Repost: The Act of Killing (January 3rd and 4th at the Cleveland Cinematheque)

[THE ACT OF KILLING  screens Friday January 3rd at 9:00 pm and Saturday January 4th at 7:05 pm at the Cleveland Cinematheque.]

Review by R.J. Justavick

Joshua Oppenheimer’s film THE ACT OF KILLING is a harsh, disturbing, but immensely watchable film that tells the story of  a gang of Indonesian movie ticket scalpers turned cold blooded, state sanctioned murderers in the 1960’s. Sure, films like this come around every so often, and while they shock and send the mind racing to come to conclusions of how people could be so cruel, none has ever tackled the subject matter of genocide in quite the way Oppenheimer does. Rather than just interview his subjects about the blood on their hands, Oppenheimer gets them to actually re-enact their atrocities for the camera, as if they are starring in their own Hollywood production.

Gremlins (December 6th at the Apollo Theatre)

[GREMLINS screens Friday December 6th at 11:59 pm at the Apollo Theatre.]

Review by R. J. Justavick

Christmas is supposed to be a time filled with carolers and holiday joy, but for poor Billy Peltzer, the central character of GREMLINS, things couldn't be worse: his father, a hapless inventor, can't seem to make a product that works, the local owner of the bank he works at despises him, and the girl of his dreams has nothing but bad memories surrounding the yuletide season. Nope, things don't seem to be looking too good for Billy.

But one evening his father brings home a very special Christmas present for Billy, a cuddly, cute little ball of fur called a Mogwai. Billy's new pet (which his father names Gizmo) seems pretty low maintenance. In fact, the adorable little guy only comes with three rules that have to be followed; 1) Don't get him wet, 2) Don't expose him to sunlight, and 3) Never, ever feed him after midnight. Sounds simple enough, but before long two of the rules are broken.

31 Days of Halloween 2013: Creature From the Black Lagoon

[CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON  screens Saturday October 19th at the Capitol Theatre as part of 12 Hours of Terror. Event starts at 8:00 pm and goes until 8:00 am the next morning.]

Review by R. J. Justavick

The Capitol Theatre’s 12 Hours of Terror has always done its best to cast a wide net as far as what horror films they program, and its been a pretty eclectic mix over the years. From the schlock of STREET TRASH to horror masterpieces such as THE TEXAS CHAIN SAW MASSACRE, the festival has tried to showcase the best and best intentioned films in the genre, but one thing they’ve never screened as part of the series is a classic Universal Monster movie. Well, that all changes with the fourth annual installment of the 12 Hours. This year, taking its place in the lineup as the 3D feature of the evening is the 1954 classic THE CREATURE FROM THE BLACK LAGOON.

31 Days of Halloween 2013: Christine (October 19th at the Capitol Theatre)

[CHRISTINE screens Saturday October 19th as part of Cleveland Cinemas 12 Hours of Terror 2013 horror movie marathon.]

Review by R.J. Justavick   

Being a bit of a car nut, movies featuring killer motor vehicles are naturally up my alley. If an opportunity arises to watch motorized mayhem, then count me in. And there have been some doozies over the years; DUEL, THE CAR, and KILLDOZER are a few that come to mind. Heck, I’ll even admit to making a fool of myself last week when I found a pristine DVD of MAXIMUM OVERDRIVE at a local pawn shop (must have been a sad day for that poor sap who had to pawn his copy of that!). While all of these pictures are great for their own reasons, I must admit to having a very soft spot for one particular movie dealing with evil motor vehicles: CHRISTINE.

31 Days of Halloween 2013: Street Trash (October 19th at the Capitol Theatre)

[STREET TRASH screens Saturday October 19th at the Capitol Theatre as part of 12 Hours of Terror. Event starts at 8:00 pm and goes until 8:00 am the next morning.]

Review by R.J. Justavick

Long before he became the Steadicam operator du jour for the likes of Martin Scorsese, Jim Cameron and Oliver Stone, James Muro was known to fans of the horror genre for a film a little less highbrow. Muro, along with screenwriter Roy Frumkes, crafted a film about booze...bad booze.

Now, admission time. I haven't seen this movie in over  twenty years, so while I can hit the generalities of the plot and certainly some of the key scenes in the movie, I can in no way get into anything more subtle than that. Honestly, with a movie titled STREET TRASH, I’m pretty sure subtlety is out the window anyway. So, rather than review it, I just want to give a little love to probably the most obscure movie playing the Cleveland Cinemas 12 Hours of Terror.

31 Days of Halloween 2013: From Beyond (October 19th at the Capitol Theatre)

[FROM BEYOND screens Saturday October 19th at the Capitol Theatre as part of 12 Hours of Terror. Event starts at 8:00 pm and goes until 8:00 am the next morning.]

Review by R.J. Justavick

By 1986, us horror movie fans had thought we’d seen it all. Zombies taking over the world, check! A hideously burned monster that attacks us in our dreams, yep! A deformed killer in a hockey mask killing anyone that gets in his way, sure thing! A machine that stimulates the human pineal gland and turns people into sex crazed brain eaters while also opening up a dimension to another world full of terrible, nasty creatures, oh sure we...wait, what?

Crazy machines! Goopy, gross monsters! A pretty lady in dominatrix gear! FROM BEYOND has it all! But the best thing this gem has going for it is its director, Stuart Gordon. Gordon, who had proved his abilities to deliver on what horror fans craved with the gloriously gory RE-ANIMATOR the year before, again takes a story from the great horror author H.P. Lovecraft as his inspiration for this film.

31 Days of Halloween 2013: Killer Klowns From Outer Space (October 19th at the Capitol Theatre)

[KILLER KLOWNS FROM OUTER SPACE screens Saturday October 19th at the Capitol Theatre as part of 12 Hours of Terror. Event starts at 8:00 pm and goes until 8:00 am the next morning.]

Review by R.J. Justavick

If you were going to the movies in the eighties and happened to be a fan of science fiction horror genre, then you could hardly blink your eyes without seeing a “aliens vs humans” film in one of your local cinemas. Many of these were your garden variety ALIEN knockoffs (STAR CRYSTAL, FORBIDDEN WORLD, and CREATURE to name a few), but there were also quite a few filmmakers that, rather than rely on cannibalizing more popular movies to make a quick buck, actually came up with extremely original ideas to base their films around. We had economically motivated aliens that could only be seen when one puts on “special” Ray-Ban sunglasses in THEY LIVE, red Lectroids from Planet 10 vs. a rock star/neurosurgeon/physicist/test pilot in THE ADVENTURES OF BUCKAROO BANZAI ACROSS THE 8TH DIMENSION, and sexy space vampires stealing our life force and getting naked a lot in LIFEFORCE. While we could argue all day long the overall merits of these three films, one thing is for sure, they are great examples of wide open imaginations on display in eighties movies. That leads us to the downside that all three of these films, and the genre as a whole share, save one; none of them involve killer klowns from outer space.

31 Days of Halloween 2013: 'The Evil Dead' (October 19th at the Capitol Theatre)

[THE EVIL DEAD screens Saturday October 19th at the Capitol Theatre as part of 12 Hours of Terror. Event starts at 8:00 pm and goes until 8:00 am the next morning.]

R.J. Justavick

Being a child of the seventies, I was fortunate enough to grow up in the second golden age of the horror film. I wasn’t quite old enough to see the first runs of pictures like DAWN OF THE DEAD (1978), HALLOWEEN (1978), or FRIDAY THE 13th (1980) in the theater, but thanks to the combination of the VHS boom of the early eighties and liberal parents who understood that my love of the horror genre went beyond mere bloodlust, I was able to feed my horror movie addiction with almost no interference. I would wander through the horror section of Visual Adventures, my local video store, always in search of the latest and greatest in horror, hoping to find a diamond in the rough. I may as well have come across the Hope diamond of horror when THE EVIL DEAD made its VHS debut in my town in 1983.

The Act of Killing (Opens in Cleveland September 13th exclusively at the Cedar Lee Theatre)

[THE ACT OF KILLING  opens in Cleveland on Friday September 13th exclusively at the Cedar Lee Theatre.]

Review by R.J. Justavick

Joshua Oppenheimer’s film THE ACT OF KILLING is a harsh, disturbing, but immensely watchable film that tells the story of  a gang of Indonesian movie ticket scalpers turned cold blooded, state sanctioned murderers in the 1960’s. Sure, films like this come around every so often, and while they shock and send the mind racing to come to conclusions of how people could be so cruel, none has ever tackled the subject matter of genocide in quite the way Oppenheimer does. Rather than just interview his subjects about the blood on their hands, Oppenheimer gets them to actually re-enact their atrocities for the camera, as if they are starring in their own Hollywood production.