What the hell is Halloween: The Beginning?

That's what I wanted to know when I read an interview with Italian master of horror Dario Argento in which he expresses his general dislike of classic horror film remakes, including Halloween: The Beginning.

A little web reserach cleared up the matter — Halloween: The Beginning was the Italian release title for Rob Zombie's Halloween. I guess Texas Chainsaw Massacre: The Beginning must have cleaned up over there.

But I ran across this Italian trailer for Halloween, which I found seriously entertaining. I couldn't even tell you why... I just did.

New Reviews: The Unborn, Not Easily Broken and Revolutionary Road...

Sorry I've been AWOL for a couple of days... technical difficulties.

I hope everyone had a fabulous New Year's Eve, and that 2009 is helaty, happy and prosperous for all... I can dream, can't I?

I've just added new reviews for the horror picture The Unborn, inspirational drama Not Easily Broken and, belatedly, critics' darling Revolutionary Road, by which I was somewhat underwhelmed.

I'd love to hear what you think.

Look for reviews of Defiance and the Bollywood/martial arts hybrid Chandni Chowk to China soon. And in the meantime, check out the trailer for CC2C. It's mind boggling:

A note to the dirty minded: That potato does not have a johnson. It's the face of Hindu deity Lord Ganesh, who has the head of an elephant. You know, with a trunk.

It's a great day for the Irish…

So, you can wait until St. Patrick's Day to enjoy the spectacle of drunken Irishmen running amok, or you can get on a plane headed to Cuba with a well-lubricated pack of them now and see the melee up close and personal.

As an aside, I especially like the account that referred to the fighting Irish as "hooligans," because I couldn't help but wonder whether the author was making an especially subtle joke at the expense of the sons of Eire. It's generally accepted that the etymology of "hooligan" lies in the long-standing perception that the Irish are a trouble-making lot, whether it's a corruption of the surname "Houlihan" or an allusion to a real-life family of rowdies named Hooligan.

And don't get me started on "paddy wagon."

Farewell, grindhouse stalwart Edmund Purdom...

Let's raise a glass to actor Edmond Purdom, who died New Year's Day 2009…

Short of dying on Christmas Day, like the larger- and sultrier-than-life Eartha Kitt, b-movie stalwart Purdom could hardly have chosen a more memorable day to say his last farewell.

I will always associate the British-born Purdom, whose career encompassed Hollywood epics and cult stardom in European exploitation films, with the holidays by way of 1984's Don't Open 'Til Christmas, in which he starred and on which he served, albeit briefly, as director. Purdom plays a Scotland Yard detective on the trail of a serial killer who has a thing about drunks, perverts and hopheads who cynically don Santa suits during the holiday season in hopes of scoring a few bucks and has made it his business to tech them some kind of lesson by murdering them under the most sordid possible circumstances. Say, Santa at a low-rent peep show, ogling some bored skank before the killer paints the plexiglass seasonal red.

A confirmed holiday hater like me could hardly ask for more, except perhaps to have seen it as I did, in the crumbling Empire theater near Times Square, where there was a massive leak in the ceiling and the entire place stank of mold.

Purdom, who was 84, died in Rome, where he had lived since the 1960s; his survivors include his daughter, French TV personality Lilan Purdom. Purdom was born in Hertfordshire, England, on December 19, 1924, and began acting on stage when he was 21, just as WWII was ending.

The handsome, dark-haired actor had some success in Hollywood costume dramas like The Egyptian (1954) and The Prodigal (1955), but a couple of years later he had relocated to Europe and spent the rest of his career making Italian and Spanish exploitation movies. Purdom was married four times — his third wife, Linda Christian, was Errol Flynn' ex — and made more than 80 films, several of which I encountered in my grind house.

What would they have been without him?

I'ts a wonderful life... or it might have been...

I suppose this is a bit cheeky of me, but I think this is an apt time of year to share a video I first saw shortly after I was hired by the earliest precursor of TVGuide.com... this might be as far back as the MCI-NewsCorporation Joint Internet Venture (you can see why that name didn't stick).

It was on video, of course (this was, after all, the better part of 15 years ago), and was considered so incendiary (and watching it so potentially insubordinate) that a handpicked few of us huddled in a locked office and turned the sound down low, lest anyone else hear it. I should perhaps mention that a certain Rupert owned TV Guide at the time and was given to paying surprise visits to the office, scaring the hell out of everyone and prompting jokes about sulfurous footprints burned into the carpeting.

And it still makes me laugh.



Yes, that's Hugh Laurie of House (affecting yet another accent not his own) and Stephen Fry, who's appeared in several Harry Potter films and was nominated for a Golden Globe for his starring role in Wilde (1999).