Ringu Collection Blu-ray Review: Ghostly Revenge, Again and Again
By Kent Conrad |
Four weird, gripping and often terrifying films of spectral revenge that began the J-horror boom are now on Blu-ray.
Genius Party & Genius Party Beyond Blu-ray Review: Dozen Odd Egg Japanese Animations
By Kent Conrad |
Twelve short films from veterans of the anime industry explore the limits of storytelling, animation, and sometimes the audience’s patience.
Morituri (1965) Blu-ray Review: Hidden Naval WWII Classic
By Kent Conrad |
Starring Marlon Brando and Yul Brenner, Morituri is a great spy thriller beautifully shot aboard a real German frigate.
The Big Fix (1978) Blu-ray Review: A Hippy Neo-noir Lament
By Kent Conrad |
Richard Dreyfuss is Moses Wine, a former-hippy detective whose latest case takes him back to his radical roots.
Hellbound: Hellraiser II (1988) Blu-ray Review: Same Gore, Less Story
By Kent Conrad |
Follow up to Hellraiser has the same aesthetic, same cast, much the same crew, but not enough story or ideas.
Hellraiser (1987) Blu-ray Review: Clive Barker’s Semi-professional Debut
By Kent Conrad |
An erotic and grotesque twist on a haunted house story, with an unsettling horrific vision that supersedes some film-making fumbles.
True Believer (1989) Blu-ray Review: Blisteringly Performed Courtroom Drama
By Kent Conrad |
Briskly paced, excellent acted late ’80s drama stars a disillusioned James Woods and a young, idealistic Robert Downey Jr.
The Flavor of Green Tea over Rice Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: Gentle Ozu Comedy
By Kent Conrad |
Grandmaster filmmaker Ozu’s minor, observant comedy about the growing differences between a middle-aged married couple.
Akio Jissoji: The Buddhist Trilogy Blu-ray Review: New Wave Filmmaking, Naked Ladies
By Kent Conrad |
Challenging, evocative films from the Japanese New Wave that contemplate aspects of the Buddhist religion, with lots of sex.
The Leopard Man (1943) Blu-ray Review: Subtle, Underrated ’40s Chiller
By Kent Conrad |
A disappointment to its creators on release, The Leopard Man is one of Val Lewton and Jacques Tourneur’s hidden gems.
Yakuza Law Blu-ray Review: Gory Fun Yakuza Anthology
By Kent Conrad |
Three fun but gory short stories of the Yakuza taking the law into their own hands, filled with bloody torture.
Batman vs. Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles Blu-ray Review: Fun, If Over-packed, Crossover Event
By Kent Conrad |
The mutant turtles join the Caped Crusader as Foot ninjas descend on Gotham city.
John Carpenter’s Ghosts of Mars Blu-ray Review: Sad Retread from a Master
By Kent Conrad |
This rote sci-fi horror thriller from a former master has some good ideas that it does nothing with.
Never-Ending Man: Hayao Miyazaki Blu-ray Review: Master Filmmaker’s New Challenge
By Kent Conrad |
An intimate look at Japanese filmmaker Hayao Miyazaki’s return from retirement to make a short CGI film.
The Brain (1988) Blu-ray Review: Giant Brain Eats Man
By Kent Conrad |
A ridiculous, fun ’80s horror sci-fi flick about a man-eating alien brain with hypnotic powers.
A Silent Voice Blu-ray Review: Bully Redemption in a Subdued Tone
By Kent Conrad |
An animated drama about a school bully picking on a deaf girl tells a story quiet about redemption and consequences.
The Body Snatcher (1945) Blu-ray Review: Boris Karloff’s Finest Hour
By Kent Conrad |
One of RKO’s famous Val Lewton produced horror pictures and an atmospheric, tense horror thriller.
Perfect Blue (1997) Blu-ray Review: Anime Psychothriller Lives Again
By Kent Conrad |
Satoshi Kon’s animated psychological thriller is a mind-bending story of violence and personality crisis in the Japanese pop world.
The Magnificent Ambersons Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: A Flawed Masterpiece, but Still a Worthwhile Film
By Kent Conrad |
The Criterion Collection has stacked this beautiful release of Welles’s troubled second production with a plethora of extras.
Lu Over the Wall Blu-ray Review: Vampire Mermaids Warm the Heart
By Kent Conrad |
A boy befriends a mermaid, and director Masaaki Yuasa reigns in his anarchic animation style…for a little while.
Maquia: When the Promised Flower Blooms Blu-ray Review: Emotional, Poignant Fantasy Epic
By Kent Conrad |
This visually arresting fantasy story of a mother and son that pulls at the heartstrings (and the tear ducts).
Suspiria (2018) Blu-ray Review: Wildly Reinvented, Massively Flawed
By Kent Conrad |
This remake of the 1977 horror classic completely reinvents the story, rarely for the better, and is very, very long.
Melies: Fairy Tales in Color Blu-ray Review: When Special Effects Were Magic
By Kent Conrad |
A collection of 13 short films by the early effects genius of Silent Cinema.
Little Annie Rooney Blu-ray Review: Charming Silent Comedy and Melodrama
By Kent Conrad |
One of Mary Pickford’s most successful films pulls on the heartstrings with admittedly shameless melodrama.
Fanchon the Cricket (1915) Blu-ray Review: Lost Pickford Film Charms
By Kent Conrad |
Mary Pickford’s waif character is charming in a rural comedy about a wild child and the townsman she loves.
Orgies of Edo Blu-ray Review: Torture, Surrealism, and Topless Women
By Kent Conrad |
Teruo Ishii’s strange anthology of period stories of sex and torture is more bizarre than erotic, though entertaining.
Metropolis (2001) Blu-ray Review: Visually Opulent, Narratively Dormant Adaptation
By Kent Conrad |
Inspired by Osamu Tezuka’s manga and Fritz Lang’s movie, this anime has style in excess…but lacks a cohesive story.
Torso (1973) Blu-ray Review: Sleazy Suspenseful Giallo Goodness
By Kent Conrad |
Director Sergio Martino crafts a precursor to modern slasher movies that combines sexploitation with stabbings. And gougings.
Book Review: The Teenage Slasher Movie Book by J.A. Kerswell
By Kent Conrad |
A comprehensive, lavishly illustrated overview of the reviled, but ever popular, slasher-movie genre.
Horrors of Malformed Men Blu-ray Review: Complete Malformed Japanese Madness
By Kent Conrad |
Teruo Ishii’s strangest film of murder, doppelgangers, and the titular malformed men finally makes it to Blu-ray.
Tideland Blu-ray Review: Childhood, Love, and Necrophilia
By Kent Conrad |
Terry Gilliam’s controversial tale of an innocent in a grotesque world is four parts beautiful, six parts repulsive.
Mind Game (2004) Blu-ray Review: Endlessly Confusing, Endlessly Fascinating
By Kent Conrad |
Masaaki Yuasa’s debut animated feature is a kaleidoscope of images and scenes that, miraculously, make a coherent (if confusing) film.
Street Mobster Blu-ray Review: Gritty, Nasty Yakuza Drama
By Kent Conrad |
Kinji Fukasaku’s brings docu-drama realism and brutal ugliness to the Yakuza genre in this gritty film.
The Third Murder Movie Review: All Justice, No Truth
By Kent Conrad |
Hirokazu Kore-eda’s keen observation of human interaction is brought to a courtroom drama, winner of six Japanese Academy awards.
Detective Bureau 2-3: Go to Hell Bastards! Blu-ray Review: Undercover Yakuza Hijinks
By Kent Conrad |
Released in 1963, director Seijun Suzuki was on the brink of his artistic breakthrough with this comic gangland picture.
The Bloodthirsty Trilogy Blu-ray Review: Dracula Goes East
By Kent Conrad |
Three Japanese movies directed by Michio Yamamoto that involve Western-style vampires, with style, atmosphere, and some decent sprays of blood.
Seijun Suzuki: The Early Years Vol. 2 Border Crossings: The Crime and Action Movies Blu-ray Review: Nikkatsu Noir
By Kent Conrad |
Five early films by Seijun Suzuki spotlight Nikkatsu’s early 60s trends and the director’s growing ambition.
Basket Case (1982) Blu-ray Review: Enthusiastically Silly and Sleazy
By Kent Conrad |
Frank Henenlotter’s feature debut comes on a ridiculously stuffed Blu-ray, a must for any fan.
Henri-Georges Clouzot’s Inferno Blu-ray Review: Lost Masterpiece or Dodged Bullet?
By Kent Conrad |
Documentary details Clouzot’s experimental Inferno, using recently discovered footage from the failed production, to mixed results.
Eagles of Death Metal: Nos Amis Blu-ray Review: Friendship in the Face of Evil
By Kent Conrad |
Heartfelt if slight documentary about a rock band’s return to Paris in the aftermath of a terrorist attack.
An Actor’s Revenge Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: Kabuki Costumes in Modernist Cinema
By Kent Conrad |
Kon Ichikawa’s remake of a ’30s movie dresses a stagey plot in innovative cinematic stylings.
Kameradschaft Criterion Collection Blu-ray Review: A Cry for Cooperation
By Kent Conrad |
Pabst’s 1931 mine disaster film is swiftly paced, beautifully shot, and a heartfelt plea for comradeship between nations.
Dawson City: Frozen Time (2016) Blu-ray Review: Uncovering Cinematic Buried Treasures
By Kent Conrad |
In an industry that is lately obsessed with making films available in multiple different versions, both in medium of delivery and in the actual content, it’s astounding to conceive just how disposable film was in its early days. Cinema was more curiosity than art form, and it’s estimated that nearly 75% of all the films…
Jerome Bixby’s The Man From Earth (2007) Blu-ray Review: Science Fiction Chamber Play
By Kent Conrad |
Ten years after it was a sleeper sci-fi hit, Man from Earth comes visually restored to Blu-ray.
Glory (2016) DVD Review: Bulgarian Tragicomedy Depressed Me
By Kent Conrad |
A railway lineman ruins his life by doing the right thing in this semi-comic, biting and ultimately depressing film.
The Captive (1915) Blu-ray Review: War, Romance, Forced Labor
By Kent Conrad |
Olive Films releases an obscure film from epic director Cecil B. DeMille’s silent cinema days.
Don’t Torture a Duckling (1972) Blu-ray Review: Rural Murder Italian Style
By Kent Conrad |
Lucio Fulci, famous for his gore and zombie films, brings his lurid vision to the Giallo.
Terror in a Texas Town (1958) Blu-ray Review: Swedish Sterling Slays Slinger
By Kent Conrad |
One of Dalton Trumbo’s last pseudonymous screenplays before the blacklist was broken, this is a stylish Western noir.
The Slayer (1982) Blu-ray Review: Marital Crisis Solved by Slayer
By Kent Conrad |
An idiosyncratic semi-slasher that barely got a theatrical release is finally on home video, uncut and restored.
Book Review: Unchained Melody: The Films of Meiko Kaji by Tom Mes
By Kent Conrad |
Arrow Books presents a critical overview of Lady Snowblood’s entire career.