O Brother, Where Art Thou? 35mm trailer, green label. Coen Brothers, 2000.

During the height of disco, the birth of punk, a historic heatwave and power outage, a serial killer roams the streets of New York City and this is how The Bronx handles it, which is not very well. Top it off, it has a killer soundtrack.

Directorial debut for Jack Sholder of NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET 2 (1985) and THE HIDDEN (1987) fame. He mostly worked as an editor on films like THE BURNING (1981) and for the PBS educational series 3-2-1 CONTACT. His other directorial credit at the time was the short film THE GARDEN PARTY (1973) which you can watch here: https://youtu.be/_pEKVBtvlYE?si=Mc2JRzDo4nuPiVX6

This was the first film New Line Cinema produced on their own and originally Sholder pitched the film as "a group of criminally insane guys escaping from a mental hospital during a blackout in NYC and creating mayhem and then getting rounded up by the mafia." Budget restraints gave us the film we see here. It hosts a list of acclaimed actors - Donald Pleasence, Martin Landau and Jack Palance - at low points in their careers, which is why they worked so cheaply. Landau became a friend of Sholder's and offered him advice on making his first film. Landau would later work with Sholder on BY DAWN'S EARLY LIGHT (1990) and 12:01 (1993).

Second directorial effort from Dan O'Bannon of RETURN OF THE LIVING DEAD (1985) fame. Based on the H.P. Lovecraft novella "The Case of Charles Dexter Ward." Released direct-to-video in 1992. O'Bannon's original title was THE ANCESTOR but it got changed by the studio, who took the film away from O'Bannon and re-cut the movie using alternate takes. The film still received modest acclaim and is an interesting watch. Can be found on Blu-ray but due to rights issues it's not available online, but you can watch it here: https://archive.org/details/1991-resurrected-the

BATTLE BEYOND THE STARS (1980). Personal favorite of all the STAR WARS clones. Directed by legendary animator Jimmy T. Murakami - his company Murakami-Wolf Productions produced the original TEENAGE MUTANT NINJA TURTLES animated series - and written by the highly acclaimed John Sayles, based on Kurosawa's SEVEN SAMURAI (1954). James Cameron was originally hired as a model maker but quickly worked his way up to production design and special effects. Actor Bill Paxton was also employed as a set carpenter and he and Cameron became fast friends. The film was Roger Corman's highest budget at that time, capping at $2 million. Edited by Allan Holzman, who would later reuse many of the special effects shots from this film for his own FORBIDDEN WORLD (1982).

An Italian feature from Rino di Silvestro, the film follows Daniela who channels her inner lycanthropy to kill. Sleazy, erotic and with some good kills, the movie is a fine grindhouse flick despite having no real werewolf past the 1st few minutes of the feature. 6.5/10 for violent kills, nudity and 70s sleaze. Only reservation is I really didn't care for any of the characters, which [shrug] I can live with

Has anyone else seen this yet? I saw It Lives In The Screen back in September. It just screened in Chicago, and it's screening in L.A. But it isn't widely available yet. It's this super colorful surrealist psychological horror comedy. Like, the most exact kind of thing to my taste. i definitely recommend you find it. Or keep an eye out for when you can see it.

Completing the cycle with William Peter Blatty's THE EXORCIST III: LEGION. This is the director's cut of the film and a direct sequel to the original. Also the final installment in Blatty's "Trilogy of Faith" series. The production company Morgan Creek Productions demanded reshoots when Blatty turned in his initial cut and had him delete several scenes. Blatty hated this version of the film as did critics. Overtime Blatty wanted to restore his cut, but Morgan Creek said the footage was lost. In 2011 a fan did a re-edit of the film without the lost footage and matched the tone of Blatty's vision. It had an official screening hosted by star Brad Dourif in 2012. In 2016 Blatty's cut was restored with much of the lost footage found via VHS dailies. This is that version of the film.