SPECIAL EFFECTS

This 1984 cheapie appears to be writer-director Larry Cohen’s answer to PEEPING TOM, a unique and intelligent account of voyeurism and exploitation in the movie business that, as usual with Cohen, is all-but done in by its low budget and uninspired direction

SONNY BOY

The 1990s were filled with independent films marketed, most often misleadingly, as “bizarre”, “shocking”, “subversive” and other similarly enticing adjectives.  For a nineties indie that really is all those things go directly to SONNY BOY

SOCIETY

So-so eighties horror enlivened by amazing special effects and a GREAT climax

SMOOTH TALK

A seminal ’80s indie that still holds up as a provocative and disturbing psychological horror story

THE SIGNAL

Hardly the “groundbreaking indie masterpiece” it’s been made out to be, THE SIGNAL (2007) is a semi-experimental anthology film that’s scary, funny and suspenseful—but still not all it could be

SHY PEOPLE

This largely forgotten gothic melodrama appears on its way to becoming a lost film. A shame, really, as it’s a haunting and atmospheric work unlike any other movie released during the eighties…or ever

SHOCKER

Wes Craven put some interesting ideas into play in this film, but it doesn’t really work. Blame a fraught shoot, and the fact that Craven was attempting in vain to create a NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET-like franchise

THE SEVERED ARM

A zero budgeted early seventies gore fest that’s unremarkable in most respects (and downright inept in others) but has a curious resonance nonetheless

SERIES 7

Perhaps the ultimate satire on America’s reality TV craze, SERIES 7: THE CONTENDERS, about a reality program whose participants must kill each other in order to advance, is funny, disturbing and far more insightful than most of us would feel comfortable admitting

THE SANDMAN 1996

Those familiar with the no-budget auteur Bookwalter’s work won’t be surprised to hear that the shot-on-video SANDMAN isn’t very good…but then, it’s not all that bad, either