Some legends are so powerful they can never die, but they might be able to kill. That is a pervading idea behind Sasquatch, Hulu’s three-part murder-mystery documentary that explores a strange story of the famous cryptid tearing three men limb from limb on a pot farm in Northern California’s Emerald Triangle.
Fittingly premiering on April 20 a.k.a. the weed holiday “420” the series is told through the eyes of investigative journalist David Holthouse. A man who has built his career chasing monstrous humans, such as Neo-Nazis and sexual predators, Holthouse heard of these Bigfoot murders back in 1993 while laying low to avoid some gangs, and passing time working on the farms in the Redwoods. Now, nearly three decades later, he revisits the region to further uncover the truth behind the story.
Directed by Joshua Rofé (Lorena), and produced by Duplass Brothers Productions, Sasquatch is more than a monster hunt.
Fittingly premiering on April 20 a.k.a. the weed holiday “420” the series is told through the eyes of investigative journalist David Holthouse. A man who has built his career chasing monstrous humans, such as Neo-Nazis and sexual predators, Holthouse heard of these Bigfoot murders back in 1993 while laying low to avoid some gangs, and passing time working on the farms in the Redwoods. Now, nearly three decades later, he revisits the region to further uncover the truth behind the story.
Directed by Joshua Rofé (Lorena), and produced by Duplass Brothers Productions, Sasquatch is more than a monster hunt.
- 4/20/2021
- by Alec Bojalad
- Den of Geek
This The Simpsons review contains spoilers.
The Simpsons Season 32 Episode 13
The Simpsons Season 32, episode 13, “Wad Goals,” pays homage to the screwball comedy golf classic Caddyshack. More than homage, it takes a full lipped sycophantic approach which some might consider over clubbing. But it’s not a Mulligan. The story line is very different. The similarities lie in the lessons learned, and unlearned, which resonate like “the force in the universe that makes things happen when you be the ball.” Bart and Millhouse get jobs as caddies, and brown their noses on the green.
The episode begins with what is becoming an increasingly alarming trend. Ralph Wiggum, the not-so-bright son of the almost equally dense Police Chief, appears to be off whatever meds he should be on. Ralph’s fantasias have been showcased from the earliest episodes where he remembers dreams were where his other lives were. Back then it was...
The Simpsons Season 32 Episode 13
The Simpsons Season 32, episode 13, “Wad Goals,” pays homage to the screwball comedy golf classic Caddyshack. More than homage, it takes a full lipped sycophantic approach which some might consider over clubbing. But it’s not a Mulligan. The story line is very different. The similarities lie in the lessons learned, and unlearned, which resonate like “the force in the universe that makes things happen when you be the ball.” Bart and Millhouse get jobs as caddies, and brown their noses on the green.
The episode begins with what is becoming an increasingly alarming trend. Ralph Wiggum, the not-so-bright son of the almost equally dense Police Chief, appears to be off whatever meds he should be on. Ralph’s fantasias have been showcased from the earliest episodes where he remembers dreams were where his other lives were. Back then it was...
- 3/1/2021
- by Don Kaye
- Den of Geek
It seems like an eternity ago — but it’s only been three years — that Universal Studios’ proposed “Dark Universe” collapsed after its disastrous debut with The Mummy.
A proposed slate of interconnected films featuring Javier Bardem as Frankenstein’s monster, Johnny Depp as The Invisible Man, Russell Crowe as Dr. Jekyll and even Angelina Jolie as the Bride of Frankenstein was quietly entombed in the studio’s development crypt after The Mummy unraveled like a…you get the idea.
Flash forward to 2020 and Universal took a tentative step back into the monster pool this past February with Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man, a modern take on the venerable tale that kept some of its key narrative and thematic aspects while smartly updating it for a post-#MeToo world — and making the idea of an invisible man thoroughly creepy again.
The movie was produced under the auspices of Blumhouse Films,...
A proposed slate of interconnected films featuring Javier Bardem as Frankenstein’s monster, Johnny Depp as The Invisible Man, Russell Crowe as Dr. Jekyll and even Angelina Jolie as the Bride of Frankenstein was quietly entombed in the studio’s development crypt after The Mummy unraveled like a…you get the idea.
Flash forward to 2020 and Universal took a tentative step back into the monster pool this past February with Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man, a modern take on the venerable tale that kept some of its key narrative and thematic aspects while smartly updating it for a post-#MeToo world — and making the idea of an invisible man thoroughly creepy again.
The movie was produced under the auspices of Blumhouse Films,...
- 6/20/2020
- by Don Kaye
- Den of Geek
The Walt Disney Company has opted to suspend production on all films, be they shooting across the Atlantic Ocean or simply in pre-production in California. The delay comes on the heels of international upheaval in the film industry during the escalating coronavirus pandemic.
Among the biggest delays is director Rob Marshall’s highly anticipated remake of The Little Mermaid. The film, which was apparently nine days away from filming, stars Halle Bailey as one of Disney’s most popular princesses, the aquatic Ariel, as well as Melissa McCarthy as the dastardly Ursula the Sea Witch. The movie was set to begin shooting in England later this month and is still expected to shoot there, although with no public date in mind.
Another major casualty is the Disney/20th Century Studios film, The Last Duel, which saw director Ridley Scott returning to his period epic roots. The Last Duel, a true...
Among the biggest delays is director Rob Marshall’s highly anticipated remake of The Little Mermaid. The film, which was apparently nine days away from filming, stars Halle Bailey as one of Disney’s most popular princesses, the aquatic Ariel, as well as Melissa McCarthy as the dastardly Ursula the Sea Witch. The movie was set to begin shooting in England later this month and is still expected to shoot there, although with no public date in mind.
Another major casualty is the Disney/20th Century Studios film, The Last Duel, which saw director Ridley Scott returning to his period epic roots. The Last Duel, a true...
- 3/13/2020
- by David Crow
- Den of Geek
The wrestling world is responding to the Covid-19 outbreak, which has now forced the NHL and NBA to suspend their seasons as well as the cancellation of the Ncaa tournament, the postponement of the Major League Baseball season, the cancellation of the inaugural Xfl season, and much more.
First, WWE has canceled Friday’s SmackDown event in Detroit. Instead, the show will air on Fox and will take place from the WWE Performance Center, the training facility that the company owns in Orlando, Florida. Only “essential personnel” will be in the building, according to WWE.
“Friday Night SmackDown on March 13 will air live as regularly scheduled and emanate from WWE’s training facility in Orlando, Florida with only essential personnel in attendance. The event was originally scheduled in Detroit, Michigan,” the company said in a statement on Thursday night.
While nothing has been announced, it’s likely that the company...
First, WWE has canceled Friday’s SmackDown event in Detroit. Instead, the show will air on Fox and will take place from the WWE Performance Center, the training facility that the company owns in Orlando, Florida. Only “essential personnel” will be in the building, according to WWE.
“Friday Night SmackDown on March 13 will air live as regularly scheduled and emanate from WWE’s training facility in Orlando, Florida with only essential personnel in attendance. The event was originally scheduled in Detroit, Michigan,” the company said in a statement on Thursday night.
While nothing has been announced, it’s likely that the company...
- 3/13/2020
- by Mike Cecchini
- Den of Geek
Poor, poor The New Mutants. The last 20th Century Fox-produced superhero movie was scheduled to finally have its release date and day in the sun on April 3. After the movie became a production football trapped in limbo during Disney’s acquisition of Fox—there are going to be reshoots, actually there won’t be reshoots, maybe it never needed reshoots?—it was a curious sign of confidence when Disney elected to give it an April 2020 release date. That’s over now, as are the nearby release dates for the Mulan remake and Antlers.
The delays were first broken by Deadline Thursday night and were soon confirmed by Disney itself. Due to the continuing and reasonable fear over the recent coronavirus pandemic spreading across the globe, the House of Mouse decided to indefinitely postpone the releases of Mulan, The New Mutants, and Antlers until dates undisclosed.
“Making this film has...
The delays were first broken by Deadline Thursday night and were soon confirmed by Disney itself. Due to the continuing and reasonable fear over the recent coronavirus pandemic spreading across the globe, the House of Mouse decided to indefinitely postpone the releases of Mulan, The New Mutants, and Antlers until dates undisclosed.
“Making this film has...
- 3/13/2020
- by David Crow
- Den of Geek
The Fast and Furious movies like to say they’re all about “family,” which might be why it’s a prudent move for Universal Pictures to protect its family of fans during a global crisis. Hence Universal made the extraordinary step Thursday to delay Fast & Furious 9, or F9, almost a full 11 months past its original May 22 global launch. The film is now slated to open on April 2, 2021 in both the U.S. and UK.
The move follows in the footsteps of multiple high-profile blockbuster films that have been delayed, one indefinitely. The first indication that Hollywood would significantly change its release calendar due to the mounting global crisis caused by a new strain of coronavirus (Covid-19) came when Eon Productions and MGM pushed Daniel Craig’s final James Bond picture, No Time to Die, off its April release dates and into November. Also on the same day F9 gets pushed,...
The move follows in the footsteps of multiple high-profile blockbuster films that have been delayed, one indefinitely. The first indication that Hollywood would significantly change its release calendar due to the mounting global crisis caused by a new strain of coronavirus (Covid-19) came when Eon Productions and MGM pushed Daniel Craig’s final James Bond picture, No Time to Die, off its April release dates and into November. Also on the same day F9 gets pushed,...
- 3/12/2020
- by David Crow
- Den of Geek
I refuse to eat peanuts at a bar. It’s nothing personal against them, as they can make for an excellent snack, but like cashews, pretzels, chips, or any other miscellaneous “open” food, it remains open to anyone. And I saw a scene begin like this in Contagion nine years ago.
Actually it’s the first scene of the movie when Gwyneth Paltrow’s Beth Emhoff sits at an airport bar, sweating profusely. As she absently speaks on the phone with an illicit lover, director Steven Soderbergh’s camera is far less interested in her conversation than where her hands are going: on the glass that someone else will clean, on the credit card she hands the bartender, and, yes, in that peanut bowl. As indicated by a title card ominously hovering over her head, it’s “Day 2” since the beginning of an outbreak of a novel strain of influenza.
Actually it’s the first scene of the movie when Gwyneth Paltrow’s Beth Emhoff sits at an airport bar, sweating profusely. As she absently speaks on the phone with an illicit lover, director Steven Soderbergh’s camera is far less interested in her conversation than where her hands are going: on the glass that someone else will clean, on the credit card she hands the bartender, and, yes, in that peanut bowl. As indicated by a title card ominously hovering over her head, it’s “Day 2” since the beginning of an outbreak of a novel strain of influenza.
- 3/11/2020
- by David Crow
- Den of Geek
Elizabeth Rayne Jim Knipfel Daniel Kurland Tony Sokol Dec 24, 2018
If you're in the mood to spice up your holiday eggnog with a real kick, we have 17 Christmas horror movies that are to die for...
Technicolor lights are illuminating every other home in the neighborhood; carolers are marching through the streets; even that old tree in Rockefeller is shining brightly.
For some folks, that’s enough to make you want to grab an axe. But don’t do that. Watch demented men dressed as Santa Claus or a demon Krampus give your old Anti-Christmas sentiments a turn with maximum gore. Indeed, this list isn’t about the most charming, or heartwarming, or fancy-schmancy schmaltz that most Christmas articles, even on this site, heave into the world. Nay, this is about the 17 grossest, nastiest, and all around most fun Christmas horror movies. The kind where the greatest gift you’re going to...
If you're in the mood to spice up your holiday eggnog with a real kick, we have 17 Christmas horror movies that are to die for...
Technicolor lights are illuminating every other home in the neighborhood; carolers are marching through the streets; even that old tree in Rockefeller is shining brightly.
For some folks, that’s enough to make you want to grab an axe. But don’t do that. Watch demented men dressed as Santa Claus or a demon Krampus give your old Anti-Christmas sentiments a turn with maximum gore. Indeed, this list isn’t about the most charming, or heartwarming, or fancy-schmancy schmaltz that most Christmas articles, even on this site, heave into the world. Nay, this is about the 17 grossest, nastiest, and all around most fun Christmas horror movies. The kind where the greatest gift you’re going to...
- 12/13/2016
- Den of Geek
Jim Knipfel Feb 4, 2019
These are some of the increasingly plausible bleak futures Hollywood has envisioned for us in dystopian movies and TV.
In the 1930s, editor and social critic H. L. Mencken wrote, “All government, of course, is against liberty.” Mencken also wrote, “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” Given the results of the recent presidential election, you can grab pretty much anything Mencken wrote 80 years ago, and it would still seem curiously apt today, maybe even more than it did then.
From the moment humans decided to stop all that tiresome hunting and gathering, opting instead to settle down and get civilized, there’s always been a nagging fear. When you agree to live in a community with other people, you are...
These are some of the increasingly plausible bleak futures Hollywood has envisioned for us in dystopian movies and TV.
In the 1930s, editor and social critic H. L. Mencken wrote, “All government, of course, is against liberty.” Mencken also wrote, “The whole aim of practical politics is to keep the populace alarmed (and hence clamorous to be led to safety) by menacing it with an endless series of hobgoblins, all of them imaginary.” Given the results of the recent presidential election, you can grab pretty much anything Mencken wrote 80 years ago, and it would still seem curiously apt today, maybe even more than it did then.
From the moment humans decided to stop all that tiresome hunting and gathering, opting instead to settle down and get civilized, there’s always been a nagging fear. When you agree to live in a community with other people, you are...
- 12/1/2016
- Den of Geek
Jim Knipfel Oct 17, 2018
After all these years, Al Adamson’s cult classic Dracula vs. Frankenstein still doesn’t make a damn lick of sense!
Growing up in Wisconsin in the early '70s, I would get home from school, drop my bag, park myself in front of the TV and tune in The Early Show. Every weekday between three and five-thirty, a local station aired sometimes shockingly uncut films, and it was there my cinematic education began. I don’t know who was programming The Early Show, but I would like to shake his hand. The focus was decidedly on genre films,especially horror and recent drive-in hits. Along with scattered Westerns, war movies and mysteries, there were regular week-long Toho and Hammer fests, without a single stupid musical or romantic comedy tossed in to muck things up.
It was through The Early Show that I was introduced to Roger Corman,...
After all these years, Al Adamson’s cult classic Dracula vs. Frankenstein still doesn’t make a damn lick of sense!
Growing up in Wisconsin in the early '70s, I would get home from school, drop my bag, park myself in front of the TV and tune in The Early Show. Every weekday between three and five-thirty, a local station aired sometimes shockingly uncut films, and it was there my cinematic education began. I don’t know who was programming The Early Show, but I would like to shake his hand. The focus was decidedly on genre films,especially horror and recent drive-in hits. Along with scattered Westerns, war movies and mysteries, there were regular week-long Toho and Hammer fests, without a single stupid musical or romantic comedy tossed in to muck things up.
It was through The Early Show that I was introduced to Roger Corman,...
- 10/25/2016
- Den of Geek
Jim Knipfel Oct 17, 2018
After all these years, Al Adamson’s cult classic Dracula vs. Frankenstein still doesn’t make a damn lick of sense!
Growing up in Wisconsin in the early '70s, I would get home from school, drop my bag, park myself in front of the TV and tune in The Early Show. Every weekday between three and five-thirty, a local station aired sometimes shockingly uncut films, and it was there my cinematic education began. I don’t know who was programming The Early Show, but I would like to shake his hand. The focus was decidedly on genre films,especially horror and recent drive-in hits. Along with scattered Westerns, war movies and mysteries, there were regular week-long Toho and Hammer fests, without a single stupid musical or romantic comedy tossed in to muck things up.
It was through The Early Show that I was introduced to Roger Corman,...
After all these years, Al Adamson’s cult classic Dracula vs. Frankenstein still doesn’t make a damn lick of sense!
Growing up in Wisconsin in the early '70s, I would get home from school, drop my bag, park myself in front of the TV and tune in The Early Show. Every weekday between three and five-thirty, a local station aired sometimes shockingly uncut films, and it was there my cinematic education began. I don’t know who was programming The Early Show, but I would like to shake his hand. The focus was decidedly on genre films,especially horror and recent drive-in hits. Along with scattered Westerns, war movies and mysteries, there were regular week-long Toho and Hammer fests, without a single stupid musical or romantic comedy tossed in to muck things up.
It was through The Early Show that I was introduced to Roger Corman,...
- 10/25/2016
- Den of Geek
Jim Knipfel Sep 29, 2019
You can't escape the clown epidemic brought on by Stephen King's It, Joker, and other works of fiction.
Despite what the media has told us whenever the phenomenon has come up, creepy clowns have been lurking among us for a very long time.
In September 2014, the residents of Northampton, England began reporting a deeply disturbing stranger in their midst. The Northampton Clown, as he came to be known, was said to resemble Pennywise from Stephen King’s 1986 novel It, complete with baggy one-piece suit, white face, big red nose, and wild flame red wig. He didn’t frolic or make balloon animals. He didn’t have a seltzer bottle or do pie gags. At the same time he did not hurt people, never spoke a word, and that may have been part of the problem. All he did during his sporadic and unexpected appearances was stand...
You can't escape the clown epidemic brought on by Stephen King's It, Joker, and other works of fiction.
Despite what the media has told us whenever the phenomenon has come up, creepy clowns have been lurking among us for a very long time.
In September 2014, the residents of Northampton, England began reporting a deeply disturbing stranger in their midst. The Northampton Clown, as he came to be known, was said to resemble Pennywise from Stephen King’s 1986 novel It, complete with baggy one-piece suit, white face, big red nose, and wild flame red wig. He didn’t frolic or make balloon animals. He didn’t have a seltzer bottle or do pie gags. At the same time he did not hurt people, never spoke a word, and that may have been part of the problem. All he did during his sporadic and unexpected appearances was stand...
- 10/11/2016
- Den of Geek
Jim Knipfel Sep 5, 2019
With the release of It Chapter Two, we take a look at one of the first creepy clown films.
As a culture, we seriously hate our clowns. A deep-seated and supposedly irrational fear of clowns is so commonplace it’s even been given a scientific name: coulrophobia. It’s hardly a surprise then that angry, axe-wielding or merely creepy clowns would become such a pop cultural mainstay, from The Simpsons and Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, and more recently from Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight to Stephen King’s It and It Chapter Two. Back in the day, the video store where I used to work carried (I counted) nineteen clown-themed horror movies, from Killer Klowns From Outer Space to Divine’s last film, Out of the Dark.
Evil Clown comics used to be a regular feature in National Lampoon. The 1928 silent film The Man Who Laughs...
With the release of It Chapter Two, we take a look at one of the first creepy clown films.
As a culture, we seriously hate our clowns. A deep-seated and supposedly irrational fear of clowns is so commonplace it’s even been given a scientific name: coulrophobia. It’s hardly a surprise then that angry, axe-wielding or merely creepy clowns would become such a pop cultural mainstay, from The Simpsons and Pee Wee’s Big Adventure, and more recently from Heath Ledger in The Dark Knight to Stephen King’s It and It Chapter Two. Back in the day, the video store where I used to work carried (I counted) nineteen clown-themed horror movies, from Killer Klowns From Outer Space to Divine’s last film, Out of the Dark.
Evil Clown comics used to be a regular feature in National Lampoon. The 1928 silent film The Man Who Laughs...
- 10/4/2016
- Den of Geek
Jim Knipfel Sep 3, 2019
The 1970s New York music scene produced more than disco movies, they also brought us rock and roll comic book heroes.
The first concert I ever saw was Kiss during their Destroyer tour. My parents had seen some clips of them on the TV and were scared to death. The makeup, the costumes, the pyrotechnics, all the fire-breathing and blood-spitting had them convinced that Kiss was the most wicked, demonic band on Earth (second only to Alice Cooper), and that if I went to the show I’d undoubtedly become addicted to heroin, possessed by the devil, or at the very least be kidnapped. I didn’t bring up the rumor that Kiss was actually an acronym for Knights in Satan’s Service, nor that the possibility of demonic corruption was exactly why I wanted to see the show.
Well, I went and wasn’t sold into slavery.
The 1970s New York music scene produced more than disco movies, they also brought us rock and roll comic book heroes.
The first concert I ever saw was Kiss during their Destroyer tour. My parents had seen some clips of them on the TV and were scared to death. The makeup, the costumes, the pyrotechnics, all the fire-breathing and blood-spitting had them convinced that Kiss was the most wicked, demonic band on Earth (second only to Alice Cooper), and that if I went to the show I’d undoubtedly become addicted to heroin, possessed by the devil, or at the very least be kidnapped. I didn’t bring up the rumor that Kiss was actually an acronym for Knights in Satan’s Service, nor that the possibility of demonic corruption was exactly why I wanted to see the show.
Well, I went and wasn’t sold into slavery.
- 9/5/2016
- Den of Geek
Jim Knipfel Apr 11, 2019
1986’s Critters sometimes feels like a summation of all those more popular monster comedies that came before.
Along with teen sex comedies, slasher films, and jingoistic action hero cartoons, the early-to-mid-‘80s, depending upon your taste, was a golden era for what might most simply be called monster comedies. So we got Gremlins, Ghoulies, C.H.U.D., Q, The Winged Serpent, Basket Case, Troll, a double handful of others and their ensuing sequels. If you wanted to push it some, you could even toss E.T. and Ghostbusters in the mix. Despite the contemporary settings, hip jokes and cultural references, most were clearly modeled after classic ‘50s sci fi and monster movies like The Blob, most were relatively mild and family friendly (at least when compared with the nihilism of the slasher films), and a number of them went on to make lots and lots of money.
Released in...
1986’s Critters sometimes feels like a summation of all those more popular monster comedies that came before.
Along with teen sex comedies, slasher films, and jingoistic action hero cartoons, the early-to-mid-‘80s, depending upon your taste, was a golden era for what might most simply be called monster comedies. So we got Gremlins, Ghoulies, C.H.U.D., Q, The Winged Serpent, Basket Case, Troll, a double handful of others and their ensuing sequels. If you wanted to push it some, you could even toss E.T. and Ghostbusters in the mix. Despite the contemporary settings, hip jokes and cultural references, most were clearly modeled after classic ‘50s sci fi and monster movies like The Blob, most were relatively mild and family friendly (at least when compared with the nihilism of the slasher films), and a number of them went on to make lots and lots of money.
Released in...
- 4/6/2016
- Den of Geek
Jim Knipfel Apr 11, 2019
We celebrate the hideously deformed superhero of superhuman size and strength, New Jersey's own... The Toxic Avenger.
Assorted comic book facsimiles of New York City may be protected by the tireless vigilance of Superman, Spider-Man, or Batman, but it took Troma Entertainment to give New Jersey a long-overdue superhero all its own, and one it richly deserved. In the annals of radically independent and hilariously low-budget American filmmaking, few franchises have achieved either the longevity or the mythical status of Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz’s The Toxic Avenger, the film that cemented Troma’s style and aesthetic, and which introduced an icon who remains as intertwined with Troma’s identity as Godzilla is with Toho’s.
But let’s back up a few years.
Throughout the 1970s, Lloyd Kaufman worked in a variety of capacities on dozens of films, from small acting roles to being Rocky...
We celebrate the hideously deformed superhero of superhuman size and strength, New Jersey's own... The Toxic Avenger.
Assorted comic book facsimiles of New York City may be protected by the tireless vigilance of Superman, Spider-Man, or Batman, but it took Troma Entertainment to give New Jersey a long-overdue superhero all its own, and one it richly deserved. In the annals of radically independent and hilariously low-budget American filmmaking, few franchises have achieved either the longevity or the mythical status of Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz’s The Toxic Avenger, the film that cemented Troma’s style and aesthetic, and which introduced an icon who remains as intertwined with Troma’s identity as Godzilla is with Toho’s.
But let’s back up a few years.
Throughout the 1970s, Lloyd Kaufman worked in a variety of capacities on dozens of films, from small acting roles to being Rocky...
- 4/5/2016
- Den of Geek
Jim Knipfel Apr 17, 2019
The legend of King Arthur has never been more stylized or strange than it was in John Boorman's Excalibur.
After so many centuries as an inescapable figure in literature, art, poetry, comics, movies, cartoons, and on TV, it still seemed in 1975 Monty Python had offered the final word on the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table with Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I mean, after the holy hand grenade, what more was there to say?
Then six years later along came Excalibur.
As directors go, John Boorman has always been a weirdie, and a tough one to pin down. In the late ’60s he gave us two of the most fundamental pictures of Lee Marvin’s career with Point Blank and Hell in the Pacific. He then moved onto the unforgettable backwoods savagery of 1972’s Deliverance. Throughout the rest of...
The legend of King Arthur has never been more stylized or strange than it was in John Boorman's Excalibur.
After so many centuries as an inescapable figure in literature, art, poetry, comics, movies, cartoons, and on TV, it still seemed in 1975 Monty Python had offered the final word on the legend of King Arthur and the Knights of the Round Table with Monty Python and the Holy Grail. I mean, after the holy hand grenade, what more was there to say?
Then six years later along came Excalibur.
As directors go, John Boorman has always been a weirdie, and a tough one to pin down. In the late ’60s he gave us two of the most fundamental pictures of Lee Marvin’s career with Point Blank and Hell in the Pacific. He then moved onto the unforgettable backwoods savagery of 1972’s Deliverance. Throughout the rest of...
- 4/5/2016
- Den of Geek
Jim Knipfel Feb 4, 2019
You're still next! Over 60 years later, the pod population keeps growing as the Invasion of the Body Snatchers continues.
The Body Snatchers, Jack Finney’s novel about an insidious and silent alien invasion that threatens to turn the world’s population into a horde of emotionless, single-minded replicant drones, was published in 1955 after starting life as a magazine serial. Although inspired, at least in part, by Robert Heinlein’s 1951 novel The Puppetmasters and possibly William Cameron Menzies’ 1953 Invaders from Mars, Finney’s novel took a much darker tone and employed a handful of standard noirish elements, which left the story open to countless social and political interpretations.
It’s been held up as a shining example of Cold War paranoia, reflecting American fear of communist infiltration. On the flipside, it was also seen as a cautionary tale about creeping totalitarianism in the wake of the McCarthy Era.
You're still next! Over 60 years later, the pod population keeps growing as the Invasion of the Body Snatchers continues.
The Body Snatchers, Jack Finney’s novel about an insidious and silent alien invasion that threatens to turn the world’s population into a horde of emotionless, single-minded replicant drones, was published in 1955 after starting life as a magazine serial. Although inspired, at least in part, by Robert Heinlein’s 1951 novel The Puppetmasters and possibly William Cameron Menzies’ 1953 Invaders from Mars, Finney’s novel took a much darker tone and employed a handful of standard noirish elements, which left the story open to countless social and political interpretations.
It’s been held up as a shining example of Cold War paranoia, reflecting American fear of communist infiltration. On the flipside, it was also seen as a cautionary tale about creeping totalitarianism in the wake of the McCarthy Era.
- 1/22/2016
- Den of Geek
Jim Knipfel Dec 24, 2018
'Tis the season to be slaughtered! We look at 9 of the greatest Santa slasher movies of all time. Because these are a thing.
Sometimes the very term “Christmas movie” can dredge up an overwhelming nausea as paralyzing and blinding as the term “Christmas album.” Sure there are classics like Miracle on 34th Street and Holiday Inn, but for every one of those, you get a double handful of crap like It Happened One Christmas, The Magic Christmas Tree, and A Very Brady Christmas.
Me, I’ve always wanted to re-edit It’s a Wonderful Life, lopping off the prologue in Heaven and running the closing credits as George Bailey is standing on the bridge staring into the dark water below. Then I’d release it as “It’s a Miserable Life.”
Well, it seems I’m not alone in that thinking, and over the years a number...
'Tis the season to be slaughtered! We look at 9 of the greatest Santa slasher movies of all time. Because these are a thing.
Sometimes the very term “Christmas movie” can dredge up an overwhelming nausea as paralyzing and blinding as the term “Christmas album.” Sure there are classics like Miracle on 34th Street and Holiday Inn, but for every one of those, you get a double handful of crap like It Happened One Christmas, The Magic Christmas Tree, and A Very Brady Christmas.
Me, I’ve always wanted to re-edit It’s a Wonderful Life, lopping off the prologue in Heaven and running the closing credits as George Bailey is standing on the bridge staring into the dark water below. Then I’d release it as “It’s a Miserable Life.”
Well, it seems I’m not alone in that thinking, and over the years a number...
- 12/17/2015
- Den of Geek
Jim Knipfel May 31, 2019
With a new King Kong vs. Godzilla movie coming soon from Warner Bros., we look back at the original simian vs. saurian showdown.
After basking in international acclaim for magically bringing King Kong and a fistful of dinosaurs to life in 1933, stop-motion giant Willis O’Brien suddenly found it very difficult to scratch up any work.
After the same year’s obligatory Son of Kong, it would be another 16 years before he got any substantial film work, and even then it was just a smattering. He worked on Mighty Joe Young, The Black Scorpion, and The Giant Behemoth, but as beautiful as the results were, O’Brien’s technique was simply far too slow and laborious, and too expensive for most B-monster movie productions. Finally recognizing he had himself become a dinosaur, he decided to take a different track.
In the last decade of his life, O...
With a new King Kong vs. Godzilla movie coming soon from Warner Bros., we look back at the original simian vs. saurian showdown.
After basking in international acclaim for magically bringing King Kong and a fistful of dinosaurs to life in 1933, stop-motion giant Willis O’Brien suddenly found it very difficult to scratch up any work.
After the same year’s obligatory Son of Kong, it would be another 16 years before he got any substantial film work, and even then it was just a smattering. He worked on Mighty Joe Young, The Black Scorpion, and The Giant Behemoth, but as beautiful as the results were, O’Brien’s technique was simply far too slow and laborious, and too expensive for most B-monster movie productions. Finally recognizing he had himself become a dinosaur, he decided to take a different track.
In the last decade of his life, O...
- 9/15/2015
- Den of Geek
Jim Knipfel Jul 3, 2019
Happy 4th of July! You know how "patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel?" These movies may seem patriotic, but have darker messages.
Patriotism is a funny animal, if only because no one can ever agree on what it means, exactly. Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin felt those citizens who questioned and rebeled against an intrusive government were the truest of patriots, while only a few years later John Adams outlawed badmouthing the government. Was Joe McCarthy a patriot for trying to defend the democracy against subversive encroaching communism, or a sweaty, paranoid, power-mad psychotic? Is Edward Snowden a patriot for letting the American people know what their government was up to, or history’s greatest traitor for revealing Us intelligence secrets to the whole world?
Well, you get the idea.
Still, for filmmakers patriotism has always been an easy card to play, and a sure-fire crowd pleaser.
Happy 4th of July! You know how "patriotism is the last refuge of a scoundrel?" These movies may seem patriotic, but have darker messages.
Patriotism is a funny animal, if only because no one can ever agree on what it means, exactly. Thomas Jefferson and Ben Franklin felt those citizens who questioned and rebeled against an intrusive government were the truest of patriots, while only a few years later John Adams outlawed badmouthing the government. Was Joe McCarthy a patriot for trying to defend the democracy against subversive encroaching communism, or a sweaty, paranoid, power-mad psychotic? Is Edward Snowden a patriot for letting the American people know what their government was up to, or history’s greatest traitor for revealing Us intelligence secrets to the whole world?
Well, you get the idea.
Still, for filmmakers patriotism has always been an easy card to play, and a sure-fire crowd pleaser.
- 6/30/2014
- Den of Geek
Jim Knipfel Jun 3, 2019
Sure Godzilla vs. Mothra is a giant monster movie, but it’s a giant monster movie about an enormous Moth.
The Toho universe has always operated under a different set of rules. Cities are flattened then rebuilt in days, but insurance premiums never go up. The existence of giant monsters, even those from outer space, is taken for granted, but drop a humanoid alien into the mix and it’s inevitably met with suspicion and doubt (“Are you really really Sure you’re an alien?”). Psychics and giant robots are commonplace, and the ever-hopeful self-defense force always rolls out the same array of weapons that’ve never worked in the past.
As the Godzilla franchise marched on through the ‘90s and into the early 21st century, it seemed to become more solidly grounded in a comprehensible and recognizable reality. Human characters were believable, even a little world weary,...
Sure Godzilla vs. Mothra is a giant monster movie, but it’s a giant monster movie about an enormous Moth.
The Toho universe has always operated under a different set of rules. Cities are flattened then rebuilt in days, but insurance premiums never go up. The existence of giant monsters, even those from outer space, is taken for granted, but drop a humanoid alien into the mix and it’s inevitably met with suspicion and doubt (“Are you really really Sure you’re an alien?”). Psychics and giant robots are commonplace, and the ever-hopeful self-defense force always rolls out the same array of weapons that’ve never worked in the past.
As the Godzilla franchise marched on through the ‘90s and into the early 21st century, it seemed to become more solidly grounded in a comprehensible and recognizable reality. Human characters were believable, even a little world weary,...
- 3/20/2014
- Den of Geek
Jim Knipfel May 31, 2019
After 16 movies, Godzilla 1985 stomped a fine line between sequel, remake, and reboot. In that regard, it was ahead of its time.
In the early ‘70s it became clear to everyone, audiences and Toho executives alike, that the once-majestic Godzilla franchise was taking a precipitous slide down the crapper. There were reasons for this. A number of behind-the-scenes figures fundamentally responsible for the films’ early greatness (most notably director Ishiro Honda and special effects genius Eiji Tsuburaya) either left the franchise for other projects or died. Combine that with shrinking budgets that hit the special effects department first, and the on-screen results started looking pretty shabby. Increasingly tattered monster costumes were re-used from film to film; once-elaborate miniature cities became rows of balsa wood boxes, and as a last resort, fight scenes from earlier films were edited into new films to save time and money.
Beyond that Godzilla himself had changed,...
After 16 movies, Godzilla 1985 stomped a fine line between sequel, remake, and reboot. In that regard, it was ahead of its time.
In the early ‘70s it became clear to everyone, audiences and Toho executives alike, that the once-majestic Godzilla franchise was taking a precipitous slide down the crapper. There were reasons for this. A number of behind-the-scenes figures fundamentally responsible for the films’ early greatness (most notably director Ishiro Honda and special effects genius Eiji Tsuburaya) either left the franchise for other projects or died. Combine that with shrinking budgets that hit the special effects department first, and the on-screen results started looking pretty shabby. Increasingly tattered monster costumes were re-used from film to film; once-elaborate miniature cities became rows of balsa wood boxes, and as a last resort, fight scenes from earlier films were edited into new films to save time and money.
Beyond that Godzilla himself had changed,...
- 3/9/2014
- Den of Geek
Jim Knipfel May 31, 2019
Roland Emmerich's 1998 Godzilla was many things (most of them bad), but it wasn't really a Godzilla movie.
After Godzilla was decisively snuffed for only the second time in his then-40-year career at the end of Godzilla vs. Destoroyah, Toho’s Tomoyuki Tanaka announced the studio would be giving their cash cow a breather. This has happened several times in Godzilla's career. They’d done it before, back in 1975 and 1995, so there was no widespread panic at the news. Let the Big Guy take a little vacation or something. But he never mentioned Godzilla would be taking that vacation in Manhattan.
After announcing the hiatus, Tanaka turned around and sold the licensing rights to Sony on a limited basis for what was supposed to be a three-picture deal. Sony immediately got to work, bringing in the sure-fire team of Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin, who...
Roland Emmerich's 1998 Godzilla was many things (most of them bad), but it wasn't really a Godzilla movie.
After Godzilla was decisively snuffed for only the second time in his then-40-year career at the end of Godzilla vs. Destoroyah, Toho’s Tomoyuki Tanaka announced the studio would be giving their cash cow a breather. This has happened several times in Godzilla's career. They’d done it before, back in 1975 and 1995, so there was no widespread panic at the news. Let the Big Guy take a little vacation or something. But he never mentioned Godzilla would be taking that vacation in Manhattan.
After announcing the hiatus, Tanaka turned around and sold the licensing rights to Sony on a limited basis for what was supposed to be a three-picture deal. Sony immediately got to work, bringing in the sure-fire team of Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin, who...
- 2/23/2014
- Den of Geek
Jim Knipfel Dec 24, 2018
Rene Cardona's Santa Claus movie from 1959 is so utterly bizarre that it transcends Christmas.
When the conversation rolls around to bad Christmas movies, there’s of course a broad spectrum from which to choose, Santa Claus (1959) being one of them. Given that nearly every Christmas movie ever made is insufferable to some degree, it’s generally easier, I’ve found, to break things down into categories that stretch from the simply godawful (Jingle All the Way) to the agonizingly painful (A Very Brady Christmas or that Marlo Thomas remake of It’s a Wonderful Life) to the merely baffling (the continued string of Home Alone sequels and reboots).
Of course there are some people who think they can bring the conversation to an abrupt end by pulling out Santa Claus Conquers the Martians as the last word on holiday cinema. There’s simply nothing more to say.
Rene Cardona's Santa Claus movie from 1959 is so utterly bizarre that it transcends Christmas.
When the conversation rolls around to bad Christmas movies, there’s of course a broad spectrum from which to choose, Santa Claus (1959) being one of them. Given that nearly every Christmas movie ever made is insufferable to some degree, it’s generally easier, I’ve found, to break things down into categories that stretch from the simply godawful (Jingle All the Way) to the agonizingly painful (A Very Brady Christmas or that Marlo Thomas remake of It’s a Wonderful Life) to the merely baffling (the continued string of Home Alone sequels and reboots).
Of course there are some people who think they can bring the conversation to an abrupt end by pulling out Santa Claus Conquers the Martians as the last word on holiday cinema. There’s simply nothing more to say.
- 12/22/2012
- Den of Geek
Jim Knipfel Dec 9, 2019
Need a scary Christmas movie? You Better Watch Out, better known as Christmas Evil, isn't just another Santa slasher film.
For some of us, nothing says “Merry Christmas” quite like an axe-wielding Santa.
If you’re the type who’s gone looking you’re well aware that there’s an obscene number of Santa slasher pictures on the market, dating back at least to the early ‘70s. But it would be unfair to lump You Better Watch Out (more widely known today as Christmas Evil) together with the likes of Silent Night, Bloody Night.
Writer/director Lewis Jackson’s 1980 film is different. In fact it’s not a slasher film by any stretch. It’s less a blood-soaked parade of slaughtered teenagers than a character study about a man of principle who is pushed past the breaking point. What it is, more specifically, is the Taxi Driver of Christmas movies.
Need a scary Christmas movie? You Better Watch Out, better known as Christmas Evil, isn't just another Santa slasher film.
For some of us, nothing says “Merry Christmas” quite like an axe-wielding Santa.
If you’re the type who’s gone looking you’re well aware that there’s an obscene number of Santa slasher pictures on the market, dating back at least to the early ‘70s. But it would be unfair to lump You Better Watch Out (more widely known today as Christmas Evil) together with the likes of Silent Night, Bloody Night.
Writer/director Lewis Jackson’s 1980 film is different. In fact it’s not a slasher film by any stretch. It’s less a blood-soaked parade of slaughtered teenagers than a character study about a man of principle who is pushed past the breaking point. What it is, more specifically, is the Taxi Driver of Christmas movies.
- 12/14/2012
- Den of Geek
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