CRITTERS *** USA 1986 Dir: Stephen Herek. 82 mins As their Freddy Krueger stock soared, New Line Cinema initiated a lighter, PG-13-rated franchise with this archetypal 80’s post-GREMLINS low-budget monster movie. With Dee Wallace in one of her patented, devoted-80’s-mom roles and old-school puppet FX by the Chiodo Brothers, it…
Browsing: Franchise Corner
Franchise Corner Entry: BLAIR WITCH THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT ***** USA 1999 Dir: Daniel Myrick, Eduardo Sanchez. 87 mins It became very fashionable very quickly to be a naysayer with THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, following months of innovative viral marketing, festival word of mouth suggesting “Scariest film ever!” and a…
Franchise Corner Entry: THE ROMERO “DEAD” SERIES *Note: To keep things simple, this entry in Franchise Corner covers only the “Dead” films in which George Romero had a direct, creative involvement with. This means we have excluded the various unofficial spin-offs, remakes and sequels to NIGHT OF THE LIVING DEAD,…
Franchise Corner Entry: LAKE PLACID LAKE PLACID **** USA 1999 Dir: Steve Miner. 82 mins A (relatively) big budget attempt to fuse the fashionably sarcastic wit and bitchy character banter of Ally McBeal scribe David E Kelly with a John Sayles-ish take on monster movie conventions, LAKE PLACID was a…
ANACONDA **** USA 1997 Dir: Luis Llosa. 85 mins One of several 1997 major studio monster movies (alongside THE RELIC and STARSHIP TROOPERS) that lavished decent money and stars on material that Roger Corman would have made into a 70 minute $60k flick in 1957 starring Beverly Garland and Dick…