// Category Archive for: Reviews

DVD Review: Killer Mermaid

By Brad Henderson

Between artwork mishaps and title changes, distributors are getting worse at promotion. I understand their target audience perspective and get the logistics behind it, but that doesn’t change how dumb it is.

In the beginning of the year a film was circulating festivals with the title Nymph. That recently changed once the film was picked up and distributed in the US as Killer Mermaid. Of course the title Killer Mermaid is bland and straight to the point, but the title is the spoiler. I was pissed. While watching the film we are anticipating a mermaid and that’s fine, but it actually isn’t revealed until nearly the end of the film. The fact that it is a mermaid is meant to be the twist, but we are flat out told what it is in the goddamn title and the cover of the DVD.

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Music Review: Mortals, Cursed To See The Future

By Tim Murr

The debut album by Mortals from Brooklyn, NY is a black/thrash/sludge metal-enthusiast’s dream. Cursed To See The Future hits hard and never relents across six tracks, clocking in at around 50 minutes. With brutal, pummeling rhythms, throat-shredding vocals, and unimpeachable guitar and bass work, Cursed sets a high bar for a debut.

I don’t think it should be necessary in 2014 to make a big deal about Mortals being an all female power trio that rightly earns comparisons to High On Fire and Darkthrone, but there you go. These three women—Caryn Havlik (drums), Lesley Wolf (bass/vocals), and Elizabeth Cline (guitar)—create rhythmically exciting metal that stands shoulder to shoulder with any of their contemporaries. Track 5, “Series Of Decay,” backs up that assessment nicely.

After buying this album, it’s been pretty much all I’ve listened to, and before that I’d been listening to their Death Ritual EP and Night Terror Demo. I like Mortals quite a bit and highly recommend Cursed To See The Future. It’ll be exciting to watch this band continue to evolve; they’ll certainly be one of Relapse Records MVPs. If you can catch them on tour make sure you buy them each a quadruple espresso!

Cursed To See The Future was released by Relapse Records on July 8 and can be purchased on the label’s website. You can listen to the album on Bandcamp and purchase it from there, too.

Blu-Ray Review: Rats: Night Of Terror/Hell Of The Living Dead

By Brad Henderson

Rat movies seem to sprout up every once in a while over the years. I’m pretty sure none of them have been big successes but they are always fun in a cheesy way. Seriously, rats are the things that are killing people? Just fucking run away! Unless you are dealing with humungous rats, I’m sure this wouldn’t really pose a problem.

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Music Review: Orenda Fink, Blue Dream

By Melissa Bratcher

To call Orenda Fink’s Blue Dream meditative isn’t at all a stretch. It’s an exploration of the meaning of love, death, and spirituality, all filtered through a dreamy, gauzy haze and sung in an incredibly intimate way. Listening to Blue Dream is like walking into someone else’s slumber: a place where you’re welcome, but it’s all a bit disorienting and dark and a little eerie. It’s a captivating record.

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Movie Review: An Honest Liar

By Noreen Sobczyk

An Honest Liar is a documentary about James “The Amazing” Randi (self-described liar, cheat, and charlatan) directed by Tyler Measom and Justin Weinstein. I was surprised by how many people to whom I mentioned this film had not heard of “The Amazing Randi.” Perhaps he’s one of those people locked away somewhere in the brain along with Tang™ and some random fact that you can’t quite access but know you know while playing Trivial Pursuit™. After all, helping Alice Cooper with a little stage decapitation and appearing on Happy Days in cahoots with The Fonz are among his lesser-known activities.

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Movie Review: Only Lovers Left Alive

By Lisa Anderson

The vampire movie renaissance, of which Let Me In was the high point and Priest may have been the low point, appeared to be drawing to a close. Then in late 2013, Director Jim Jarmusch (Coffee and Cigarettes) came out with Only Lovers Left Alive. This moody, atmospheric, bohemian tale pleased both critics and fans alike, especially the built-in fanbases of its leads, Tilda Swinton and Tom Hiddleston. However, underneath the dark rock-guitar score, the musings about art, and the familiar vampire lore, there’s something more going on. Only Lovers Left Alive is, at its heart, a movie about marriage.

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DVD Review: The Midnight Game

By Brad Henderson

Cover art for horror films these days can be very misleading. That could be said for every genre but I think horror is the one that stands out the most since it’s the one I’m way more passionate about. The cover of The Midnight Game is one of those covers you most certainly would look past at a rental store or Wal-Mart. It is generic and doesn’t grab you at all, even giving off a little torture porn vibe because it looks like a pentagram is carved into a woman’s back. These types of things make me want to pass but still, I will watch anything. I’ve been misled by covers before and I was definitely misled by this one.

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DVD Review: The Den

By Brad Henderson

Found footage films are getting more eyerolls every year, it seems. I’m a huge fan of this subgenre but I will be the first to admit there are some films out there that are not that great. Also, the ones that are not that great are the more popular ones for some reason and that I just don’t get.

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Blu-Ray Review: Runaway Nightmare

By Brad Henderson

Vinegar Syndrome has been going off the rails with the films that they have recently released. I freaking love what they are picking up. Now, they’ve unleashed a somewhat lost film called Runaway Nightmare. This is by far one of the most bizarre films that Vinegar Syndrome has released so far and one of the better ones as well. I can’t even begin to tell you what you are in for with this movie.

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Blu-Ray Review: Rage

By Brad Henderson

These days when we see Nicolas Cage’s name pop up in a title we all giggle. He is like that annoying uncle that we love. Personally, I still like Nicolas Cage but I dislike most of the films he is in these days. When I was younger I dug him quite a bit; Con-Air, Face/Off, Gone In 60 Seconds, and many more of his films from the ’80s and ’90s still remain some of my favorites.

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