Renny Harlin has brought us many great films throughout his career, making a name for himself through action films. So what happens when Harlin wants to do a found footage horror film? I’m down. Recently Harlin brought us Devil’s Pass, a.k.a. The Dyatlov Pass Incident, which was inspired by true events.
There are countless horror films released in a year and most of the good ones go unnoticed by the general public. Unless a horror film is in theaters these days, people just don’t see them. Thankfully VOD is getting more popular and the general public now has access to all the films that we film geeks love and try to promote. The VOD industry is very much like the home video boom in many ways. Independent and low budget films didn’t stand a chance at the theater in the days of the home video boom (and they still don’t), but once these movies hit the video store it became an equal playing field. The same goes for VOD these days: Indie flicks are in the same row as your big budget blockbusters.
There are many ’80s comedies that were popular in their time but are slowly fading away. Blind Date isn’t the funniest flick from the decade, but we get to see Bruce Willis and Kim Basinger in a slapstick comedy love story directed by Blake Edwards . . . yes, The Pink Panther guy.
VHS is slowly coming back. It won’t be readily available in stores again but there’s still a huge market for it under the table. I’ve been collecting VHS for many years and have quite the collection. I adore VHS for many reasons and I know others have the same feelings about this dead format.
Rewind This! is a documentary that focuses on the VHS boom and the effects it had on the film industry. VHS changed many people’s lives and altered the industry forever. Laserdisc, DVDs, Blu-Ray, and other formats didn’t even come close to doing what VHS did.
The success of films like 300 started a trend that has not stopped since then. I’m not saying 300 was the first to do the historical warrior thing, but it seemed it be the film that kickstarted it all. Recently a film called Vikingdom was released. Just the title alone made wonder what I was getting myself into, but I went ahead and gave it a watch anyway.
It seems that every week a found footage flick is released. This is met with a lot of negativity and people tend to brush them off without even watching them. The style seems to get an automatic eye roll these days, which frustrates me because people just think that if they’ve seen one, they’ve seen them all. We also hear that they are cheap, silly, or just plain boring. Honestly, the same could be said for everything you watch. Found footage is just another way to tell a story and it’s no different from what we consider the norm.
Scream Factory has brought us another so-called gem from the horror vaults with Crawlspace. I wasn’t that excited when I found out about the release, but since it was from Scream Factory, I decided to give it a whirl. When I was younger I saw the VHS cover of Crawlspace wherever I went. It was one of those titles I never picked up because Klaus Kinski was in it. That might sound a little harsh but I’ve never been a fan. I don’t think he is a bad actor or anything; I just don’t like watching him on screen.
John Carpenter is almost a household name in my opinion. Unfortunately, it is mainly for Halloween and The Thing, which isn’t bad, but there are many other excellent Carpenter flicks that get buried below his “commercial” hits. Even among your common horror fans some of his greatest works are not discussed; they mostly speak about the Escape flicks and Big Trouble in Little China.
I consider myself a huge Carpenter fan in many ways and one of those ways is that I’m a fan of everything he has ever done. Yes, that goes for Ghosts of Mars and The Ward. I know that many people look down upon some of his flicks but I just try to find the Carpenterness in each flick and find my own inspiration. I’m a writer of reviews, but I’m also a screenwriter trying to make it and if it wasn’t for John Carpenter, I wouldn’t be the person I am today.
Scream Factory has released another Carpenter flick on Blu-Ray and again, it is outstanding just like the rest. Prince of Darkness is a Carpenter film that I believe is forgotten about amongst the horror community. I know many would say that they know the flick but when is the last time you’ve actually seen it? I spoke my film friends and even they admitted they’ve forgotten the last time they watched it. I admit the film escaped me for a long time but I revisited it a couple years ago and fell in love all over again.
The Horror Show is a horror film that fell off my radar years ago but I still have the cut box VHS in my media room. It isn’t a bad film, but it just doesn’t do it for some people and that includes me. In a lot of ways the film reminds me of Shocker and feels almost like a prequel. (I might be alone on that one.)
Your average person may not know what a Brony is and neither did I until I stumbled upon this documentary. Bronies: The Extremely Unexpected Adult Fans of My Little Pony sought out male fans of the cartoon and followed them to the BronyCon convention.
At first Bronies seems like it might exploit these people and show the “weird” side of them. However, it doesn’t and actually dives into a little of the psychology side of things, going against what most people think of these Bronies. Don’t go into thinking you’re going to go into the house of some weird old dude who dresses up as a pony and prances around.