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This no-budget piece of worthless shot-on-video drek seems to exist only to prove one depressing proposition: no matter how much you think you have plumbed the bottom of the barrel, the barrel goes yet deeper still. Writer-producer-editor Serge Rodnunskytakes the basic outline of Edgar Allan Poe’s story and turns it into what at first looks [...]

No monsters but lots of atmosphere, this is a classic of the genre.
Eschewing many standard genre elements of its era, THE BLACK CAT is barely a horror film in the traditional sense, and it has even less to do with Poe than 1932’s MURDERS IN THE RUE MORGUE (which had also starred Lugosi). Nevertheless, this [...]

This is a misleadingly titled giallo thriller in the tradition of Dario Argento’s THE BIRD WITH THE CRYSTAL PLUMAGE, FOUR FLIES ON GREY VELVET, and CAT O’NINE TAILS. Director Antonio Bido also borrows several stylistic tropes from Argento, particularly from DEEP RED: harsh violence; point-of-view shots; a repetitive, insistent main theme performed with a pop music arrangement [...]

 
Cats are the perfect international horror movie stars. Like the genre itself, they make their impact with visuals, not dialogue, which is why horror travels well from country to country. A unique example of this is THE GRUDGE, an American remake of the 2003 Japanese production JU-ON: THE GRUDGE. Remaking a Japanese horror film had [...]

Fine technical craftsmanship and solid performances fight a losing battle with rampant stupidity in this entertaining Mexican horror film, which is alternately atmospheric and silly. The story follows a reporter named Ricardo (played by the film’s producer, Abel Salazar) who comes to a small town seeking an interview from Samuel (Enrique Rambal), a world-famous pianist who [...]

This semi-sequel of sorts to BATMAN RETURNS spins the popular Catwoman character off into her own film – the would-be beginning of a franchise that failed to materialize, thanks to dismal box office returns. An almost unmitigated disaster, this major studio production with a major star in the lead (the Oscar-winning Halle Berry) comes across [...]

The little, low-budget opus belatedly attempts to cash in on CAT PEOPLE, but it has little of the subtlety and none of the style of the 1942 Val Lewton production. In a strange way, CAT GIRL seems more old-fashioned than its model: the limited production values, melodramatic tone, and outdated attempts at spooky atmosphere suggest a [...]

With Universal likely to be the last oar-rower on the HD-DVD lifeboat, their choice of releases on the format becomes that much more interesting. Other than Warner Bros, who recently abandoned ship in favor of the greener pastures of Blu-ray exclusivity, Universal was the only studio keeping up a steady stream of catalog title releases. [...]

Schrader finds that moviegoers like their horror simple-minded.
Reviewed by Kyle Counts
 One complaint I often hear about Paul Schrader films is that they are the work of a man who uses the medium as a platform for his personal problem-solving. That doesn’t strike me as much of a criticism, since that’s precisely why they are interesting. Schrader is [...]

Hardly dull but not necessarily good. 
By Steve Biodrowski 
This is a typically outrageous, action-packed flick from Hong Kong, in which characterization and coherence play second fiddle to throwing anything up on the screen that comes into the writer’s mind. With so much going on, the film is hardly ever dull, but that does not necessarily mean [...]

One of the joys of Hong Kong Cinema is the sheer uninhibited exuberance of their fantasy films. ”Make-believe” seems to be the operative term when it comes to these over-the-top opera; unconstrained by credibility concerns, the filmmakers feel free to fly with every imaginative idea that floats through their creative minds. The results can be wildly [...]

Black cats sure get a bum rap on screen — always cast as the bad guys (or at least their familiars). This is not just a Western prejudice. For example, spooky black cats feature quite prominently in the Japanese horror hit JU-ON: THE GRUDGE, as in this scene wherein social worker Rika awakens to find [...]

Today sees the release of the DVD for MASTERS OF HORROR – THE BLACK CAT. Edgar Allan Poe’s short story has inspired numerous adaptations, but director Stuart Gordon’s version is a rare exception that tries to stay true to the source material. Adapted by Gordon and Dennis Paoli, the teleplay’s most obvious conceit is to place [...]