B&S About Movies is all about, well, movies. It's owned and operated by Sam Panico. He is the sole proprietor and chief writer. All others are guest contributors.
I know someone who said that mother! was a movie that he warned people against seeing because of its subject matter and wondered if it should even be made. And then, I know people who fell in love with the film, lavishing it with praise. Still, others were shocked by its violence or upset by […]
Ed Boon, one of the creators of the Mortal Kombat video game, calls this the “worst moment” in the history of the franchise. Coming from someone who loved the original film and has played every one of the games, I agree. Christopher Lambert was seen as one of the highlights of the last film. He’s gone, replaced […]
The first Mortal Kombat video game is essentially Enter the Dragon with some magic and ninjas added. So it stands to reason that the movie should be pretty much the same idea — a martial arts tournament to the death with implications for our entire world. And the movie delivers the goods. Director Paul W. S. Anderson (Soldier, the Resident Evil films, […]
Street Fighter features many of the characters from the game and some of them hit the mark. Many of them don’t. And for years, I wrote the film off. I wondered, why did they pick Raul Julia to play M. Bison? After finally watching it, I now know that no one else could have played […]
Andrzej Bartkowiak has been the cinematographer on three films that were nominated for Best Picture Academy Awards: The Verdict, Terms of Endearment and Prizzi’s Honor. But he may be better known for his films that combined hip-hop and action, like Cradle 2 the Grave, Exit Wounds and Romeo Must Die. He’s also been behind two video game films: Doom and Street […]
Released in 1987 by Technos, Double Dragon is the spiritual successor to Nekketsu Kōha Kunio-kun (known to the US as Renegade), a game that was inspired by the high school life of creator Yoshihisa Kishimoto. Basically — you fight to survive. When Renegade was released in the U.S., it was localized so that it appeared to be a video game […]
Lisa and the Devil was shelved after a negative reception at the Cannes Market. A Bay of Blood was a box office disappointment. So Mario Bava decided to do something unlike any of his other films — developing a “poliziotteschi” film. According to Roberto Curti’s Italian Crime Filmography, 1968-1980, poliziotteschi films “generally featured graphic and brutal violence, organized crime, car […]
Bava believed this was one of his worst films. It wasn’t released in the U.S. until 2001. And yet, I found plenty to like about this murder-filled affair. It also taught me an important lesson: if you invent a new chemical process, don’t go to a rich industrialist’s vacation island. George Stark is one of […]
There’s an urban legend called The Well to Hell, which claims that you can hear Hell through a hole in the earth, and there have even been audio recordings posted as proof. Those recordings have been revealed to be the soundtrack to this film. That should tell you what you’re getting into. Peter Kleist arrives […]
Also known as Ecology of Crime, Chain Reaction, Carnage, Twitch of the Death Nerve and Blood Bath, Last House on the Left – Part II and New House on the Left, this is the most violent and nihilistic of all of Mario Bava’s films. It started as a story idea so that Bava could work with Laura Betti (Hatchet for the […]
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