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Double feature: A Vincent Price classic (The Abominable Dr. Phibes, 1971) and its decent followup (Dr. Phibes Rises Again, 1972)

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I stumbled across this double-feature Blu-ray from Kino Lorber recently while doing a little window shopping. I had never seen a Vincent Price movie beyond his short appearance in Edward Scissorhands shortly before his death. But this looked interesting, and it was at a great price point for an impulse blind buy. So I let my curiosity take control. These two titles from the British arm of B-movie factory American International Pictures were released in 1971 and 1972. Both were hits in America with the drive-in and midnight-movie crowds. The first one in particular -- The Abominable Dr. Phibes -- was highly regarded in its day and has become known as a horror-comedy classic. Both were directed by an Englishman named Robert Fuest, chiefly known in the industry as a production designer and screenwriter. His highest-profile work were the two Dr. Phibes movies and the British TV series The Avengers. OK. That's enough background. I'm off to watch The Abominable Dr. Phibes and Dr. Phi...
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The Funhouse (1981): An early Tobe Hooper gem

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The Funhouse was the first studio film directed by Tobe Hooper, who had become known for his 1974 no-budget proto-slasher, The Texas Chainsaw Massacre. Universal Pictures hired Hooper to make The Funhouse to cash in on momentum from Paramount's 1980 box-office smash, Friday The 13th. Hooper had followed up The Texas Chainsaw Massacre with the TV miniseries Salem's Lot, a 1979 ratings winner for CBS. So obviously, he was landing on the right people's radar. Hooper at the time was looking to make a movie in a carnival setting, and he jumped at the opportunity when Universal called with a script already in hand. Tobe took his slim budget and a small cast of young actors to Miami, where traveling carnival workers tended to spend their winters and were happy to help make a movie during their spare time. The Funhouse, released to theaters in March 1981, was a modest success. Unfortunately, it did get lost in the shuffle of several higher-profile horror films of the time. It didn...
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Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters (2013): A criminally underrated fantasy action adventure

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Oh, man, do the critics hate this one. But you know something? Several gazillion of my best friends and I beg to differ.  Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters is a fantasy action adventure that killed at the box office in January 2013 and has been a healthy property for Paramount in the home-video and streaming markets. It was the first English-language film for Norwegian writer-director Tommy Wirkola. He since has won over critics with a handful of successful genre films, including Santa Claus slasher Violent Night in 2022. I don't really understand why critics didn't like Hansel & Gretel: Witch Hunters. I discovered it on streaming a few years ago, and I watched it recently for at least the third time. Every time I see it, I have a blast with this movie. I think it's fantastic. Wirkola's concept here is to establish what became of Hansel and Gretel. We get enough of the fairy tale in the first few minutes to establish the relevant backstory. Several years after the ...
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Go (1999): This forgotten neo-noir is packed with familiar young faces

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Go was a film that came and went in relative obscurity near the end of the 20th century and has remained well below the cultural surface.  It definitely was a product of its time, one of a boatload of Pulp Fiction derivations that fought for attention in the latter half of the 1990s. It is an interesting and rewarding watch, particularly if you were a fan of all those Tarantino-esque crime adventures of the era. Go gives us a fascinating early look at several faces we've gotten to know pretty well in the past couple of decades. Katie Holmes, Jay Mohr, Timothy Olyphant, Jane Krakowski and Melissa McCarthy are among the notables I recognized. All were in the formative stages of their careers when they appeared in Go. Go was the first feature film written by John August, who went on to pen the megahit Charlie's Angels and five Tim Burton films -- including Big Fish and Charlie And The Chocolate Factory. Director Doug Limon was coming off the success of Swingers, in 1996, and moved...
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Sunday Mornings (2021): These ladies are fun to hang with

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Sunday Mornings is a homemade indie effort produced as a pilot for a TV series. Apparently, no one wanted it, and it found its way to a low-populated corner at Prime Video. I found it recently while playing around with the randomizer at Reelgood. It is the story of six women in Atlanta raised as sisters. The film basically is a series of vignettes framed as diary entries by the central character, Sunday, portrayed admirably by Courtney Arlett. Arlett as Sunday provides voiceover narration to tie it all together. All the women were raised by Sunday's uncle. Sunday says in the first few minutes that the other five women are sisters and that they all consider Sunday a sister. Sunday and her husband have two foster children in their home. Sunday hopes she can have a biological child someday, but apparently she knows that isn't really going to happen. She and her husband treat the two foster kids like they are their own, and the youngsters seem quite happy. The little girl calls Sun...
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Alien collection: Two masterpieces and some pretty good followups

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This Blu-ray set, released in August 2017, includes the four 1979-97 films starring Sigourney Weaver and the two Ridley Scott prequels from the 2010s.  The only one of these movies I had seen before diving into this set was Alien, the first film. The rest were first-time watches. I really enjoyed this collection of iconic spaceship films. We get a couple of unquestionably great movies. Three of the other four are fairly decent. The first two films alone are worth the price of admission.  Alien is one of the most memorable films I've ever seen. Who could ever forget that shocking scene when the creature explodes out of John Hurt's chest? Imagine seeing that in a dark theater in 1979 when you have no idea what's about to happen. Ridley Scott delivered an influential classic in both the science fiction and horror genres. It holds up extremely well. I loved it this time around. James Cameron came on board as writer and director for Aliens, which hit screens in July 1986. Camero...
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Bud Abbott And Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein (1948): Universal milks some laughs from its classic monsters

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Bud Abbott And Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein, 1948, directed by Charles Barton, 3.5 stars. Bud Abbott And Lou Costello Meet Frankenstein was a surprise box-office hit in 1948. It was a movie the two stars did not want to do. Most everyone involved hated working with them. But not much else was happening at the time for anybody, so they all had to suck it up and just do it. Abbott and Costello were at a career crossroads. They had just lost their long-running radio show, they were in a nasty personal feud with each other, and both were struggling with health issues. Universal's megahit monster series had petered out, reduced to lame sequels and crossovers during the World War II years. And the studio was struggling to stay afloat through a succession of desperate mergers and acquisitions. Universal-International, as it was known in 1947, got hold of a script titled The Brain Of Frankenstein that featured several of the studio's iconic monsters. The plot had Dracula seeking a si...
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