Expelled Grey Matter

Slaughterhouse is one of many low budget horror films made in the 1980s by a writer/director who managed to scrape the money together to make one film and then never did anything again.  In the case of Rick Roessler it appears it wasn't for lack of trying as he did intend for Slaughterhouse to have a sequel, and I'm sure it made money.  It just never happened. This is one of the many slashers that fell between the cracks.  In this case a big part of the problem is that this film is about five years too late to cash in on the genre.  It also feels like something that is older than it appears, as if the movie had sat on a shelf since the early 1980s.  It also has too much in common with The Texas Chain Saw Massacre , using many of the same set design choices of animal bones as decoration outside the slaughterhouse of the title as well as an opening line claiming that the events are based on a true story.  Slaughterhouse is also more comedic than the normal slasher and seems aware

Terry Gilliam had directed one movie - Jabberwocky  - outside of working with Monty Python prior to making Time Bandits .  His comic art, and his set design, were aspects that helped both Monty Python and the Holy Grail and Life of Brian stand out as comedy films, but it was no surprise that major studios had their doubts about producing his script for Time Bandits after the uneven comedy fantasy of Jabberwocky .   Nominally a children's movie, it was to feature a cast of dwarf actors and go to some dark places in its fantasy setting.  Lucky for Gilliam there was George Harrison.  Harrison had come to the Pythons' rescue with funding to make Life of Brian  and he did so again for Time Bandits .  The result was not only a unique fantasy film but a movie that would set Gilliam apart as a director, having both a certain aesthetic as well as subversive undertone to stories that would become more pronounced in his later movies.   Kevin (Craig Warnock) is an 11-year-old boy who loves

Aguirre, the Wrath of God was the first movie in which Werner Herzog cast Klaus Kinski as the lead.  He had previously had some contact with the actor when he had rented a room from Herzog's family and, after writing the script, thought he would be perfect for the lead role.  Kinski thought so as well and a long, contentious partnership between the two was begun. I don't know if Herzog was aware of Kinski's difficulties, but in his usual fashion he decided to make a movie about an ill-fated journey down the Amazon River from Peru to find the fabled city of El Dorado by taking his crew to Peru and floating down the Amazon River.  I have often wondered who was crazier, Herzog or Kinski, when it came to the two as collaborators and rivals.  Whatever the answer may be to that their partnership resulted in some of the best movies to grace the screen. Gonzalo Pizarro (Alejandro Repullés), governor of the Spanish colony of Peru, sets out with an army and a large party of Indian sl

Werner Herzog considers F. W. Murnau's Nosferatu, a Symphony of Terror to be the greatest German film ever made.  It's not a surprise that he set before himself the task of remaking the classic silent adaptation of Dracula in his own manner.  To make things even more difficult he cast his favorite fiend, Klaus Kinski, in the lead role that Max Schreck had played in the original.  The result is an interesting take on both the original film and the novel with an altered ending that has caused a bit of controversy. Jonathan Harker (Bruno Ganz) is tasked by Renfield (Roland Topor) to travel to Transylvania to meet with Count Dracula, who is interested in purchasing a house near Harker's in the town of Wismar.  Harker's wife Lucy (Isabelle Adjani) has had frightening dreams and begs Harker not to go, but he does as he is bid and, despite the warnings of the local Gypsies, makes his way to Dracula's castle.  Once there he finds himself prisoner in the castle and ill from

"Sometimes They Come Back" was one of Stephen King's early short stories and one of the most memorable from his Night Shift collection.  It is pure King, portraying bullies in their worst light and taking any romanticism out of small-town life.  Like all the best King short stories it works best on the page because, where King has a habit of filling his novels with bloat at often has trouble nailing the ending, he rarely has that same problem with his shorter works. The problem comes when someone decides to extend what would make a good story in an anthology movie or show to feature length, and that is what we have with the 1991 television movie adaptation of the story.  In fact, it was originally supposed to be one of the stories in Cat's Eye , but Dino de Laurentiis decided it would work better on its own. Jim Norman (Tim Matheson) is a teacher that suffered a nervous breakdown sometime in the past.  Against his better judgment he accepts a job in his hometown, a pl

If there is a horror trope that is more played out than zombies it is vampires.  I am more than happy with the Universal and Hammer films as well as a handful of others, but it is rare that I look forward to seeing another vampire film.  It is around 150 years since Joseph Sheridan Le Fanu introduced them to popular culture with Carmilla , and the only true innovation over that time has been altering the rules.  Even so, altering the rules often means returning to the ones set out by Le Fanu and Bram Stoker, as the movies tended to ignore the books and just come up with their own. There are times, though, where someone adds a new twist to the old story.  This is what Guillermo del Toro does in his feature film debut, Cronos .   Jesus Gris (Federico Luppi) operates an antique store in Mexico City, often with his granddaughter Aurora (Tamara Xanath) in tow.  Some of his items include those that were sold off as a lot in the 1930s and had belonged to an alchemist (Mario Iván Martínez) tha