THE DANMAN CAN

 "I like the roller coaster. You get more out of it." Ron Howard Feature Films Ranked

10 To  Midnight   (1983) is a minor sleaze classic. The fact that  J. Lee Thompson , director of 1962's  Cape Fear ,  The Guns Of Navarone   (1961) [ review ], and two of the '70s  POTA   films, including one of the very best, 1972's  Conquest Of The Planet Of The Apes   made this film has  something to do with it. Adam Greenberg 's beautifully lit cinematography and Robert O. Ragland 's top notch score also have something to do with it. For the most part, I didn't grow up watching  Cannon Group / Golan  &  Globus  pictures (save for a few), so it's been a real treat digging into their catalog in my 30s and 40s. Their brand of exploitation is recognizable across genres and carries with it a certain mark of quality, despite the low to mid level budgets of their movies. Of their  films that I've seen , none are complete schlock and they are frequently and consistently entertaining. The production valu...

An incredibly stylish, suspenseful, and beautifully shot gothic classic. "It was an evil house from the beginning—a house that was born bad." "The dead are not quiet in Hill House." "In the night. In the dark."  Robert Wise Feature Films Ranked

Jean Rollin 's The Grapes Of Death (1978) is a dreamy, gory, and haunting infection flick with gorgeous locations and some of the better performances of any of Rollin's films. Jean Rollin Feature Films Ranked

Freeway (1996), Matthew Bright ’s darkly hilarious take on Little Red Riding Hood , treads in similar ground to other scuzzy ‘90s crime films, but it does a commendable job of subverting expectations a number of times.  At only 19, Reese Witherspoon is as good here as she is in 1999's Election [ review ] and really leaves an impression. Kiefer Sutherland takes a bit of a backseat to Witherspoon, screen time-wise, but is perfectly sinister as a pedo predator. Brittany Murphy , in a smaller role, is as awkward, weird, and charming as she was in the following year’s Drive [ review ]. Danny Elfman 's score is a fun one, before he started churning out bland sonic wallpaper.  I love the genre-mashing happening in this trash odyssey—it dabbles in street drama, serial killer psychological horror, women’s prison picture, and road movie, all while maintaining a blackly comic sense of humor (featuring some amazingly inappropriate dialogue). The film takes a little bit of time to get...