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Stars: Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Edgar Ramírez, Ariana Greenblatt, Florian Munteanu, Gina Gershon, Jamie Lee Curtis | Written by Eli Roth, Joe Crombie | Directed by Eli Roth

Directed by Eli Roth, Borderlands is an adaptation of the popular video game series developed by Gearbox Software. Essentially an action thriller about a rag-tag gang of space mercenaries, it tries hard to generate Guardians of the Galaxy vibes, but is let down by a lack of chemistry between the cast, largely flat direction and a series of uninspired fight scenes.

The story centres on kick-ass bounty hunter Lilith (Cate Blanchett), who’s hired to find Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt), the missing daughter of business tycoon Atlas, the richest and most powerful man in the universe. To do so, Lilith has to return to her home planet of Pandora, where she quickly finds Tina and discovers that she may be a long-prophesied...

One of the earliest Alien rip-offs was made for US television. We take a look back at 1981’s The Intruder Within.

Much like Jaws, Star Wars and Mad Max before it, the success of 1979’s Alien prompted studios and producers the world over to make their own hastily-made rip-off movies. Thanks to – shall we say – enterprising filmmakers like Roger Corman and Norman J Warren, we got cheap and cheerful fare like Barracuda (1978), Battle Beyond The Stars (1980) and Inseminoid (1981).

One of the earliest Alien clones to emerge like a shambling monster, though, was The Intruder Within – a low-budget TV movie that cheekily borrowed all sorts of ideas from Ridley Scott’s hit, but transplanted the entire thing from a spaceship in the future to an oil rig in the post-energy crisis early 1980s. As you can probably imagine, it isn’t a lost classic, but it’s fascinating to revisit, both...

Stars: Cate Blanchett, Kevin Hart, Jack Black, Edgar Ramírez, Ariana Greenblatt, Florian Munteanu, Gina Gershon, Jamie Lee Curtis | Written by Eli Roth, Joe Crombie | Directed by Eli Roth

Directed by Eli Roth, Borderlands is an adaptation of the popular video game series developed by Gearbox Software. Essentially an action thriller about a rag-tag gang of space mercenaries, it tries hard to generate Guardians of the Galaxy vibes, but is let down by a lack of chemistry between the cast, largely flat direction and a series of uninspired fight scenes.

The story centres on kick-ass bounty hunter Lilith (Cate Blanchett), who’s hired to find Tiny Tina (Ariana Greenblatt), the missing daughter of business tycoon Atlas, the richest and most powerful man in the universe. To do so, Lilith has to return to her home planet of Pandora, where she quickly finds Tina and discovers that she may be a long-prophesied...

Zack Snyder’s “Rebel Moon” movies are back, and this time they’re longer than ever. Not better, for the most part. Just longer. Unlike many director’s cuts — including Snyder’s own “Justice League” — the updated versions of “Rebel Moon” don’t change the narrative very much. There’s a little more backstory and a lot more fake-looking CGI blood, but “Rebel Moon — Chapter 1: Chalice of Blood” and “Rebel Moon — Chapter 2: Curse of Forgiveness” tell the same tale as before and make about as much of an impact.

The story of “Rebel Moon,” in case you missed it the first time, tells the tale of Veldt, a small farming village in outer space. When the evil Motherworld comes to take the town’s grain, a fugitive in their midst named Kora (Sofia Boutella) embarks on an epic quest to find warriors who will risk their lives to save her village,...

In December 2023, the first part of Zack Snyder's sci-fi epic "Rebel Moon" was released on Netflix to cold reviews and audience indifference. The story of "Rebel Moon" followed a rebel named Kora who knew that an evil Empire was traveling to her home world -- the titular rebel moon -- to steal all their grain and force the natives to starvation. Kora trekked out into the galaxy to collect whatever ragtag warriors she could find, hoping to hire them as her homeworld's scant defenders. 

The story, of course, was adapted directly from Akira Kurosawa's 1954 classic "Seven Samurai," and no review of Snyder's film was complete without direct comparison's to the master's work. Even the plot point of stolen grain is common between the two films. 

More cinematically well-versed critics likely also made a comparison to "Battle Beyond the Stars," a 1980 sci-fi "Seven Samurai" riff directed by Jimmy T. Murakami...

Heartbreak comes frequently for Friday the 13th fans. The franchise has had a rough ride over the last couple decades, getting bogged down in legal issues and creative false stars. We get a video game, then the rug is pulled out from under it when it’s just getting started. A movie almost happens, then gets scrapped just weeks before filming was scheduled to begin. The Crystal Lake TV show was just a couple months from filming, then the showrunner gets fired. But worse than all of that is the fact that we’re in a time when actors from our beloved films are passing away very often. Just last month, we lost Erich Anderson, who was in the cast of Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter. Now Jason Lives: Friday the 13th Part VI director Tom McLoughlin has broken the news that Whitney Rydbeck, who played the ill-fated paintball player Roy in his film,...

We’ve learned the sad news this week that actor Whitney Rydbeck, who played a brief but memorable role in Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives, has passed away at the age of 79.

Jason Lives director Tom McLoughlin said in a statement to Bloody Disgusting, “I’m heartbroken to share this past Monday night we lost the wonderfully talented physical comedian/actor Whitney Rydbeck. He played Roy the nerdy businessman/paintball player. His comic performance is still making audiences and fans laugh almost 40 years later.”

“I have worked with Whitney for over 53 years,” McLoughlin’s statement continues. “We’ve collaborated on so many projects together. Some as comic partners on stage and film, others on projects I wrote and directed. I specifically wrote the Roy part in Jason Lives for him knowing his unique talent. We also became close friends over these past decades.

“He’s truly the kindest,...

When Akira Kurosawa, Shinobu Hashimoto, and Hideo Oguni were writing the screenplay for their 1954 epic "Seven Samurai," they couldn't have predicted its lasting influence on cinema. Not only did Kurosawa's masterful direction alter and revolutionize the way action sequences would be shot, but the premise became a reliable and lasting template that multiple other filmmakers would employ in the ensuing decades. For those unlucky enough to have never seen "Seven Samurai," the setup is simple: a remote farming village is regularly looted by passing bandits, leaving them destitute. Unable to withstand another attack, the villagers gather up their modest means and hire seven rogue samurai to protect them. The samurai know that the job won't pay, but each one has their own reasons for joining the cause. Using their cunning and limited means, the samurai repel the bandit attack.

Most recently, the "Seven Samurai" premise was transposed onto Zack Snyder's "Rebel Moon.

98 years walking on this earth and over 70 of those working in the industry that he and we all love. How do you talk about a man who had his hands in everything and gave us so much? He was an honorary Oscar winner and heavily involved in the Academy itself. He gave us New Concorde and New World Pictures. Roger Corman was a master of the independent and low budget film and known lovingly as the King of Cult. He gave countless actors, writers, and directors their start and was still making appearances right up to his passing. Theres so much to go over but I think that the best way to honor the man is to bring this video in on time and underbudget, bonus Corman points if we can re-use some of the footage from this one in another one of our videos. I cant see a more...

This article was originally published in Empire in October 2020

There’s never been a filmmaker like Roger Corman – putting some of the wildest premises in Hollywood history onto the screen, igniting the careers of countless fellow cinematic legends, and continuing to create against all the odds. Following his death at the age of 98, Empire presents our 2020 interview with the man himself – looking back on his wildest career moves, sharing his vital rules for making movies, and detailing the projects he still had in the works. Because even in his 90s, Corman was giving his all to cinema.

No force on Earth has ever been able to stop Roger Corman. From the moment he bankrolled his first film, Monster From The Ocean Floor, back in 1954, he has worked at a velocity that makes even Ben Wheatley look like Stanley Kubrick. Churning out one low-budget genre flick after another, he’s given...

A sad day for the industry as Hollywood loses one of its most influential figures. Roger Corman, the King of B-Movies, has sadly passed away at the age of 98 on May 9th, 2024.

The following statement was issued by his family:

“His films were revolutionary and iconoclastic, and captured the spirit of an age. When asked how he would like to be remembered, he said, ‘I was a filmmaker, just that,.’“

Born in Detroit, Michigan, his career in film began at the 20th Century Fox mailroom, where he eventually became a story reader. Through his connections, he began producing and directing films such as The Fast and the Furious and Voyage to the Prehistoric Planet. Over the years, he worked with multiple industry veterans, such as Vincent Price and Boris Karloff.

His biggest period was when he launched New World Pictures with his brother Gene. Under the ownership of 20th Century Fox,...

James Cameron is currently one of the highest-rated filmmakers in the entire entertainment industry, having helmed fan-favorite masterpieces like Titanic and 1986’s Aliens. But he wasn’t always this famous, nor were his outstanding directing skills garnering interest from audiences for at least a few years after he kicked off his directorial debut with Xenogenesis in 1978.

James Cameron. | Credit: Gage Skidmore/Wikimedia Commons.

That said, besides The Terminator film series, what actually made him super famous in the industry was his brilliantly helmed Avatar saga, which quite literally surpassed the Star Wars lore by flying colors. But that wasn’t Cameron’s first attempt at outshining George Lucas’ universe, because the first attempt came nearly three decades earlier in 1980 through one of Cameron’s poorly-rated films.

James Cameron’s First Attempt at Surpassing Star Wars Came in 1980

After Xenogenesis in 1978, Cameron inevitably caught the eye of the late mastermind director Roger Corman,...

Roger Corman, the B-movie legend who helped launch the careers of Martin Scorsese, James Cameron, and Francis Ford Coppola, among many others, has passed away at the age of 98. His family told Variety that he died on Thursday, May 9, at his home in Santa Monica, surrounded by his loved ones. The family also released this statement:

"His films were revolutionary and iconoclastic, and captured the spirit of an age. When asked how he would like to be remembered, he said, 'I was a filmmaker, just that.'"

It's no exaggeration to say that Hollywood wouldn't be the same without Roger Corman. In a career that spanned half a century and hundreds of films, he directed and/or produced B-movie hits and cult classics like "House of Usher," "The Little Shop of Horrors," "Death Race 2000," and "Attack of the Crab Monsters" (not to mention a famously unreleased "Fantastic Four" movie...

Roger Corman, the fabled “King of the B’s” producer and director who churned out low-budget genre films with breakneck speed and provided career boosts to young, untested talents like Jack Nicholson, Ron Howard, Peter Bogdanovich, Martin Scorsese, Francis Ford Coppola, Jonathan Demme, Gale Anne Hurd and James Cameron, has died. He was 98.

The filmmaker, who received an honorary Oscar in 2009 at the Governors Awards, died Thursday at his home in Santa Monica, his family told The Hollywood Reporter.

“He was generous, open-hearted and kind to all those who knew him,” they said in a statement. “When asked how he would like to be remembered, he said, ‘I was a filmmaker, just that.’”

Corman perhaps is best known for such horror fare as The Little Shop of Horrors (1960) and his series of Edgar Allan Poe adaptations starring Vincent Price, but he became celebrated for drugs-and-biker sagas like The Wild Angels...

On September 15, 1965, Irwin Allen whisked television viewers out of their living rooms on a journey to the outer reaches of space, where the Robinson family finds themselves marooned on a strange, not-entirely-hospitable planet thanks to the sabotage of their chief medical officer. For a nation dreaming of a seemingly impossible moon landing, "Lost in Space" was both wish fulfillment and cautionary tale; a part of us was enthralled by the notion of exploring the cosmos, but we were also terrified by the thought of aimlessly hurtling through a universe with no known end and no direction home.

Allen's series didn't dwell much on the more frightening aspects of the Robinsons' predicament. Unlike Gene Roddenberry's "Star Trek" (which would debut a year later), Allen employed a fairly rigid formula that found the Robinsons and the hunky Major Don West (Mark Goddard) having to outwit the generally inept scheming of Dr.

Actor Denzel Washington and director Spike Lee announced they are joining forces once more, the first time in 18 years, for a remake of Akira Kurosawa’s 1963 crime thriller “High and Low.” The duo have collaborated four times previously, on “Mo’ Better Blues,” “Malcolm X,” “He Got Game,” and, most recently, “Inside Man.”

“High and Low” was originally based on the novel “King’s Ransom” by the prolific American author Ed McBain. McBain was a nom de plume for Evan Hunter, who also wrote “The Blackboard Jungle” (adapted to a popular film with a significant early turn by Sidney Poitier) and was a co-screenwriter of Alfred Hitchcock’s “The Birds.”

The original “High and Low” starred Toshiro Mifune as an executive who faces a moral crisis during a pivotal moment of his career—just as he had intended to move a vast amount of his personal wealth for business reasons, his son...

As 2023 comes to a close, we here at JoBlo.com would like to take a moment to pay tribute to some of the people who sadly passed away this year. Our deepest respect goes out to everyone in the industry we have lost, and our thoughts and prayers are with the friends and family of those who died in 2023. These talented individuals will always be remembered for their impact on the world of film and television.

In Memory Of…

Earl Boen

Earl Boen died at the age of 81 on January 5th. The actor was best known as Dr. Peter Silberman in The Terminator, a role he reprised in Terminator 2: Judgment Day and Terminator 3: Rise of the Machines, making him the only other actor aside from Arnold Schwarzenegger to appear in the first three movies.

Boen always wanted to inject a little more humour into his performance, but director James Cameron kept telling him no…...

Sofia Boutella in Rebel Moon

The kind of free for all space opera action blockbuster which might not score with the critics but will easily entertain viewers during the holiday season, Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon: Part One – A Child Of Fire is big and bold and orange and teal and full of fighting and explosions. A sort of updated Battle Beyond The Stars where she has been hiding out. Determined to bring down the galactic power which keeps everyone else cowed, she travels from world to world in search of heroes to join her on her quest.

Rebel Moon: Part One – A Child Of Fire

Naturally, a journey like this provides a lot of opportunities to explore new environments, and though the broad strokes of the film are gleefully derivative, there’s a lot of nice...

Plot: In a dark corner of the universe controlled by a Fascist regime called The Motherworld, a former soldier named Kora (Sofia Boutella) tries to escape her past by living as a simple farmer on a peaceful moon called The Veldt. When that moon is invaded by The Motherworld and her friends are threatened, Kora sets off to recruit an army of soldiers to battle with the Motherworld and end their tyranny.

Review: Take Star Wars, a liberal amount of Seven Samurai, The Magnificent Seven, and Battle Beyond the Stars, and mix it in with a heavy helping of Heavy Metal (both the magazine and the film), and you end up with Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon. While a bit overstuffed (Snyder maybe made it a little too lean at just over two hours), it’s nonetheless a deliriously entertaining sci-fi epic that one could easily call the Best Star Wars Movie Never Made.

There's no denying that Rebel Moon - Part One: A Child of Fire, which follows a pair of farmers as they seek aid from fighters to make a stand against the space imperials who would rob their village of its harvest, is derivative of other films. Beyond the fact that the film is an obvious Seven Samurai and Star Wars fusion, there's also the fact that Battle Beyond the Stars did the same thing more than 40 years ago. But does that really matter? And if it does, why can't it be a good thing? Like Sucker Punch more than a decade ago, A Child of Fire feels like a playground for story writer/director Zack Snyder to mix and match elements from things he loves...

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Stars: Sofia Boutella, Charlie Hunnam, Michiel Huisman, Djimon Hounsou, Doona Bae, Ray Fisher, Cleopatra Coleman, Jena Malone, Ed Skrein, Fra Fee, Anthony Hopkins | Written by Zack Snyder, Kurt Johnstad, Shay Hatten | Directed by Zack Snyder

Directed by Zack Snyder, who also co-wrote the script, Rebel Moon is the first part of a planned space epic that’s set to span at least one initial trilogy, followed by a further trilogy of sequels. Part Two – The Scargiver, has already been filmed, but it remains to be seen if the third part will make it to the screen, as the first part of the trilogy is decidedly disappointing.

Essentially a reworking of Battle Beyond the Stars (1980) – which, in turn, was basically “Seven Samurai / The Magnificent Seven in Space” – Rebel Moon stars Sofia Boutella as Kora, a former soldier who sets about recruiting a team of space warriors when corrupt government forces threaten her home planet,...

Oh yes, oh yes, oh yes – the first full trailer for Zack Snyder’s Rebel Moon: Part One – A Child of Fire has finally dropped and looks to be everything his fans have been hoping for. The three-minute trailer, which gives us a look at the massive scope of Netflix’s two-part epic, introduces us to Sofia Boutella’s Kora. A former soldier-turned-fugitive for going against the Imperium, Kora is spurred to action when her former employers invade her adopted home, led by Ed Skrein’s Admiral Atticus Noble.

Knowing her new home is bound to be destroyed, Kora sets out on a journey across the galaxy to recruit and hire a team of warriors, including Djmon Hounsou’s General Titus, her former Imperium mentor, the muscle man Tarek (Staz Nair), a sword master (Doona Bae) and a mercenary, Charlie Hunnam’s Kai. Together, this team seeks to wreak havoc on the Imperium,...

The premise of Zack Snyder's upcoming two-part sci-fi epic "Rebel Moon" is lifted directly from Akira Kurosawa's 1954 classic "Seven Samurai." Sofia Boutella plays Kora, a former army officer who must defend her modest moon-bound home from an encroaching battalion of fascists -- fascists she once served under. Before the enemy can attack, Kora has to scour the galaxy for a small team of dedicated warriors to mount a defense. 

Kurosawa's premise is so simple and effective, it has been recycled many times since 1954. Famously, "The Magnificent Seven" transposed the story to the Old West, while "A Bug's Life" set it in a world populated by anthropomorphic insects. Jimmy T. Murakami's 1980 film "Battle Beyond the Stars" was, like "Rebel Moon," also a sci-fi rendition of Kurosawa's tale. 

The first half of "Rebel Moon" will be released on Netflix on December 22, 2023, and, like most of Snyder's films, promises to be enormously overblown.

One can never accuse director Zack Snyder of playing small or aiming low. The quality of his films varies wildly, but he always seems to want to tell the largest version of his stories possible. Perhaps most notorious in the director's filmography is his four-hour cut of "Justice League," a movie that he had to initially abandon due to a personal tragedy and then return to complete years later, using an additional $70 million. He's fond of overblown action, operatic visual bombast, and a lot -- a Lot -- of slow-motion photography. Snyder has amassed a strangely passionate following of fans who leap to the director's defense at every available opportunity, eager to point out that something profound might be happening in his typically turgid pictures. 

Snyder's next film is called "Rebel Moon," and it is due to be released on Netflix on December 22, 2023. It has already been announced that it...

Snyder’s epic-looking Netflix effort comes complete with lightsabers and exotic space princesses. Can it revive a neglected style of film-making?

For a genre that pretty much inspired the entire blockbuster era, space opera has become weirdly hard to get hold of beyond Star Wars. After the original trilogy’s barnstorming success in the late 70s for Lucasfilm, there were umpteen abortive attempts by other studios to grab themselves some of that good space fantasy dollar, but nobody really got anywhere useful. Disney’s appalling The Black Hole is barely remembered these days, while Roger Corman’s Battle Beyond the Stars is perhaps memorable only for giving a certain James Cameron an early break on special effects. There was even a James-Bond-in-space movie, Roger Moore’s Moonraker, although it hardly registers as one of 007’s most scintillating adventures.

Flash forward to the present day, and space opera seems to...

James Cameron got his start in the film industry doing visual-effects work for low-budget sci-fi movies like “Galaxy of Terror” and “Battle Beyond the Stars,” but it didn’t take long for his wizardry to land him behind the camera. Within just a few films, Cameron put his stamp on the whole industry, crafting oft-imitated sci-fi hits on reasonable budgets before throwing huge loads of money into epic and sometimes troubled productions which, fortunately for everyone, pretty much always found an appreciative audience.

Watching Cameron’s films, from his original low-budget short to his trilogy of underwater documentaries, is a trip through his lifelong passions. You can see seeds of future blockbusters in early schlock like “Piranha II: The Spawning,” and you don’t even have to look that hard.

13. “Expedition: Bismarck” (2002)

The second film in James Cameron’s deep-sea-diving documentary trilogy is the dreariest. Cameron once again travels to the bottom of the ocean,...

Plot: Space scavengers and a group of mercenaries race across the cosmos in a search for a long-lost freighter that is said to contain great treasure.

Review: I have a lot of admiration for filmmakers who don’t let financial limitations stifle their creativity or force them to minimize the scope of their stories. In that regard, there’s a lot to admire about director Garo Setian’s sci-fi adventure film Space Wars: Quest for the Deepstar. Just like the title instantly brings to mind Star Wars, Space Wars is reminiscent of the low budget sci-fi movies producers like Roger Corman pumped out in the wake of the original Star Wars’ success. You know, movies like Battle Beyond the Stars and the movies that featured stock footage from Battle Beyond the Stars. Space Wars just happens to have been made on an even lower budget than those had.

In his feature debut,...

It’s fair to think that movie music is usually at its best when you don’t notice it playing in the background. The better composers know they shouldn’t overpower a scene; they enhance it. Yet there are times when the music should catch enough of our notice that it gives us hints about what’s going on, or what’s to come, mixing with the movie to turn a big moment into something even more memorable. This often overlaps with the use of leitmotif, a signature theme that associates itself with an individual or a recurrent situation, like the way John Williams’ “Imperial March” tells us Darth Vader is here, or that the Empire is up to something dreadful.

Music is too important a tool for filmmakers to ignore, even if the audience can. The right score can make a movie iconic, and the right leitmotif will make a character immortal.

Before filming on Zack Snyder’s sci-fi epic Rebel Moon had even wrapped, the Netflix streaming service had already secured a tax credit for the follow-up Rebel Moon: Part 2. It was recently announced that the first installment in this two-film epic will be released on December 22nd – and during a recent interview with Variety, a Netflix executive discussed having the confidence to let Snyder dive into making Rebel Moon: Part 2 long before anyone has a chance to see the first movie.

Ori Marmur, who runs Netflix’s original studio film group with Kira Goldberg, said that Netflix believes in Rebel Moon because “Zack came in with so much passion. This is a film that he’s had in mind for decades. As you know, he’s spent so much time working on other people’s IP at other studios. We worked with him on Army of the Dead and we...

As soon as it was announced that Zack Snyder would be directing a sci-fi epic called Rebel Moon for the Netflix streaming service, Snyder made it clear that they were hoping this would be a franchise-starter. He told The Hollywood Reporter that he wanted Rebel Moon to be “a massive IP and a universe that can be built out”… and even though the first Rebel Moon only started filming a few months ago, Netflix has already secured California tax credits for a sequel. Which they’re currently calling Rebel Moon: Part 2.

The California Film Commission announced their latest round of credit allocations this morning, and Variety reports that Netflix was given 37.1 million worth of tax credits – which is 40 of the total that were given out. 16.6 million of that will be going toward the production of Rebel Moon: Part 2. The first Rebel Moon also benefited from California tax credits last year...

Chainsaw Man Is Coming to Crunchyroll: "Crunchyroll has announced that a new series has made the cut and will be included in one of its upcoming seasons as it has acquired the streaming rights to the highly anticipated anime adaptation of Chainsaw Man. Crunchyroll will simulcast the series from Japan later this year, subtitled and dubbed, in more than 200 countries and territories around the world. Dubs will include English, Latin American Spanish, Brazilian Portuguese, French, and German.

Based on the widely popular and award-winning manga of the same name written and illustrated by Tatsuki Fujimoto and serialized in Shueisha’s Weekly Shōnen Jump, Chainsaw Man is directed by Ryū Nakayama (Fate/Grand Order Absolute Demonic Front: Babylonia; The Rising of the Shield Hero).

“With dark humor, dynamic characters and a sharp story, Chainsaw Man is one of the most anticipated new series this year, and we are wickedly excited to...

Hello, everyone! As we begin to look forward to a new month, we have one last round of home media releases coming our way to finish out the last few days of June first. Prospect, one of this writer’s favorite indie sci-fi films of the last few years, is getting the 4K treatment from Vinegar Syndrome and Gunpowder & Sky, and Scream Factory has put together a Limited Edition Steelbook for Battle Beyond the Stars. Other Blu-ray and DVD releases for June 29th include Night Terror (Aka Night Drive), Scare Us, and Night Things.

Battle Beyond the Stars: Limited Edition Steelbook

Seven mercenaries are recruited from throughout the galaxy to save a peaceful planet from the threat of an evil tyrant bent on dominating the entire universe. Among them are a lizard-like humanoid, a space cowboy, a female warrior and a brooding killer-for-hire.

Bonus Content:

2K Scan of the...

With another winter melting away, Scream Factory will have plenty of scares in store for home media collectors this summer with new June Blu-ray releases of Hunter Hunter, Battle Beyond the Stars (including a Sybil Danning action figure), Kindred, The Awakening, and Sphinx:

Kindred Blu-ray: "Kindred (Street date: June 15th) –After the death of her boyfriend, vulnerable mother-to-be Charlotte (Tamara Lawrance) is taken in by her deceased partner's mother, Margaret (Fiona Shaw), and stepbrother, Thomas (Jack Lawson). But Charlotte's source of comfort soon turns to terror as her benefactors begin to appear increasingly obsessed with her every move. Plagued by mysterious hallucinations, Charlotte finds her suspicions raging with questions about Margaret and Thomas's intentions for her unborn child.

Pre-order now @ https://www.shoutfactory.com/product/kindred?product_id=7592

Check out the trailer @ https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WzsGT31egS4"

Hunter Hunter Blu-ray: "Hunter Hunter (Street date: June 22nd) – In the remote wilderness,...

Age of Samurai: Battle for Japan, a new historical documentary series on Netflix, is being billed as a “real-life Game of Thrones” but it’s much more than that. This is actual history, which is far more compelling than fantasy because it really transpired. “It is like something out of a movie,” says showrunner Matt Booi. “If you wrote this down, no one would believe it. And if you saw it, I think you’d say, ‘Nah.’ But it happened.”

According to Booi, the show covers one of the most violent periods in Japanese history. The six-part series begins in 1551 with the death of feudal lord Oda Nobuhide and follows the rise of three of Japan’s most influential warriors: Nobuhide’s son, Oda Nobunaga (Masayoshi Haneda), Tokugawa Ieyasu (Hayate Masao), and Toyotomi Hideyoshi (Masami Kosaka). Japanese historians, as well as dedicated fans of Samurai movies, will be all too...

“Walking Dead” producer Gale Anne Hurd says that the Black Lives Matter movement rather than #MeToo has been the game changer for representation in film and television.

In a far-ranging Canneseries online conversation about her career, she also discussed sexism she has faced, future plans for “The Walking Dead” with a new spin-off series and movie, and how she keeps returning to the theme of “ordinary people thrust into extraordinary circumstances who find the inner strength to defeat evil.”

Hurd started by thanking legendary producer Roger Corman for not only giving her a chance in the film industry after she majored in Economics and Communications at Stanford University in 1977 but also for not limiting her career opportunities because of her gender. “I thought I’d be his assistant for life,” she said about the position for which she had applied. At the interview, “He asked me what my career path was,...

This past weekend, the world got a little less entertaining with the passing of veteran actor John Saxon, whose career spanned over an impressive seven decades. A truly singular onscreen presence, Saxon was teen idol turned character actor with a penchant for playing authority figures throughout his diverse career.

If you look at Saxon’s Hollywood résumé, John’s contributions to both the cinema and small screen entertainment are endless, with roles in timeless classics like The Plunderers, Posse from Hell, Summer Love, The Appaloosa, Death of a Gunfighter, Gunsmoke, Fantasy Island, The Big Score, Fast Company (which was directed by an up-and-coming David Cronenberg), Falcon Crest, Running Scared (1980), Beverly Hills Cop III, Dynasty, Melrose Place (playing Daphne Zuniga’s lawyer for multiple episodes), and of course, Enter the Dragon, opposite Bruce Lee.

In terms of his genre output, the variety of films that Saxon was a part of is equally impressive,...

By Lee Peiffer

Actor John Saxon, who specialized in playing celluloid tough guys, has died from pneumonia at age 83. Saxon grew up on the (then) mean streets of his native Brooklyn and became a model at age 17. He segued into feature films and television, winning acclaim for his performances. Saxon had the ability to use his charisma and good looks to portray both heroes and villains on screen, and did both convincingly. Major stardom never materialized for him but he had a long career as a popular supporting actor. Among his more notable films: "The Reluctant Debutante", "War Hunt", "The Electric Horseman", "The Unforgiven", "Joe Kidd", the original "Nightmare on Elm Street" and two sequels, "From Dusk Till Dawn", "Black Christmas", "Wrong is Right", "Mr. Hobbs Takes a Vacation" and "Battle Beyond the Stars". One of his most popular films was "Enter the Dragon", the final movie of Bruce Lee.

For the last two weeks, we here at Daily Dead have been doing our best to laud and commemorate the 40th anniversaries of all the great horror and science fiction films that were released throughout the year 1980. And as we get set to wrap up our extensive coverage today and tomorrow, we thought it might be fun to reach out to some fantastic voices in the realm of genre entertainment.

So, for today’s Class of 1980 celebration, we will be featuring the likes of Kelli Maroney, Bill Moseley, Adrian Roe, Ben Rock, Axelle Carolyn, Drew McWeeny, April Wolfe, Graham Skipper, and Brian Collins all discussing a variety of notable horror and sci-fi movies from 1980, including Dressed to Kill, The Changeling, The Visitor, The Apple, Friday the 13th, The Boogeyman, Mad Max, Battle Beyond the Stars, and The Fog.

And be sure to head back tomorrow for part two of our final Class of 1980 celebration,...

Scener, a Seattle-based startup that enables social viewing, has teamed with Comic-Con to become the exclusive co-viewing partner for its upcoming online event.

The company will host two tracks of library films and anime during Comic-Con@Home, which runs July 22 to 26, with a capacity of up to 1 million simultaneous viewers, featuring live community chat. (See full list of films below.)

Scener has also expanded the roster of services it can connect viewers with to seven in total: Netflix, Disney+, HBO Max, Hulu, Amazon Prime Video, Funimation and Vimeo.

In recent months, Google Chrome extensions like Netflix Party and Scener have gained traction as viewers have craved social experiences while also boosting streaming consumption during Covid-19 shutdowns. Hulu and Amazon Prime have recently announced they are adding “party” features to their services in response to the trend. The social function can be accessed only on laptops,...

Hello, dear readers! For the last several years, we here at Daily Dead spend a few weeks celebrating the anniversaries of a batch of films from a particular year, and for 2020, we’ve decided to head back to the year 1980 to commemorate the 40th birthday for all the great horror and sci-fi movies that were released back then.

For those of you who may be looking to get into the spirit, I’ve gone ahead and put together this list of films from 1980 that are currently streaming on a variety of platforms, both free and ones that require a subscription. You’ll definitely see upcoming features and discussions of many of these titles, so hopefully this list will help you catch up on the movies you haven’t seen yet (or maybe haven’t seen in a while).

Be sure to check back starting next Monday for all of our Class of 1980 coverage,...

When John Sayles wrote and directed Matewan in 1987, he was already a hero to those of us following American independent film, both for his witty, energetic genre screenplays and for his self-financed directorial efforts. His movies as writer-director, which also included a detour into studio filmmaking with the exquisite coming of age drama Baby It’s You, were major inspirations for an entire generation of aspiring filmmakers, because they gave us a high standard of excellence to reach for yet also seemed […]...

When John Sayles wrote and directed Matewan in 1987, he was already a hero to those of us following American independent film, both for his witty, energetic genre screenplays and for his self-financed directorial efforts. His movies as writer-director, which also included a detour into studio filmmaking with the exquisite coming of age drama Baby It’s You, were major inspirations for an entire generation of aspiring filmmakers, because they gave us a high standard of excellence to reach for yet also seemed […]...

Shout! Factory TV has announced its first original series! Created by Ashley and Robert Sidaway, the 13-part docuseries Cult-Tastic: Tales from the Trenches with Roger and Julie Corman will premiere on November 15th. Also in today's Horror Highlights: Big Top Evil teaser trailers and release details, Fearhouse360 release details, and a look at the Little VVomen sketch.

Shout! Factory's Cult-Tastic: Tales from the Trenches with Roger and Julie Corman Release Details: "Shout! Factory TV, the digital entertainment streaming service, is set to launch its first original digital docuseries Cult-tastic: Tales From The Trenches With Roger And Julie Corman. Created, written and co-produced by Ashley Sidaway and Robert Sidaway, the 13-part series about the life and work of Roger and Julie Corman, provides viewers an extraordinary look inside the Cormans’ cinematic universe and features extensive in-depth interviews. The series will premiere November 15th on Shout! Factory TV’s Amazon Prime Video...

Exclusive: Shout! Factory TV will launch a 13-part digital docuseries called Cult-Tastic: Tales from the Trenches with Roger and Julie Corman that premieres Nov. 15 on Shout Factory TV’s Amazon Prime Video Channel and via Roku Channel’s Premium Subscription.

Created, written and co-produced by Ashley Sidaway and Robert Sidaway, Cult-Tastic features new, extensive, and in-depth interviews and represents the first docuseries from Shout! Factory TV. The subject matter is a rich and vivid one: Roger and Julie Corman and their seven decades as trailblazing indie filmmakers.

One of the most prolific producers in cinema history, Roger Corman is known as the Pope of Pop Culture and the King of the Cult Film after producing more than 350 films and directing 60 more, among them Machine Gun Kelly, A Bucket of Blood, X: The Man with X-Ray Eyes, Bloody Mama and Frankenstein Unbound. Roger Corman was honored with the Academy Award for Lifetime Achievement in 2009.

Julie Corman,...

The American Genre Film Archive, the largest non-profit genre film archive and distributor in the world, has teamed up with Shout! Factory for a wide-ranging new theatrical partnership that will see a slew of cult classics heading back into theaters. Agfa will distribute 50 film classics from Shout! Factory’s movie library to theaters this year, following similar collaborations with home video labels like Arrow Films, Severin Films, and Vinegar Syndrome.

The Austin-based Afga has selected a number of shlock-tastic titles like “Black Christmas,” “Chopping Mall,” “Caged Heat,” and both “Slumber Party Massacre” and its sequel to release back into theaters. The deal also includes a number of bonafide classics as well, including John Ford’s “Stagecoach,” John Cassavetes’ “A Woman Under the Influence,” and Alfred Hitchcock’s “Foreign Correspondent.”

“We could not be more thrilled about this partnership,” said Agfa Head of Business Affairs Alicia Coombs in an official statement.

As much as I dig his takes and tales of Poe from the ‘60s, my favorite era of Roger Corman is the New World years: you know, pulpy pictures like Death Race 2000 (1975) and Humanoids from the Deep (1980). At the turn of the ‘80s he decided to cash in on the Star Wars and Alien craze with Battle Beyond the Stars (’80) and Galaxy of Terror (’81). His follow up to that last one, Forbidden World (1982), carries on the low-minded tradition of boobs and bloodshed in glorious, goofy fashion.

Made for around a million dollars and released in early May, Forbidden World (Aka Mutant), received mostly poor notices as it made the rounds of the drive-in circuit, but became a staple on home video for those looking for cheap thrills as only Corman could provide; which is to say, with confidence, competence, and a twisted sensibility.

Our film opens in outer space...

April 16th will see the release of both The Manitou and Superstition on Blu-ray and we have new details on both titles straight from Scream Factory:

"Horror enthusiasts and classic movie collectors rejoice! On April 16, Scream Factory™ is proud to present the 1978 supernatural cult classic The Manitou Blu-ray and horror classic Superstition Blu-ray. Produced and directed by William Girdler and based on the best-selling novel by Graham Masterton, The Manitou stars Tony Curtis (Spartacus), Michael Ansara (I Dream of Jeannie), Susan Strasberg (Scream of Fear), Stella Stevens (The Silencers), Burgess Meredith (Rocky), Jon Cedar (Death Hunt), and Ann Sothern (The Whale of August). Directed by James Roberson (The Giant of Thunder Mountain) and produced by Ed Carlin (Battle Beyond the Stars), Superstition stars James Houghton (The Colbys), Albert Salmi (Caddyshack), Lynn Carlin (Faces), and Larry Pennell (Bubba Ho-Tep).

A must-have for collectors, The Manitou Blu-ray boasts new 4K scan from...

Screamfest Horror Film Festival announced three additional titles for this year's festival. They have added The Unthinkable, Welcome to Mercy and animated feature Chuck Steel: Night of the Trampires to their lineup.    For old school fans the festival is honoring producer Gale Anne Hurd with the Career Achivement Award. Hurd produced three of James Cameron's greatest works The Terminator, Aliens and The Abyss, among other films. Before that she worked with cult icon Roger Corman.    Apart from honoring Hurd with the award the festival is also going to screen The Terminator and Aliens at the festival. Would be nice to see both of those films on the big screen again.    The press release follows......

[Read the whole post on screenanarchy.com...]...

Seminal horror films sure do cast an imposing shadow, especially for others that try to bear similar fruit in its shade; usually what grows is withered and nothing more than a mere husk of what came before. And some films simply don’t give a horse’s patootie. Welcome to Jennifer (1978), the ultimate Mad Libs homage to Carrie (’76) that, while not in the same league, works as a fun (and somewhat observant) high school horror - with snakes. A whole lot of ‘em.

Released by Aip in May, Jennifer opened to mixed reviews at best and indifference from audiences who felt they’d already been there, DePalma’d that. They weren’t wrong of course; Jennifer gulps thirstily from Carrie’s water fountain, but adds a couple other prevalent genre staples of the ‘70s to arrive at something decidedly weird (and vicious) enough to set itself apart.

Our film opens...

Look, anyone who knows me is aware of my severe lack of fondness for spiders, as well as my love for movies about them. (I am riddled with inconsistency.) 1977 was a vintage year for arachnids; in addition to one of my all time favorite movies, Kingdom of the Spiders, the small screen offered up the telefilm Curse of the Black Widow, a Dan Curtis effort that never fails to entertain. Just keep the buggers away from me, okay?

Originally broadcast September 16th as part of The ABC Friday Night Movie, Curse went up against Logan’s Run/Switch! on CBS, and the much tougher competition, NBC’s The Rockford Files/Quincy, M.E. For those not inclined to have Jack Klugman yell in their face for an hour, Curtis’ Curse offered a fun, goofy alternative.

Let’s crack open our cobwebbed faux TV Guide and have a look see:

Curse...