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Here’s a toast to Marianne Faithfull, a true rock & roll legend. Nobody was ever better at being an old rock star, except maybe Leonard Cohen. Yet the difference is that Cohen didn’t release his debut album until he was 33 — he was never young in public. Faithfull was a Sixties dolly bird who was on Top of the Pops in her teens, singing “As Tears Go By,” just another disposable pop ingenue. She played Ophelia in the 1970 film version of Hamlet, a hauntingly tragic performance, at a time when...

It is always a pleasure to see f**ked up films, and “Full of Death” is definitely one of them, with its non-stop energy and absurd script that unfold aplenty in the 54 minutes of the movie.

on CathayPlay by clicking on the image below

A young man in Shanghai is recruiting people from the streets for a rather vague revolutionary cause against the authorities and the current style of life. Gradually, he has amassed a small group of followers, who walk around half naked with gas masks in their face. As they keep trying to bring more people to the cause, under the flaming “sermon” of their preacher, they stumble upon a woman who teaches Chinese, and who seems impervious to any kind of charm they seem to have. She also has a younger brother, whom she keeps locked in their apartment, while he is frequently delirious...

Children of the 1960s might recognize the late actor James Darren from his role as Moondoggie, aka Jeffrey Matthews, from the hit 1959 beach party movie "Gidget." Darren reprised his role in "Gidget Goes Hawaiian" and "Gidget Goes to Rome." Darren, however, was massively prolific in film, TV, and music, and his decades-long career was only cut short this week when the actor passed away at the age of 88. He left behind a sizable body of work that includes 14 studio albums, dozens of appearances in TV shows, and movies beyond Gidget. He shared the screen with future "Gilligan's Island" stars Bob Denver and Tina Louise in "Those Who Think Young," popped up in Jess Franco's 1969 version of "Venus in Furs," and most recently appeared in the Harry Dean Stanton film "Lucky" (one of the best films of 2017).

To Trekkies, Darren is best known for playing Vic Fontaine, the holographic Rat...

Actor and singer James Darren, known in part for his role in Star Trek: Deep Space Nine, has passed away. He was 88 years old.

Per Variety, Darren died on Monday at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles, California. According to his son, Jim Moret, Darren was being treated in the cardiac unit. While specific details about his hospitalization weren't shared, Darren was said to have expressed his love for his family before he passed.

Of his former teen idol father, Moret said, "He was a good man. He was very talented. He was forever young.

Darren was born in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, on June 8, 1936. After taking an interest in acting, Darren caught a break when he was noticed by Screen Gems casting director Joyce Selznick. This led to Darren signing a contract with Columbia in 1956, and he made his feature film debut that year with a role in Rumble on the Docks...

James Darren, who went from teen idol status acting in youth-oriented movies like “Gidget” to becoming an actor in TV shows such as “Star Trek: Deep Space Nine” and “T.J. Hooker” and a singer and director, died Monday at Cedars-Sinai Hospital in Los Angeles. He was 88.

His son Jim Moret said that he had been able to express his love for his family while being treated in the cardiac unit. “He was a good man. He was very talented,” Moret said. “He was forever young.”

Moret said he was grateful that his father had been able to embrace his signature role as the surfer Moondoggie in the “Gidget” movie and that he continued to interact with his fans.

Born in Philadelphia, he studied acting with Stella Adler in New York and was signed to Columbia Pictures, where his first role was in “Rumble on the Docks.” He went on to...

Christopher Lee (The Wicker Man) gives one of his most unforgettable performances as Judge Jeffreys, the infamous 17th-century witchfinder whose unholy obsession with a luscious wench (Maria Rohm of Eugenie) fuels a jaw-dropping spree of torture, brutality and flesh-ripping perversion. Howard Vernon (Succubus), Margaret Lee (Five Golden Dragons), Maria Schell (99 Women), and Oscar nominee Leo Genn (Quo Vadis) co-star in this landmark epic of sexual violence and sadism, complete with a superb score by Bruno Nicolai (Count Dracula) and directed with spectacularly deviant glee by the one and only Jess Franco (Venus in Furs).

Night of the Blood Monster is available on 4K Uhd Blu-ray on March 26.

Enter for your chance to win a 4K Uhd Blu-ray of Night of the Blood Monster, courtesy of Blue Underground. Two (2) winners will be selected at random.

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Jess Franco’s Night Of The Blood Monster (aka The Bloody Judge) is making it's debut on 4K Uhd. Arriving on March 26, 2024, a brand-new 4K master of the complete uncensored version will be released on both 4K Uhd and Blu-ray, with all new bonus features and extras:

Horror Will Hold You Helpless!

Christopher Lee (The Wicker Man) gives one of his most unforgettable performances as Judge Jeffreys, the infamous 17th Century witchfinder whose unholy obsession with a luscious wench (Maria Rohm of Eugenie) fuels a jaw-dropping spree of torture, brutality and flesh-ripping perversion. Howard Vernon (Succubus), Margaret Lee (Five Golden Dragons), Maria Schell (99 Women) and Oscar® nominee Leo Genn (Quo Vadis) co-star in this landmark epic of sexual violence and sadism, complete with a superb score by Bruno Nicolai (Count Dracula) and directed with spectacularly deviant glee by the one and only Jess Franco (Venus In Furs).

Blue Underground...

November 1st is a tough day for horror hounds. The decorations are still up, the air remains crisp, but the spirit has seemingly moved on, perhaps vanquished by the sun. Alamo Drafthouse says to hell with all of that and has announced two month’s worth of genre joy that’ll take you from Dia de los Muertos to Christmas Eve with minimal whiplash.

Terror Tuesday is a weekly slash-and-thrash through the world of horror, and they’ve booked a number of holiday-tinged forever classics mixed in with new canon-busting entries, many of which are screening from new, sparkling scans. Highlights include Lake Mungo, Tales from the Hood, The Changeling, and a pre-Thanksgiving feast with the Sawyers.

Weird Wednesday is similarly a weekly exploration of exploitation, pop oddities, and underloved gems. (Think of it as channel-surfing a transmission from a better dimension). And like Terror Tuesday, they’ve loaded it...

Lou Reed died 10 years ago, in October 2013. But since then, he’s just become a more massive, more famous, more influential figure. His life is one of the strangest music stories ever. Will Hermes tells the whole epic tale in his new biography, Lou Reed: The King of New York. For most people, he’s the black-leather avant-garde rock & roll poet who symbolized NYC with his band the Velvet Underground, in the Warhol Factory scene of the 1960s. “I’m Waiting for the Man,” “Sister Ray,” “Sweet Jane” — these are...

The second of nine films made by director Jess Franco and writer-producer Harry Alan Towers over the course of only two years, The Girl from Rio is their jazzy, featherweight riff on the spy-fi genre, a heady blend of international intrigue and semi-science-fictional elements, popular (especially in Europe) in the wake of the James Bond films. It’s also a sequel of sorts to Towers’s earlier film The Million Eyes of Sumuru, directed by Lindsay Shonteff, based on the exploits of the Sax Rohmer super-villainess. Though in this film, for some inexplicable reason, the character is regularly referred to as Sunanda (obviously and not very convincingly dubbed in post) and listed in the credits as Sumitra. Blame it on Rio!

Like many a Franco film, The Girl from Rio opens with a protracted erotic dance routine: Clad only in a webbed body stocking, Yana (Beni Cardoso) does her number for a recumbent man,...

In the tradition of Barbarella and Danger: Diabolik comes this swinging ‘60s action orgy as bisexual super-villain Sumuru (the luscious Shirley Eaton of Goldfinger) launches a diabolical plan to enslave the male species with her army of lusty warrior women. But when Sumuru kidnaps a fugitive American playboy, she crosses a sadistic crime boss the sexes that will bring Brazil to its knees in more ways than one. Richard Wyler (The Bounty Killer) and Maria Rohm (Eugenie) co-star in this kinky cult favorite from producer Harry Alan Towers (The Blook of Fu Manchu) and director Jess Franco (Venus in Furs). Also known as Rio 70, Future Women, and The Seven Secrets of Sumuru, The Girl from Rio is now presented in a brand-new 4K restoration from the original camera negative, totally uncut and uncensored with all its eye-popping nudity, torture, and lesbianism in Dolby Vision Hdr!

Enter for your chance...

Be Your Own Pet break out the bondage gear for their new single, “Worship the Whip,” a track off their newly announced comeback album, Mommy, out Aug. 25. “Mommy is the bitch in charge, the one in control,” frontwoman Jamina Pearl Abegg said in a statement. “It’s a reclamation of myself.”

To show that they’re back for business after a 15-year silence, the song adds to the robust lineage of music about Bdsm (the Velvet Underground’s “Venus in Furs,” Depeche Mode’s “Master and Servant,” Devo’s “Whip It,...

Hello, dear readers! To paraphrase a popular movie, “We’re in the Endgame now,” as Halloween is now merely only a few days away. If you’re looking for some last-minute viewing ideas to get you to the spooky season finish line, we definitely have a great array of choices heading home on Tuesday. The biggest recommendation that I can personally make in regard to perfect Halloween movie experiences is the Wnuf Halloween Special, which is getting a killer Blu-ray release tomorrow. Arrow Films is giving Dario Argento’s Deep Red a 4K upgrade this week, too, and Severin Films is showing love to both An Angel for Satan and Beyond Darkness.

Other releases for October 26th include Don’t Breathe 2, The Amazing Mr. X, Boardinghouse, Eye of the Devil, Skull: The Mask, Frankenstein’s Daughter, and Underworld: Limited Edition 5-Movie Collection.

The Amazing Mr. X: Special Edition

An atmospheric masterpiece,...

It was perhaps predestined Todd Haynes would one day make a film about the Velvet Underground. Predestined since Velvet Goldmine, at least, which—in a time when this music was still rare, odd, and with an influence that had yet to fully reveal itself—mythologized Lou Reed’s badboy persona in some fantastic constellation of actual music, imagined stand-ins, and tales known by acolytes for years.

One of the tales mythologized in Velvet Goldmine gets struck down in The Velvet Underground, Haynes’ documentary on the New York group who’ve since gone beyond legendary—to a point, maybe, where one wonders what’s left but the classic stories, lines, and songs. As our review gets at what Haynes does so brilliantly, I’ll cut to the chase and open on my interview with him. Whatever the impression of his brilliance—the great reach of his cinephilic, literary, cultural, and formal...

“The artist is not with society, he’s different,” says Mary Woronov in the just-dropped trailer for Todd Haynes’s fantastic documentary, The Velvet Underground. It’s an apt pull-quote for a film that’s more about the band and the culture they arose from, reacted to and fermented than any rise/fall/redemption-styled rock narrative. Set against a few of Velvet hits the trailer gives a glimpse of the film’s elegant graphics, masterful use of archival (not just Vu concerts but experimental films of the day) and smart musicology. […]

The post Trailer Watch: Todd Haynes’s The Velvet Underground first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

“The artist is not with society, he’s different,” says Mary Woronov in the just-dropped trailer for Todd Haynes’s fantastic documentary, The Velvet Underground. It’s an apt pull-quote for a film that’s more about the band and the culture they arose from, reacted to and fermented than any rise/fall/redemption-styled rock narrative. Set against a few of Velvet hits the trailer gives a glimpse of the film’s elegant graphics, masterful use of archival (not just Vu concerts but experimental films of the day) and smart musicology. […]

The post Trailer Watch: Todd Haynes’s The Velvet Underground first appeared on Filmmaker Magazine.

If you told people in 1967 that Andy Warhol’s house band just released one of the most revered rock albums of all-time, they would ask what they’re called, and when you told them they would laugh. As far as the public was concerned, there were a hundred acts capable of that historical success in the ‘60s, and none were called the Velvet Underground (or Nico).

To a certain extent they would be right. It would be another decade before the banana-adorned The Velvet Underground & Nico would have its pop cultural comeuppance and over half a century before the glam avant-garde group would receive definitive documentary treatment by one of the best living filmmakers. But as history and said doc have proven, we would have the last laugh in that exchange.

The arresting mood of writer-director Todd Haynes’s The Velvet Underground––his first feature documentary but far from his...

Kurt Vile first covered the Velvet Underground’s “Run Run Run” when he was 18 at a show in Landsdowne, Pennsylvania — complete with “take a drag or two” subbed out for the local crowd-pleasing “Landsdowne Avenue.” He then performed it with the Velvets’ John Cale in 2017 in honor of the 50th anniversary of The Velvet Underground & Nico. Now, he’s contributing a new take — with his band the Violators — to I’ll Be Your Mirror: A Tribute to the Velvet Underground & Nico, out September 24th via Vile’s new label Verve Records.

So far 2021 is turning out to be quite the year for documentaries unearthing long-buried or unknown musical treasures of the ’60s. The current Summer of Soul highlights a series of Harlem-based concerts with iconic Black artists, a kind of African American Woodstock stuck in someone’s basement for half a century and now getting a much-acclaimed film directed by Questlove made from those tapes. Edgar Wright’s fascinating The Sparks Brothers, the story of the quirky band Sparks featuring brothers Russell and Ron Mael, gives this cult musical act a long-deserved place in the sun. And now, just premiered out of competition today at the Cannes Film Festival, comes director Todd Haynes’ feature documentary debut on the avant garde rock/punk band The Velvet Underground in a movie of the same name that shows why this ’60s creation from the world of Andy Warhol has made such an impact decades...

Jarvis Cocker’s band Jarv Is… covered the Velvet Underground’s “Venus in Furs” during an exhibition saluting choreographer Michael Clark.

The sextet faithfully recreated the droning tune, which appeared on 1967’s The Velvet Underground & Nico, with Cocker crooning over Serafina Steer’s bowed harp and Emma Smith’s eerie violin. The group also covered the Fall’s “Big New Prinz,” tackled the former Pulp frontman’s own solo cut “Further Complications” and played “House Music All Night Long” from Jarv Is…’ debut LP, the July-issued Beyond the Pale.

The video,...

The Haunted World of El Superbeasto writer-director Rob Zombie's new nightmare Three from Hell has completed production and is set to be released sometime later this year. This third entry in the Firefly Family saga is a follow-up to his first feature House of 1000 Corpses starring Karen Black, Rainn Wilson, Walton Goggins, and Tom Towles, and its 2005 sequel The Devil's Rejects starring Ken Foree, Matthew McGrory, Lew Temple, and William Forsythe. And today Zombie himself took to Instagram to share an all-new pic of Bill Moseley's Otis Driftwood.

"Otis may be spending his days behind bars but at least he's still got his music."

You can check out the new pic for yourself below which, as promised, features Otis stuck in a jail cell, airing out his tighty whities and listening to some tunes. We can only imagine what this tune might be considering that Rob Zombie loves...

The Haunted World of El Superbeasto writer-director Rob Zombie's new nightmare Three from Hell has completed production and is set to be released sometime later this year. This third entry in the Firefly Family saga is a follow-up to his first feature House of 1000 Corpses starring Karen Black, Rainn Wilson, Walton Goggins, and Tom Towles, and its 2005 sequel The Devil's Rejects starring Ken Foree, Matthew McGrory, Lew Temple, and William Forsythe. And today Zombie himself took to Instagram to share an all-new pic of Bill Moseley's Otis Driftwood.

"Otis may be spending his days behind bars but at least he's still got his music."

You can check out the new pic for yourself below which, as promised, features Otis stuck in a jail cell, airing out his tighty whities and listening to some tunes. We can only imagine what this tune might be considering that Rob Zombie loves...

Starting out in 1939 as the little studio that could, Hammer would finally make their reputation in the late fifties reimagining Universal’s black and white horrors as eye-popping Technicolor gothics – their pictorial beauty, thanks to cameramen like Jack Asher and Arthur Ibbetson, was fundamental to the studio’s legacy. So it’s been more than a little frustrating to see such disrespect visited upon these films by home video companies happy to smother the market with grainy prints, incoherent cropping and under-saturated colors. The House of Hammer and the film community in general deserve far better than that.

Thanks to Indicator, the home video arm of Powerhouse films based in the UK, those wrongs are beginning to be righted, starting with their impressive new release of Hammer shockers, Fear Warning! Even better news for stateside fans; the set is region-free, ready to be relished the world over.

Hammer Vol. 1 – Fear Warning!

In a week where Louis C.K. debuted at Tiff his new movie “I Love You Daddy” (read our review here), which is in part about a filmmaker who was accused of child-molesting yet is still widely celebrated, it seems only appropriate that we get the trailer for a new Roman Polanski movie.

The director’s first since “Venus In Furs” is a thriller based on Delphine de Vigan’s novel, co-written with Olivier Assayas, in which a novelist (Emmanuelle Seigner, Polanski’s real-life partner of legal age) suffers from writer’s block, only to befriend a stranger (Eva Green) who becomes dangerously over-familiar.

Continue reading First Trailer For Roman Polanski’s ‘Based On A True Story’ Starring Eva Green [Watch] at The Playlist.

Happy Memorial Day, everyone! While you’re off enjoying some much-needed downtime with friends and family, we’ve gone ahead and put together a recap of this week’s horror and sci-fi home entertainment releases that are coming our way on May 30th.

For those of you cult film aficionados out there, get those wallets ready, because there’s a bunch of great titles arriving on Blu-ray this Tuesday, including Blackenstein, Evil Ed, The Blood of Fu Manchu / The Castle of Fu Manchu double feature, The Hearse, The Undertaker, Slaughterhouse Rock, and Hide and Go Shriek.

As far as new genre films go, The Blackcoat’s Daughter (one of my personal favorites of 2017) and Rupture are making their way to Blu-ray and DVD, with the Shock-o-Rama box set also coming out on DVD.

The Blackcoat’s Daughter (Lionsgate, Blu-ray & DVD)

Beautiful and haunted Joan (Emma Roberts) makes...

John Saavedra May 11, 2017

Luca Guadagnino's Suspiria remake is being scored by Radiohead's Thom Yorke...

Variety reports that Radiohead's Thom Yorke will score Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria remake. The 1977 original, of course, was directed by Italian master Dario Argento, and it's one of the most beautiful horror films ever made, in no small part due to its lighting and palette. Argento's film is also known for its dreamily haunting score, which was composed by Italian prog rock band Goblin.

Need a refresher on Goblin's bizarre Suspiria tunes? Give this a listen:

Video of Goblin - Suspiria Theme - 1977

Yorke will have to follow up on Goblin's ghostly soundtrack for the remake, but his past work with Radiohead would indicate that he's up to the task. In fact, the last three of the band's efforts, In Rainbows, The King Of Limbs, and A Moon Shaped Pool...

Lionsgate has released the first-look image from Roman Polanski’s thriller-drama “Based on a True Story,” which marks the French-Polish director’s first film in four years. The film, whose original title in French is “D’après une histoire vraie” and stars Eva Green and Emmanuelle Seigner, will show at the Cannes Films Festival, which will run May 17 – 28.

Read More: Roman Polanski Compares Court to Nazis for Rejecting Motion to Avoid Further Jail Time

The film is an adaptation of Delphine de Vigan’s novel of the same name. Polanski wrote the script with writer and “Personal Shopper” director Olivier Assayas. “Based on a True Story” follows a Parisian writer (Seigner) who gets romantically involved with an obsessed admirer (Green) who tries to impose influence on her.

Read More: The Films of Roman Polanski, Ranked Worst to Best

During his embattled five-decade career, Polanski has helmed a long list of acclaimed films,...

Dark Horse's The Strange Case of the Disappearing Man comic book series tops today's Horror Highlights, which also includes Wizard World Cleveland, new releases (respectively) from Cavity Colors and Blue Underground, Apocalypse Kiss, and the New Jersey Horror Con.

The Strange Case of the Disappearing Man Comic Book Series: Press Release: "Milwaukie, Ore., (March 14, 2017)—Victorian horror fans, rejoice! Dark Horse is delighted to announce the follow-up to 2011’s cult classic The Strange Case of Mr. Hyde, with The Strange Case of the Disappearing Man. Mr. Hyde’s Cole Haddon brings fans even more Thomas Adye adventures, while Sebastián Cabrol (Thief: Tales from the City, Caliban) lends his beautiful art to the story, and Hernán Cabrera (Caliban) brings the art to life with his gorgeously grotesque color palette.

The Strange Case of the Disappearing Man finds Inspector Thomas Adye of Scotland Yard struggling to return to normalcy after his run-in with...

Dr. Orloff’s Monster

Blu-ray

Redemption / Kino Lorber

1964 / B&W / 1:66 widescreen / 84 min. / El secreto del Dr. Orloff, Brides of Dr. Jekyll, Les maitresses du Dr. Jekyll / Street Date February 7, 2017 / available through Kino Lorber / 29.95

Starring: Hugo Blanco, Agnès Spaak, Marcelo Arroita-Jáuregui, Luisa Sala, Perla Cristal, Magda Maldonado, Pepe Rubio, Pastor Serrador, Daniel Blumer, Manuel Guitián, Mer Casas.

Cinematography: Alfonso Nieva

Film Editor: Á Serrano

Original Music: Fernando García Morcillo, Daniel White

Written by: Jesús Franco, Nicole Guettard, A. Norévo

Produced by: Marius Lesoeur

Directed by Jesús Franco

Arguing the merits of Jesús Franco seems a blind alley to me. I know academic film writers that have seen dozens of his films and who assure me that they perceive an artist amid all the exploitation and pornography. Why not? I continue to see Franco as a fringe filmmaker of little talent and less interest. Keep anything up long enough and it...

Lou Reed was a rock & roll grandmaster whose catalog includes some of the most potent recordings ever made. First with the Velvet Underground, and then as a solo artist, he made music ranging from the wildly experimental to the perfectly straightforward. But Reed was a storyteller above all, waxing poetic about the full, frightening spectrum of human emotions years before others would dare. With their trans heroines, drug narratives, love stories, elegies, guitar jams and drone-scapes, he made LPs that could be flawed. But they always showed a mind two moves ahead.

Though director Roman Polanski’s next film was set to tackle the Dreyfus affair, the 1890s French political scandal involving a Captain of the French Army who was convicted of passing secrets to the Germans, it has so far failed to get off the ground. But now The Film Stage reports that Polanski will adapt Delphine de Vigan’s novel “Based on a True Story,” with a script from writer-director Olivier Assayas. The novel tells the story of a writer who goes through a rough time after the release of their latest book, and their relationship with an admirer who tries to impose influence on the writer.

Read More: Roman Polanski Will Not Be Extradited to U.S.

Polanski is best known for his numerous acclaimed films during his five-decade career. Some of these include “Knife in the Water,” “Repulsion,” “Cul-de-Sac,” “Rosemary’s Baby,” “Macbeth,” “Chinatown,” and “The Pianist.” His...

June is ending on a quiet note for horror and sci-fi home entertainment releases, as we only have six titles coming our way on June 28th.

Blue Underground has shown some love to two cult classics with their Blu-ray double feature of Circus of Fear and Five Golden Dragons, and Arrow Video is resurrecting another cult classic (albeit one that is a bit more recent) with their Return of the Killer Tomatoes Special Edition Blu-ray.

Other notable titles being released this Tuesday include Alien Strain, Shark Exorcist, Forgotten Tales, and Hotel Inferno.

Alien Strain (Mti Home Video, DVD)

After his girlfriend vanishes without a trace on a camping trip, he quickly goes from witness to suspect. Now, a year later, she returns to the very spot from which she was taken, but not like she was before.

Circus of Fear/Five Golden Dragons Double Feature (Blue Underground, Blu-ray)

Circus Of Fear...

Reviewed by Kevin Scott, MoreHorror.com

Venus in Furs (1969)

Written by: Jess Franco, Malvin Wald, Milo G. Cuccia, Carlo Fadda, Bruno Leder.

Directed by Jess Franco

Cast: James Darren (Jimmy Logan), Maria Rohm (Wanda Reed), Klaus Kinski (Ahmed Kortobawi), Margaret Lee (Olga), Barbara McNair (Rita)

This may be the oldest film that I have reviewed thus far for More Horror. I had almost forgotten that in was in my Netflix roster, and through some celluloid serendipity, or more specifically, me forgetting about updating my snail mail DVD queue, Venus in Furs comes in the mail. There are two names attached to this surreal piece of erotic horror. Jess Franco which is quite expected, and then James Darren. What? I only remember him from the Shatner show “T.J. Hooker”, but I think my mom really liked him. She might have even considered him “dreamy”. I looked him up and sure enough,...

Holliston: Friendship is Tragic, the graphic novel based on the Holliston TV series from Adam Green (Frozen), features characters from the show and will be released in October. Also: Alexandre Aja’s curator collection on Shudder, Circus of Fear and Five Golden Dragons double feature Blu-ray details, a Viktorville poster, and a Shark Exorcist trailer.

Holliston: Press Release: “Source Point Press has announced they are currently in production on a graphic novel titled “Holliston: Friendship is Tragic”, based on the horror sit-com Holliston tv series created by filmmaker Adam Green. This announcement coincides with Source Point’s debut publisher booth at C2E2 in Chicago, and to celebrate the announcement the first promotional image for the comic will be available as a C2E2 exclusive art print limited to only 50 copies. Writer Greg Wright, artist Stephen Sharar, Editor Travis McIntire, and colorist and letterer Joshua Werner will...

Of the hundreds of films screened at festivals across the nation only a handful will wind up at your local theaters, and that goes for those lucky enough to have been viewed at the growingly prestigious Tribeca Film Festival (Tff).

A month has passed, and the media has already unremembered the 14th edition of Tribeca, which had an overall attendance of 467,000 -- and now it's beginning to forget Cannes and its offerings, such as Todd Haynes' Carol, which already has a 2016 Oscar buzz surrounding it. And by tomorrow, anticipation will start growing for the Telluride, Toronto, and New York Film Festivals, and so forth. A sisyphean cycle if there ever was one. But thanks to some wise studios distributing several of Tribeca's offerings, this year's Fest's imprint might last a little longer.

There's the hauntingly exuberant documentary The Wolfpack (opening June 12th) that, pre-tff, started garnering plaudits at Sundance.

Lou Reed recalled his vision for the Velvet Underground and his derision for that band's contemporaries in a recently rediscovered interview that PBS has animated as part of its Blank on Blank series. The singer told music executive Joe Smith in 1987 that he felt the purpose of the band was "to elevate the rock & roll song and take it where it hadn't been taken before."

He also had strong words for his more successful peers in the Sixties. "When [bands] did try to get, in quotes, 'arty,' it was worse than stupid rock & roll,...

Feburary’s Late Nite Grindhouse show was originally going to be Duke Mitchell’s Massacre Mafia Style. Unfortunately, there was a scheduling conflict with the only 35mm print of that film. Therefore, we have had to book another title. Massacre Mafia Style will show at a later date but I feel extremely lucky to bring you guys the restored version of Jess Franco’s Vampyros Lesbos. If that title sounds saucy, it’s because it is. Nudity, sex and blood will be shown on the big screen at the Hi-Pointe next weekend and you should join us!

Vampyros Lesbos

1971 / dir. Jess Franco / Digital

From Jess Franco, the filmmaker The Vatican called “the most dangerous director in the world”, comes the most celebrated movie of his legendary career: Stunning Soledad Miranda stars as a vixen vampire who lures women to a Mediterranean island to satisfy her insatiable lust for female flesh and blood.

Rosemary’s Baby

Directed by Roman Polanski

United States, 1968

Roman Polanski’s first foray into real, genre horror is a classic of mostly unseen dread.

Featuring a closely-coiffed Mia Farrow as the soft-spoken, childlike Rosemary Woodhouse, potential mother to the devil; John Cassavetes, post-Shadows, and just about to truly kick off his great directorial run; and the inimitable Ruth Gordan as a sort of Grace Zabriskie-precursor: the creepy neighbor next door, heavily made-up and eerily meddlesome, Rosemary’s Baby picks up the paranoid thread of 1965’s Repulsion. The film also anticipates the similarly – though more political – claustrophobic suspicion of Alan Pakula’s 1970’s films.

Like Repulsion Polanski puts a slender, nymph-like female at the center of the narrative, though Rosemary is endowed with more power than Catherine Deneuve’s Carol. Unlike his earlier film, Polanski externalizes the baleful forces and makes them realer. The strength of Rosemary’s...

The Velvet Underground's self-titled third album will be reissued as a six-disc "super deluxe" set to celebrate its 45th anniversary this fall. The record, which was the group's first without founding violist John Cale and is home to the single "What Goes On" and fan favorites "Pale Blue Eyes" and "Candy Says," will now be the centerpiece of a 65-track set, housed in a case-bound book, with many different mixes of the songs. The reissue will also be available as a single-disc remastered album and as a two-disc deluxe edition,...

From What is Before, a 338-minute film by Filipino director Lav Diaz, has won the Golden Leopard, grand prize of the 67th Locarno Film Festival. The moody and atmospheric black-and-white film depicts rising levels of fear, violence and suspicion in a small village, reflecting the widespread impact of Ferdinand Marcos’ regime, which imposed martial law in the 1970s. The film also took three prizes from the festival’s independent juries, including the Fipresci award.

Pedro Costa won Best Director for Cavalo Dinheiro, another film of intense visual beauty, set in the former Portuguese colony of Cape Verde, off the coast of West Africa. The film examines collective memory through the figure of an elderly man who wanders through hospital corridors, abandoned streets and ruined factories, in limbo between past and present, and under the ominous surveillance of the military.

Best Actress went to Ariane Labed, who made her screen breakthrough...

Welcome to week nine of our 2014 Summer Box-Office Challenge! Think of it as a summer-long contest for movie-lovers — you’ll make predictions and guesses as to which summer movies will rule the box-office each week, we award points and at the end of the contest the three top point-earners will each win a Blu-ray/DVD prize pack! First place will win ten (10) Blu-ray/DVD titles released throughout the coming summer, second place wins five (5) and third place wins two (2). We’ll have bonus questions each week as well to help bolster your point totals and keep you in the running. The majority of you chose correctly last week and picked the Think Like a Man sequel to win the weekend box office, but it looks to be incredibly close with 22 Jump Street earning just one million dollars less. The estimates show Think banking $30m — a nice round number sure to change slightly once the actuals come in...

They came to the sanitarium seeking help, but the women in 1971′s Slaughter Hotel have unknowingly checked into a building they may never leave alive. In director Fernando Di Leo’s Italian slasher film, a lunatic with an axe stalks the women of the sanitarium, pushing their sanities — and their bodies — to the breaking point. Raro Video USA is now bringing this bloody Italian shocker to Blu-ray and DVD in the Us.

Also known as La bestia uccide a sangue freddo, Slaughter Hotel stars the legendary Klaus Kinski, Margaret Lee, and Rosalba Neri. Blu-ray.com reports that the fresh high definition transfer of the film’s original 35mm negative will be hitting Blu-ray in the Us this September. It will also be released on DVD at the same time.

“From the maestro of mayhem, Fernando Di Leo (Rulers of the City, Manhunt) comes one of the sleaziest and nastiest slasher films ever made.

Update: The acetate was placed on eBay and will be available for bidding until July 28th at 11 p.m. Est.

A rare early Velvet Underground record recorded in 1966 and sold at auction in 2006 for $25,200 will be going back up for auction this July.

Lou Reed, Velvet Underground Leader and Rock Pioneer, Dead at 71

The so-called "Scepter Studios" acetate contains several songs that would eventually be released on the group’s landmark debut The Velvet Underground & Nico the following year, including alternate takes and mixes for "I’m Waiting for the Man,...

We’re back with another edition of the Indie Spotlight, highlighting recent independent horror news sent our way. Today’s feature includes the Blood Widow trailer and release details, Vengeance Fest lineup details, multiple trailers, and more:

Photos, Release Details, and Trailer for Blood Widow: “One of America’s foremost homes for horror, Midnight Releasing has picked up the highly anticipated fright-flick Blood Widow. The Jeremiah Buckhalt-directed slasher will be available on – among other outlets – Redbox on June 3rd, 2014.

A bloody, creepy cocktail that blends the wickedness of A Nightmare on Elm Street with the dark, macabre seasoning of Candyman, Blood Widow introduces us to horror’s next major slasher icon – and she’s not going away anytime soon!

Danielle Lilley, Brandon Kyle Peters, Christopher de Padua, Jose Miguel Vasquez, and Kelly Kilgore star in a Jeremiah Buckhalt film.

After buying a nice house in the country, Laurie and Hugh,...

The first trailer for Roman Polanski‘s Venus in Fur actually debuted a few months ago. But alas, that trailer was in French, leaving all us non-Francophones out in the dust. We could look at the pictures. We could hoot when the pictures looked nice, scratch our heads in confusion when they didn’t. But anything above orangutan-level comprehension was a bit of a stretch. Well, now the English-speaking world has its own Venus in Fur trailer, with subtitles and narration and a full grasp of “who are these people and what are they doing.” That’s the good. The bad is that our English-language introduction to Venus in Fur has lost a certain something in translation. Venus in Fur, adapted from a play of the same name, is the story of Thomas (Mathieu Amalric), a playwright holding auditions for his latest work. So far, the auditions are a bust; every actress who’s come in to...

We have great news for those of you who subscribe to Full Moon Streaming. It has been announced that fifty Blue Underground titles have been acquired by Full Moon Features for their new streaming service:

“Los Angeles, CA, February 3, 2014 – Full Moon Features is proud to announce their most exciting acquisition yet – fifty of cinema’s most obscure and beloved classics from the Blue Underground label will debut on their new subscription-based video streaming service, Full Moon Streaming (www.fullmoonstreaming.com), home to the entire Full Moon Features library. The Blue Underground titles will be released once per week beginning in March, and titles will include Venom (a beloved thriller about a killer snake starring Klaus Kinski, Susan George, and Oliver Reed), Mondo Cane (the Award-Winning documentary that launched the whole “mondo” craze of the sixties), Contamination (a gory Italian homage to Alien), Violent City (the Charles Bronson action classic), Don...

Full Moon has been steadily beefing up its streaming service, and if you haven't had a chance to check it out yet, this latest announcement should persuade you and then some. Read on for details, and get those smart TVs ready!

From the Press Release

Full Moon Features is proud to announce their most exciting acquisition yet – fifty of cinema’s most obscure and beloved classics from the Blue Underground label will debut on their new subscription-based video streaming service, FullMoonStreaming.com, home to the entire Full Moon Features library.

Blue Underground titles will include Venom (a beloved thriller about a killer snake starring Klaus Kinski, Susan George, and Oliver Reed), Mondo Cane (the award-winning documentary that launched the whole “Mondo” craze of the Sixties), Contamination (a gory Italian homage to Alien), Violent City (the Charles Bronson action classic), Don’T Torture A Duckling (horror/thriller from Italian godfather of...

Stars: Rhonda Griffin, Justin Lauer, Bill Moynihan, Kristin Norton, Jon Simanton | Written by Benjamin Carr | Directed by Charles Band

I’ll be honest, The Creeps originally came at a time when, beyond the Puppet Master movies, I had grown tired of Full Moon’s schtick… Having moved the studio to Romania, their production values were falling, casting choices were resulting in some truly wooden performances and worst of all their films were getting more and more ridiculous, with gimmicks replacing decent stories. Case in part, The Creeps.

Released in 1997, The Creeps – at least on paper – sounds utterly ridiculous, even for a Full Moon flick, and it’s easy to see why I avoided it for so long. The film is essentially a redux of the “mad scientist” story we’ve seen a million times before – itself a movie archetype as much as the classic monsters who are the heroes of...

In 1972, a couple of years after the Velvet Underground imploded, Lou Reed, struggling to latch onto his identity as a solo artist, kicked off a period of rapid-fire image transformation roughly parallel to the more high-profile one that David Bowie was enacting. For three or four years, Reed tried on his outlaw personas like costumes from hell (Iggy-ish gutter hunk, kohl-eyed leather-bar rock & roll animal, cropped-blond ambisexual mannequin). It was his way of tapping into the liberating boundary-bashing of the post-’60s wasteland. During that period, Reed tried to live up to the ideal of being a “transformer” (the title of his second,...

Not that Lou Reed would have recognized me (though I was introduced to him once, which I'll get to), but he and his body of work intersected my life in more personal ways than that of any other major rock star. So this isn't an obituary so much as a series of memories. For obituaries, check out Gary Graff in Billboard and Jon Dolan in Rolling Stone.

Lou was from Long Island and I was from Long Island. At the most basic level, this meant that, growing up listening to Long Island radio stations, I heard lots of Lou even when he was no longer especially fashionable (between about 1976 and 1981). Thus, while most of the world ignored his 1978 album Street Hassle, I heard much of it on Wlir and Wbab, and bought it – my first Lou album. He had started out underground in the Velvet Underground, had managed to claw...