A Fugitive from the Past (Blu-ray) by Ian Jane The Movie:Adapted from the novel penned by Tsutomu Minakami, Tomu Uchida's 1965 film A Fugitive From The Past takes place in 1947 when a massive typhoon hits a ferry taxiing passengers from Hokkaido and the mainland of Japan. The ferry is destroyed and the island thrashed and hundreds of people die, but in the chaos that ensues, three men are seen running away from a pawn shop set ablaze in the island town of Iwanai. The local police understandably assume that this is a case of burglary and arson and Detective Yumisaka (Junzaburo Ban) is tasked with investigating.As Yumisaka starts working the case, he discovers some strange clues, first in the form of a burned out husk of a boat and then, more shockingly, the dead bodies of two men, leading him to wonder what exactly the third unknown suspect has been up to here as he know these men were not killed when the ferry...Read the entire review »

The Kindred (Blu-ray) by Kurt Dahlke The Kindred: I was under the impression that the late, great Chas Balun had written about The Kindred(1987) in 'More Gore Score' but maybe I'd seen reference elsewhere. It certainly seems like a movie about which he'd have a strong opinion, arriving in the heyday of gloppy animatronic creature effects. Alas, there's no mention in that book; maybe this is just one of those films I'd pondered frequently at the video store, only to pass it up for something that seemed more like a safe bet. Directed by Jeffrey Obrow and Stephen Carpenter, the goofy genre effort sports no less than five writers, (including Joseph Psycho Stefano) as well as the acting talents of Amanda Pays, Talia Balsam, and Rod Steiger (who really must have fallen on hard times by the '80s). With a slumming 'big name' star and multiple hands cooking the stew, the chances for The Kindred to be a suck-fest ...Read the entire review »