Six long years after organizing the underrated action film The Tournament, Scott Mann finally plants his ass in the director’s chair again to deliver another underrated action film in Heist. Although deprived of originality, it’s kinda great. A loyal, longtime dealer at a riverboat casino, Vaughn (Jeffrey Dean Morgan, The Losers) is in quite a … Continue reading Heist (2015)
Hot Thrills and Warm Chills is a no-frills affair of sexploitation malarkey, as three dames plot a jewelry heist during a Mardi Gras masquerade ball. (You know the one: where, at the stroke of midnight, someone is crowned “King Sex.”) Texas director Dale Berry (Hip, Hot and 21) fails to depict the crime, presumably distracted … Continue reading Hot Thrills and Warm Chills (1967)
Desperate for inspiration after a flop, manga creator Jung Ji Woo (Sung Joon, The Villainess) visits Gwang Lim Mansion, a supposedly cursed apartment building. Some people, like first-time writer/director Jo Ba-reun, might call this a Ghost Mansion. (It’s also known as The Grotesque Mansion and, yawn, The Night Shift.) As the caretaker shares, the place … Continue reading Ghost Mansion (2021)
Based on a 2001 British made-for-TV movie, Danny Boyle’s Trance casts X-Men: First Class’ James McAvoy (presumably standing in for Ewan McGregor) as Simon, an art auctioneer who becomes a media hero for foiling the heist of an über-valuable painting, yet pays the price when the would-be thief, Franck (Vincent Cassel, Jason Bourne), comes looking … Continue reading Trance (2013)
Since childhood, I’ve admired the concept of the advent calendar more than using one — a case of each door revealing “That’s it?”-level disappointment after so much buildup. That feeling extends to Deathcember, a festive horror anthology constructed as such a calendar, with a short from a different director (Ruggero Deodato, Lucky McKee and Trent … Continue reading Deathcember (2019)