Posts by Tom Fallows

Review: The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires (1974)

Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires poster
Submitted by Tom Fallows on Fri, 2009-10-16 02:58
Shocktober Classics 2009: Staff Screams

By the time of The Legend of the 7 Golden Vampires in 1974 Hammer Studios was dying. Thanks to the vérité horrors of films like Night of the Living Dead (1968), their unique brand of Gothic chills seemed archaic - as dusty as one of Dracula's cobwebbed tombs. Indeed, Golden Vampires would mark the last appearance of their erstwhile Count and Hammer would soon after stagger into the graveyard of television and, finally, oblivion. Golden Vampires is filled with the kind of desperation akin to someone in their death throes and the assimilation of Kung Fu (then all the rage) reeks of a company all out of ideas. But despite this Golden Vampires actually has a lot to offer. In fact, it is one of Hammer's best films of the 1970s and remains a fitting send off for one of the giants of British Cinema.(read more...)

Tom Atkins ("Night of the Creeps") Interview

Tom Atkins
Submitted by Tom Fallows on Wed, 2009-10-14 12:06

In the 1980s, while muscle bound lunkheads like Stallone and Schwarzenegger were battling the forces of darkness with lame quips and a minor armory at their disposal, one man was doing it with nothing more a carton of cigarettes and a six-pack of beer. With his blue collar charm and everyman exterior, Tom Atkins became something of a minor league hero in some of the decade's favorite cult movies. He took on ghostly pirates in John Carpenter's The Fog (1980), an occult madman in Halloween III: Season of the Witch (1982) and a zombified lawman in Maniac Cop (1988).(read more...)

Review: The Sorcerers (1967)

The Sorcerers poster
Submitted by Tom Fallows on Mon, 2009-10-05 01:33
Shocktober Classics 2009: Staff Screams

"How long do you think all this can last?" asks a bored Mike at a swinging 60s happening. And this throwaway line becomes the central thread of Michael Reeves's stunning second film The Sorcerers, the movie that would pave the way for his masterpiece Witchfinder General in 1968. While on the surface offering a seemingly carefree world of mind altering drugs, free love and promiscuous sex, Reeves instead probes deeper and suggests a darker side where moral laxity leads not to joy, but to destruction. For the characters who abandon responsibility, death is waiting.(read more...)

Review: Road Games (1981)

Road Games poster
Submitted by Tom Fallows on Wed, 2009-08-05 13:54

Director Richard Franklin has openly confessed that his Road Games is an "Alfred Hitchcock derivative." Replacing Jimmy Stewart's apartment view in Rear Window with the fly-splattered windscreen of an 8-wheel truck, Road Games hurtles into a world of obsession, mistaken identity and psycho killers as if the master himself were in the passenger seat. But the sheer unhinged energy Franklin injects into the narrative make this more than just a simple pastiche. This is Hitchcock at 80mph and it doesn't let up for a second.(read more...)

Gary Sherman ("Death Line") Interview

Gary Sherman
Submitted by Tom Fallows on Fri, 2009-07-31 09:43

Gary Sherman never wanted to direct horror movies. But like all filmmakers who are perhaps a little too good at what they do, he got stuck in a particular genre's tangled web. Sherman is, of course, the man behind such cult classics as the London Underground-set Death Line and the Ron Shusett & Dan O'Bannon (of Alien fame) penned Dead & Buried. Both films displayed an eerie, slow-burning approach to horror that left fans in little doubt that he was one of the genre's true masters. But despite directing the extreme violence of Vice Squad, the ill-fated Poltergeist III (one of the last films to use entirely in-camera special effects), and the DV cam serial killer flick 39: A Film by Carroll McKane, Master of Horror was a mantle Sherman didn't want. Here he talks to Classic-Horror about his involvement with the genre, and his long standing desire to finally break free of it.(read more...)

Review: Death Line (1972)

Death Line poster
Submitted by Tom Fallows on Sat, 2009-04-25 22:00

Death Line is a film of constant (and contrasting) sleazy delights. Director Gary Sherman presents a 70s London brimming with violent murder, cheap sex, and a ruling class prepared to greedily feed of the destitute.(read more...)

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