The initial impression from the poster art and compacted summaries is that The Most Beautiful Wife is a sleazy tale of a child bride or an illicit relationship between a teen and an older man, but Damiano Damiani’s film is a thinly veiled bio-drama of Franca Viola…
Branded a schoolgirl-in-peril entry, the genre isn’t new nor unique to Italian cinema – one can find traces (emphasizing terror and implied / potential violation over murder) in the kidnapped teen thriller Union Station (1950) and the psycho-sexual blackmailer / bank robber / teen molester Experiment in Terror (1961) – but Massimo Dallamano’s What have You Done to Solange…
A gamble for Mike Medavoy’s fledgling Phoenix Films and ultimately a box office and critical dud upon its theatrical release, U-Turn’s evolved into an undiscovered classic of modern noir if not a cult film, and one of Oliver Stone’s best films of the 1990s where every instinct almost yields a perfect result…
Regarded by some as the greatest spaghetti western few have ever seen (genre connoisseurs excepted), Grindhouse Releasing’s 4-disc set is another landmark release featuring the original, rarely seen longer Italian cut, the shorter Columbia edit for the U.S. market augmented with 3 previously cut scenes, and a multitude of extras…
Return to: Home / Blu-ray, DVD, Film Reviews / P to R . Film: Excellent / DVD Transfer: n/a / DVD Extras: n/a Label: n/a / Region: n/a / Released: n/a Genre: Psychological Thriller / Horror Synopsis: A celebrated painter headed for an epic burnout retreats to a crumbling country villa, and slowly loses grasp of reality. […]
Tales of Giant Bugs on VHS, a Podcast Interview, and Tape Swapping
In addition to a review of the 3D short film ROACH (2022) on VHS, I’ve an interview with its maker, SCHNUDLBUG, and links to an essay I wrote for the latest issue of BRANDON LIM’s zine, FILM FVCKERS, titled “THE GREAT TAPE SWAP”
Now Where Were We? Right. Let’s go back to LAST NIGHT (1998)
Don McKellar’s LAST NIGHT (1998) is the first review after a long pause in activities at KQEK.com
Gothic Steele: An Angel for Satan (1966)
Review of AN ANGEL FOR SATAN / UN ANGELO PER SATANA (1966), Barbara Steele’s last Italian Gothic, on Blu-ray from Severin Films
Tales of Giant Bugs on VHS, a Podcast Interview, and Tape Swapping
In addition to a review of the 3D short film ROACH (2022) on VHS, I’ve an interview with its maker, SCHNUDLBUG, and links to an essay I wrote for the latest issue of BRANDON LIM’s zine, FILM FVCKERS, titled “THE GREAT TAPE SWAP”
ArtScopeTO 10: Interview with Abstract Painter Donna Wise
For my occasional podcast series ArtScope TO, Abstract Painter Donna Wise discusses her unique techniques, and working during the 2020-2021 pandemic.
Podcast: Jason Pichonsky on Restoring Julian Roffman’s THE BLOODY BROOD (1959) + PHOBIA (1980)
Alongside a podcast with CanCon film historian Jason Pichonsky are revised reviews of Julian Roffman’s THE BLOODY BROOD (1959) + John Huston’s PHOBIA (1980), both from KINO Lorber / Unobstructed View.
The core story involves a pilot who runs into an available, functional spacecraft, and boots up into the planet’s now-toxic atmosphere, relying on the craft’s occasionally bristling AI navigation system to find a strata safe from dense clouds, and a roving giant bug determined to make a meal of the tiny craft and its pilot.
Assorted characters collide and interact in the lead-up to Earth’s demise at precisely midnight.
BR: Angel for Satan, An / Un angelo per Satana (1966)
Had Barbara Steele remained in Europe – especially Italy – during the early 1970s, she may well have appeared in giallo thrillers…
BR: Cannibal Man / La semana del asesino / Apartment on the 13th Floor, The (1972)
Cannibal Man has a palpable crime-drama feel – the events unfold after daily title cards – and one can sense Hitchcockian sensibilities…
BR: No One Heard the Scream / Nadie oyó gritar (1973)
After the grisly thriller Cannibal Man (1972), Spanish auteur Eloy de la Iglesia opted for a far less graphic thriller which is part giallo…
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