TheRetroCritic

And the penultimate Horror Month review is...  The Wicker Man.

Talking about this year's Midsommar .

Review available on the new website .

Zardoz is awesome: here are 10 reasons why (out of like a million).

Released in 1992, Stay Tuned  was a dark comedy about a couple who gets sucked into a demonic satellite dish before being forced to survive living inside various TV shows from Hell as their kids try to help them back on the other side. John Ritter is Roy Knable, a couch potato loser husband who is too addicted to television to notice his marriage is falling apart and Pam Dawber plays his much more successful wife Helen. One day, Roy meets the mysterious Mr. Spike (Jeffrey Jones) who offers him a free trial for a new TV with a brand new satellite dish. Roy accepts and, soon enough, he and Helen find themselves stuck in all kinds of twisted shows from westerns to gameshows, even cartoons. The concept for Stay Tuned is very silly but also very clever as it provides a lot of opportunities for social satire and creative scenarios, not to mention hilarious puns (Fresh Prince Of Darkness, Wayne's Underworld etc.). It's easy to see why Tim Burton was once attached to this project

Few films have captured the hearts and minds of audiences quite as much as Tommy Wiseau's The Room . To some it's the worst movie ever made, to others it's one of the best but the reasons for both points of view are basically the same. With James Franco's The Disaster Artist  (based on Greg Sestero's book) currently in theatres with its slight peek behind the scenes of what is often seen as one of the best worst movies ever made, it's worth going back and revisiting the real deal. Since its modest release back in 2003, The Room has gained a cult following and is currently playing in many cinemas all over the US, the UK and beyond as fans arm themselves with plastic spoons and quote every line enthusiastically, having a good time throughout celebrating the film, making an event of it. While there are some comedic elements to the film, it isn't exactly the black comedy Wiseau has described it as so don't expect an intentional laugh riot. In fact, like

Before Blade Runner enjoyed a revival with a Director's Cut released 10 years after its original release in 1982, it was nowhere near the masterpiece it is now recognised to be. The film underperformed at the box-office, its more optimistic take not resonating with audiences. Indeed, this is the only version of the film with a happy ending of sorts as Rick Deckard (Harrison Ford) and replicant love interest Rachael (Sean Young) leave Los Angeles together after fellow Blade Runner Gaff (Edward James Olmos) spares her life. The infamous voice-over unconvincingly explains to us that Gaff just assumed she would only live for 4 years but luckily Tyrell told Deckard otherwise off-camera. Most people, including Ridley Scott and Harrison Ford, would agree that this voice-over, which pops up pretty randomly and abruptly, sometimes stating the blindingly obvious, was a mistake. Its content, delivery and placement just don't work. It constantly interrupts Vangelis' beautiful sco

Director Joe Johnston brought The Rocketeer to life in this Disney film from 1991 starring Bill Campbell and Jennifer Connelly. While it was critically well received, it didn't earn quite enough at the box-office to guarantee a sequel but it's still seen as something of a cult gem. Created in 1982 by comic-book writer/artist Dave Stevens, The Rocketeer is a homage to classic serial heroes: an all-American good guy with one special ability, fighting against cartoonishly evil villains. The ability in question being a jetpack which stunt pilot Cliff Secord (Campbell) finds with airplane mechanic Peevy (Alan Arkin) when a bunch of gangsters steal it from Howard Hughes (Terry O'Quinn). Cliff uses the rocket pack to save people and fight back against those looking to harm him but this puts his girl Jenny Blake (Connelly) and others close to him in great danger. The main antagonist being Neville Sinclair, a popular Hollywood actor (played by a scene-stealing Timothy Dalton)

Following the runaway success of both Jaws and Close Encounters Of The Third Kind , Steven Spielberg directed war-themed comedy 1941 back in 1979 and, although it wasn't technically a box-office bomb, it wasn't exactly a hit and it's only years later that it gained a cult following. The film is very loosely based on a mix of real yet mostly disconnected events as it explores the growing paranoia post-Pearl Harbor with US citizens fearing that Japan would attempt another attack and dealing with it in various ways. As an enemy submarine slowly tries to make its way to Los Angeles with the unlikely goal of destroying Hollywood, chaos builds in the city and we follow a variety of characters, each of them doing their own thing, with everything culminating in a cartoonish battle around Santa Monica pier. This is very much an ensemble piece in the vein of Dr Strangelove or American Graffiti with some characters having a very clear goal and others just kind of wandering i

I review the Super Mario Bros. movie!

There are bad movies and then there are borderline unwatchable bad movies. Manos: The Hands Of Fate would have probably remained in the latter category if it hadn't been for Mystery Science Theater 3000 's entertaining riff of the infamous stinker. This is a bizarre little zero budget horror movie from 1966 and pretty much everything about it is a disaster from the awful performances and the nonsensical script to the awkward direction and editing. The plot sees a family get lost while on a drive in the desert before becoming trapped in a lodge run by some kind of dodgy pagan cult. The leader of said shady group is The Master (Tom Neyman), he wears a long black poncho with a red hand motif, one of the film's most memorable images, he has several wives and sacrifices people to the deity he worships called "Manos" (aka "Hands" in Spanish). His disciple is a twitchy weirdo named Torgo (John Reynolds), who has inexplicably puffed-up knees and his own the

Back in 1985, Terry Gilliam directed Brazil , a science-fiction comedy like no other about a dystopian future in which the world is run by totalitarian bureaucracy. It wasn't a big hit in the US but it did well everywhere else and over time it has become something of a cult classic. The film follows Jonathan Pryce's Sam Lowry, a meek government employee whose dreary life is turned upside down when he literally meets the woman of his dreams. The world depicted in Brazil is a gloomy, depressing one with its backwards technology, its inhuman laws, its crushingly industrial metropolis and yet Gilliam manages to find the humour in that setting by emphasising just how ridiculous this society has become with countless larger-than-life characters and awkward tech. The result is kind of a cross between 1984 , Blade Runner and Monty Python's The Meaning Of Life . The dreams Lowry has, in which he's flying, saving a damsel in distress from monsters, look beautiful and work a

Released in 1988 and directed by Richard Donner, Scrooged was a modern retelling of Dickens' classic story  A Christmas Carol with Bill Murray as a particularly grouchy TV producer who is visited by three ghosts on Christmas Eve. This marked a mini-comeback for Bill Murray after The Razor's Edge failed to make a dent at the box-office and despite Scrooged not sitting well with the likes of Roger Ebert, it's enjoyed something of a cult status since its release. This was certainly not the Scrooge re-imagining anyone was expecting as it's far stranger and more mean-spirited than you'd think, which might explain some reviewers' reservations. The tone throughout yo-yos between creepy and goofy so when the inevitable uplifting climax happens, you might find yourself too weirded out to really buy it. Perhaps part of the problem is that Murray sells his character's meanness too well so his 360 switch to "happy mode" needed more work to be convincin

There are plenty of Stephen King movie adaptations out there, enough to fill a small country, and this is one of them.  Children Of The Corn was released in 1984 and was based on one of the legendary horror writer's short stories. Linda Hamilton and Peter Horton play a couple who struggle to make their way back to civilisation after driving into an already dying child on a road near a cornfield. As it turns out, they have entered a town completely populated by kids who not only killed off every adult around brutally but who are part of some bizarre corn-themed religious cult. When poor old Vicky (Hamilton) is kidnapped, it's up to Burt (Horton) and a couple of younger kids to save her from being another human sacrifice. The film starts off on a gory note as we see the creepy children turn a diner into a bloodbath in what is the start of their grown-up eradication. After that, the film slows down quite a bit and we spend some time following Vicky and Burt wandering around

Here's the video version of my Flight Of The Navigator review.

Here's the video version of my Stir Crazy review.

Written and directed by Woody Allen, The Curse Of The Jade Scorpion is an old-fashioned comedy thriller about an insurance investigator who is hypnotized into stealing priceless jewels and then unknowingly investigates his own thefts. Released in 2001, the crime comedy was originally a flop with the 1940's setting making it the most expensive of Allen's films at that point. Since then, however, the film has gained some cult recognition from fans of the director's work. This really feels like a project which would have made more sense had it been released around the same time as Broadway Danny Rose and Shadows And Fog with its dated look and sense of humour because it's not exactly the kind of genre that was in vogue back in 2001. The plot is based on a clever premise with a lot of potential: two people who hate each other are revealed to, in fact, be in love deep down but are then manipulated into committing crimes by a creepy hypnotist. Reminiscent of The Purpl

Here's the video version of my Super Troopers review.

You may not remember this but prankster par-excellence Andy Kaufman once had breakfast with professional wrestler Freddie Blassie and filmed the whole thing turning it into a cult film of sorts. My Breakfast With Blassie opens with Kaufman attending the premiere of the film dressed up like Robert DeNiro in Taxi Driver and you're already in typically bizarre territory. Then we cut to him taking the bus to a cafe where he meets Blassie and they have breakfast. Of course, this being an Andy Kaufman film you can expect the entire thing to be a unique piece of performance art to a certain extent as the breakfast slowly but surely goes awry when Kaufman starts to get into arguments with the women sitting at the next table before hitting on one of them and, ultimately, having one guy throw up all over the breakfast table. The latter character being played by the comedian's right-hand man Bob Zmuda. The idea of Andy Kaufman making a parody of My Dinner With Andre is already f

An unlikely favourite comic-book movie of mine growing up was Doc Savage: The Man Of Bronze , the 1975 big-screen adaptation of the old Lester Dent pulp magazines. I was later surprised to learn that, not only did the film receive negative reviews and failed at the box-office upon its release but the French dub inexplicably gave Ron Ely a lisp. Don't ask, I don't know... While the film tries to stay true to the character of Doc Savage and his story in the comics, it also keeps a tongue-in-cheek tone throughout, occasionally poking fun at the dated nature the pulp hero. This might have confused audiences back in the day who may have expected a more earnest action film, sort of like how Last Action Hero didn't do well with reviewers who weren't expecting a flood of in-jokes. But although Doc Savage has its cartoonish moments, it's not really a spoof and it captures the spirit of the titular hero and his adventures rather well. Doc Savage is given his own patri