ZODIAC
I can’t imagine a better movie about the still-unsolved “Zodiac” killings that plagued San Francisco during the late sixties and early seventies
POLANSKI UNAUTHORIZED
The life of Roman Polanski is great material for a horror film without question, but this cheesy 2009 biopic is far from a great movie
PATTY HEARST
The 1974 abduction and brainwashing of Patty Hearst reconfigured as a CABINET OF DR. CALIGARI-esque horror show
GUYANA: CULT OF THE DAMNED
A trashier-than-average Jim Jones cash-in, directed by Rene Cardona Jr. and featuring several slumming movie stars
THE GIRL NEXT DOOR
From one of the roughest, most uncompromising horror novels ever comes a profoundly graphic and disturbing film
THE LOST
THE LOST, the first film adapted from the work of novelist Jack Ketchum, is a skilled and intelligent but strictly not-for-the-squeamish viewing experience
2014: Bedlam in Print
2014 was an above-average year for books in my view. Quite a few terrific titles turned up from both established and debuting authors, with a few, I’m certain, that will go on to become classics
TRAIL OF BLOOD
I’ve long been curious about this film, a no-budget SOV dramatization of the crimes of the Green River Killer by the cult filmmaker Ari Roussimoff, which never received much of a release
THE TOWN THAT DREADED SUNDOWN
I’ll say one thing for this half-baked historical saga: it had GREAT poster art picturing a hooded figure’s upper torso silhouetted over a small Southern town, a singularly haunting image that promises everything this tawdry film fails to deliver
THE TODD KILLINGS
Surely one the major feel-bad movies of the Twentieth Century, THE TODD KILLINGS can be called the anti-BREAKFAST CLUB