Arach Attack: Infested (2023)

Kaleb (Théo Christine) visits Ali (Samir Nait), for two reasons: a package pickup as well as looking for an affordable gift for a beloved neighbor who is leaving his building. However, when Ali takes him into the backroom to look at his valuable, possibly smuggled jewelry, Kaleb sees something in addition to a pair of […]

Parable of the Bloodsucker: Octavia E. Butler’s Fledgling

When Shori attains consciousness, she has no memory of who she is, where she is, or what she is. She knows only the unrelenting hunger. It is satisfied at first by a surprisingly docile and self-sacrificing animal. Later, it is a human being who gets too close, who whispers words not of warning or fear […]

Not So Violent Blood Bath: Penalty of Death (1974)

Oscar Bataille (Fernando Rey) is a French prosecutor who specializes in violent crimes, pleading punishments for murderers and fiends to the full extent of the law. He’s been a big proponent of the guillotine death penalty. Over his career, Bataille has killed dozens in this way, saving society from the burden of supporting monsters for […]

A Modern Prometheus: The Angry Black Girl and Her Monster

Vicaria (Laya DeLeon Hayes) has a lot to deal with. Her teacher Mrs. Kempe (Beth Felice) can’t get her name right and refuses to listen to her ideas about death, her father Donald (Chad L. Coleman) is fighting both grief and a controlled substance addiction, her brother Chris (Edem Atsu-Swanzy) has been killed due to […]

The Boys Are Back in Town: 48 Hours (1982)

Jack Cates (Nick Nolte) is having a typical day, waking up in his girlfriend Elaine’s (Annette O’Toole) place, having a morning grump, making up (sort of) before heading off to the job. Along the way to the police station, he stops off to bust balls with his plainclothes pals Algren (Jonathan Banks) and Vazant (James […]

Adieu, Adieu, Adieu. Remember Me: India Hill Brown’s The Forgotten Girl

Iris Rose lives across the street from her best friend Daniel Stone, and as winter settles in she and he are of a mind to sneak out at night and enjoy some fun in the snowy dark. Out in the woods is the best place to go, perhaps a bit dangerous (according to their parents), […]

Shawna the Vampire Slayer: Black as Night

That awkward summer teenager Shawna (Asjha Cooper) had to deal with getting breasts, she also discovered the real reason not to walk home alone in her city of New Orleans. It’s not because she’d get accosted for change from homeless folks. It’s because of the attacks going on, gangs of killers taking down those homeless […]

Getting the Animals Off the Streets: Brian Garfield’s Death Wish

Paul Benjamin is an accountant, a little overweight, a little secure in his liberal views and lifestyle. He’s the last person to expect crime to touch his life, and yet it does. Specifically, it touches his wife Esther and daughter Carol, when a gang of muggers see them leave a grocery store, trail them back […]

The Brightest Stars Attract the Most Death Threats: Gar Anthony Haywood’s All the Lucky Ones Are Dead

By the time Aaron Gunner returned for his sixth adventure, the eighties were left far behind. So too the 1990s. It was the 2000s when the penultimate (as of this writing) case saw release. Some things remain the same, some are wildly different, and a few of them have only cosmetic changes. As All the […]

Put Your Weight On It: Disco Godfather

For his fourth and final film of the 1970s, Rudy Ray Moore once again shook up expectations with a picture that had a socially redeeming message, a great reduction in the memorable insults and shocks that he made a name out of, and a PG rating. In other words, it was a film that was […]