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It’s time for a new episode of the Real Slashers video series, and with this one we’re flashing back to 1981, one of the busiest years for slasher movies in box office history, to take a look at director Ken Hughes’ Night School (watch it Here). It’s a cool movie, and you can hear all about by checking out the video embedded above.

Scripted by Ruth Avergon, Night School has the following synopsis: Police in Boston begin to examine a series of murders connected to a local night school. All of the victims are female students who have been decapitated in what appears to be a ritual beheading. Suspicion falls on one of the professors.

The film stars Rachel Ward, Leonard Mann, Drew Snyder, Joseph R. Sicari, Nicholas Cairis, Karen MacDonald, Annette Miller, Bill McCann, Margo Skinner, Kevin Fennessy, Elizabeth Barnitz, Holly Hardman, Meb Boden, Leonard Corman, Belle McDonald,...

When first-time documentary director Leonard Manzella premieres his award-winning “Shoe Shine Caddie” at the Portobello Film Festival in London on September 16, it will represent a kind of return to the former actor’s roots in the international film scene.

A professional family therapist for the past 30 years in California, Manzella’s earlier career began when the native Angeleno left Los Angeles for Rome in 1968 “when everything was burning.” In his early 20s and armed with “no contacts and about $50 bucks in my pocket,” a fortuitous introduction to American actor Brett Halsey got Manzella into movies, first as an extra and eventually as a leading man.

Halsey, who landed in Rome in the ‘60s and worked steadily in Euro crime thrillers and in the burgeoning spaghetti western scene, often toiled under the moniker Montgomery Ford and Leonard Manzella became famous as Leonard Mann.

“I went to Rome to study political science,...

After completing my Associate of Arts degree at the local community college back in the early 2010s, I enrolled in a new writing program at Metropolitan State University. Many classes were offered in a hybrid format, meaning that I could do a lot of work online, but still had to show up for classes once or twice a week in the evenings at the university’s Minneapolis and St. Paul campuses, a format that fit great with my daytime work schedule, but would require more vending machine coffee than I usually consumed on a weekly basis.

Although a more unconventional path than attending a big college campus with dorms, social gatherings, and weekly mysteries that I had seen on TV so many times growing up, this night class format was a fascinating and enriching experience (and much less expensive than the dorm route would have been). My classmates came from...

With Halloween only a week away now (how in the heck did that happen?), of course there are a ton of horror and sci-fi home entertainment offerings arriving on Tuesday, ready to get you primed for all your spooky shenanigans leading up to October 31st. In terms of new titles, both War of the Planet of the Apes and Annabelle: Creation hit various formats, and Criterion has put together a stellar release for Olivier Assayas’ Personal Shopper as well.

On the cult side of the genre spectrum, we have a myriad of movies to look forward to, including a quartet of titles from Vinegar Syndrome: The Corpse Grinders, Demon Wind, Blood Beat, and the double feature of Prime Evil and Lurkers. Arrow Video has assembled a special edition set for Herschell Gordon Lewis’ Blood Feast that’s a must-own for any splatter fans out there, and the Warner Archive Collection...

Monte Hellman and Kona. Photo courtesy of Monte Hellman.Two years back, Monte Hellman invited me up to his house to sip vodka tonics in the dark and watch the new restoration of Ride in the Whirlwind (1966), one of a pair of earnest Westerns he made in collaboration with his longtime friend Jack Nicholson. He didn’t know it at the time, but that day was my birthday—and there was no other way I would have preferred to spend it.On a Saturday morning this July, I went up yet again to the Hollywood Hills to pay another visit to Hellman. Best known as the director of Two-Lane Blacktop (1971), a reaction to Easy Rider (1969) and the mother of all existential road movies, Hellman now lives a rather quiet life in a sweet, sequestered hillside bungalow; maybe he’s always preferred solitude and solemnity, but most of the time he...

Featuring: John Saxon, Franco Nero, Henry Silva, Ottaviano Dell’Acqua, Leonard Mann, Richard Harrison | Written and Directed by Mike Malloy

Eurocrime! The Italian Cop and Gangster Films That Ruled the ’70s, to give the film it’s full title, is a welcome and affectionate look at the Italian poliziotteschi films of the 1970s, films such as High Crime, Milano Calibro 9, Street Law and Napoli Violenta which, whilst heavily influenced by 70s Us cop and gangster films like Dirty Harry and The Godfather, also touched upon real Italian issues – the Sicilian Mafia and the Red Brigade – and amped up the sex and violence to often ridiculous levels.

Those film fans familiar with Italian genre cinema will know that Italian cinema has a reputation of hitching itself to the nearest bandwagon and bleeding it dry. If Italian filmmakers could find a fad that people liked they’d stick with it. From...

Eurocrime!

Featuring: John Saxon, Franco Nero, Henry Silva, Ottaviano Dell’Acqua, Leonard Mann, Richard Harrison | Written and Directed by Mike Malloy

Eurocrime! The Italian Cop and Gangster Films That Ruled the ’70s, to give the film it’s full title, is a welcome and affectionate look at the Italian poliziotteschi films of the 1970s, films such as High Crime, Milano Calibro 9, Street Law and Napoli Violenta which, whilst heavily influenced by 70s Us cop and gangster films like Dirty Harry and The Godfather, also touched upon real Italian issues – the Sicilian Mafia and the Red Brigade – and amped up the sex and violence to often ridiculous levels.

Those film fans familiar with Italian genre cinema will know that Italian cinema has a reputation of hitching itself to the nearest bandwagon and bleeding it dry. If Italian filmmakers could find a fad that people liked they’d stick with it.

The Warner Archive Collection is a manufacture-on-demand (Mod) DVD series that specializes in putting previously unreleased films on DVD for the first time. Recently they dug deep into their vast history of classic horror and selected some winners to resurrect.

The Warner Archive Collection can make a wide array of films available because they don't actually create the DVD until it is ordered by a customer. This way, they are not taking a chance of getting stuck with a large amount of inventory if a selected title doesn't sell. You'll certainly recognize some of the horror films the Warner Archive Collection has added to its library, but there are a couple of really obscure ones in there as well. Take a look at the list of what's been made available and plan your shopping list now.

Don't Be Afraid of the Dark (1973)

Although the recent remake featuring the suddenly single...

More long hidden horrors are now available as part of Warner's made-to-order Archive Collection. Oh, the classic terrors that await you, dearest reader! Dig it!

Head on over to the Warner Archives and order yours today!

The Awakening

Director: Mike Newell

Cast: Charlton Heston, Susannah York, Jill Townsend, Stephanie Zimbalist

Synopsis

Mention Bram Stoker’s name, and literature and movie buffs will conjure up Count Dracula. But there was more blood in Stoker’s pen. He also wrote The Jewel of the Seven Stars, later filmed with chilling effect as The Awakening, grippingly directed by Mike Newell (Dance with a Stranger, Harry Potter and the Goblet of Fire) and sensuously shot on Egyptian locations by veteran cinematographer Jack Cardiff. Charlton Heston stars as an Egyptologist with a passion that will trigger several mysterious deaths. He’s obsessed with a sorceress whose return has been prophesied – and whose tomb he opened...

Mike Malloy has been hard at work on a new documentary called Eurocrime!:The Italian Cop and Gangster Films that Ruled the ‘70s, With the expert participation of genre genius Kier-La Janisse, Malloy has pulled together a roster of the top actors and directors in the Italian crime genre in order to get their perspectives on these tough, brutal, and occasionally dangerous films. The list of interviewees is a “who’s who” of action heavyweights, including John Saxon, Fred Williamson, Antonio Sabato, Henry Silva, Franco Nero, Enzo Castellari, Leonard Mann, Joe Dallesandro, and numerous others.

Twitch was provided with an advance trailer, which provides a taste of what Malloy and company have been up to. A release in late 2009 is anticipated so start preparing your death dance (watch the trailer), listen to some albums by Guido and Maurizio De Angelis, and check with Twitch for more details in the upcoming months.