Review by John Delia
In Volume 2 of Time Warp: The Greatest Cult Films of All-Time “Horror and Sci-fi†the panel of Joe Dante, John Waters, Ileana Douglas and Kevin Pollak present a documentary involving interviews of film stars, directors, writers, critics and others. It’s a fun trip to the past as they talk about the films that were forerunners of the slash and stab genre that started with what are now called horror cult classics.
Unlike the previous Volume that featured themes that were more about horror with a comical touch, this edition takes a look at films that were ghastly, gory, scary and bordered on XXX during their release. Starting with the early 60’s the director and writer George Romero films entered movie houses with a feature called Night of the Living Dead where zombie’s roamed towns looking for their next goulash meal.
The significance of that film was that it not only started midnight horror screenings and a started a strong following, but had ratings managers pulling their hair out claiming too much nudity and gore. When Stanley Kubrick released Clockwork Orange with a major amount of brutal acts, more nudity, and vulgar language, the industry found things going into the blue zone and it was so controversial that the film could not be shown in regular theaters placing such movies in what they called Art Houses.
There is a lot of film history in this one, especially for the horror/sci-fi genre fans and stars like Bruce Campbell (The Evil Dead), Ken Foree (Dawn of the Dead), Sid Haig (The Devil’s Rejects), Bill Moseley (The Texas Chain Saw Massacre 2), Jeff Goldblum (The Adventures of Buckaroo Banzai…), Ashlynn Yennie (The Human Centipede), Mary Woronov (Deathrace 2000), Stuart Gordon writer/director (Re-Animator), Tobe Hooper writer/director (The Texas Chainsaw Massacre), Slava Tsukerman director (Liquid Sky), Penelope Spheeris director/producer (Wayne’s World), Adam Rifkin writer/director (The Chase), Mike Judge writer/director (“Beavis and Butt-Headâ€), Allan Arkush director (Hollywood Boulevard), Roger Corman producer/director/writer (Day the World Ended), and more are on hand to talk about their experiences while filming or acting in the movies.
Time Warp: The Greatest Cult Films of All-Time “Horror and Sci-fi†is a fun watch especially if you grew up and watched the films in that era or even found one of these cult classics while you were surfing the net. All three volumes are unrated, but contain language and some film clip sex, nudity and violence. The documentary is laced with laughter and brings back a lot of fond memories.
Next up is the final installment of Time Warp: The Greatest Cult Films of All-Time “Comedy and Camp†on June 23. You can see this film or Installment 1 now on VOD or pick up both on Digital.
FINAL ANALYSIS: Just a tad less enjoyable than the first (3.5 out of 5 stars)
Additional Film Information:
Hosts: Joe Dante, John Waters, Ileana Douglas and Kevin Pollak
Cast: Jeff Goldblum, Sean Young, Joe Morton, Malcolm McDowell, Bruce Campbell, Roger Corman, John Sayles, Mary Woronov, Ed Neal and Rob Zombie and many more
Directed by: Danny Wolf
Genre: Documentary
MPAA Rating: Not Rated
Running Time: 1 hr. 45 min.
Opening Date: April 21, 2020
Distributed by: Quiver Distribution
Released in: VOD, Digital HD
Note a change was made to this article on May 19th when I mistakenly used the wrong film for Stanley Kubrick. Â