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The lives of anonymous strangers become intricately intertwined in this 1986 effort by late Taiwanese auteur Edward Yang. Following the sudden death of his superior, a doctor frames his colleague in order to succeed as the clinic’s director. The doctor’s writer wife, meanwhile, is experiencing a mid-life crisis, struggling to finish her next novel while surrendering to the advances of an ex-boyfriend. Elsewhere, a hippie photographer randomly snaps a delinquent girl escaping from a crime scene and becomes obsessed with her. The girl is locked up at home by her mother, and begins making random prank calls, which in turn affect the lives of the doctor and his wife.Read More »

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Based illegally on Bram Stoker’s Dracula, F. W. Murnau’s film is undeniably the best and probably the most faithful of the myriad of films based on the novel. Naively, the film’s producers attempted to circumvent the author’s estate’s copyright by changing the names and central location of the film. London became Wisborg, Count Dracula is called Graf Orlock, Jonathan Harker became Hutter and his wife Mina was named Ellen, and so on. Ironically, in all prints struck over the last few decades, the names (apart from the location, for obvious reasons) have reverted to the originals of Stoker’s novel. Made on a tiny budget by Praha-Film, as the first of an ambitious slate of occult films, an overzealous spending on promotion sent the film rapidly into debt, limiting its distribution potential. Add to this, a tenacious perseverance on the part of Stoker’s wife Florence to protect her copyright (who almost saw to the destruction of all prints of the film when the original negative was destroyed after a court decision). Read More »

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This mind-bending thriller follows two brothers who receive a cryptic video message inspiring them to revisit the UFO death cult they escaped a decade earlier. Hoping to find the closure that they couldn’t as young men, they’re forced to reconsider the cult’s beliefs when confronted with unexplainable phenomena surrounding the camp. As the members prepare for the coming of a mysterious event, the brothers race to unravel the seemingly impossible truth before their lives become permanently entangled with the cult.Read More »

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When it comes to addressing old films, there are two broad schools of thought: one is that they don’t make them like they use to and the other is that technology has improved the quality of films. While each side has its pros and cons what it often boils down to is citing examples. Whether it’s the grand visuals of Avatar or the beautiful dramatics of Broken Bosoms, each side has some strong hitters.

The Killing is not about a murder, but a simple heist: two-million dollars from the racetracks. Led by Johnny Clay (Sterling Hayden), a gang of men from different walks of life all come together to pull off a heist. But, as always happens, the heist hits a hitch, mainly Sherry Peatty (Marie Windsor), wife of George Peatty (Elisha Cook), their inside man. After wringing out the details from her husband, she compromises the confidentiality of the heist.Read More »

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Thought of by some as the last truly great film of Jean Rollin’s career, the 1982 feature La Morte Vivante (The Living Dead Girl) is a fascinating but flawed feature graced with two of the most unforgettable performances in all of Rollin’s canon. A frustrating work brought to life by some of the most iconic imagery seen in a Rollin film, The Living Dead Girl is a simultaneously ferocious and poetic work deserving of its reputation as one of Rollin’s most important films…Read More »

In this insiders look at life in the porn business, filmmaker Dag Yngvesson speaks with both naïve newcomers and seasoned skin-flick veterans to offer a revealing portrait of cinema’s most controversial cash cows. By exploring the routes both into and out of the porn business, Yngvesson discovers that the adult film industry has taken on an unprecedented air of legitimacy despite lingering taboos. It didn’t happen overnight though, and in addition to exploring such lingering issues as sexually transmitted diseases, racism, and misogyny, Yngvesson digs deep to offer a studied look at the progression of porn thus far, and an intriguing look at where the business may be headed in the future.
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Nasrin wants to divorce her husband, but knows she won’t be able to get custody of her six-year-old daughter if she does. So, unbeknown to her husband, she and her daughter move to another part of town where Nasrin finds a job at a hospital crèche. One day her husband catches up with her and their lives take an unexpected turn.Read More »

Before it became possible (in the late 19th and early 20th centuries) to imprison young heirs and heiresses in mental institutions in order to gain control of their inheritances, greedy families had for centuries “given” their daughters to convents without the girls’ consent. Usually, such nunneries were only nominally religious, and their involuntary inhabitants lived a life of relative ease and luxury compared to their genuinely religious (or poorer) sisters. In the film Interno di un Convento, a zealous, handsome priest, who is the confessor for a convent full of such women, encourages the equally zealous abbess of one such institution to enforce the same strict rules on these unfortunate women that are applied to others. In doing so, they uncover a snake pit of sexual couplings, both lesbian and heterosexual, as well as many tools for masturbation. At the same time, a particularly disturbed inmate manages to poison herself and many of the other novitiates in yet another scandal which is covered up by church authorities.Read More »

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LUSH AND GOTHIC, RARELY HAS EROTICA IN FILM BEEN SO STUNNINGLY PRESENTED.

Night is falling. A frightened Schoolgirl makes her way along the deserted cobbled street, glancing fearfully around her. She is being pursued, but by whom–or what? Swept away, she awakens in an eerie, candlelit mansion. Her captors, the mysterious Ladies of the Night. Ageless and deadly, they examine their newest plaything. Teasing, tormenting, seducing, they toy with their young victim. As her alarm subsides, she submits to their dark, haunting beauty more and more eagerly. Led to the underground Torture Chamber, flogged, paddled, and caned, she is driven to the brink of absolute surrender. With the approach of dawn, her torture intensifies, and the Vampires at last taste her Virgin blood.Read More »