Though I was an infrequent VHS tape buyer until the medium was nearly dead (at which point I went a little crazy buying out the stock of shuttered video stores) and I never got on the laser disc bandwagon (for which I was teased mercilessly by my fellows – I’m looking at you, Tim Lucas), [...]

Hitting the shelves of your local department/electronics store this summer is the Roger Corman-produced BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS (1980). The DVD/Blu-ray release from Shout! Factory is timed to mark the 30th anniversary of the film’s premiere back in the day when there was only one STAR WARS (1977) sequel. I was  nearly 16 in the [...]

Just in over the transom is the latest issue of Steve Puchalski’s essential, incomparable, irreverent, inflammatory, indomitable Shock Cinema, whose motto is “Serving the Film Fanatic since 1990.” Can that be right — 21 years? I caught up with the mag in the mid-90s, when it was (as I remember, correct me if I’m wrong) [...]

The HorrorDads are getting the jump on the holiday weekend with something a little different today. Instead of our customary roundtable discussion, Jeff Allard, Dennis Cozzalio, Paul Gaita, Greg Ferrara, Nicholas McCarthy and I will take the stage one by one to discuss a particular horror movie father. This isn’t meant to be listing of [...]

God and the Devil are pretty different, I hear, but there’s one thing they have in common – details. One of the things I love about old movies is the feeling I get from insert shots and second unit bric-a-brac that has little narrative currency but which adds tremendous texture and mood to the piece. [...]

Short answer: no. But dig… in 1965, the hard-working Hollywood character actor (THE KILLERS, SORRY WRONG NUMBER, -30-), TV director-for hire (HAVE GUN – WILL TRAVEL, BAT MASTERSON, 77 SUNSET STRIP), producer (AN AMERICAN DREAM, THE COOL ONES, COUNTDOWN), radio voice of Marshal Matt Dillon before GUNSMOKE came to television, narrator of THE FUGITIVE (“Name: [...]

Women in prison movies are the universal language – go to any corner of the world and some filmmaker has at one time or another stuck a bunch of actresses behind bars and made a movie about what goes in a world without men. In Spain you’ve got your 99 WOMEN (1969), in Italy your [...]

I’m different, I guess. I never got into the “so bad it’s good” thing where people watch movies (or read books or listen to music) with the sole intention of making fun. It’s not as though I grew up in un-ironic times. We had Mad magazine and its great movie spoofs and Playboy magazine’s TV [...]

I’m not going to go so far as to say my personality is comprised entirely of movie characters but, boy-oh-boy, I have more than my fair share kicking around under my skin. How could I not? I started walking to the movies alone at the age of 9 or 10… walking half a mile to [...]