Graphic Novel • Lists • Fails • 70’s Cinema • K-Horror • Arthouse • Canadian Horror • Film Noir • Grindhouse • NC-17 • J-Horror • Exploitation • Sci-Fi • Pulp • Evangelical Horror • Favorites • Cult • Fantastique • Surreal • Animation • So-Bad-It’s-Good
Reviews & Commentary by Adam Groves
PIGGY
Cinema du Brute, which has given us CARRIE, EVILSPEAK and MAY, gets a 2022 airing in PIGGY, a slickly made Spanish import
BAD BIOLOGY
A supremely immature “Godawful Love Story” from Frank Henenlotter
BRAIN DEAD
Fact: Roger Corman did manage to turn out some interesting films in the 1990s, with the superbly tippy BRAIN DEAD near the top of the list
THE MUNSTERS
The latest in a long line of unasked-for Hollywood reboots is Rob Zombie’s 2022 take on the classic TV sitcom THE MUNSTERS
BLONDE
This Marilyn Monroe biopic is no masterpiece, but it’s also not as terrible as many pundits have been claiming
PREY
Among unmade John Carpenter screenplays PREY, a 98 page script hailing from the mid-1970s, is about average
MELTDOWN
John Carpenter has described this never-made script as “kind of HALLOWEEN in a nuclear power plant,” and that does indeed sum it up
THE INFLUENCE
A novel that often reads like a Ramsey Campbell Greatest Hits package
THE FURY
Yet another example of a book that seems fated to be known more for the movie made from it than the text itself
BILLY MAJESTIC’S HUMPTY DUMPTY
B-movie delirium and pictorial audacity unite in this altogether unique concoction
THE ART OF ROZZ WILLIAMS: FROM CHRISTIAN DEATH TO DEATH
This thick large format paperback celebrates Rozz Williams (a.k.a. Roger Painter), a superstar on the Death Rock scene who committed suicide in 1998
INTO THE UNKNOWN: THE FANTASTIC LIFE OF NIGEL KNEALE
England’s Thomas Nigel Kneale (1922-2006) was and is one of the guiding lights of modern horror, and this terrific biography is long overdue
INSIDE THE WICKER MAN
For anyone with even a passing interest in the 1973 English horror classic THE WICKER MAN this book is a must, being an unusually erudite and well written account of the film’s making and reception
IN THE FOOTSTEPS OF DRACULA
Here’s a travel book I think we can all enjoy: a guidebook to the European locations specified in Bram Stoker’s immortal DRACULA
ROMAN
Roman Polanski is one of the world’s greatest and most notorious filmmakers. His stated intent in writing this autobiography was to clear his name, yet it left me with more questions than I had going in
Paul Schrader’s Films, Ranked
In celebration of the release of FIRST REFORMED, here is my ranking of Paul Schrader’s feature films up to 2018
TV Flashback: ONE TO GROW ON
ONE TO GROW ON, a 1980s kiddie PSA show, opens with a cartoon montage so distinctive that I can recall its every beat
1998: The Year in Bedlam
Movie-wise 1998 will go down in memory as a year of misunderstood classics
1999: The Year in Bedlam
Here I’ll be continuing my backward-looking year-end movie rankings—following the last entry, for the year 2000, we arrive at 1999
Hallmark Channel Spring Fever Movies
Last December I discussed the altogether ridiculous Hallmark Channel Christmas Movie phenomenon. Here, I’m afraid, I’ll be returning to the subject..