Between directing Kick-Ass, X-Men: First Class, two Kingsmen movies and now this Neil Gaiman story, I think Matthew Vaughn likes comic books.

Here, he’s telling the story — with a huge ensemble cast — of Tristan Thorn (Charlie Cox), who enters the magical Stormhold to retrieve a star for Victoria (Sienna Miller), the woman he loves. Yet inside it, he discovers a woman named Yvaine (Claire Danes) and runs afoul of the many princes of that country and the witch Lamia (Michelle Pfeiffer).

I think the main lesson here is that if a woman asks you to get her a star before he agrees to marry you, your marriage is probably not going to be very good.

Vaughn has never been happy with how the film was sold, as the studio promised Lord of the Rings when this movie is much more The Princess Bride. That’s an apt description, as this has gone on to be well-regarded, the kind of movie that you’ll lay and watch if it comes on on a Sunday afternoon (not that we get that many lazy days around here any longer).

This has a sprawling cast — DeNiro is a cross-dressing space pirate! The Princes are Mark Strong, Jason Flemyng, Rupert Everett, Mark Heap, Julian Rhind-Tutt, Adam Buxton and David Walliams, a cast so big the love interests of five Bridget Jones movies! Peter O’Toole is the king! — and the script does a great job of condensing Gaiman’s expansive narrative down while adding new characters.

I have no horse in the fight between book and film, so if you do, perhaps you feel much differently. I just find this an entertaining film.

Recently re-released by Wild Eye — who were kind enough to send us a copy — Head Case: Home Movies of a Serial Killer is the first in a series of found footage style that also includes Head Case: Last Days of a Serial Killer, Head Case: Post-Mortem, Head Cases: Serial Killers in the Delaware Valley, Head Case: The Lost Tapes and Head Case: Legacy.

While the murders by Wayne and Andrea Montgomery are similar to other serial kills — the IMDB page claims that there was some inspiration from Canadian serial killers Paul Bernardo and Karla Homolka, they are unique fictional characters who have filmed every one of their murders. While this gives them a momento of each kill, it also seems like it gives the police plenty of evidence.

Wayne Montgomery (Paul McCloskey) is a normal guy. Well, you know, except for all the murder, which he uses to cope with the stresses of trying to live the American dream. He used to kill more often before he married his bossy wife Andrea (Barbara Lessin). Now, he’s decided to start all over again, bringing his wife along for the ride.

The entire project is fascinating, as there was no actual shooting script. There was a detailed treatment of the story, with extensive histories on the main character. However, the dialogue is completely improvised based on bullet points given to the actors at the start of each shooting day.

Anthony Spadaccini is the director of all of these films. While found footage is not my style, I can appreciate the volume of content he’s created with these characters. If it’s more your kind of thing, you’d do well to seek this film out. Horror fans will also be pleased to see Brinke Stevens in the cast as Wayne’s mother.

Head Case: Home Movies of a Serial Killer is now available on DVD and on demand. You can grab the DVD on the MVD site. It’s also on Amazon Prime. This was sent to us by Wild Eye, which has no bearing on our review.

If you’re as fascinated as I am with Killing — or Kilink — after this week of films, good news. This Italian-American documentary has plenty of great info on how these fumetti neri comics became such a sensation.

Unlike American comics, Killing was a live action photo comic, featuring a skeletal costume designed by Carlo Rambaldi and acted by Rosario Borelli (The Cynic, the Rat and the Fist). When the Italians stopped making the comic, the Turkish film industry kept on making films and the adventures of this anti-hero continues in Argentina until the 1980’s.

Satanik mostly goes up against other criminals, using his ability to disguise himself and darts filled with a substance he calls the green death, a poison straight out of the Amazon which kills people nice and slow. The only person who knows who is he really is would be his lover Dana and he constantly battles Inspector Mercier. If you’re thinking, “Hmm, sounds like Diabolik or Kriminal,” you’re not far off.

The thing is, while Diabolik got a movie made by Mario Bava and Kriminal got two movies by Umbero Lenzi, Kilink got some down and dirty Turkish films that pit him against all manner of heroes.

This comes from Cool French Comics. https://www.coolfrenchcomics.com/satanik.htm

Italian movie fans will be happy to see plenty of their favorites show up here, like Renato Baldini (I Am Sartana, Your Angel of Death), John Benedy (Patrick Still Lives), Federico Boido (Planet of the Vampires), Gabriella Giorgelli (The Police Are Blundering In the Dark), Paul Muller (Barbed Wire Dolls) and even George Hilton!

I had a blast with this movie, but Turkish versions of Italian ripoff superheroes are pretty much the center of my Venn diagram, you know?

Currently, Mort Todd owns the rights to the character and has been making new adventures. You can check out the official site here.

Sony sold the rights to the Urban Legend franchise and a fourth installment was planned, which would be this very film. Originally called Urban Legends: Goldfield Murders, the DVD sales of Urban Legends: Bloody Mary, Sony bought back the rights. That left this movie to be released as Ghosts of Goldfield.

Julie and her friends (which include Kellan Lutz, Emmett Cullen to those who enjoy Twilight) have set up their ghost chasing equipment in a hotel in the former mining town of Goldfield.

Supposedly, George Wingfield, the real-life owner of the hotel in that real-life town once had a relationship with a woman named Elisabeth Walker, who some claim was a prostitute and others a maid. When she became pregnant, he paid her to stay quiet but soon decided to get rid of her and her child. He chained her to a radiator and kept her fed until she died during childbirth, then threw the baby down a mine shaft. Visitors to the hotel report hearing her voice and the wails of her child.

Julie has a necklace that is a family heirloom which connects her to this tragedy. There’s also a bartender — hello, Roddy Piper — who for some reason is still alive decades later.

This film is, charitably, a mess. It would feel right at home in today’s shot for streaming found footage world of junk horror. Ed Winfield, its director, has one other credit: Oakland Raideretts Swimsuit Calendar Behind the Camera.

However, I am a completist, which means I had to watch it for you. My dream is that this keeps you from having to endure this poor entry in the franchise.

This is the last Saw film that Darren Lynn Bousman would direct. Where would they go after killing everyone off in the last one? This time, Jigsaw’s tapes have survived past his death as he tries to teach another lesson.

You should never do what I have done. That is, watch all eight Saw movies in one day.

This is the first Saw film written by Patrick Melton and Marcus Dunstan, who would also write the next three sequels. They never knew that there was a “Saw Bible” with rules they should have followed. The producers still liked their work, however.

Officer Daniel Rigg being put through a series of tests, as Jigsaw believes that he needs to let go of his obsession with trying to save people. Along the way, we run into people from the other films, like a returning Donnie Wahlberg as Detective Eric Matthews, Angus Macfadyen as Jeff, Shawnee Smith as Amanda and Bahar Soomekh as Lynn Denlon.

Yes, nearly all of them have been killed before, but this is a side story, I guess, so that we can keep the Saw story going. Obviously, there are those obsessed with these films and their minutiae and who am I to say that they can’t enjoy these films? To me, they all look, feel, sound and play out exactly to the same to the point that I can’t remember which is which.

This one does introduce Jigsaw’s ex-wife Jill Tuck (Betsy Russell), who lost their child when an addict hit her with a door, which drove him insane and ruined their marriage. You can also get to see him taken apart on a coroner’s table, so maybe don’t eat popcorn during this.

In this installment of the Saw series, director Darren Lynn Bousman and screenwriter  Leigh Whannell would return to make another story by Whannell and James Wan.

This time, Jigsaw is trying to get a man named Jeff to let go of his need for revenge after he loses his son to a drunk driver. Meanwhile, Amanda Young (Shawnee Smith) kidnaps Dr. Lynn Denlon (Bahar Soomekh) who must keep Jigsaw alive for one last test.

Spoiler mode on, but this time Jigsaw is clearing up the loose ends, killing off Dina Meyer’s Detective Allison Kerry character while the opening reveals that Donnie Wahlberg’s Detective Eric Matthews has survived…well, for now at least.

The game here is that Jeff must resist the urge to kill the man who has taken everything from him while Amanda works to become the next version of Jigsaw once John Kramer (Tobin Bell) dies.

How gory is this movie? Well, several of the original posters were actually made with Tobin Bell’s blood in it, imitating the way that Kiss gave Marvel comics their blood to print the cover of Marvel Comics Super Special #1. Seriously, though, that trap with the pigs spraying blood everywhere? That was pretty rough.

It’s only fair, as the Italian Western ripped off Yojimbo as A Fistful of Dollars that the genre should migrate back east once more. The sukiyaki in the title refers to the dish of thinly sliced beef which is simmered at the table in a shallow pot in a mixture of vegetables, soy sauce, sugar and mirin. Often, the ingredients are dipped in raw, beaten eggs before being cooked. Western audiences probably know the word more from Kyu Sakamoto’s song “Ue o Muite Arukō,” which was retitled “Sukiyaki” for Western audiences, selling 13 million records worldwide. His follow-up, “China Nights (Shina no Yoru),” made it to #58 in the U.S. and was the last Japanese artist to chart here until Pink Lady’s 1979 song “Kiss In the Dark.” A Taste of Honey’s 1981 cover charted even higher, reached #3 on the Billboard Hot 100 and it’s been covered by everyone from Selena to The Ventures.

In the same way, this movie was renamed Sukiyaki Western Django for America.

I tell you all this because the word is a nonsense mishmash word to our gaijin ears and that may be the way this movie appears to many eyes, as the films of Takeshi Miike are often inscrutable. His fans — of which I count myself — like it that way.

Beyond Yojimbo and Django, this movie is inspired by the historical rivalry between the Genji and Heike clans, which ushered in the era of the samurai. Much like an Italian Western, a nameless gunman has come to town to help a prostitute get revenge on the warring gangs.

What can you say about a movie that has Quentin Tarantino as an ancient man in a wheelchair with Stuntman Mike’s duck on it and who refers to himself as an anime otaku? Or a movie that seems to exist in multiple timeframes, embracing both the samurai and the cowboy while a nearly all Japanese cast speaks mostly English? Where women become Kali, the goddess of death, in the midst of gunfights, so fearsome that they become actual anime? Or the fact that we finally get to see what was inside that coffin that Django was always dragging around?

Even Tarantino’s opening speech can be traced back to the epic The Tale of Heike: “The sound of the Gion Shouja bells echoes the impermanence of all things; the color of the sala flowers reveals the truth that the prosperous must decline. The proud do not endure, they are like a dream on a spring night; the mighty fall at last, they are as dust before the wind.”

And you have to be a real Corbucci otaku to make the cross that kills the final bad guy read Mercedes Zaro.

The cast boasts stars like Yûsuke Iseya (13 Assassins, Casshern) as the main villain Minamoto no Yoshitsune, Kaori Momoi (Memoirs of a Geisha) as the vengeance-seeking Ruriko and Hideaki Itō (Umizaru) as the gunman. Masanobu Ando (Battle Royale), Shun Oguri (who played Lupin in 2014’s Lupin the Third), Takaaki Ishibashi (Hiroshi Tanaka from Major League 2!), Renji Ishibashi (who was Zatoichi and Lone Wolf and Cub films, as well as Tetsuo: The Iron Man) and Yōji Tanaka (one of the Crazy 88’s in Kill Bill).

Three years later, Tarantino would make his own take on the Italian Western. This makes the perfect double feature to play along with it.

You can buy this on blu ray from MVD. The new collector’s edition has an extended cut of the film and a gorgeous looking 1080p transfer of the film

Mephistopheles (Peter Fonda!) owns the soul of Johnny Blaze, who gave it willingly to cure his father’s cancer. Of course, his dad dies the very next day in a stunt. Blaze becomes a famous stunt rider but the devil still owns his soul, no matter what he does. However — the illegitimate son of Satan named Blackheart and his quest for a thousand corrupt souls my give the stuntman an escape.

Ghost Rider was a character that was big in the 70’s and 90’s for Marvel. This film comes from Mark Steven Johnson, who also created Daredevil (and wrote the two Grumpy Old Men films).

I really like the casting of this film, with Wes Bentley as Blackheart, Eva Mendes as Johnny’s lost love Roxanne, Sam Elliot as a past Ghost Rider who is now the Caretaker, Donal Logue has a nice small role and even a young Rebel Wilson shows up.

Nicholas Cage is, of course, perfect for the role. He already had a Ghost Rider tattoo before the movie even started, as he’s such a comic book fan. After all, he took his stage name from Luke Cage and named his son Kal-El after Superman.