The Blu Spot

The Film: Given the great Guillermo del Toro's fondness for creature features, which has included "Pan's Labyrinth," "The Shape of Water," "Mimic," and a pair of "Hellboy" films, you have to wonder why it took so long for him to come around to making an adaptation of one of the most famous creature tales of them all, Mary Shelley's "Frankenstein." If there ever seemed like a perfect pairing of director & material, this is certainly it, and indeed it was always something that

The Film: Most people naturally know the great Sir Peter Jackson as the director behind "The Lord of the Rings," one of the greatest accomplishments in the history of cinema, and one that earned him an incredible three Oscars (as co-producer, director, and co-writer). Then there are those of us who know him for that AND the remarkably different type of films he made before that, including "Bad Taste," "Meet the Feebles," and the utterly delightful zombie feature "Braindead" (

The Film: Over the nearly 40 years since the original big screen adaptation of "Masters of the Universe" was deemed a critical & commercial failure, there have been a number of rumblings from studios & filmmakers who wanted to try their hand at delivering a better version that would please fans of the toys & the cartoon, and while a few additional well-received animated iterations came about in that time, it ended up taking all the way to 2026 for another film to be released.

The Film: With the critical & commercial success of Michael Crichton's "Westworld" in 1973, it seemed fairly inevitable that a return to the park would be coming up pretty quickly, and indeed, just three years later, audiences were given a sequel known as "Futureworld." However, unlike its predecessor, it's one of those science-fiction outings that no one ever seems to mention, with many not even knowing that a sequel was made to the highly-popular original. Looking through i

The Film: Once again we return to the realm of romantic-comedies in the sheer hope of finally coming upon one that's brave enough to stand up and reject the same tired, cliche-filled formula that filmmakers fall victim to over and over again, resulting in carbon-copy products that are quickly tossed in the stack of other forgotten films just like it. This brings us to the latest contender, Will Gluck's "One Night Only," which attempts to throw a rather bizarre foundational pr

The Film: When "Hadestown" first premiered on Broadway in 2019, it immediately caused a massive amount of buzz that not only brought about critical acclaim, but subsequently led to an incredible 14 Tony Award nominations that resulted in eight wins, including Best Musical, Direction, and Original Score. Just a couple years later, the show began to tour, allowing more and more people to experience what others had been praising since it first opened, with a production also even

The Film: More than 50 years after William Friedkin's masterpiece "The Exorcist" had people fainting in theaters, it's incredible to see how popular films about exorcisms remain, with many imitators hoping to scare up the same kind of results with projects like "The Last Exorcism," "Deliver Us from Evil," "The Exorcism of Emily Rose," and, of course, additional entries in the "Exorcist" series. Another recent addition to the group was Julius Avery's "The Pope's Exorcist" from

The Film: Writer/Director Frank Hennenlotter has given us some wild rides over the course of his 50-year career, including 1988's "Brain Damage" and a trilogy of "Basket Case" films, the latter of which is probably his most well-known material. However, he also delivered another odd little outing in 1990 called "Frankenhooker," which was another relatively small horror flick that hardly made a splash when it was in theaters, but which became a smash hit on home video thanks t

The Film: Back in 1960, beloved campy director Roger Corman released a little horror comedy called "The Little Shop of Horrors" that didn't make too much of a splash at the time, though it did eventually turn a little profit, and even became a rather well-liked cult classic. One thing's for sure though, it certainly didn't seem like the kind of material that anyone could base a musical off of... except that's exactly what writer Howard Ashman and composer Alan Menken did in 1

The Film: It's nearly impossible to believe that a show about a bunch of guys doing really stupid things could ever become such a phenomenon, but somehow that's exactly what happened with Johnny Knoxville & his friends when they launched "Jackass" on MTV back in 2000. The show, which lasted a relatively brief 25 episodes over three seasons, had the gang attempting to pull off ridiculous stunts that would generally result in pain, severe injury, and sometimes just plain disgus