Franchise Corner Entry: ILSA ILSA SHE WOLF OF THE SS **** Canada 1974 Dir: Don Edmonds. 96 mins Following popular Nazisploitation offerings on both sides of the budgetary spectrum (the grim and grotty SS EXPERIMENT CAMP, the arty and po-faced THE NIGHT PORTER), Don Edmonds unleashed one of the most…
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Franchise Corner Entry: THE PURGE THE PURGE **** USA 2013 Dir: James DeMonaco. 85 mins Writer-director James DeMonaco, who scripted the not dissimilar (and very good) remake of ASSAULT ON PRECINCT 13, delivered one of 2013’s most profitable movies with THE PURGE, earning an instant sequel green light and an…
GHOULIES ** USA 1985 Dir: Luca Bercovici. 81 mins The first movie in the unending cycle of mini-monster movies from the Charles Band factory, this was one of the odder low-budget spawn from the previous year’s GREMLINS. David Lynch regular Jack Nance narrates and, at the outset, rescues…
Franchise Corner Entry: RING Note: It’s impossible to truly pin down which films constitute the “RING” franchise. RINGU itself was preceded by a TV movie adaptation of the novel three years earlier (also called RINGU, and largely forgotten). It’s also usually overlooked that RINGU was remade in South Korea just…
Franchise Corner Entry: PUPPET MASTER PUPPET MASTER **** USA 1989 90 mins Dir: David Schmoeller Although it never enjoyed a theatrical release like several earlier Empire Pictures releases, this proved one of Charles Band’s most enduring movie property, expanding the fascination for pint-sized monsters he displayed with DOLLS and creating…