Author Archives: Steven Lewis

Wild Child of Evil! Shiver review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on

When a story becomes too fantastic and passing the point of belief when it’s suppose to feel true, doesn’t speak very highly of the story’s quality.  The draining feeling of being sucked into such can only leave a bad taste in a viewer’s mouth.  Why does this happen, you ask?  The story starts to stretch, reaching a highly unobtainable goal to which we’re suppose to believe that can happen when we know for a fact that there is about a zero to null chance of that event from ever occurring in real time.  If a fantastic story done correctly, your brain doesn’t have to stretch beyond it’s belief and accept the novel nature of the story’s reason or direction.  Isidro Ortiz’s Shiver, not to be confused with David Cronenberg’s Shivers, is exactly the correct method in suspending our disbelief below our threshold of reason.

Santi is a tormented high school kid with an over protective mother.  His severe physical allergic reaction to sunlight and his teeth deformity has labeled him forever a vampire boy by the school bullies.  When the doctor suggests moving Santi to a dimmer part of the country, he and his mother waste no time settling into a small village nestled deep with in the crevice of mountains.  Peace and quiet is far from achieved as local murders have been pinned to Santi who quickly believes he is the next victim of a monstrous forest killer.

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Williamson’s Trek to Nowhere. Death Journey review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on

In the midst of my own journey as I move north to face new challenges (and to move in with my fiance), I find the time in this busy futuristic lifestyle of packed boxes and neglected rest to sit and watch Fred Williamson’s 1976 Death Journey released by Code Red DVD.  I adore Code Red; their fans get what they ask for as Code Red’s ears are surely open and ready to receive the intake of rare and outrageous selections.  However, Death Journey marks my very first concern for the DVD label as I’m not sure what pinpoints to be very unique of this example of blaxploitation besides being very bland.

When two New York City lawyers fear their case against a crime lord will die with the rest of their murdered witnesses, they hire Jesse Crowder, a former cop whose mercenary tactics are undesirable but effective.  His $50,000 mission is to escort Finley, a former account of the crime lord, across the country to testify, but at every turn, trouble lies and waits for Jesse and Finley.

Watching Death Journey was painful.  I hate to admit that, but the truth must be told.  Being exposed to various convoluted stories, my mind has become a complex web of complexities.  This back-to-back sequel to No Way Back, also released in 1976, bares a simple-minded story and executed in a simple-minded way.  Pointless exposition describing their every action boggles down the flow of the plot and the obviously bad choreographed fight scenes reveal the faux blows, the dimwitted edited and the placing of the shot directly on a downed villain to show that he has been knocked out by Crowder’s martial arts skills.

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Dig the Evil out of your Ears! Scream of the Banshee review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Lauren Holly.  Oh, sweet Lauren Holly.  My, my how have you tripped and stooped to such films that are way under your more gifted talents (or assets for that matter).  From your Turbulence flight of terror to your sweet, Angel Boris lookalike sweet piece of round booty in Dumb and Dumber to your short-lived stint of empowering women roles in NCIS and, now, you’ve dropped to so called “originals” presented by the After Dark collection.  Whats next, Lauren Holly?  Will we see you next on Soap Operas and Nickelodeon shows?  Scream of the Banshee, part of After Dark collection, should be considered as a Nickelodeon TV show!

A university professor and her understudies are sent a mysterious package with no return address.  The contents of the box are that of a gauntlet, a suited metal armor that covers the forearm and hand.  A note with the gauntlet directs them to Section 3 where a box has been hidden behind a deteriorating wall.  The professor uses the gauntlet to open the box releasing a ear-piercing, blood thirsty terror that will haunt them and kill them if they so much as scream!

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Homeless Bum vs Evil! Hobo With A Shotgun review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Just last night I was sparing with one of my editors for another review horror website about meaning behind the term “grindhouse.”  My editor believes that no such word should exist and the entire meaning behind the term is just a loo to generate business for studios looking to recapture a 70’s ultra-violent culture with in a cinema medium.  Whereas I believe the sleazy retro-fierce genre still lives and breathes today, spanning over 40 years.  Every genre goes dormant for some time; the zombie genre went dormant all through the nineties before making a ridiculous comeback at the turn of the millennium.  Whether me or my editor is right or wrong, the facts are undeniable that violent, exploitive and gruesome movies are still being produced today and being labeled a “grindhouse” film is still up for debatable grabs.  Hobo with a Shotgun is one of those violent, exploitive and gruesome films made in modern day.

A traveling hobo rides the rail into a wretched town filled with homeless exploiters, pedophile Santas, disrespectful murderous punks and a crime lord named The Drake and his two merciless sons Ivan and Slick.  All the Hobo wanted was peace and to gain enough money to buy himself a lawn motor from the local pawn shop  Instead, the town got to him pushing him over the edge causing him to buy a single barrel, pump-action justice delivering shotgun!  Even if you jay-walked, the Hobo took vigilantism one shell at a time.

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Darabont’s TV Evil! Buried Alive review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Being a nostalgia fiend has some advantages.  I’m not just rehashing old material you’ve probably seen or read a billion times before, spewing the muck and bile that’s been regurgitated and swallowed down again only to be regurgitated once more.  Hardly do you see another, run-of-the-mill review about Scream, Friday the 13 VIII: Jason Takes Manhatten or Bride of Chucky.  Most horror fans are familiar with the bodies of these works; my realm of interest scratches at the indie circuit and those lesser known films that, perhaps, folks are aware of but never seen, or have witnessed them in the past and their minds can’t piece together what that film was in the present.  The latter happened to me with an old Frank Darabont TV movie Buried Alive.  You know Darabont, right?  He only did some of the most prolific work of the last decade and half adapting works from Stephen King and kicking off the hit AMC TV show The Walking Dead!

Clint Goodman lives a humble town with his high maintenance wife Joanna.  Her love for Clint has been long gone ever since he constructed, what he thought, was their two story dream home in his home town.  Joanna strings along an affair with a city doctor; they plot to kill Clint with a fish secretion that causes a fatal heart attack.  When Joanna pulls off the caper, she collects what she thinks is her dues:  sells the house, sells the business and is ready to leave town to start her new life.  However, Clint awakens.  Trapped inside his own coffin, he manages dig himself out, discover Joanna’s dastardly doings and plans his own revenge against his wife and her lover.

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