I’m blessed, seriously, to live in Pittsburgh, a place where Tom Savini will just show up next to you at the drive-in. To the rest of horror movie fans, he’s this exhaulted gore god. And he still is here, but I have so many memories of just seeing him jogging or riding in the elevator with him when he taught at the Art Institute. He’s someone who made it from our town and as such, while the rest of the world may or may not know him, he’s royalty here, even if we basically leave our royalty alone and just wave or be polite.

Jason Baker’s Smoke and Mirrors: The Story of Tom Savini tells his story, starting in Bloomfield — where he still lives — and showing how his art of splatter led to a series of films that are still celebrated. It also has appearances from Robert Rodriquez, Tom Atkins, Tony Todd, Greg Nicotero and so many more, as well as clips of Savini’s best work and appearances in films.

I was in sheer bliss watching this. Sure, if you’re a fan you know so much of it. But I really liked the place that it found Savini in, at peace with what he’s done and where life has taken him. It really gets into how much of a devoted family man he is, which I enjoyed very much.

If you’re a fan of horror at all — and why are you on our site if you’re not? — you need this.

The Wild Eye release of this movie has four hours of extras, including an audio commentary with Tom Savini and director Jason Baker; Savini’s personal behind the scenes video archives with footage from Day of the Dead, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2, From Dusk Til Dawn, Creepshow, Friday the 13th Part IV and more; Savini’s personal video behind the scenes footage from directing Night of the Living Dead; Savini’s home movies; footage of his stage version of Dracula; a folded poster and an illustrated slipcase. You can get this from MVD.

The Necroambulist virus has changed the world and now, it’s changed the life of the Vogel family, as Maggie (Abigail Breslin) has been bitten and urges her father Wade (Arnold Schwarzenegger) not to find her. He still seeks her out and brings her home, knowing that in a few days or perhaps even a week she will have to take a painful drug cocktail or be killed by him.

This is a mournful, meditative film in which Maggie and her father try to connect before she dies, along with her wondering if she should contact her friends and slowly becoming one of the walking dead, her body filled with black blood and maggots, her senses smelling food when it’s really her stepmother Caroline (Joely Richardson).

Directed by Henry Hobson and written by John Scott 3, Arnold loved the script for this movie so much that he took no money for it. He shows his dramatic range in this film and even in the scenes where zombies are being killed, he’s upset by his violence because he once knew these creatures when they were actual people. This is also a much darker zombie film than the last time Breslin went up against the undead in Zombieland.

In the world of Kryptonita, Superman (Juan Palomino) — referred to as Nafta Super — didn’t end up in Smallville but instead wound up in La Matanza (The Slaughter), a crime-ridden slum near Buenos Aires. Instead of the gleaming Justice League of America, he and his fellow superheroes have become the Nafta Super Gang, robbing rich banks to feed the poor.

Wonder Woman is the transgender Lady Di (Lautaro Delgado), Green Lantern is Faisán (Nicolás Vázquez), The Flash is Ráfaga (Diego Cremonesi), Martian Manhunter J’onn J’onzz is Juan Raro (Carca), Batman is El Federico (Pablo Rago) and Hawkgirl — possibly included as this was made when the JLA cartoon was big — is Cuñatai Güirá (Sofia Palomino).

As they battle the police and other gangs — including one led by this Earth’s Lex Luthor, El Pelado — a piece of kryptonite weakens Nafta Super and as he’s operated on, the cops, the gangs and supervillains Corona (Diego Capusotto) who is the Joker — a police negotiator in this world — and Oficial Cabeza de Tortuga (Pablo Pinto) who is Doomsday try to kill him off once and for all as Dr. Gonzales tries to keep Nafta Super alive until morning.

Based on Leo Oyola’s novel, scripted by Camilo De Cabo, Nicolás Britos, Paula Manzone and director Nicanor Loreti, Kryptonita is a super-powered Assault On Precinct 13 and a way to show Western audiences that these superheroes now belong to everyone. It may not have the CGI of its way more expensive inspiration, but it has something more: big ideas and heart.

Most of the cast returned in a TV series sequel, Nafta Super, which adds La Mishi  (Catwoman), La Jabru (Zatanna), The Glass (Mirror Master), Harley Quinn, Oracle, Sabiola (Brainiac), Javier (Robin), The Executor (Deadshot), Demented Snail (Green Arrow), Tigress of the West (Cheetah), Boquita (Black Canary), Artillery (Deathstroke), Lulu (Carol Ferris), Unicorn Girl (Vixen) and Backpack Flamethrower Man (Firefly).

You can watch the movie on YouTube.

You can watch the episodes of Nafta Super with this playlist from the channel it aired on, Canal Space.

The Asylum is never going to make a Marvel movie, but they can take several public domain fairy tale characters and make a superhero team movie with them and you know, that takes a certain amount of creativity.

Snow White’s kingdom is under attack by Rumpelstiltskin’s (Caper Van Dien) army, which breaks through the castle walls, stops happily ever after by killing Prince Charming and the battle between them goes through the Magic Mirror and into our world.

To the rescue appear Cinderella, Sleeping Beauty, Rapunzel and Red Riding Hood arrive, on the trail of not just Snow White but also the Wolf (UFC fighter Kimo). In the six months that has passed in our world, Rumpelstiltskin has gained power — and another henchman named Iron John (Lou Ferrigno) — while Snow White leads the resistance.

This was directed and written by Jeremy M. Inman, who also was behind two other similar films that cash in on fairy tales and comics, the direct sequel Avengers Grimm: Time Wars and Sinister Squad, which has storybook villains saving the world.

It’s dumb, low budget and goofy. So you know, consider this a good review.

You can watch this on Tubi.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Joseph Perry writes for the film websites Gruesome Magazine, The Scariest Things, Horror Fuel and Diabolique Magazine; for the film magazines Phantom of the Movies’ VideoScope and Drive-In Asylum; and for the pop culture websites When It Was Cool and Uphill Both Ways. He is also one of the hosts of When It Was Cool’s exclusive Uphill Both Ways podcast and can occasionally be heard as a cohost on Gruesome Magazine’s Decades of Horror: The Classic Era podcast.

Lux Æterna may well be director Gaspar Noé’s most accessible film so far, but it still demands much of its viewers, including — warning to those prone to seizures — a long and intense strobe light sequence, the use of split screen technique that heightens the story’s chaos, and the barrage of stress it puts on its two lead characters. The film also leads to a great deal of reflection on how women are treated in the film industry.

Béatrice Dalle and Charlotte Gainsbourg portray fictional versions of themselves, with Dalle directing a film about witches and Gainsbourg starring in the project. These two top-notch French actors are terrific here, and their first appearance together in Lux Æterna sees the pair reflecting on past roles and experiences on film sets, including some jarring revelations. As the fictitious film’s producer becomes nervous about Dalle directing, he begins undermining her and bringing in crew members to override her, leading to her becoming increasingly agitated and unhinged. Meanwhile, no one on the set seems to care that Gainsbourg is also becoming steadily more upset after receiving some frightening news over the phone from her young daughter. This all leads to a hypnotic climax using the aforementioned strobe effects. 

Lux Æterna is part meta behind-the-scenes filmmaking peek, part horror movie, part social commentary film, part scathing indictment of the film industry, part meditation on art vs. commerce, and all Noé. It’s a discomfiting watch that is not for everyone, but it’s well worth giving a watch.  

Yellow Veil Pictures will release Gaspar Noé’s LUX ÆTERNA on digital platforms including Amazon, Google Play, Vudu, and more from Friday, June 10th in North America, followed by a 2-disc Collector’s Edition Blu-Ray available summer 2022. LUX ÆTERNA is currently available for digital preorder on Vimeo on Demand. 

You can see the trailer here.

I’m really not sure how I feel about Eli Roth. I’ve never fully enjoyed a movie he’s done and that was before he basically started remaking movies or doing his own versions of them like The Green Inferno, Death Wish and this remake of Death Game that was retitled Knock Knock. And then when I hear him on a podcast or watch his doc shows, I hear that he’s an intelligent person who is pretty well-versed in horror and I want that same person to make his movies. I think the version of Roth that writes liner notes and can speak to so many great moments in film would be a great person to hang out with but like when your friend has a substandard band, you just don’t want to talk about their last show, you know?

I don’t know who Knock Knock is for, to be honest. We already have four other versions of Death Game and while this adds a social media element, there’s so much of the movie that feels like anything but a $10 million dollar film — literally the same amount of cash if you added all four of the other movie’s costs together.

The set-up is the same: Evan Webber (Keanu Reeves) has the house to himself and his dog Monkey while he works over Father’s Day and his wife and kids go to the beach. All he has to do is ensure that her new sculpture gets to the gallery.

Then Genesis (Lorenza Izzo, Roth’s wife at the time) and Bel (Ana de Armas) show up in a rainstorm and basically destroy his life, slowly seducing the older man into a threesome and never seeming to leave, despite his pleas of having them never come back. They’re underage and start to torment him with threats and he’s gradually reduced to a tied-up, belittled and battered husk by the end of the film, buried up to his neck in the back garden.

The weird thing is that while the tone for this story has already been set, this take on it has no idea if it’s a comedy, a tragedy, a telenovela or just some strange take on a film that doesn’t seem to put its own stamp on the film. The one positive that I can say is that — spoiler warning — it doesn’t seek to punish Genesis and Bel for their crimes like Death Game did Donna and Agatha or Viciosas al Desnudo had happen to Hippie 1 and 2.

It’s nice to see Sondra Locke and Colleen Camp’s names in the credits as executive producers and even better to see Camp show up in a cameo. I just wish they had a better movie to put their names on — Death Game is such a striking film and yes, I realize that all remakes have to succeed on their own merits, but when the innovations are social media and profanity-laced walls, not to mention an opening that feels as poorly acted as an episode on ABC TGIF in the early 90s, well…

Maybe you’ll enjoy hearing Keanu say filthy stuff and you know, we’ve all watched movies for less.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR: Joseph Perry writes for the film websites Gruesome Magazine, The Scariest Things, Horror Fuel and Diabolique Magazine; for the film magazines Phantom of the Movies’ VideoScope and Drive-In Asylum; and for the pop culture websites When It Was Cool and Uphill Both Ways. He is also one of the hosts of When It Was Cool’s exclusive Uphill Both Ways podcast and can occasionally be heard as a cohost on Gruesome Magazine’s Decades of Horror: The Classic Era podcast.

Sometimes a two-hander works for psychological thrillers and horror films, and sometimes the approach doesn’t. Argentinian feature Presagio walks the tightrope between both sides, offering enough to keep viewers invested but delivering little in the way of anything new. 

Camilo Rensi (Javier Solis) is a writer who lost his wife and young son when they perished in a car accident. Much of Presagio finds him agonizing over his loss with his psychiatrist (Carlos Piñeiro) with flashback scenes aplenty. Camilo works on finishing an autobiographical book at his beach house, with a mysterious man holding an umbrella (Julian Lánderreche) watching from a distance.

It’s all meant to be puzzling, and writer/director Matías Salinas keeps it so as much as possible but seasoned viewers of this type of film will probably find themselves on pace with or ahead of the proceedings. There’s some hinting at diabolical forces and some eerie sequences to liven things up.  

IndiePix Films presents Presagio on DVD and digital from May 24, 2022.