For the record, I find myself extremely uncomfortable discussing movies that fall within the purview of the always controversial rape/revenge genre. Because I don’t really see it as my place to discuss the moral standards and gender politics of rape/revenge movies, for the most part, I try to avoid writing about them and haven’t covered them on the podcast. However, even the most contentious genres tend to produce at least a few outstanding, thoughtful, and/or compelling feat

Like every title in Radiance’s Daiei Gothic collection, Kimiyoshi Yasuda’s The Ghost of Kasane Swamp (Japanese: Kaidan Kasane-ga-fuchi) is a retelling of a traditional ghost story – in this case, a folktale of the same name (sometimes known as The Pool of Kasane) that was supposedly based on a true crime that occurred in Ibaraki Prefecture during the Edo period. Being unfamiliar with the story and having not seen any of the other five (or so) movie adaptations, I’m immediatel

The Haunted Castle is the third Tokuzô Tanaka film included in Radiance’s two piece Daiei Gothic collection, following The Demon of Mount Oe (Japanese: Ōeyama Shuten Dōji, 1960 and The Snow Woman (Japanese: Kaidan yukijorô, 1968). In fact, I believe if you own both sets you have a nearly complete Tanaka horror/kaidan collection (there are earlier films that I haven’t seen that might fit). Comparing these three films directly reveals obvious similarities and curious difference

It’s difficult to overstate the scale of impact that Image Comics had on not only comic books, but broader entertainment in the early ‘90s. The short version of the story is that, in 1992, a group of all-star artists – Jim Lee, Todd McFarlane, Erik Larsen, Marc Silvestri, Rob Liefeld, and Whilce Portacio – along with veteran writer/artist Jim Valentino (who had experience with independent publishing), felt underappreciated and underpaid working for Marvel and left the number

Have you ever wondered what a Soviet era Lithuanian version of Ken Russell’s Tommy (1975) might look like? Right, of course, we all have. And what if that Soviet era Lithuanian Tommy took on the sensibilities of early-’70s folk horror, namely Robin Hardy’s The Wicker Man (1973), but with the whimsical parts emphasized over the existential horror? Well, that’s the best shorthand I can muster to describe Arūnas Žebriūnas' singularly odd-yet-familiar feature The Devil’s Bride (L

Gary Sherman’s Raw Meat (aka: Dead Line, 1972) is the first and still the best of a small, but well-loved subgenre of movies about (usually) cannibalistic, feral people living in underground subway tunnels beneath major cities, who murder and (usually) eat the foolish commuters who breach their domain. Films that followed its lead include Douglas Cheek’s cult-favourite C.H.U.D (1984), Christopher Smith’s Creep (2004 – a film that was accused of ripping Sherman off), Maurice D

At the close of the 1990s, South Korean cinema, television, and K-Pop music made a splash in the Western world. This era is generally referred to as the Korean Wave (K-Wave) or Hánliú. Still speaking generally, North American film fans took early notice of the area’s renaissance in filmmaking, either around the international releases of Kang Je-gyu’s spy thriller Shiri (1999) or  Kwak Jae-yong's romantic comedy My Sassy Girl (2001). The rest of us caught up quickly after, whe

Often overshadowed by his more famous contemporary and countryman Jan Švankmajer, Czech stop-motion animator Jiří Barta’s storied career extends back to the late ‘70s, when he made his debut short, Riddles for a Candy (Czech: Hádanky za bonbón, 1978, available as part of this collection), at Trnka studios, so-named for the Godfather of Eastern European animation, Jiří Trnka. Barta continued dabbling in surrealist short subjects until 1986, when he released his first feature,

In the tradition of Kihachi Okamoto’s misanthropic classic Sword of Doom (Japanese: Dai-bosatsu tôge, 1966) and other downbeat samurai films, like Masaki Kobayashi’s Harakiri (aka: Seppuku, 1962) and Toshio Matsumoto’s Demons (Japanese: Shura, 1971), comes Tokuzô Tanaka’s The Betrayal (Japanese: Daisatsujin orochi, 1966) – a lesson in the delicacy of social standing, the futility of morality, and the foolishness of loyalty. From its melancholic beginnings, The Betrayal steadi

After just over a decade of redefining the horror genre for the New Hollywood era, George A. Romero had his first brush with mainstream, studio distribution profitability with 1982’s Creepshow, which he made in collaboration with white-hot novelist Stephen King. Unfortunately, his refusal to compromise with studio mandates made it difficult to redeem the industry caché he’d earned. First, plans for the third film in his Dead series, Day of the Dead (1985), were dialed back to