Underworld: Rise of the Lycans Movie Trailer

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The Bad Seed DVD Movie Review

The Bad Seed... "A basket full of kisses for a basket full of hugs." Those are chilling words, at least when uttered by that ice princess, Patty McCormack. As Rhoda Penmark, she is as pretty as a porcelain doll but drips venom with each curtsey and polite response. Little Rhoda's mother is terrified she has passed on her own mother's corruption. Oops, turns out she's right. This passes the test of time, as it still gets under your skin. The character development is tight and the story very involving. Not even Freddy Krueger had the ability to scare like tiny McCormack, looking just like a little adult while she literally beats out the competition for a penmanship award. However, director Mervyn LeRoy's hands were tied over the ending, which was changed from the source material--Maxwell Anderson's hit Broadway play. A supposedly more appropriate, and moral, ending was demanded by the studio. This was remade (badly) in 1985.

Cube DVD Movie Review

Cube... If Clive Barker had written an episode of The Twilight Zone, it might have looked something like Cube. A handful of strangers wake up inside a bizarre maze, having been spirited there during the night. They quickly learn that they have to navigate their way through a series of chambers if they have any hope of escape, but the problem is that there are lethal traps awaiting if they choose their route unwisely. Having established some imaginative and grisly punishments in store for the hostages, cowriter and director Vincenzo Natali turns his attention to the characters, for whom being trapped amplifies their best and worst qualities. The film is, in fact, similar to a famous episode of Rod Serling's old television series, though Natali's explanation for why these poor people are being put through hell is a lot closer to the spirit of The X-Files. Cube has some solid moments of suspense and drama, and the sets are appropriately striking: one is tempted to believe at first the characters are lost inside a computer chip.

Them DVD Movie Review

Them... That ol' cinematic devil the A-bomb has spawned a colony of giant murderous ants bent on destroying humanity in this, the seminal big bug movie (an obvious and oft-credited influence for Alien among countless others). The special effects may be dated, but this brilliantly rational-sounding film has held up wonderfully in all other regards, including some starkly effective location work in the high Arizona desert, a genuinely inspired sound design guaranteed to bring on the creepy-crawlies, and an unexpectedly dry sense of humor (mainly personified by Grade-A egghead scientist Edmund Gwenn). This is essential viewing for all those who consider themselves science fiction or horror fans. Heroic hardcase James Arness previously played for the other team as the titular character in The Thing from Another World.

The Hunger DVD Movie Review

The Hunger... Catherine Deneuve and David Bowie are rich, handsome, and oh-so stylish as inhabitants of the night. Wearing sleek outfits and classy sun shades, they haunt rock 'n roll clubs on the stalk for young blood, whom they bring back home to their incredibly lush mansion for a late-night break.

Being a vampire never looked more horny, but there is a price : Bowie starts to age so fast he wrinkles up in the waiting room of a doctor's ( Susan Sarandon ) office. Tony Scott's ( Ridley's bro ) directorial debut, changed from the Whitley Strieber novel, revises the vampire parable with Egyptian inflections and removes all references to garlic and crosses and wooden stakes--these parasites can even walk around in the daylight--but the ties between blood and sex are as robust as ever.

Scott's background as a prize winning commercial director is clear in each luxuriously textured frame and his densely interwoven revising, but the moody atmosphere comes at the cost of dramatic pressure.

At times the film is so languid it becomes mired in its misty, impeccably designed visible style. In its own way, The Hunger is the ideal vampire film for the '80s, all poise and angle and surface beauty. Sarandon talks truthfully about the film in the documentary The Celluloid Closet.