V-Cinema Essentials: Bullets & Betrayals

I grew up in the late 1980s/early 1990s and I have many, many fond memories of going to the video rental store looking for something interesting to watch. I went enough that I had generally seen all the big new releases so I often went digging through the old stuff. I loved finding weird, low-budget genre films full of sex, and violence, and goofy action.

In Japan these straight-to-video releases were called V-Cinema and Arrow Video has just put out a cool little boxed set full of them. You can read my full review at Cinema Sentries.

Microwave Massacre (1979)

One of the things I absolutely love about the abundance of Boutique Blu-ray labels we have now is that they sometimes find these ridiculous, obscure, weirdo movies and clean them up, restore them, and release them on Blu-ray with loads of extras.

Microwave Massacre is a terrible film. It is a movie about a serial killing cannibal, and it is a comedy. Or at least it is supposed to be a comedy. But according to my review (which was written in 2016 which you can read here), there are no laughs to be found.

And yet, it got a killer release from Arrow Video. You gotta love the audacity of that.

The Iron-Fisted Monk (1977)

I got another silly kung fu movie from Arrow Video and reviewed it for Cinema Sentries. This one loses some of its silliness with a rather graphic and overly-long rape scene for some reason. Viewer beware.

But the big fight scene at the end is totally worth it.

Blood Money: Four Classic Westerns is the Pick of the Week

Over the last few years, my movie-watching has increased by a large margin. I’ve gone from watching around 120 movies a year to over 300. One of the things I’ve tried to do with this increase in viewings is to increase my overall cinematic knowledge. I try to watch films from different eras and genres, films that I might otherwise not see. I don’t want to just watch the latest blockbusters but to allow my movie watching to increase my understanding of film history. I think that is obvious just from the movies I’ve reviewed on this site.

The Western is a genre that I mostly ignored for large swaths of my life. I didn’t dislike Westerns as much as I just wasn’t interested in them. It didn’t help that my formative years were a time when the genre had mostly gone out of style. But I’ve come to love the genre over the last few years.

I love the wide open spaces of the genre and the gunfights. I love how the films are about expanding and living in a new world, about starting a new country, about etching out a living in a harsh, brave world.

The Italians got into the Western business about the time they were dying out in America. These so-called Spaghetti westerns played with the standard tropes of the genres and made it their own.

Arrow Video is doing what they do best this week – releasing a boxed set of relatively obscure genre films and loading them with extras. Blood Money: Four Classic Westerns includes four Italian Westerns (Mátalo!, Find a Place to Die, Vengeance is Mine, $10,000 Blood Money) that were made from 1967-1970. I don’t know anything about them, and I don’t have to. I want to buy this box and learn about them as I watch.

Also out this week that looks interesting:

Soundies: The Ultimate Collection: Around the time of WWII little jukebox type machines started showing up in bars, honkytonks, and night clubs. For the drop of a coin you could watch what amounted to an early music video (or burlesque shows, or any number of other things). Kino Classics has put together a big collection of the music videos which star folks like Count Basie, Cab Calloway, Hoagy Carmichael, Doris Day and a ton of others. Sounds cool.

Paint: I would have bet you a lot of money that this comedy starring Owen Wilson was a weird biopic of Bob Ross, and I would have lost. Apparently Wilson’s character just looks like that painter of happy little clouds (and paints for a public television station), but that’s were the similarities end. Or something. The reviews have been terrible so I’ve not bothered to dig into it more.

The Broadway Melody: The first sound film to win an Oscar is also generally regarded as the first proper movie musical.

The War of the Worlds: This sci-fi classic from 1953 is getting a big 4K release for its 70th anniversary.

One False Move: Criterion is releasing this neo-noir classic about a police chief awaiting the arrival of some killers in a 4K set.

Chucky 4-7: Shout Factory presents this collection of Chucky films (Bride of Chucky, Seed of Chucky, Curse of Chucky, and Cult of Chucky) in a new 4K boxed set. I’ve never seen any of the Chucky films so this probably isn’t the place to start, but for fans it looks pretty cool.

Enter the Video Store: Empire of Screams Is The Pick Of The Week

I was supposed to have written this article for Cinema Sentries and I totally forgot about it. Luckily, my buddy Gordon picked up my slack and you can read all about his picks here. But I thought I’d go ahead and talk about my picks anyway. If nothing else this keeps me in shape for writing about it next week.

But I shall be brief.

Empire Pictures was one of those low-budget studios that seemed to pop up pretty regularly in the 1980s, but this one had the good taste to put out some pretty good films (sort-of). Films like Ghoulies, Re-Animator, Dolls, and my beloved Slave Girls From Beyond Infinity.

The always-great Arrow Video is releasing a terrific-looking boxed set of five films from Empire Pictures which include The Dungeonmaster, Dolls, Cellar Dweller, Arena, and Robot Jox. It is loaded with extras and comes with some spectacular packaging. Consider me there. Call this my pick of the week.

Also coming out this week that looks interesting:

Pasolini 101: The Criterion Collection is releasing this collection of seven films from the controversial Italian director Pier Paolo Pasolini. I’m not overly familiar with his work, but I trust Criterion to deliver the goods.

Creepshow: Shout Factory brings us this absolutely brilliant-looking release of a not-all-that-great film. Creepshow is one of those horror anthology films that was so popular back in the day. They are all written by Stephen King and directed by George A. Romero which is pretty cool. I know I’ve seen this, but I don’t remember much other than I was disappointed by it. But the sweet is really cool. It’s got a 4K transfer, and lots of extras including posters, lobby cards, and pins.

Cold Eyes of Fear: I just watched this Italian Giallo last Friday night. It’s a pretty average little flick about a home invasion by two guys – one who is after money, another who needs some private papers locked away in a safe. It starts out strong, but then pulls the rug out and becomes much safer and less interesting.

The Old Man and the Sea: Warner Archive is releasing this adaptation of the Ernest Hemingway story with Spencer Tracy in the lead.

Angel Face: Another Warner Archive release. Robert Mitchum and Jean Simmons star in this film noir about a simple man who falls for a complicated femme fatale. Otto Preminger directs.

Waterworld: Arrow Video gives us a 4K special edition (complete with three different cuts) of this Kevin Costner vehicle that at one time was the most expensive film ever made. I just watched it today and I’ll have a full review soon. Probably.

Evil Dead Rise: I love the original Evil Dead Trilogy. Evil Dead 2 is one of my all-time favorites. I liked what I saw in the Ash Vs Evil Dead TV show. But I wasn’t much for the more recent Evil Dead movie. It was straight-up horror and gore with none of the fun. I hear this one is the same.

Cold War Creatures: Four Films from Sam Katzman

You know that I love horror movies and film noir, but I also have a soft spot for really low-budget science fiction flicks, especially those made in the 1950s. I love alien invasions from space and giant creatures made from atomic radiation. Way back in October of last year I reviewed a three-film boxed set from Arrow Video. It is filled with giant birds, atomic brains and crazy zombies. Check it out.

Gothic Fantastico: Four Italian Tales of Terror

I’ve talked about all four movies in this set on this site before. But I promised a full review of the set and here it is.

31 Days of Horror: Lady Morgan’s Vengeance (1965)

If you paid any attention to my last post then you might have noticed that this film does not appear on my list of horror films to watch this month. That’s because it is part of a four-film boxed set from Arrow Video entitled Gothic Fantastico: Four Italian Tales of Terror which appeared in my mailbox today. I’ll be reviewing the entire set for Cinema Sentries in a few days or so, thus I’ll not say much about it here.

It is a surprisingly good film about a woman who marries a man she doesn’t love and finds herself in an old Scottish castle. Her husband and her staff begin gaslighting her, and she starts seeing spooky things and hearing spooky noises, and then she’s killed. Her ghost seeks some pretty fun revenge on those responsible for her death. I’d say that was a spoiler but those details you’ll find on the back of the box so it isn’t really a surprise.

I love a good gothic horror story and this has plenty of creeping sets, shadowy lighting, and billowy gowns. It is definitely worth checking out if you are into that sort of thing.

Rogue Cops and Racketeers: Two Crime Thrillers by Enzo G. Castellari

Arrow Video is one of my favorite boutique labels putting out Blu-rays today. What’s great about them is that they find fairly obscure genre movies, restore the audio and video, give them a bunch of special features like audio commentaries and interviews with the filmmakers, and then put them in great little packages.

Sometimes they create boxed sets of similar type of films. They recently put out a couple of Italian crime dramas and boxed them up in a set they called Rogue Cops and Racketeers. I wrote a review of it, which you can read here.

The Initiation of Sarah (1978)

My current plan is to try to repost 3 of my old reviews per day and then link to three reviews I’ve written over at Cinema Sentries. I’m not entirely sure of how many reviews I’ve written in my life, so I have no idea how long that process will take.

I will be writing new reviews pretty regularly both over at Cinema Sentries and possibly just here. I’ve also got a whole lot of journal entries of the year I spent in France that I’d like to repost at some point. I’m still trying to figure out the best way to do that, so it may be a while before you see those thoughts.

There are also some old bootleg reviews, something I used to call Random Shuffle (I’d put my music collection and shuffle and then tell stories about what the songs reminded me of), and lots of other old stuff I’ll eventually repost.

I’m thinking about writing new bootleg reviews pretty regularly and I’m still pondering how best to upload and post new shows. There are all kinds of ideas floating around in my head about what to do with this site, but nothing had quite solidified.

But I’m getting ahead of myself. I recently wrote a review for CS about a movie called The Initiation of Sarah. It isn’t a very good movie. It is basically a rip-off of Carrie. But you can read my review here.