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Reviews & Commentary by Adam Groves
THE CROW (1994)
A 30-year-old nineties time capsule that’s well worth a revisit
DEFENDING YOUR LIFE
One of the best afterlife comedies on the market
SERIE NOIRE
A 1979 French language take on Jim Thompson’s A HELL OF A WOMAN, directed by the talented Alain Corneau
ATTACK THE BLOCK
The primary intent of this no-budgeter was evidently to jumpstart a Hollywood career for its debuting writer-director, yet the film can be enjoyed by viewers who aren’t studio executives or talent agents
ROLLERBALL (2002)
One of the most calamitous flops of the 2000s was ROLLERBALL (2002), which lost MGM/UA an enormous amount of money and destroyed the careers of its director and its leading man
TAPPING THE SOURCE
The debut novel of Kem Nunn, and the premiere example of “surf noir”
THE LATE GREAT CREATURE
I know this literary relic is considered a “lost classic” by many, but it did very little for me
LOVE KILLS
The wild and outrageous inverse of Shane Stevens’ seminal serial killer classic BY REASON OF INSANITY
FEMALE PSYCHO WARD!!!
Behold: emerging from the smut book underground of the 1960s, the “latest sellout” by the prolific trash-meister Con Sellers, a novel its publishers predicted was “going to make headlines from one end of the country to the other!”
VAMPIRE JUNKIES
A rare foray into vampire lore by science fiction legend Norman Spinrad
SHOLAY: THE MAKING OF A CLASSIC
In the rarefied world of Bollywood SHOLAY is possibly the most iconic and influential film in existence
BOOK OF SOULS
This short nonfiction collection was by Jack Ketchum—who is now, tragically, the late Jack Ketchum, a fact that renders BOOK OF SOULS even more poignant than it was initially
MILLER AND MAX
An absolute must for MAD MAX fans, a sort-of biography of Australian filmmaker George Miller and his signature creation
PAPERBACKS FROM HELL: THE TWISTED HISTORY OF ’70s AND ’80s HORROR FICTION
Now here’s a subject I know a bit about: paperback horror novels of the so-called “horror boom” of the 1970s and 80s
A LIT FUSE: THE PROVOCATIVE LIFE OF HARLAN ELLISON
An excellent book about an individual who really should need no introduction
Exotic Dancers and the Devil in the Swinging Sixties
Exotic Dancers and the devil: a curiously appropriate pairing, especially in Europe
Blood Letters and Trashy Movies in the South Sea
On December 19, 1978 the so-called “Blood Letter from Nanhai” made its bow in the Taiwanese Central Daily News
1983: The Year in Bedlam
If this year proves anything it’s that the rosy view of the eighties that has taken hold is complete bullcrap
On FILM AS A SUBVERSIVE ART
I believe FILM AS A SUBVERSIVE ART is the most exciting and comprehensive film book I’ve seen, period
L’ENFER and the Fascination for the Unfinished
The fascination exerted by aborted film projects has reached a fever pitch in recent years, and a large part of the reason, I believe, was the partial reconstruction of Henri-Georges Clouzot’s L’ENFER