The B-Masters Cabal

Smart storytelling and characters make the thriller The Reincarnation Of Peter Proud a winner.
Keith Bailey is the proprietor of The Unknown Movies Page.

I’d already reviewed everything from Roger Corman Tribute Night, but most of the Italian Horror Night program was new to me:

 

A Blade in the Dark (1983), which started out as a four-part TV miniseries, and might have been at least slightly better if it had remained one…

Cemetery Man (1993), which might be the Gen-Xiest movie ever made by a bunch of people born in the 50’s…

and…

Opera (1987), which I was all set to praise as Dario Argento’s best pure giallo until he went and got Dario Argento all over it.

 

Meanwhile, I also saw all these over the past month or so:

 

House of the Living Dead (1973), a strange and in some ways extremely old-fashioned gothic from South Africa, of all places…

The Substance (2024), in which regaining one’s youth isn’t all it’s cracked up to be…

Sword of the Valiant (1983), in which Stephen Weeks’s second go-round with the legend of Sir Gawain and the Green Knight goes awry completely differently from his first…

and…

The Turn of the Screw (1989), in which I finally complete the set for Showtime’s old “Nightmare Classics” package of made-for-TV mini-movies.

 

 

 El Santo rules the wasteland-- and also 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting.

Michael Caine complained that the producers of Kidnapped never paid him for appearing in it. Viewers, on the other hand, will pay a price.
Keith Bailey is the proprietor of The Unknown Movies Page.

The legendary John Huston directs the Canadian horror movie Phobia, an especially taxing tax shelter production.
Keith Bailey is the proprietor of The Unknown Movies Page.

I cast a somewhat wider net with this update than I’ve managed to do in a while:

 

Crippled Avengers (1978), which isn’t 12.5% as squirmy as that other kung fu movie with “crippled” in the title…

Girl Slaves of Morgana Le Fay (1971), in which King Arthur’s evil half-sister decides that collecting hot chicks is way more fun than thwarting Grail quests and tricking knights into betting each other their heads…

The Invincible Kung Fu Brothers (1976), in which Chang Cheh’s fourth Shaolin Temple movie looks remarkably like his second…

Shaolin Temple (1976), in which the fifth one, on the other hand, breaks quite a bit of new ground…

Mutant (1984), which isn’t about mutants so much as it is about acidic zombies and ornery rednecks…

The Red House (1947), which always gets awkwardly shoehorned into discussions about film noir and the most aridly fallow period of American horror cinema, even though it’s really a very well-disguised gothic mystery…

and…

Teenage Zombies (1959), in which I regret to inform you that Jerry Warren is at it again.

 

 

 El Santo rules the wasteland-- and also 1000 Misspent Hours and Counting.

Even those with a taste for misguided movies from Cannon Films will find Grace Quigley to be very heavy going.
Keith Bailey is the proprietor of The Unknown Movies Page.

A remarkably dumb script doesn’t hurt Action U.S.A. too much, thanks to the movie containing plenty of… action!
Keith Bailey is the proprietor of The Unknown Movies Page.

Michael Mann made his movie directing debut with The Jericho Mile, and oh, what a glorious debut it was.
Keith Bailey is the proprietor of The Unknown Movies Page.

Unless you’ve always longed to see Christopher Lee and Mickey Rooney cast in the same movie, Arabian Adventure is unlikely to give you much enjoyment.
Keith Bailey is the proprietor of The Unknown Movies Page.

Former Beatles drummer Ringo Starr plays a Mexican bandit in the spaghetti western Blindman, which shows off his trademark meanness and cruelty well.
Keith Bailey is the proprietor of The Unknown Movies Page.