Here are our latest reviews of films on DVD.
Pre-2020 Film Reviews
The Element of Crime (1984)
Gregory J. Smalley @ 366 Weird Movies
- Excerpt: The Element of Crime’ tells a (literally) hypnotic story soaked in doom and moral decay, with the film looking like it’s lit by the smoldering embers of an immolated Europe.
The Maiden Who Went to the City (1981)
Panagiotis Kotzathanasis @ Hancinema
- Excerpt: Granted, there are moments where Lee loses his sense of measure, with the talent show, the very finale, and a number of other instances being rather excessive, but as a whole, the movie emerges as a rather successful one both in entertainment (through the story) and contextual terms (through the comments).
Ring 0: Birthday (2000)
Panagiotis Kotzathanasis @ Asian Movie Pulse
- Excerpt: While Hideo Nakata focused more on creating an overall atmosphere of horror, resulting from an overall question about what exactly is going on, Tsuruta picks a rather less subtle approach that seems to loan more from American horror movies, and particularly “Carrie” and less from the previous installments, which were those that essentially established the J-horror wave. This choice has a rather negative impact to the narrative, as the story is quite predictable, at least the main arc of the theater troupe, while there are moments that can only be described as cheesy, such as the touching of palms between Sadako and Hiroshi.
