One of the first of the low-budget vampires-in-the-modern-world flicks that were popular on the drive-in circuit in the early 1970s, Count Yorga, Vampire is fairly slow going in its opening reel, but it picks upContinue reading
Category: Cult Films
Blade Runner: The Final Cut (Ridley Scott, 1982/2007)
Having seen every previous incarnation of this simultaneously amazing and disappointing film—the 1982 theatrical version with its clunky voice-over and cringe-worthy “happy ending,” the international version that circulated on VHS and laser disc with itsContinue reading
The Food of the Gods (Bert I. Gordon, 1976)
Mysterious eggnog gurgles through a crack on a remote Northeast island and animals of all kinds get a bad case of gigantism. Writer/director/producer/effects maestro Bert I. Gordon never met a creature he didn’t want toContinue reading
Blast of Silence (Allen Baron, 1961)
For a no-budget film shot on the sly in New York City with a nonactor in the lead role, there is a grand, existential audacity to Blast of Silence. A particularly dour film noir madeContinue reading
Southland Tales (Richard Kelly, 2007)
Practically booed off the screen when it premiered in its original cut at Cannes in 2006, Richard Kelly’s insanely ambitious fever dream of a science fiction/political satire/anti-fantasy roars at you with unapologetic gusto, inflaming theContinue reading
Gojira (Ishirô Honda, 1954)
Inspired by my recent screening of Cloverfield, I decided to check out the Big One—not the terribly recut U.S. version known as Godzilla: King of the Monsters, mind you, but the original Japanese version withoutContinue reading
The Young Racers (Roger Corman, 1963)
Two-thirds talky, love-triangle melodrama and one-third repetitive Grand Prix racing footage, The Young Racers is redeemed only by excellent location photography in the wealthiest parts of Europe, including Monte Carlo, France, and Belgium. Whenever Corman’sContinue reading
The Naked Prey (Cornel Wilde, 1966)
Wilde’s stripped-down, bare-bones primal thriller plays as the perfect antidote to the increasingly bloated nature of contemporary Hollywood action movies. The South African location photography is both beautiful and brutal, which pretty well describes theContinue reading
Two-Lane Blacktop (Monte Hellman, 1971)
Cult director Monte Hellman drove the post-Easy Rider road movie straight through all narrative conventions and directly into the heart of abstraction with Two-Lane Blacktop. Although certainly not to everyone’s tastes, if you can getContinue reading
Premature Burial (Roger Corman, 1962)
The third of Corman’s Edgar Allen Poe adaptations in as many years, Premature Burial has all the requisite hallmarks: primary-florid Eastman Color and Panavision widescreen, dark drawing room sets, and, of course, omnipresent smoke machines.Continue reading