Mario Van Peebles directed and produced this adaption of Melvin Van Peebles’s novel Panther and had his dad write the screenplay, too.

Kadeem Hardison plays Judge, a man who has returned home from Vietnam to find that Oakland is torn apart between crime and police discrimination against African-Americans. he soon learns about the Black Panthers and their leaders Bobby Seale (Courtney B. Vance) — who said that this movie is “80 percent to 90 percent” untrue — and Huey P. Newton (Marcus Chong).

This movie has a great cast, including Tyrin Turner, Joe Don Baker, M. Emmet Walsh, Chris Rock, Chris Tucker, Bobby Brown, Angela Bassett (who played Beverly Shabazz in both this movie and Malcolm X), Dick Gregory, Kool Moe Dee, Richard Dysart (who also played J. Edgar Hoover in Marilyn & Bobby: Her Final Affair), Michael Wincott, James Russo and both Marlon and Melvin Van Peebles.

Even if the movie is fictionalized, it should get you to read about the Black Panther Party and how they used copwatching to police the very cops who had pledged to protect their neighborhoods. In addition, the party created the Free Breakfast for Children Programs, education programs, and community health clinics. Hoover believed that they were “the greatest threat to the internal security of the country” and part of a Communist plot.

The film never gets into the two different ways America still sees the Black Panthers, whether as a vital organization in the struggle of African-Americans or a criminal organization. Perhaps most dangerous to the status quo was that Huey Newton expressed his support for the Women’s Liberation Movement and the Gay Liberation Movement, urging his followers to “unite with them in a revolutionary fashion.”

If you get anything out of this, learn more about them and how people are still fighting for equality.

You can get Panther from MVD.

Directed by Fernando Di Leo, who wrote Live Like a Cop, Die Like a Man, A Fistful of Dollars, For a Few Dollars and Massacre Time, as well as the director of Naked Violence, Slaughter Hotel and Caliber 9, Blood and Diamonds is a poliziotteschi about Guido Mauri (Claudio Cassinelli), a thief who has spent the last few years in prison and just wants to go legit.

That’s not going to happen, because days after a mob boss named Rizzo (Martin Balsam) and his right-hand man Tony (Pier Paolo Capponi) kill Guido’s girl Maria (Olga Karlatos) over some jewels that never got to Rizzo. Guido hatches a revenge plot but so does Maria’s orphaned son Enzo (Alberto Squillante) who was already upset that Guido was a criminal because he’s a rich snob of a child.

If that’s not enough, well, Guido’s other old flame Lisa is played by Barbara Bouchet and generally, that’s enough to get me on board. There’s also a good score by Luis Bacalov, so good that Bruno Mattei ripped it off for Hell of the Living Dead (thanks to Ian Jane from Rock! Shock! Pop! for that knowledge).

The 88 Films blu ray of Blood and Diamonds has a brand new remastered 4K transfer from the original camera negative, audio commentary with Troy Howarth, a documentary on Fernando Di Leo, Blood and Di Leo – A Portrait by Luc Merenda, the Italian opening, intermission and credits, the trailer and a slipcase with a poster and booklet. You can get it from MVD.

Marcus Koch is probably best known for his effects work on movies like We Are Still Here, Frankenstein Created Bikers, The Third Saturday In October V and Eminence Hill. Or maybe you know him from his directing work on American Guinea Pig: Bloodshock. Either way, he made this back in 1999 and for as grainy and rough as it is, it’s packed with so much worth watching.

Sarah (Tiffany Stinky) and Muzzy (Billly Scam) are just two punk rock kids trying to make it in hot, sticky Clearwater, Florida. Yet she’s been cheating on him for some time and not with anyone alive. That’s right — she’s been lying with men who keep on lying there, as she has a thing for the dead. The bad part? Well, the worst part? Dr. Robert Olsen (Joel D. Wynkoop), a former bioweapons engineer for Uncle Sam got fired and has been working in that same morgue and has been using the bodies to test ROT (Robert Olson Transmutation virus). Not only does she have it now, not only is she doomed to literally rot, but now she’s passed it on to her man.

For the first part of the movie, they react to their impending demise by partying, driving through their neighbor’s yards, setting things on fire and calling in bomb threats to the White House. Where this gets interesting is when the disease takes hold and the government has to send agents, along with members of the Illuminati, to control the situation and see if ROT can truly thin the herd.

This movie truly feels like no future as punks puke up blood after injecting heroin and formaldehyde just to stay alive for a few hours more, fighting in parking lots, slamming in pits, smearing each other with plasma and sweat and necrophobic disease as the neon lights beat down and insects buzz and the dark tracking of the video aesthetic doom them all.

Why have punk zombie movies — I’m counting this and Return of the Living Dead III and the moment Julie Walker says that she can’t feel her heart beating in her chest any more — done a better job of explaining the human cost of transforming into a corpse?

I’ve read so many times about how cheap and dark this is and that’s exactly why I like it so much. It feels like we are really there as two kids just fall to pieces with no one left to save them or ever put them back together. That tire through the brain is a mercy killing.

You can watch this on YouTube.

Before Patrick Read Johnson did special effects on V, 2010: The Year We Made Contact and Warlock,  wrote Dragonheart and directed Spaced Invaders, Baby’s Day Out, Angus and The Genesis Code, he was a kid in Wadsworth, Illinois who made his own movies and dreamed of a Hollywood he was sure he would neer get to. Thanks to his mother setting up a trip to Hollywood to meet Douglas Trumbull, he was one of the first people outside of Industrial Light and Magic effects experts to see Star Wars.

His real life experience is what 5-25-77 is all about, obviously a passion project about the past and the power of film that took eighteen years to make.

John Francis Daley plays the younger version of the actor, a kid who only cares about school as much as he does getting to read the announcements with his friend Bill (Steven Coulter) and make backyard films like Requiem for the Planet of the Apes. When his mother (Colleen Camp!) sends him on a trip to meet American Cinematographer editor (and almost every writer) Herb Lightman (Austin Pendleton). He also falls in love with Linda (Emmi Chen), which makes him consider leaving behind his dream of making movies and may keep him behind in Illinois.

This is an incredibly visually inventive movie that perfectly sums up the creative desire to do more and mean more than where you come from. It’s quite inspiring and speaks to a time before we got multiple Star Wars properties every year, when films seemed more special and perhaps even life changing.

Despite the time it took to make, it was worth it. The performances by Daley, Camp, Chen and others elevate this film and make it all at once bittersweet and inspiring. This is one of the best films I saw in 2022 and you owe it to yourself to get it.

The MVD blu ray of 5-25-77  has audio commentary from Johnson, moderated by Seth Gaven, founder of the A.V. Squad and editor of the film Spaced Invaders, a Q&A from the 2013 Fantasia Film Festival with Johnson, trailers and photo galleries. You can get it from MVD.

EDITOR’S NOTE: We’ve talked about Death Wish so many times on the site, but this is all about the excitement of Kino Lorber’s UHD release. It has both a UHD HDR/Dolby Vision master from a 4k scan of the 35mm original camera negative and a blu ray HD master from a 4k scan of the 35mm original camera negative. Plus, there’s also a commentary on the film by the best person to record one, Paul Talbot, the author of Bronson’s Loose! You can get it from Kino Lorber.

New York City in 1974 must have felt like the end of the world. Based on the 1972 novel by Brian Garfield, Death Wish was the answer. In fact, in many theaters, the audience stood up and cheered as Paul Kersey got his bloody revenge for the crims visited upon him and his family.

The film we’re about to discuss went through many twists and turns as it made its way to the screen. Originally, it ended with the vigilante hero confronting the thugs who attacked his family and them killing him, police detective Ochoa discovering his weapon and deciding to follow in his footsteps. And get this — the first choice to play the lead was Jack Lemmon, with Henry Fonda as Ochoa and Sidney Lumet directing.

Finally, United Artists picked the gritty action veteran Michael Winner to direct. Several studios rejected the film due to its subject matter and the difficulty of casting the lead. Winner wanted Bronson, who he’d worked with in the past, but the actor’s agent hated the message of the film and Bronson felt that the book was about a weak man, someone he would not be playing on film.

Death Wish turned Bronson, who was 53 at the time of its release, into a major star known worldwide. It’s a movie made exactly for its time. Despite its lurid subject matter and dangerous acceptance of its hero’s actions, it’s still a great exploitation film that actually explores the why behind its hero’s actions instead of just setting him loose upon people.

Paul Kersey (Bronson) starts the movie in Hawaii with his wife Joanna. When they return home to the squalid streets of New York City, it’s only days before three thugs — including Jeff Goldblum! — invade their apartment, raping their daughter Carol and beating Joanna so badly that she dies.  Beyond Goldblum in this early role, keep an eye open for Christopher Guest and Olympia Dukakis as cops, as well as Sonia Manzano (Maria from Sesame Street, who was dating director Winner at the time and suggested that Herbie Hancock do the score) and Lawrence Hilton-Jacobs (Freddie “Boom Boom” Washington from TV’s Welcome Back, Kotter) in supporting roles.

As he recovers from his wife’s death, Paul is mugged. He fights back and chases off his attacker and finds new strength from the battle. An architect by trade, Paul heads to Tucson where he helps Ames Jainchill with his residential development project. After work one night, he goes to a gun club with Ames, where we learn how good of a shot Paul is. Turns out he was a conscientious objector and combat medic who was taught marksmanship by his father, but promised his mother he’d never pick up another gun after his dad was killed in a hunting accident. On the way back home, Paul discovers that Ames has given him a gun as a gift.

Now back home, Paul learns from his son-in-law that his daughter is still catatonic and would be better off in a mental hospital. That night, when walking, Paul is mugged again but he has the gun with him. He fights back and kills the mugger, but even that action causes him to grow physically sick. But soon, he’s prowling the mean streets and looking for a fight.

Before long, NYPD detective Lt. Frank Ochoa (Vincent Gardenia) begins investigating the vigilante killings and quickly narrows down his suspect list to Paul. As the manhunt gets closer and closer, Paul finally is caught after passing out from blood loss after a shootout. Instead of arresting him, the NYPD wants the case quietly solved, so they send him off to Chicago. The minute he arrives, he helps a woman who was almost mugged and stares at the criminals with a smile, his fingers in the shape of a gun.

There’s a story which may be apocryphal, but when Michael Winner told Bronson what this film would be about — a man who goes out and shoots muggers — Bronson replied, “I’d like to do that.” Winner said, “The film?” And Bronson replied, “No. Shoot muggers.”

After viewing the film, author Brian Garfield hated how the film advocated vigilantism, so he wrote a sequel called Death Sentence that was made into a movie in 2007 starring Kevin Bacon. No word on whether or not he hated that movie too, as it only keeps a little of the book.

Compared to the heights of mayhem that this series will descend to, this is a retrained meditation of a man facing an increasingly violent world. Stay tuned. Paul Kersey is just getting started.

Man, if you’re looking for a British seance movie — and really who isn’t — there’s not a better film for you than this 1972 bit of craziness. Sir Hugo Cunningham’s (Robert Stephens) idea of fun is to film the last moments of peoples’ lives and seeing if a smudge in the images are the soul of the body trying to escape. Man, Victorian England was daffy.

Things get crazier, because when he uses a camera at the party for his engagement, his new fiancée and son are killed in a boating accident. When he watches the movie he made of the tragedy — because why not, right? — he sees that not only has he captured the blur, but that it is moving towards his son. That’s when he starts to believe that these smudges and blurs are something he calls the asphyx, the grim reaper from Greek myth that individually comes for each of us.

Now here’s where things get even more interesting. Because our hero figures that the asphyx must deal with the rules of the physical world. So he invents a special light that uses phosphorus stones beneath a drip irrigation valve that can briefly capture that smudgy black angel, making anyone who keeps asphyx remained imprisoned into an immortal.

Cunningham tasks his ward — how rich and British and Batman do you have to be to get a ward — Giles (Robert Powell) with capturing his asphyx and burying it deep in a family tomb. Because after all, Cunningham’s contributions to science are just too important for him to ever die. They need to bring in another person, Giles’ stepsister (and fiancee, because this is high society England) Christina for help. If they help him become an immortal, he will consent to them getting married.

Nothing works out well for anyone, save perhaps the guinea pig that can’t die. He’s doomed to wander the Earth with an immortal Cunningham, all the way to modern London as seen at the end of this movie.

The Asphyx is a movie that feels like a hard sell to an American crowd. It’s kind of staid and nuanced, but the effects are pretty wild and the idea is definitely high concept.

This is the only movie directed by Peter Newbrook, who also wrote Gonks Go Beat, produced Corruption (which no woman will dare go home alone after watching) and worked on the second unit on Lawrence of Arabia and Bridge on the River Kwai.

The Kino Lorber blu ray release of this film has an extended 99-minute cut — its made from HD footage of a  35mm negative with SD footage from the U.S. master print, so quality jumps around a bit — as well as a trailer and commentary by Kim Newman and Stephen Jones. You can get it from Kino Lorber.

Released in South Korea as Alien+Human Part 1, this is one wild movie, weaving together three different timelines come together, all based around aliens putting their criminals into human bodies and trapping them on Earth where they are tracked, extracted and contained by Thunder (the voice of Kim Dae-myung) and Guard (Kim Woo-bin), two robots armed with a weapon called the Crystal Knife which leds them see and travel through time. As a result of a battle in 1380, Guard has promised to raise Yian (Choi Yu-ri), the daughter of the human host of one of the aliens who is killed in combat, as his own daughter. Now, they seek the Collector, the alien mastermind trying to help all of these convict aliens to escape Earth.

Meanwhile, in 1391, Muruk (Ryu Jun-yeol) is a bounty hunter magician who — along with other martial artists like a masked shaman and a husband and wife magician duo — are on the hunt for the Divine Blade, which is — you guessed it — from space.

Director and writer Choi Dong-hoon does something pretty amazing here in that he takes two wildly different stories — science fiction and historic Korean fantasy —  and jams them into one film that really feels like fifty films in the space of a little over two hours.

So spoiler warning: This movie is going to make your head spin and the story is too big for just one film, as this is just the first part. Don’t let that hold you back. I haven’t seen this much imagination in one film for some time, a movie that mixes nearly every genre into one cocktail and somehow comes out tasting way better than you’d been led to think it would. Does it always make sense? Nope. Does it look awesome? Yes.

You can get this from Well Go USA at stores everywhere. I mean, I even saw it at Walmart!