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Reviews & Commentary by Adam Groves
THE AUTHOR OF BELTRAFFIO
The directorial debut of the late Tony Scott, adapting a Henry James novella for 1970s TV.
VICE SQUAD
A 1982 film that remains a standout in the trashy thriller category
HOUSE OF WHIPCORD
British exploition maestro Peter Walker’s take on the women in prison genre, filtered through his favorite premise: young women menaced by elderly psychopaths in a secluded setting
BATTLE GIRL: THE LIVING DEAD IN TOKYO BAY
A solid example of Asian Trash Cinema that’s unusually heavy on the trash
THE TRAP DOOR
Arguably the most interesting of the late 1970s-early 80s no wave films of Beth B and Scott B
ARKADI AND THE LOST TITAN
The magnum opus of France’s Philippe Caza, a 528 page graphic novel whose inception spanned the years 1989 to 2008
BRINGING IN THE CREEPS
Pop culture infused horror by an author who can be said to have cornered this particular field
MOUNT ANALOGUE
A “Novel of Symbolically Authentic Non-Euclidean Adventures in Mountain Climbing” that inspired the Alejandro Jodorowsky feature THE HOLY MOUNTAIN (1973)
THE POLLUTERS
A product of the upscale smut outfit Brandon House that reads like a watered-down template for Charles Platt’s THE GAS
THE PRESENCE
An ambitious monster-fest with all the trimmings: gore, slime, muted political commentary and Lovecraftian overtones, with the overall emphasis on grade-B fun
THE FUTURE WAS NOW: MADMEN, MAVERICKS, AND THE EPIC SCI-FI SUMMER OF 1982
About mainstream science fiction cinema in the summer of 1982, a pivotal time for those of us who lived through it
FEVER YEAR: THE KILLER FLU OF 1918
A powerful graphic novel depiction of the so-called Spanish Flu of 1918-19
HANNS HEINZ EWERS: THE STORY OF HIS DEVELOPMENT
Here Joe E. Bandel, who specializes in translating early 20th century European literature, turned his attention to a little-known German language biography of Hanns Heinz Ewers (1871-1943)
WITH LOVE, MOMMIE DEAREST: THE MAKING OF AN UNINTENTIONAL CAMP CLASSIC
All about the making of MOMMIE DEAREST (1981)
KUBRICK: AN ODYSSEY
This book has been proclaimed the definitive biography of the great Stanley Kubrick, and for once the hype is correct
On DOGRA MAGRA
“Whoever reads this book will become insane at least once”
Confessions of A Recovering Oscar Viewer
Here’s an embarrassing admission: until recently I was an Oscar nerd
George Armitage: 1942-2025
On February 15, 2025, one of America’s most individual, and least known, filmmakers left us
On SLEAZOID EXPRESS
Of the “Big Three” horror/exploitation film review zines, which included PSYCHOTRONIC and GORE GAZETTE, SLEAZOID EXPRESS tends to be the most acclaimed, and apparently boasted “The largest circulation of anything of its particular type.”
Werner Herzog, Ken Russell, Jean-Luc Godard, Nobuhiko Obayashi and MOMENTOUS EVENTS
It certainly seemed like a good idea: a Russian American co-production in which six world class directors partook in “the gigantic cinematic canvas of historical change in Russia,”