Edgar Allan Poe’s The Fall of the House of Usher has been filmed several times, most famously in 1960 by Roger Corman and 2002 by Ken Russell. Curtis Harrington was a huge fan of the story, shooting a ten minute version in 1942 and a 36 minute take in 2002 with both starring himself as Roderick and Madeline Usher. There’s even been a TV movie that had Martin Landau, Robert Hays and Charlene Tilton.
Now, first-time feature director Patrick Picard has brought a fresh take to the story with The Bloodhound.
This movie is a tight 72 minutes, which is really the perfect length for a movie, and tells the story of Francis (Liam Aiken, A Series of Unfortunate Events), who comes to the home of his wealthy childhood friend JP Luret (Joe Adler, who was in the 2019 Twin Peaks).
JP claims that he is dying, another potential victim of the Luret family’s legacy of self-destruction and depression. The only other occupant in his home is his twin Vivian (Annalise Basso, Ladyworld), who may be just as damaged as her brother.
While violent and argumentative, JP wishes to connect with his friend and feel something, but it seems as if it’s impossible for the Lurets to ever survive.
This is a movie that mostly has two men sitting in a house and everything is uncomfortable between them. Somehow, it is not boring and instead fascinating. A big reason could be that the setting is incredible. And man, this movie did nothing to make me dislike rich people any less, because I really think that this story is much closer to truth than fiction. I can’t wait to see what Picard makes next.
The Arrow Video release of this film comes complete with brand new audio commentary by director Patrick Picard and editor David Scorca, four of Picard’s short films and a making of feature.
I love getting movies to review, because so many of them are films I’d never watch on my own. Case in point, this movie, which describes why the COVID-19 pandemic occurred based on astrological charts.
Even if you don’t know a thing about astrology — I don’t — you’ll learn a fair amount in this about how past pandemics follow the same paths of the planets as our experiences over the last year. In short — pandemics happen when Pluto interacts with eclipses, Saturn and Jupiter. Oh Pluto, are you made that you’re no longer a planet?
This is just as much a talking slide show as it is a documentary, but I have to confess that I found it all really interesting.
You can learn more at the official site of the film’s writer and director, Nicholas Snyder.
You know what this Mill Creek box set needs? A French movie with a sixty-year-old Lee Marvin making all the French farm women all say, “Je suis excitée.” Yes, Lee’s in town, he’s got cash from a bank job gone wrong and Jessica (Miou-Miou) had the hots for him, despite you know, him robbing a bank and shooting everyone indiscriminately on the way to freedom.
If only she could get away from her husband Horace, who makes Lee look like a saint what with all his abuse, assault and hints of incest. He even causes a family member to kill herself because he keeps telling her that she’s going to an old folk’s home.
Somehow, both Juliet Mills — yes, from Beyond the Door — and Tina Louise — yes, from Gilligan’s Island — show up in this, as well as a scene where a naked woman beats Lee about the head with her breasts.
Everyone in this movie is crazy. I mean, what else can you say about a movie that ends with a kid that yells, “I’m a millionaire. We’ll go to America. You’ll wear lipstick and you’ll always be beautiful. I’ll pick out all your boyfriends. We’ll be rich. We’ll be nasty. We’ll fear nobody. We’ll be real shitheads.”
In his biography, director Yves Boisset stayed sober throughout the shooting of this film, despite his reputation of being a drunk. As soon as the movie wrapped, Marvin got wasted and beat the hell out of a cop. He felt bad and sent the guy flowers afterward. Ah, Lee. We still miss you.
Yes, when people were asked, “Who wants to write for our Mill Creek month?” the battle to see who would get to write about this 1986 Canadian Yannick Bisson vehicle was so brutal that I had to put my foot down and say, “For the good of the site and humanity, let me write about this dog sled movie.”
This review on IMDB proves to me. This movie is so Canadian that you have to don a toque and drink maple syrup while blasting a Helen Reddy/Rush mashup as you pour Molson all over your poutine as you apologize to everyone in earshot to get the full majesty of what this movie is about. To wit: “If you love the Forest Rangers or Rainbow Country, you’ll love this wonderful movie from 1986…Splendid, exciting story, fantastic, Canadian actors, including the young teen-age boy, who went to become Detective Murdoch in Murdoch Mysteries.”
So yeah. Toby hates school and his dad has a dog sled business that’s doing so poorly that he has to keep going outside and shooting the dogs. Somehow, this is a tender family tale, but I’m American and so I only understand when we use guns to shoot human beings.
This movie was nominated for a Genie Award for best cinematography and best song, which would be “Cold As Ice” by Peter Pringle and Kevin Hunter. Pringle would follow this honor by hosting Miss Teen Canada, performing a one-man theatrical tribute to Noël Coward and becoming a theremin player. You know how Don King used to say, “Only In America?” Well, I don’t know who the Canadian Don King is and Don Cherry seems like too easy of a pick, but I would imagine that if there were a Canadian Don King, he’d say, “Who the fuck is Peter Pringle?”
People often say, “I bet you like watching movies all day.” Yes, I do, especially when they are the inverse side to Canuxploitation, that is movies that have no commercial viability whatsoever and have people battling to become provincial dog sled champions. This may be the only movie in that particular genre, which makes me an expert and someday, I’ll do the DVD commentary track for this movie.
Speaking of Canuxploitation, this was directed by Jean-Claude Lord, who also was behind Visiting Hours, The Vindicator and Covergirl. I bet the people around him were like, “You’re finally making a legitimate movie, Jean-Claude, eh?”
Editor’s Note: Mill Creek also includes Liar’s Moon on their B-Movie Blast box set; and it’s back — with a new, second on the film — as part of its inclusion on the Excellent Eighties set. Why? Because we love Susan Tyrrell!
In East Texas, young lovers Jack (Matt Dillon) and Ginny (Cindy Fisher, who was already menaced by a one-sided love affair in Bad Ronald) realize that the world will never let them be. Jack’s mother (Margaret Blye, The Italian Job) was once in love with Ginny’s father (Christopher Connelly, who speaking of Italian shows up in some of our favorite movies from that country, including Manhattan Baby and 1990: The Bronx Warriors) and knows how these things end. But our loveable scamp head off to Louisiana, where they can get married without permission and Jack starts working in the oil fields, just like his dead father, who was played by Hoyt Axton.
This tale of a working class boy and a banker’s daughter is livened up by some casting that genre fans will appreciate, like Richard Moll — who must be in every 80’s movie as the heavy that Robert Englund turns down — as well as Molly McCarthy (from one of the strangest film noir movies ever, Blast of Silence), Jim Greenlead (Tag: The Assassination Game, Surf II, Joysticks), Yvonne De Carlo (Guyana: Cult of the Damned, Silent Scream, The Munsters), Dawn Dunlap (Barbarian Queen, Forbidden World), Broderick Crawford (in his last role) and Susan Tyrrell (who I’ll obviously be making a Letterboxd list all about sooner than later).
Director David Fisher only made one other movie, Toy Solders, which has teens — like Tim Robbins and Tracy Scoggins — join up with Father Karras to escape from terrorists. Yeah, you better believe I’m hunting that one down.
Oh yeah. Liar’s Moon also has a soundtrack by Asleep at the Wheel and two endings. Spoiler mode on*: Jack lives in one and dies in the other. I watched the Mill Creek Rare Cult Cinema version, which has him live. I have no idea how the one on Tubi ends, so why don’t you, as Morrissey sang, find out for yourself?
*Perhaps an even bigger spoiler is…
Seriously…this might ruin the film and I’m shocked that I missed this angle…
Jack and Ginny, remember how I said their parents dated? Yeah, the reason their respective mother and father were so against them dating is because they’re brother and sister. My God, another incest movie. It’s as if our site is…yeah, I guess I did watch that whole VC Andrews set. Two of them, actually.
Wait a second. Nope. The poor mom had been screwing with the rich dad for twenty years so that he’d feel pain for how he treated her. Everyone in this movie is ridiculous. They even shoot a color tinted flashback to show how it happened!
Oh Mill Creek. You brought me into this movie just to complete a box set and you reward me with a rich cup of scuzzy eighties wonderment.
Barbara Cartland’s romance novel Cupid Rides Pillion was filmed as this British TV movie, one of the first appearances by Hugh Grant, who appears alongside a pretty solid cast that includes Oliver Reed (once a werewolf, once a diver out of a mansion window in Burnt Offerings), Claire Bloom (Clash of the Titans), Michael York (who I associate with this type of movie most often, as he was in The Three Muskateers), Emma Samms (Dynasty), Sir John Mills (Quatermass in the 1979 TV movie) and Liz Fraser (who was in many of the Carry On movies) among others.
Emma Samms’ character of Lady Castlemaine is based on the life of Barbara Palmer, First Duchess of Cleveland, one of King Charles II’s mistresses and the mother of several of his children, in case you’re into British scandals.
This is the story of Lord Lucius Vyne (Grant), who is loyal to King Charles II and helping help to return to rule after Cromwell. He takes on a secret identity as the Silver Blade, kind of like a musketeer of sorts. He’s too late to save Lady Panthea Vyne’s (Lysette Anthony, Krull) King Charles Spaniel from being stomped to death, so fair warning if you like small dogs.
Even when the king comes back, he has enemies, so the Silver Blade remains in his service, even when it nearly costs him and his lady love’s life.
You can watch this on Tubi and trust me, the print is just as horrible on the Mill Creek release. I think with a British TV movie from the late 80’s, this is as good as we’re going to get.
All of the time loop films of the last year or two — Happy Death Day 2U, Boss Level, The Map of Tiny Perfect Things, Koko-di Koko-da, Game Over,The Obituary of Tunde Johnson,Russian Doll, See You Yesterday — all follow that Groundhog Day-style approach of the same day happening over and over again. Of course, we can also point to 1990s 12:01 PM, which part of the Showtime 30-Minute Movie entries.
The idea is pretty rich and particularly so this year, where it really does feel like every day is exactly the same as we’re trapped in our homes. Of course, like all movie trends, this one has seemingly been done to death, but can Palm Springs — a movie that escapes my radar when it played Sundance in 2020 and then went to Hulu in July — do it better?
This movie succeeds because of the likability of its two leads, Andy Samberg and Cristin Milioti, who have discovered a cave that allows them to repeat the same day endlessly. I kind of loved how this film didn’t seem like it was about that at all until JK Simmons murders Samberg to end the day. The trailer spoils this, I spoiled this and now, we must all realize what we’ve done.
Actually, the spoiler is just fine. The real beauty of this movie is how the characters actually grow instead of just experiencing day after day. It also benefits from a rich cast, which includes a great cameo from physicist Clifford V. Johnson, Dale Dickey, Jena Friedman, June Squibb (who was also great in another wedding movie, Table 19), Peter Gallagher, Camila Mendes, Tyler Hoechlin (who played the kid in Road to Perdition) and Meredith Hagner.
This is a film that matter of factly gets across very open sexuality — what would you do if you could sleep with the same people over and over?* — and explores what a time loop centered around a wedding really would be like. I really loved how Simmons’ character comes in and out of the story, along with the very real emotional damage these characters suffer as their bodies are often destroyed multiple times.
Director Max Barbakow hasn’t done many full-length films and neither has writer Andy Siara. I’m truly excited to see what they do next, as this movie could have been completely saccharine and instead became something wonderful. It’s surprising at nearly every turn and quite emotional.
Now, back to living the same day I’ve been living since last March.
*According to IMDB, Samberg’s character was trapped in the loop for somewhere between forty and forty million years.
Writer, director, and cinematographer Christopher Steinberger made his debut film, the short Pendulum, in 2012. Completing seven more shorts since then, he’s now arrived on Amazon Prime with the action crime-drama, Iris, his feature film debut.
How we came about reviewing Iris is just one of those happy accidents. We received a screener for the arthouse zombie fest Necropath, the feature film debut of Joshua Reale. Courtesy of my Law & Order: SVU fandom, I couldn’t help but recognize the film starred Nathan Faudree, who was a recent guest star on the long-running NBC-TV’s with the episode, “Hell’s Kitchen.” And he stars here, as the nefarious Edward West — and he has an interesting interview and hiring process of his sanctioners.
Carson Jobb, a genius software engineer, creates a powerful, new program. But Charlotte Knapp, his ex-girlfriend and government operative who is always up for a little corporate espionage, steals it for a secret organization. But when she realizes her employers will use the software to breach the security of the United States, her and Carson bury their tumultuous past to retrieve the software — without getting themselves killed.
Producing a self-financed short is hard enough. A feature film, even harder. And when a filmmaker decides to eschew the low-budget go-to narratives of horror (such as Necropath) or comedy (see our recent review for Banging Laine) for their debut feature and goes straight to the action-crime drama genre, that filmmaker better know what they’re doing behind the Final Draft and Canon Reds. And Christopher Steinberger has the skills — and then some — in spades . . . and diamonds.
If you’re spent any amount of time at B&S About Movies, you know that I’m a big fan of the prolific, direct-to-DVD oeuvre of writer-director Steven C. Miller with his films Arsenal , Line of Duty, and First Kill. As result of Miller’s pedigree, he’s able to secure larger budgets that attracts the likes of Nicolas Cage, Hayden Christensen, Aaron Eckhart, Claire Forlani, and Bruce Willis. And I really dig the action work coming from Prince Bagdasarian, who really impressed me with Abducted, his own up-against-the-budget actioner.
Obviously, based on the time it took Steinberger to get from a 2013 short to the eventual feature film version of Iris, he doesn’t have a lot of money to work with to get his films made. But you wouldn’t know it. The production values on Iris — considering it’s an espionage film — are of a stellar quality that evades most low-budget indie streamers. And while he couldn’t get the likes of Bruce Willis or Claire Forlani for his leads, the new-to-the-game Patrick M. Kelly and Michelle Hunter are more than up to the challenge in carrying a feature film. The skilled cast is rounded out Mu-Shaka Benson (who I really want to see more of on screen; he was in the zombie anthology Empire State of the Dead, which includes the short version of Necropath), Stephen Long, and Josef Ritter. I believe each of these actors will surely rise up through the casting ranks into bigger roles in larger films and TV series.
When I watched Nightfire, the fifth student-short production by French-born writer-director Brando Benetton that served as his college thesis project shot on a low budget in 14 days — with notable character actor Dylan Baker in the cast — I was truly impressed by the work. And while Christopher Steinberger wasn’t afforded the luxuries of Benetton’s espionage action-drama, I was still equally impressed with the work. It’s only a matter of time before established producers take notice, loosen the purse strings, and Steinberger comes to work with the Dylan Bakers and Nick Cages on his later films.
Stream it. It’s worth the admission price.
You can learn more about the film at the Watchworks Studios Facebook page and director Christopher Steinberger’s official website. You can stream Iris now, on Amazon Prime.
Disclaimer: We didn’t receive a screener or review request from the producers, distributor, or their P.R. firms. We watched the trailer and requested the film from the filmmakers ourselves.
About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook.He also writes for B&S About Moviesand publishes short stories and music reviews on Medium.
If you ever associated Ted Danson and Richard Masur with child abuse, thanks to Danson being in Something About Amelia and Masur in Fallen Angel, this film will redeem both of them, as they are chasing an entire cabal of abusers.
Based on the Jonathan Kellerman novel of the same name, this tells the story of Alex Delaware (Danson, who also executive produced). A Los Angeles-based psychiatrist, Delaware is testifying against an accused child murder who soon dies in a suspicious manner. However, when detective Milo Sturgis (Masur) takes the case, he soon learns that things are much deeper than that.
Rachel Ticotin (Arnold’s love interest in Total Recall), James Noble (the governor on Benson), David Huddleston (Santa from Santa Claus: The Movie and The Big Lewbowski himself), Merritt Butrick (Death Spa), Charles Lane (Arsenic and Old Lace), Scott Paulin (Cat People) and Deborah Harmon (Used Cars) all show up in this.
For a mid-80’s show, it’s pretty great that Masur’s character is gay and not mincing or a stereotype. The ending is pretty intense as well and probably one of the few times you’ll see Ted Danson in an MMA-style situation.
Thanks Mill Creek The Excellent Eighties set for having so many made for TV movies! You can also watch this on YouTube.
We originally reviewed this film on June 13, 2019, just because it’s the Hoff, you know? We’ll, thanks to its Mill Creek inclusion on the Mill Creek Excellent Eighties 50-film box set that we’re reviewing in full, this month, we’re taking another crack at it. Which is more than this film deserves. It didn’t even deserve the first review.
Ugh. Let’s do this. Oh, this is not excellent. Not by a long shot.
It’s as if the art department knew they had a stinker and just gave up.I mean, that’s the Hoff from Knight Rider on the cover, for gosh sake.And I think that’s Blair from Savage Streets?
It’s direct-to-video U.S. VHS junk like this — courtesy of the Hoff’s musical stardom in Europe, which resulted in this receiving a theatrical release in overseas markets, with another title: Wings of Freedom — that leaves no doubt as to why Linda Blair’s and David Hasselhoff’s careers cooled, quickly, after their demon possession and talking car days of yore. But, it does reunite that demon n’ hot car duo after last year’s Witchery, aka La Casa 4. So . . . there’s your Blair/Hasselhoff Trivial Pursuit movie trivia for the day to amaze your friends.
Okay, so what’s with the dopey W.B, Blue and the Bean title? Ah, it’s the kitschy kharacter names of the story: White Bread (Hasselhoff), Blue (stuntman Tony Brubaker), and Bean (Thomas Rosales Jr. from Speed and Running Scared). They’re three ne’er-do-well bounty hunters hired to protect Blair’s richy-bitchy, natch, snob — who just witnessed her playboy-cum-drug-dealing boyfriend murdered by his Columbian connection. So, if you want to see Blair sportin’ a white cleave gag in a dusty ol’ Mexican farmhouse — and what growing young lad doesn’t — then this is your movie. Will our bounty-trio save her to make it to court to testify?
Uh. Duh. What movie are you watching? Were they trying for the superior action-comedy of Stewart Raffill’s High Risk (also on the Excellent Eighties set)? If so, they failed. Utterly and craptastically.
Worse renderings of the Hoff and Blair ever committed to poster board.
If you want to see ex-stuntman and director Max Kleven do another film — Ruckus, which also starred Blair, his other movie we’ve reviewed at B&S About Movies — then you’re all set. Oh, and if you needed another John Vernon film to complete your set, he’s here as Linda’s rich daddy. So there that. Oh, and since we are in Mexico — and Danny Trejo needs to get his foot in the biz door — well, there’s that watch incentive. It has to be the incentive, as there’s no comedy, no “great one-liners,” and no “great entertainment.” If it wasn’t for the grey-market DVDs paper insert chaffing me, I’d use it and save the Charmin.
As we said, you can pick it up (wipe it off) as part of Mill Creek’s Excellent Eighties box set. You can also watch it for free on Amazon Prime because, well, even Amazon knows a crap bag when they smell one. But, for those without an Amazon account, we found a nice n’ muddy, washed-out VHS rip over on Tubi, which also has Witchery — so you’re double-featured up for a double-ply wipin’ night o’ flushin’.
About the Author: You can learn more about the writings of R.D Francis on Facebook.He also writes for B&S About Movies.
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