Summer of Slash: Boogeyman II (aka Revenge of the Boogeyman)

Two summers ago when I reviewed The Boogeyman, I failed to mention who wrote and directed it. Perhaps I was so in awe of the film’s wackiness that it just totally slipped my mind, but don't you worry, dear reader, I won’t forget to mention the name of this brilliant auteur this time around. For, you see, Ulli Lommel is the man responsible for not one, not two, but three versions of The Boogeyman! Yes, there is Boogeyman II (more commonly referred to as Revenge of the Boogeyman), a film which...

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John Frankenheimer: The Young Savages

Note: Some of Frankenheimer’s films are pretty hard to come by, one of those being his debut film, The Young Stranger, so I had to start this retrospective with his second film. There’s about a handful of films I couldn’t get a hold of; I will try my best to fill in the blanks as I go. After a less than thrilling experience shooting his feature film The Young Stranger, John Frankenheimer returned to television (where he got his start) for four years (a practice he would continue throughout...

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Carpenter Ranked

As I'm working on the finishing touches for my first Frankenheimer post, I thought it would be nice to get some content on the blog today. So I offer this little list (something I've wanted to do for other director's in this series but have just completely spaced on doing) of what I think are the best Carpenter films. I know we all love lists! So have it. Make fun of me, list your own rankings, or be boring and agree with me. Anyway, I'm hoping my first Frankenheimer post will be up sometime...

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John Carpenter: The Ward

Warning: this review will read like that of a man who is at the end of a retrospective and feels like there isn’t really anything more to say. I apologize for the lack of reviewing that’s going on in this review and for the lack of enthusiasm surrounding this piece. But, hey, some of that is the film’s fault. When The Ward was released in 2011, many fans of the genre — and of Carpenter especially — must have been thanking the heavens that the master of horror was returning to theatrical filmmaking...

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Summer of Slash: Satan’s Little Helper

Fans of the slasher film will recognize the name Jeff Lieberman. Director of the fun and goofy Squirm (notable for being featured on MST3K, which Lieberman was none too pleased with) and the really great (and not goofy) Blue Sunshine and Just Before Dawn (the best of the backwoods slashers), Lieberman disappeared from the horror genre, claiming that the right project never came up. After Just Before Dawn in 1981, he made only one film (Remote Control in 1988) before finally returning...

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John Carpenter: Masters of Horror – "Cigarette Burns"/"Pro-Life"

I realize that I’m in the minority when it comes to thinking that Carpenter had nothing to be ashamed of with Vampires and Ghosts of Mars. Sure, those films have flaws (the former more than the latter), but I liked that he was trying for something different. I made the argument in my last post that Carpenter made Ghosts of Mars as a deadpan comedy. Even if the film’s detractors agree to this notion, their argument is that the film — no matter how deliberately bad it is — is still a failure. Okay,...

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Quick blog note

Some of you have probably noticed a lack of content on the blog the last few weeks. Between vacation, home improvement projects, and other miscellaneous life stuff, I just haven't had the time to sit down at the computer and write stuff. I was actually shocked this last weekend when late Sunday night, I realized that I hadn't opened my laptop all weekend. Kind of a depressing commentary on how attached I can be to my computer, no? Anywho, I should be back to normal next week. I'll try to get...

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Blog Announcement: Director Retrospective #4 - The Films of John Frankenheimer

As I wind down Director Retrospective #3, I was thinking of who I wanted to select for the fourth director in this ongoing blog series. I knew I wanted to look back a little in American film, but I couldn't find the right filmmaker that piqued my interest enough to grab all of their movies and dive right in. I was thinking about Sidney Lumet, but that would be a huge undertaking (damn some of those look so interesting, though, so I may still do a truncated retrospective for Lumet down the road),...

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Summer of Slash: Night Warning (aka Butcher, Baker. Nightmare Maker)

Also known under the much more intriguing title Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker William Asher’s Night Warning is a frustrating experience, for there is a good — even buried-treasure-kind-of-great — movie in there somewhere. However, the filmmaker’s compete lack of interest in genre aesthetics results in some horrifyingly dull sequences and bizarre choices that stick out like a sore thumb (the primary one being a squirm-inducing homophobic character). Night Warning boasts a few interesting setpieces,...

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John Carpenter: Ghosts of Mars

Well, we’re finally to the one film that everyone last year (when I announced I was doing a Carpenter retrospective) seemed to peg as the one review they were the most interested in. Yup, we’re finally to Ghosts of Mars. I've been hinting at it throughout this retrospective, but I suppose I should just get the superlatives out of the way: I think it’s brilliant. I think it’s a brilliant genre film, it’s a brilliant midnight movie, it’s a brilliant satire, and it’s one of the (intentionally) funniest...

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Summer of Slash: Capsule Reviews

Every year I do this Summer of Slash series, I watch more than I end up writing about. This is mostly because I only want to write about the slasher films that I either enjoy enough to write more than two paragraphs on or lend themselves to be written about. And let’s be honest, taking the entire slasher subgenre into consideration, there aren’t too many that fit that criteria. A lot of the movies I watch for this summer series lend themselves better to the capsule format than the essay, so I...

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John Carpenter: Vampires

“You ever seen a vampire? No... Well first of all, they're not romantic. Its not like they're a bunch of fuckin' fags hoppin' around in rented formal wear and seducing everybody in sight with cheesy Euro-trash accents, all right? Forget whatever you've seen in the movies: they don't turn into bats, crosses don't work. Garlic? You wanna try garlic? You could stand there with garlic around your neck and one of these buggers will bend you fucking over and take a walk up your strada-chocolata WHILE...

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