Screening Report: The Jaws of Death (7/19/15 Alamo Drafthouse, Yonkers, NY)

Here I am again with another one of those “for the love of 35mm and the horror community” opens that you have all come to love from me. All right, perhaps not, but that does not make it any less accurate. There really is something special about getting to see some of these crazy old movies in a theater from these scratched up prints. There is history there, these are not movies that had thousands of prints struck. It was mentioned during the introduction that this might have had 50 prints that were played regionally and traveled around. I doubt there were any new ones made, so this is very likely one of those original traveling prints. How's that for history?

Hudson Horror Show Invades the Alamo! (Again!!)

If you know me, you have probably heard me talk about the Hudson Horror Show. There really is no doubt about this. Over the past five years, this biannual show has become one of my most anticipated events of the year. I have become friends with the great guys who run the show, as well as seemingly everybody else who goes to or vends there. I am hard pressed to think of a better event for horror and exploitation fans than these. Movies and trailers projected on the big screen from 35mm film in a theater full of like-minded fools. err, folks? What's not to love?

Screening Report: The Beyond (6/16/15 Alamo Drafthouse, NY)

Comparatively speaking, I have not been a horror aficionado for very long. I have covered a lot of ground, but always feel like I am playing catch up. Still, in that time I have come to love a fellow named Lucio Fulci. I may have only seen a handful of his movies to this point, but there is no denying that he has risen through the ranks of favorite directors. Among that handful, one has become one of my all time favorites, The Beyond. A masterpiece of surrealistic, gory horror, so any chance to see it on the big screen must be taken, of this there is no question.

Movie Review: The Connection (2015)

In 1971, William Friedkin gave us the first R-rated film to win Best Picture, The French Connection. It is a pretty amazing thriller that gives us a fictionalized version of an actual reality where a couple of narcotics cops stumble onto a drug smuggling ring with ties to France. It is a gritty thing of a movie that has to be considered among the best crime films. Now, knowing what was going on in New York City and the ties to France, could there be anything similar going on on the other side of the ocean? Enter The Connection, a French production that takes a look at the French investigation in Marseilles into the massive drug operation.