'Summer Of 84' (2018) Movie Review

Taken on their own, the last 15-20 minutes of Summer of 84—the latest from RKSS, the Canadian filmmaking collective behind Turbo Kid—work reasonably well. They would have worked even better if the film had done a single thing in the previous 80 minutes to earn the climax. It feels like they started with the end, but had no idea how to get there.

'Summer Of 84' Trailer: 'Turbo Kid' Creators Return To Take On 80s Slahsers

“The suburbs are where the craziest shit happens.” True, little dude, true. Between It and Stranger Things, we’re in the midst of an 1980s suburban horror nostalgia tsunami. The latest entry into this cannon looks to be Summer of 84, and as it’s the brainchild of the folks behind Turbo Kid, this new trailer has my full attention.

The 'Turbo Kid' Team Is Back For Horror Thriller "Summer Of '84"

A few years ago, a bunch of insane Canadians got together for Turbo Kid, a loving and totally rad send up cheap, schlocky post-apocalyptic movies like The New Barbarians, 1990: The Bronx Warriors, and the slew of similar Mad Max knock-offs that permeated the 1980s. Now that same team is back and working on a horror slasher called Summer of ‘84, and I’m pretty damn psyched.

'The Void' (2016) Movie Review

Throw John Carpenter, Clive Barker, and H.P. Lovecraft into a blender, hit the button, leave the room for a while, and the resulting concoction may well resemble The Void, the latest genre whoop-dee-doo from Canadian filmmaking/maniac collective Astron-6. Don’t expect the camp of Manborg, Astron-6 plays this relatively straight, but the same deep love is there. More than most throwbacks, this legitimately feels like a lost gem from 1983 someone dug out of the Salvation Army VHS bin thinking, “This looks rad.”

DVD/Blu-Ray Review: 'Skull World'

Box Wars, where people dress up in elaborate cardboard costumes and stage massive battles, is definitely a great subject for a documentary. The biggest problem with Justin McConnell’s (“The Collapsed”) new film, “Skull World,” is that it rarely gets beyond the “this is super cool” level of examination and analysis. Which is too bad, and feels like a missed opportunity.

'Lloyd the Conqueror' Movie Review

It’s about damn time that LARPers get their day in the sun. Their pasty skin could use some rays. For those of you unfamiliar with the term, LARPing stands for Live Action Role Playing. Think “Dungeons & Dragons”, but instead of gathering in a dank, dark basement, the players take to parks and other public spaces in order to whack each other about the head and torso with foam swords, and to throw tinfoil balls at each other in lieu of lightning bolts and spells. This is the world explored by “Lloyd the Conqueror”.

DVD Review: 'Things'

“Things” makes it feel like you’ve been magically transported back to your youth. It’s a crisp Friday night in fall, and you’re sleeping over at your buddy’s place. Your buddy who just so happens to have cable. The plan is to drink a two-liter of cherry soda, each, and stay up all night watching scary movies. There’ll be plenty of time to sleep all day Saturday, especially since your parents won’t let you play football like you wanted to. So you down your soda, much on some red vines, and hunker down on the couch, promising your pal’s mom that you, “won’t stay up too late.” Somewhere around two or three in the morning, later than your adolescent self has ever stayed awake before, “Things”, or a movie like it, would come on an obscure channel, and it was like Christmas morning for your sugar-addled, sleep-deprived little mind. Like it or not, that film was seared into your consciousness forever.

'Fubar: Balls to the Wall' Movie Review

If you haven’t seen “Fubar” I only have one question for you. What the hell, man, are you serious? I’m not kidding around when I say these words, drop whatever you’re doing (and lets be honest, if you’re reading this, whatever you were doing wasn’t very important to begin with) and go rent it immediately. It’s one of those movies that as soon as I saw it for the first time I sat down everyone I encountered for the next week and forced them to watch it. And then they made everyone watch it, and they made everyone watch it, and it was like a giant pyramid scheme, only so, so good. One friend spent the entire movie gawking at the screen, giggling like a simple-minded idiot-boy, which in my book counts as glowing praise.