Retro Reviews

As a child of the early 1980’s, few films sparked my imagination the way Clash of the Titans (1981) did. Even though it followed visual FX extravaganzas like Star Wars, The Empire Strikes Back, and Superman, Ray Harryhausen’s painstaking stop motion work was still more than capable of inciting wonder …

I first saw The Monster Club on the crazy local UHF channel we had back in the day. I then re-visited it some 30 plus years later when it hit Prime. At that moment it dawned on me that The Monster Club was a perfect confluence of two equally great …

It isn’t every day that you come across movies that make you grin with the strange particularity that filmmakers like Dario Argento can bring. Although Demons didn’t get much attention at the time, looking back at the film now, we can’t help but see the genius behind the motion picture. …

When Friday The 13th was released in 1980, most people (including its cast and crew) believed it would be a standalone horror film. Enter Friday The 13th Part 2 the following year. Once the studios realized that these slasher films would be cheap to produce and easy to turn a profit, we …

When it comes to ’80s Canadian slashers, Happy Birthday to Me is often overlooked by Bob Clark’s Black Christmas (1974) and My Bloody Valentine (1981). While Happy Birthday to Me isn’t as flawless, the film is a classic and deserves to be on the same level as those other Canadian gems. …

The Craft may not be what one envisions when we hear the words “classic film,” but in my heart and in many others, this movie is definitely deserving of the title. I remember watching it in the theatre when it released on May 3, 1996, and in fact, I saw …

When I was in seventh grade, the first book report I remember doing was for Lord Of The Flies. To this day, it is still one of the most disturbing novels I’ve ever read. There was just something so unsettling about seeing such young kids without adult supervision being transformed …

Time to talk about 13 Demon Street. Though short-lived, this old, Swedish-American horror anthology show was hosted by the great Lon Chaney, Jr. In addition to being the son of film icon Lon Chaney, the actor had already enjoyed success as The Wolf Man in 1941 and other Universal Horror …

With a special edition Blu-ray coming soon—April 12th, 2021—I thought I would take another look at the techno/splatterpunk and body horror film from Japanese directors Yudai Yamaguchi and Junichi Yamamoto, 2005’s Meatball Machine! https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=EVBQedhFk0g Synopsis: Capable of making bio-mechanical weapons out of human flesh, alien parasites grotesquely invade the Earth, …

Looking back through James Gunn’s carrier, his trajectory is truly unique. He started out as a volunteer with Troma, eventually becoming a writer for projects like Terror Firmer and Tromeo & Juliet, then moving on to major studio writing for projects like the live action Scooby-Doo films and Zack Snyder’s Dawn of …