Nightshooters is a kinetic, frenetic, UK actioner laced with humour, cold tea, and explosive gore, and it’s enjoying its Canadian premiere on today’s line up of Toronto After Dark titles, as the virtual format of the film festival continues! Falling squarely into the wrong place wrong time of action films, the film follows a group…
Tag: effects
TAD 2021: Alien On Stage dir. Lucy Harvey & Danielle Kummer
The right idea, at the right time, can be magic. It happened in 1979 when Ridley Scott delivered the first true science fiction horror film. It also happened again in 2013, in Dorset, when a group of amatuer actors, and professional bus drivers decided to bring the film to the stage instead of their usual…
Willow (1988) – Ron Howard
I remember the first time I saw Willow. I know where I was, and I remember how it swept me up in its narrative. I knew I had to see it the moment it told me it was from the imagination of George Lucas. I knew who Ron Howard was, but I was a teenager…
Mortal Kombat (1995) – Paul W.S. Anderson
Paul W.S. Anderson loves his video game properties it seems, and in 1995, he delivered the first version that tried to create a narrative around an incredibly popular fighting game, and his first ‘big’ film. Some would argue that this was incredibly stupid idea, and yet, there are people who love this iteration. While the…
Mission: Impossible (1968) – The Town, and The Killing
Paramount Pictures Mission: Impossible – The Complete Series on blu-ray continues to entertain as I delve into another pair of episodes this week. First up is The Town, written by Sy Salkowitz, it first debuted on 18 February, 1968. It’s also a but of a different episode, as there is no assignment for Phelps (Peter…
Outland (1981) – Peter Hyams
Peter Hyams writes and directs this galactic update of the classic western, High Noon, that sees Sean Connery stepping into the Gary Cooper role of a lone marshall awaiting the arrival of men who are coming to kill him. With a visual look that seems to marry it with the universe of Alien (aided by…
Warlock (1989) – Steve Miner
Back in the early 90s, I would occasionally babysit the kids next door to get some extra cash (or any for that matter, as I was trying to find a work/life balance between schooling, job hunting, and friction at home). Amongst their collection of VHS tapes there was a copy of Warlock, and I don’t…
Friday the 13th (2009) – Marcus Nispel
In 2009 Paramount Pictures and Warner Brothers (who own New Line Cinema) working with the production company Platinum Dunes gave us a soft reset on the Jason Voorhees (Derek Mears) story and did their best to up the gore and nudity. The script seems to want to be a combination of the first three films,…
Saturn 3 (1980) – Stanley Donen, and John Barry
Gorgeous set and production design can’t save a film with a number of top drawer stars (Kirk Douglas, Farrah Fawcett, and Harvey Keitel) thanks to a heavily edited final cut, and flawed story. Not to mention some miniature and model work that may have worked in the 50s but looks incredibly bad in the 80s,…
Freddy vs. Jason (2003) – Ronny Yu
After the mess that was Jason X, Freddy vs. Jason, the film that horror fans had been waiting for, ends up being pretty damned entertaining, despite some inconsistencies in tone, effects, and in-universe continuity. Freddy Krueger (Robert Englund) has been forgotten, so he seeks a way to bring fear back to the young people of…
Phantasm: Ravager (2016) – David Hartman
For the first time, Don Coscarelli lets someone else in the director’s chair for an entry in the Phantasm series (could you imagine a reboot, or a television series rework of this?) though he had his hand in the script as well as producing. Reggie (Reggie Bannister), Michael (A. Michael Baldwin), Jody (Bill Thornbury) and…
Friday the 13th Part VI: Jason Lives (1986) – Tom McLoughlin
Jason (C.J. Graham) is back for another go around, as he gets resurrected and is now a truly unstoppable killer. Tommy Jarvis (Thom Matthews – the third actor to play the role, another problem that causes a lack of empathy and continuity with the character) is no longer in a mental institution, but he’s still…
