedy about a caustic 1980s film critic for a national horror magazine, finds himself unwittingly trapped in a self-help group for serial killers. With no other choice, Joel attempts to blend in or risk becoming the next victim. Cody Calahan, 2020
Presented here are a trio of films which reflect the diversity in approaches to the genre from some of New York’s finest Porn auteurs: VIXENS OF KUNG / SUNNY / THE NIGHT BIRD
Collection of 4 of the wonderfully loopy horror films from Shochiku studios: The X from Outer Space / Goke, Body Snatcher From Hell / The Living Skeleton / Genocide.
Following years of a certain radioactive rubber beast’s domination of the box office, many Japanese studios tried to replicate the formula with their own brands of monster movies. One of the most fascinating dives into that fiendish deep end was the short-lived one from Shochiku, a studio better known for its elegant dramas by the likes of Kenji Mizoguchi and Yasujiro Ozu. In 1967 and 1968, the company created four certifiably batty, low-budget fantasies, tales haunted by watery ghosts, plagued by angry insects, and stalked by aliens—including one in the form of a giant chicken-lizard. Shochiku’s outrageous and oozy horror period shows a studio leaping into the unknown, even if only for one brief, bloody moment.
When a young girl mysteriously vanishes, Police Sergeant Howie (Edward Woodward) travels to a remote Scottish island to investigate. But the seemingly quiet community is not as it appears, as the detective uncovers a secretive pagan society led by the strange Lord Summerisle (Christopher Lee). While the townsfolk tempt and threaten him with bizarre rituals and wanton lust, Howie must race to discover the truth behind the girl’s disappearance before his clash with Lord Summerisle builds to a terrifying conclusion – one that has cemented this cult shocker as a modern horror masterpiece.
In the classic, quintessential Ouija Board horror, a beautiful young woman makes contact with the spirit of a young boy while using a spirit board at her friend’s party. But what she thought was just a game takes a disastrous turn when a monstrous force is unleashed, beginning a campaign of death and demonic possession.
And there we go guys. Movies arrive Thursday/ Friday. Cheers!
