Cinefantastique Online

You are browsing the archives of 2009 April.

Courtesy of the Starz Media YouTube Channel, today we present Dario Argento’s 2005 made-for-television giallo thriller DO YOU LIKE HITCHOCK. As the title implies, DO YOU LIKE HITCHCOCK? deliberately emulates the American Master of Suspense. Fans will recognize plot elements borrowed from several sources, most notably REAR WINDOW. The story follows a young man who rents [...]

With this unambitious but entertaining giallo, Argento proves he can still thrill an audience.
The consensus among fans and critics seems to be that Dario Argento’s glory days are behind him, and after the embarrassment that was PHANTOM OF THE OPERA (1998), one could hardly blame long-time followers for abandoning him completely. Yet the new millennium [...]

This week, science fiction, fantasy and horror DVDs are dominated by theatrical releases; that is to say, the opening of X-MEN ORIGINS: WOLVERINE this weekend and the upcoming debut of the new STAR TREK film have inspired some cash-in-while-we-can home video releases. This include a Blu-ray version of the first season of the original STAR [...]

The PG-13 shocker THE UNINVITED snuck through theaters like a cat burglar last year, leaving behind little evidence of its presence other than a few tattered posters hanging from construction site fencing. Not helping the film’s case with genre audiences was its status as yet another remake of an Asian ghost story, this time South [...]

Call me crazy, but why would anyone want to remake VIDEODROME? The 1983 original is an ambitious – but only partially successful – experiment that failed to wow general audiences and even put off many of David Cronenberg’s fans. Whatever it’s strengths and weaknesses, VIDEODROME is pure David Cronenberg – an expression of the distinctive sensibilities [...]

This sci-fi action-adventure drama desperately wants to be The Little Film That Could. Relying on technical ingenuity to compensate for its relatively modest budget and on a few dependable character actors rather than box office stars, MUTANT CHRONICLES aims for the grandeur and spectacle of a major movie while trying to craft an epic story [...]

Earlier this week, I mentioned that you could now view free science fiction, fantasy, and horor movies on YouTube, since Sony Entertainment’s Crackle.com had made their catalogue of free movies available on their very own YouTube channel. What I did not mention is that Crackle is by no means the first or only company to give away their [...]

We have just added several categories to the Video on Demand section of Cinefantastique Online. Clicking on Videon on Demand takes you to the first page of the section, which features an Amazon.com widget highlighting the latest, popular science fiction, fantasy, and horror titles available to rent or own via download. The currently featured item is [...]

[ April 24, 2009 to April 26, 2009. ] In what must be the strangest distribution strategy ever devised, MUTANT CHRONICLES opens today in exclusive engagements in New York and Hollywood – even though you can already view it here on Video on Demand. Directed by Simon Hunter, working from a script by Philip Eisner, MUTANT CHRONICLES stars Thomas Jane (THE MIST), Ron Perlman (HELLBOY [...]

The final season of BATTLESTAR GALACTICA is scheduled to arrive on DVD and Blu-ray disc this July 28. Along with it will be a box set of the complete four seasons. Both the DVD will be loaded with featurettes, audio commentaries, and other bonus features that will be duplicated on the Blu-ray discs, which also [...]

It’s a good thing that writer-director David Twohy’s alien invasion movie opened before INDEPENDENCE DAY. Not that it’s bad, but it lacks the kind of spectacle that audiences came to expect from after ID4. In fact, the action scenes even fail to match those of Twohy’s previous writing credits, WATERWORLD, or TERMINAL VELOCITY. This minor [...]

EDITOR’S NOTE: The thing about home video is it’s like some kind of all-powerful voodoo spell that continually resurrects old titles, bringing them back from the grave with all the inevitability of Amando de Ossorio’s Knights Templar saddling up for another night-time ride in pursuit of sacrificial victims. In this case the fateful event prompting [...]

Despite the pre-release concern among fans (due to RUSH HOUR’s Brett Ratner taking over as director) and a slightly diminished critical response, X-MEN: THE LAST STAND turns out to be a pretty decent summer flick. It has a more interesting premise than its predecessors (involving a cure — possibly involuntarily) for mutants, and the action [...]