The Rogues' Tavern (1936)

The Rogues’ Tavern (1936)

Police detective Jimmy Kelly (Wally Ford) and ex-department store detective Marjorie Burns (Barbara Pepper) are in a hurry to get married so hop across the border to the Red Rock Tavern, which is instead an inn—I suppose when the producers couldn’t find a tavern set for cheap they decided it was too much effort to

Death Takes a Holiday (1934)

Death Takes a Holiday (1934)

Death (Fredric March) wants to understand humans and their reaction to him so decides to take on human form and spend three days on the estate of Duke Lambert (Sir Guy Standing) in the guise of Prince Sirki. Death makes one rule: the Duke cannot tell any of the others in attendance who he really

Devil Bat’s Daughter (1946)

Devil Bat’s Daughter (1946)

Nina MacCarron (Rosemary La Planche), daughter of the late Doctor Carruthers, of ā€œDevil Batā€ fame, is found comatose, having just arrived in town. She has a fear of vampires and her father, and she’s put under the care of expert psychologist Dr. Clifton Morris (Michael Hale), who wants to kill his wife and put the

The Phantasm Series

The Phantasm Series

Surrealistic or just nonsensical, the low-budget to low-low-budget Phantasm films (four with a fifth past-due for release) have a reputation for being original fright-fests. That’s unfortunate as that raises the wrong expectations. Far from attempting for originality, the series is a conglomeration of what came before. Scenes and even lines are taken from previous films.

Ghostbusters (2016)

Ghostbusters (2016)

A physicist (Kristen Wiig), a ghost hunter (Melissa McCarthy), an engineer (Kate McKinnon), and a mass-transit ticket-taker (Leslie Jones) join forces to form the Ghostbusters. A disgruntled janitor is summoning ghosts in order to carry out a larger scheme that will wipe out humanity and our team must use their high tech gadgets to defeat

Hellboy (2004)

Hellboy (2004)

In 1944, a young Professor Broom accompanies a military unit on a mission to stop Rasputin (Karel Roden) and The Third Reich from carrying out a magical ritual that will end the world. They succeed—though Rasputin’s loving assistant, Ilsa Haupstein (Biddy Hodson) and the freakish assassin Karl Ruprecht Kroenen (Ladislav Beran) escape—and find a horned,

Alien: Covenant (2017)

Alien: Covenant (2017)

The crew of a colony ship is awakened by an accident—except for their synthetic, Walter (Michael Fassbender), who was awake—and while making repairs, picks up a signal. The new, uncertain captain, who needs the approval both of the crew and of God, decides to follow the signal to its Earth-like world which might be a

It (2017)

It (2017)

A group of teens, each defined by one attribute (the Jewish one, the fat one, the black one, the girl, etc.), who are bullied and have terrible parents, are set upon by an evil clown (Bill SkarsgĆ„rd). Based on the Stephen King novel of the same name, It removes the half of the book—the weird

Gamera 3: Revenge of Iris (1999)

Gamera 3: Revenge of Iris (1999)

Four years earlier, Ayana Hirasaka’s parents were crushed by Gamera in his fight against the gyoas. Now she lives with her uncaring aunt and uncle in a miserable little town filled with terrible teens. Within a temple, she finds, and binds with, a strange creature that is related to Gamera and the gyoas. It grows,

Rampage (2018)

Rampage (2018)

He-man Dwayne ā€œThe Rockā€ Johnson (Dwayne Jonson)—for some reason using the name Davis Okoye, but he’s just The Rock—pretends to be a special forces trained killing machine, who loves animals. He’s also a primatologist, which in this film does not require any scholarly training; it just means you hang out with apes and joke around,

Mad Love (1935)

Mad Love (1935)

Dr. Gogol (Peter Lorre), perhaps the greatest surgeon in France, is obsessed with goth actress Yvonne Orlac (Frances Drake). Her husband (Colin Clive), a concert pianist, has his hands mangled in a train wreck and although Yvonne is frightened by Gogol, goes to him to try and save her husband’s hands. That’s impossible, soĀ GogolĀ transplants the

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014)

A Girl Walks Home Alone at Night (2014)

In a Middle Eastern town, perhaps named Bad City or perhaps not, Arash (Arash Marandi) lives with his junkie father (Marshall Manesh) and works as a handyman, and perhaps middleman drug dealer. The main dealer and pimp (Dominic Rains) is coming down hard on him for his father’s debts, and takes the one thing that