Dawn of the Dead (1978)

Classic films often leave me questioning what the hell I’m going to say about movies with such unimpeachable reputations, or the ones I’ve seen dozens of times myself. Do I have anything interesting to say even as an individual? You know: forget whether I have some unique insight—I don’t expect that much from any movie—but […]

The Crazies (1973)

Of George A. Romero’s 16-feature-length filmography, I’ve seen 14 of them and own just as many¹. By 2007, I owned most of those–the exceptions are the then-unreleased (at all!) Diary of the Dead and The Dark Half (thanks, largely, to my overall disinterest in Stephen King). Day of the Dead (in Anchor Bay’s 2-disc “Divimax” format) was […]

Two Evil Eyes (1990)

I have no idea how this film seems to slip and slide around in the consciousness of horror fans–it's not brought up much at all, not as a good film, a decent film or even as absolute crap to avoid. This is somewhat mystifying for a film that is composed of two Edgar Allen Poe […]

Knightriders (1981)

I stumbled across this film ages ago by accident, thinking the idea of motorcycle-mounted knights was fascinating. At the time, some years ago, I was disappointed to find it was not revisionist, intentionally anachronistic fantasy, but the story of a group of modern people who did this. I abandoned it at the time–still in my […]

There’s Always Vanilla (1971)

The flipside of the disc that holds Season of the Witch, There’s Always Vanilla is essentially George A. Romero’s lone non-genre film (barring Juice on the Loose, anyway…), his attempt to prove that he was not wholly a genre director and could do other things. Unlike the less talented Wes Craven who chooses NOW to […]

Season of the Witch (1973)

Long thought lost, this is one of the almighty George A. Romero’s earliest films after 1968’s classic Night of the Living Dead. If any film that’s actually somewhere in the public consciousness could be reasonably compared, it is absolutely his 1977 film Martin. It bears the marks of independent film very clearly, as well as […]

Bruiser (2000)

Oft-maligned is poor George A. Romero, I think primarily in the face of either hype thanks to his zombie mastworks, or in the face of comparison to those same films. I am, somewhat famously I suppose when people see my collection of DVDs, willing to grant and accept an awful lot and suspend my disbelief […]