After cutting the grass today on my new lawn mower I decided to watch something I had not seen in awhile.

Part of the charm of anime is the fractured storytelling, the disjointed style, which is often a result of trying to fit everything from the manga (Japanese comic book) into the movie. Devilman, for example, opens in a wooded paradise where beautiful and naked fairy women fly about and are then attacked by dinosaurs and demons, until a six-armed fairy warrior shoots down explosive balls of light at the demons. Cut to explorers in the caves of Antarctica, not quite surviving a cave-in and the appearance of a demon. Dissolve to rabbits in a hutch that have been killed. What’s going on? It’s hard to say, but it sure is interesting.

The story settles down when Akira is introduced. Akira is your typical schoolkid until his childhood best friend Ryo shows up and pulls him into a web of demons and deceit. As Ryo explains, Dante talks about demons frozen in the ice in The Divine Comedy, and now global warming is melting that ice, freeing them. Akira and Ryo decide to team up and save the world. Devilman is chock full of bizarre explanations about demon existence and behavior, demon-on-demon violence, and a little gratuitous nudity. The best reason to watch it is for all the bizarre explanations, which are too weird not to be entertaining. –Andy Spletzer

Devilman - The Birth/Demon Bird (Vol. 1 & 2)

The Omen Remake sucks.

All remakes are needless, but this update of “The Omen” is especially so.

Not only was there nothing wrong with the 1976 horror classic, in which the Antichrist wreaks havoc on Earth as an innocent-looking 5-year-old boy, but the original stands as one of the most frightening movies. Ever.

It’s so ingrained in our pop culture, all you have to do is say the name Damien and everyone instantly knows you’re talking about a demonic child.

So why mess with it?

Thirty years later, the makers of “The Omen” barely have. They’re exceedingly faithful to the original — too faithful, actually — including having “Omen” screenwriter David Seltzer return to tweak his own script.

It’s not a shot-for-shot remake like Gus Van Sant’s pointless “Psycho” from 1998, but it’s close. The structure, characters, setting, events and even giant chunks of dialogue are all the same. One can only assume the intention was to appease the purists, but in doing so, director John Moore (”Behind Enemy Lines”) has breathed no new life into the material.

Tiny changes here and there inevitably contemporize the film. It takes place in the modern day, so the characters have cell phones.

When Julia Stiles — filling in for Lee Remick as Damien’s unsuspecting mother — begins to think there’s something wrong with her child, she immediately goes into therapy.

And Liev Schreiber — standing in for Gregory Peck as the father who surreptitiously brings the demon spawn into their lives — cries way more than Peck ever would have dreamed. Peck’s Robert Thorn choked up a little when he learned his wife had died, but mostly he held it together; here, as troubles mount, Schreiber is wiping away tears half the time. It’s the sensitive-man remake of “The Omen.”

But in the most feeble effort at modernizing the material, this “Omen” vaguely attempts to be politically relevant. A montage of photographs at the start suggests that the devil is everywhere, all the time — on Sept. 11, at Abu Ghraib, etc. — and we just don’t know it. The visit to an ancient biblical city toward the end of the film features flashes of flags, both Israeli and Palestinian. Such references feel tossed in.

More important, though, it isn’t even scary. It’s so similar to the original that we already know what’s coming. And because it adheres so closely, it only serves as a reminder of the superiority of Richard Donner’s original.

Not to be confused with the band White Zombie, but this is a great horror flick if you have not seen it.

Check it out!

White Zombie

A young man turns to a witch doctor to lure the woman he loves away from her fiance, but instead turns her into a zombie slave.

Young couple Madeleine and Neil are coaxed by acquaintance Monsieur Beaumont to get married on his Haitian plantation. Beaumont’s motives are purely selfish as he makes every attempt to convince the beautiful young girl to run away with him. For help Beaumont turns to the devious Legendre, a man who runs his mill by mind controlling people he has turned into zombies. After Beaumont uses Legendre’s zombie potion on Madeleine, he is dissatisfied with her emotionless being and wants her to be changed back. Legendre has no intention of doing this and he drugs Beaumont as well to add to his zombie collection. Meanwhile, grieving ‘widower’ Neil is convinced by a local priest that Madeleine may still be alive and he seeks her out.

Wait, there’s more:

Bela Lugosi followed up his star-making role in Dracula with this ambitious low-budget horror film from the Halperin brothers, who effectively transplanted the misty gothic mood of the Universal horror films to their poverty-row studio. White Zombie drips with atmosphere from the opening, as eerie chanting accompanies the credits and Madeleine (Madge Bellamy) arrives at midnight to witness a mysterious burial before coming face to face with the satanic looking Murder Legendre (Lugosi with goatee and searing eyes), a hypnotist and voodoo master who has been supplying the local mills with an army of zombie laborers. Madeleine’s nightmare is just beginning. Having landed in a world of almost perpetual night, where hollow-eyed zombies lumber through the sugar mill and the ghostly town is eerily bereft of living souls, she becomes the object of desire for Legendre, whose plan to possess her involves her initiation to the world of the undead. This first zombie movie is also one of the best, with Lugosi’s archly sinister performance dominating the film (thankfully obscuring a lot of overacting by supporting players), and astounding sets and gorgeous matte paintings creating a wondrous sense of poetic doom. –Sean Axmaker

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Starring: Terry Potter, Pete O’Herne Director: Peter Jackson Yes, Peter Jackson from Lord of the Rings

Bad Taste - The population of a small town disappears and is replaced by aliens that chase human flesh for their intergalactic fast-food chain.

Could a title be any more direct? New Zealand maverick Peter Jackson made a splash (well, more of a splatter) with this film debut, a slapstick gross-out comedy about an alien fast-food franchise that turns a small town into a cheap source of meat. All that stands in the extraterrestrials’ way is the Alien Investigation Defense Service (yes, it’s a tasteless gag), a bunch of would-be Rambos who take on the aliens with axes, rocket launchers, and chainsaws. Jackson mines vomit jokes, dismembered corpses, and brain-spattering gore for over-the-top laughs and succeeds with inventive low-budget effects, crack timing, and sheer exuberance. Not bad for a film made on weekends with homemade props and a bunch of energetic mates. Jackson topped himself a few years later with the even more outrageous and hilarious bloody gut-buster Dead Alive.

The limited-edition two-disc set also includes the documentary featurette “Good Taste Made Bad Taste,” a revealing “making of” shot at the time of production and featuring behind-the-scenes footage of Jackson’s home-made special effects, and a 16-page booklet with cast interviews. –Sean Axmaker

A must for the horror maniac!

Add this great movie to your collection: Order Bad Taste DVD

One hour stories with many themes, including; horror, twists, black-magic, sci-fi …. Introduced by a puppet called “The Crypt Keeper”. A cross between the “Twighlight Zone” and modern horror movies. Not suitable for the very young or squeamish.

Tales from the Crypt - The Complete First Season

Based on the legendary and gruesome EC Comics from publisher William Gaines, this horror anthology featured stories of murder, the super natural, gore and humor and always had a twist ending of sorts. Some of Hollywood’s biggest names took part, either working in front or behind the camera. Hosting duties fell to everyone’s favorite decaying corpse, the Cryptkeeper. The success of this series spawned a Saturday morning cartoon series (Tales From the Cryptkeeper), a short-lived Saturday morning game show on CBS (Secrets of the Cryptkeeper’s Haunted House) and lots of merchandise. Two feature films (Demon Knight and Bordello of Blood) were also produced and released in the late 90’s. The TV series originally aired on HBO, but was later syndicated to Fox, the Sci-Fi Channel, and most recently AMC. Despite being a short season (only 6 episodes), Season 1 enjoyed the highest ratings in its HBO airings.

More: Tales from the Crypt - First Season

Starring: Robert Behling, Jane Lyle Director: Nico Mastorakis Released: 1975

- Also Known As: A Craving for Lust / Devils in Mykonos
- Filming Locations: Mykonos, Greece

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Set on the island of Mykonos. A young couple (Christopher and Celia) arrive on this quaint Greek Island for a winter break. They rent a house, and initially seem like ordinary, swinging thrill seekers, who enjoy having sex in a phone booth. But all of these rather innocent, initial impressions are shattered when Chris wanders outside one sunny morning, stumbles across a lost lamb, has sex with it, and then slaughters the poor creature with a handy knife! Celia seduces a local house painter, and screws him in a field as Christopher captures a few Kodak moments from afar. And together, they torture the poor guy by nailing his hands to the ground, urinate on him and force feeding him a bucket of paint. Then they invade the home of a gay shop keeper (a “filthy creature”), while a middle-aged lesbian slut gets torched from Chris and winds up decapitated by a bulldozer! There’s also a black private eye on their trail, a creepy crime novelist, and a pair of degenerate hippies who rape Celia in her bathtub. One amusing scene is where Chris invades a gay party wielding a sword. Chris chases one of the guys through the middle of town with a sword and no one else in the town seems to notice. These two don’t simply kill somebody–they also have to burn their faces off by lighting a handy aerosol bottle. The couple believe they are helping God punish the perverse by torturing and killing visiting (and local) sexual deviants. Or as Christopher puts it, “I am his angel, with a flaming sword, sent to kill dirty worms”.

One of the most shocking films ever made finally comes to DVD with every appalling image intact! A jaded couple staying on vacation at a Greek island wreaks havoc on the inhabitants, indulging in every depraved act imaginable until events spiral to a twisted surprise ending you’ll never forget!

See cover and price: Island Of Death (1975)

Blood Feast - A Weird, Grisly Ancient Rite Horrendously Brought To Life In Blood Color

Egyptian caterer busies himself collecting body parts from young maidens in order to bring Ishtar, an ancient goddess of good and evil back to life. When he has prepared enough parts for the ceremony, he hypnotizes a woman giving an engagement party for her daughter, at which he plans to perform the ancient rites of summons, using the daughter as his final sacrifice.

- Commentary by: director Herschell Gordon Lewis and producer David F. FriedmanDolby Digital 1.0
- WARNING!: This program contains graphic violence.
- Carving Magic: A grisly educational short subject in which William Kerwin (Blood Feast) and Harvey Korman (Blazing Saddles) demonstrate how to slice meat
- Rare Outtakes
- Gallery of Exploitation Art

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Nothing so appalling in the annals of horror has ever been seen before. When Mrs. Fremont hires crackpot Egyptian cultist Fuad Ramses to cater a party for her daughter, Suzette, she commits the culinary catastrophe of the century! Fuad immediately prepares a Blood Feast made from the grisly body parts of nubile young women. The world’s first (and most notorious) “gore” film, “Blood Feast” is both shocking and hilarious. It’s also the first of the infamous “blood trilogy” from director Herschell Gordon Lewis and producer Dave Friedman, who followed this perverse classic with the equally twisted “2000 Maniacs” and “Color Me Blood Red.”

“One of the most important horrible movies ever made.”

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Plot Outline: Two college friends, Marie and Alexa, encounter loads of trouble (and blood) while on holiday at Alexa’s parent’s country home when a mysterious killer invades their quiet getaway.

Plot Synopsis: Two female college students, Marie and Alexa, set off to Alex’s parent’s secluded homestead in the country to relax and study. Come nightfall, Hell pulls up at the front door when a mysterious killer breaks in and kills Alexa’s father, mother, brother and pet dog. Alex is now bound and gagged, taken off by the killer, with Marie not far behind eluding the intruder. Can she save her friend’s life in time? Or is everything all that it seems…?

Here’s a quote from Amazon about this one:

Home to some of the world’s best food and fashion, the French also have the wonderful habit of producing some of the world’s best movies. With High Tension, French director Alexandre Aja offers up a bloody buffet of terror; a violent concoction of style over substance, with a bloody French twist. Two college girlfriends, Maria and Alex, take a weekend to study at the secluded country home of Alex’s parents. Shortly after their arrival, a mysterious killer appears, and things take a shockingly terrible turn for the worse. As the horror and body count rises, Maria and Alex find themselves fighting for their lives, and it’s revealed that things are not exactly as they seem. Essentially a one-act cat-and-mouse affair, High Tension is an explosive bloody thrill ride that rarely lets up. Oozing style in every color-saturated frame and boasting some intense performances, Aja mainly succeeds in sustaining an intense momentum throughout the film. The plot occasionally suffers from a thin, flimsy storyline, and the abundant graphic scenes of violence will either thrill and delight, or simply disgust. Nonetheless, this adrenalin-fueled addition to the genre gives the American slasher flick a real run for its money. High Tension is high-art horror, and comes highly recommended. –Matt Wold

Do yourself a favor and order a copy of High Tension.

Tonight, I think I’ll just put on Cube. Fear… Paranoia… Suspicion… Desperation

7 complete strangers of widely varying personality characteristics are involuntarily placed in an endless kafkaesque maze containing deadly traps.

Here’s another opinion:

If Clive Barker had written an episode of The Twilight Zone, it might have looked something like Cube. A handful of strangers wake up inside a bizarre maze, having been spirited there during the night. They quickly learn that they have to navigate their way through a series of chambers if they have any hope of escape, but the problem is that there are lethal traps awaiting if they choose their route unwisely. Having established some imaginative and grisly punishments in store for the hostages, cowriter and director Vincenzo Natali turns his attention to the characters, for whom being trapped amplifies their best and worst qualities. The film is, in fact, similar to a famous episode of Rod Serling’s old television series, though Natali’s explanation for why these poor people are being put through hell is a lot closer to the spirit of The X-Files. Cube has some solid moments of suspense and drama, and the sets are appropriately striking: one is tempted to believe at first the characters are lost inside a computer chip. –Tom Keogh

If you haven’t seen this one yet, check it out soon.

Order it: Cube

When a government-run lab accidentally lets loose a deadly virus, the population of the world is decimated. Survivors begin having dreams about two figures: a mystical old woman, or a foreboding, scary man. As the story tracks various people, we begin to realize that the two figures exemplify basic forces of good and evil, and the stage is set for a final confrontation between the representatives of each.

After a government-spawned “superflu” wipes out more than 90 percent of the earth’s population, the devastated survivors must decide whether to support or resist the advances of a mysterious stranger from way down South (heh-heh) who wishes to claim this new world order for himself. Although the six-hour length makes it nigh-impossible to digest in one sitting, this well-paced adaptation of Stephen King’s apocalyptic magnum opus ranks among the best adaptations of the author’s work, with strong performances from Gary Sinise, Miguel Ferrer, and especially Jamey Sheridan as a good-old-boy version of Old Scratch. The opening scene, set to the strains of Blue Oyster Cult’s “Don’t Fear the Reaper,” is one of the most chilling things ever shot for television. Director Mick Garris is no stranger to King’s world, having also helmed Sleepwalkers, the recent television remake of The Shining, and the upcoming Desperation. –Andrew Wright

Stand DVD

Tags: Stephen King