Dark Breed (1996)

Delving further into the world of PM Entertainment productions was a highlight for me of 2023, a repository for direct-to-video B-grade action schlock from the 1980s and 1990s, where they put the money on the screen with the amount of explosions featured, cars flipped on the streets and stunt-people flung through the air. My compulsion […]

Piercing (2018)

Sanctuary, a film about the power balance in a BDSM arrangement, stars Christopher Abbott and Margaret Qualley, in a hotel-set two-hander with dark psycho-sexual themes. It almost felt like Abbott had made this movie before, or was making a habit of using his deep black eyes and dramatic intensity to be in a ruinous pairing […]

The Guardian (1990)

Director William Friedkin made plenty of great films but his auteur status will always be equated to The French Connection and The Exorcist, two enduring classics of the 1970s that redefined their respective genres. As his career went on, Friedkin would revisit the terrain with tethered films, returning to The French Connection vibe in the […]

The Heroic Trio (1993)

I always understood that The Heroic Trio (1993) was one to see, ever since seeing clips of it in Olivier Assayas’ Irma Vep (it’s featured as one of the films that convinces the director character played by Jean-Pierre Leaud to cast Maggie Cheung in his remake of Les Vampires). A Hong Kong action adventure thriller, […]

Don’t Let The Riverbeast Get You! (2012)

In certain circles of film fans, the movies from Motern Media have a growing, niche audience. Low budget movies produced in the New England area by Matt Farley and Charles Roxburgh and their collaborators. Roxburgh usually directs, Farley stars and scores, and they co-write these opuses, mainly released through their website. Settling down to watch […]