Purple Vu #0004 (July 7, 2026)

I started this year unemployed, and now I work a full remote job. This is to say that I stay at home a good bit of the time, and I spend that time watching movies.

Over on Heathen Disco a while back I covered every recent release I’ve seen that was worth a mention. This here’s a much bigger list and will put some things in your field of view that you may not soon forget.

I listen to a couple of movie podcasts regularly (Pure Cinema and Dear Movies, I Love You) and those might have influenced some of my choices, but I spent countless years of my younger past watching things like some sort of researcher — much like my relationship with music — and there’s no reason to let that go to waste, is there?

You can probably find most of this stuff floating around on Tubi or YouTube, or if you’re lucky someone you know has a Plex server kickin’ around with some insane stuff on it. If you have a will, you can see these movies, no big deal.

I’m trying to get out to theaters more and so far have been pretty successful this year (like how hard is it to see a movie, lol). I became a member at the Music Box here in Chicago and I have a very deep motivation to start doing some sort of repertory program if this city will have me. Of course I post this to the newsletter with less subscribers, but hey, if you wanna talk shop, get in touch.

Music coverage returns with the next one. This is all new writing below that has nothing to do with my Letterboxd account. I invite you to read and learn.

Oh, this one’s free. No paywall. Took a lot of work too, so please return the favor by subscribing to Purple Vu.

UNZIPPED (1995, d. Douglas Keeve)

Nothing short of archetypal ‘90s documentary  and nothing I need to explain to anyone, but if you were ever short on understanding where the impetus for the Nostradamus sketch from “Mr. Show” came from, you’re standing on it.

THE DARK SIDE OF TOMORROW (1970, d. Jack Deerson & Barbara Peeters)

Vibey, melancholy lonely wife molder that grows on you, kind of like what all those vintage adult paperbacks with lurid, oil-painted covers depicting lesbians you would hope would read like. Give all the credit for turning this into the sensitive and curious portrayal it becomes, instead of the tawdry sexploitation within its reach, to the legend Barbara Peeters (Humanoids from the Deep, Starhops) with her second queer “adults only” screenplay produced in 1970, along with women in prison steamer Caged Desire. Music is excellent local band-style psych moves in the back end of this, at the party with the pool shark futch.

MOTORPSYCHO! (1966, d. Russ Meyer)

Russ Meyer works up the reps to pin down the violent action of Faster Pussycat! Kill! Kill! with this rough and ready drama, concerning three vets on motorcycles who terrorize the women in the small towns they’re passin’ through. Their actions unite veternarian Alex Rocco and jilted wife Haji to make them pay. Even as this early attempt at the form he creates the unsteadiest of moods with the most rock-solid camera work you could fathom, foregrounding the inferences to intimacy (the snake bite Haji has to suck the venom out of, for instance) and surprisingly never crossing any lines between the revenge-seekers and their ultimate interests. When this turns into one of the first features to address the psychological damage of Vietnam vets coming home, it becomes remarkable while still maintaining the tension and bad vibes it held onto all that time. Love seeing the OG Toyota Land Cruiser in use throughout this as well.

I KNOW WHO KILLED ME (2007, d. Chris Sivertson)

Hated on in its initial run for its inscrutable story and star Lindsay Lohan’s problems of the day, this now emerges as a late-era giallo, with a knotted narrative, gross-out violence, and the need for someone in the lead to deliver a full and commanding performance. Still don’t like the digitally-corrected color schemes used in this one but everything else is working, especially Lohan, who’s much better than you’ve heard.

MEATBALLS: PART II (1984, d. Ken Wiederhorn)

As a child I remember wanting to see this, and that window closed when another mom told my mom how awful it was and that it was “not for children.” Cathy, you have stood in my way for far too long. Take Bill Murray out of the original Meatballs or leave him in, and it’s every bit as mushy. The sequel (in name only) benefits from having way too much going on, assuming correctly that we don’t want or need the sensitive Chris Makepeace parts when there’s an opportunity to see a cut-rate E.T. clone named Meathead smoke a joint.

SILVER BULLET (1985, d. Dan Attias)

Really goes out as one of the best Stephen King adaptations; doesn’t flame out on the simple story nor the terror surrounding it (plays off of kid fears/stranger danger/otherness in the few ways that scenario works), and gets away clean in ways that play as a foil to the more fraught paths of later works like It, the kind of lingering fears around problems that stay with you your entire lives. Dan Attias’ sole feature credit, more of a TV guy, but this all works, and hey, Corey Haim in a gas-powered wheelchair.

PORTRAIT OF A STRIPPER (1979, d. John A. Alonzo)

Cinematographer John A. Alonzo pulled off the crane shot in Chinatown and placed the action and mood in works as different but memorable as Scarface and Harold and Maude. He also directed late ‘70s roach FM, a couple of TV movies with one or both of the McNichol sibs, and this, a very weird and lopsided and campy TVM melodrama with Lesley Ann Warren as a single mom and exotic dancer living in Venice Beach, whose estranged parents have hired a private detective (Edward Herrmann) to see if she’s fucking up enough to have the kid taken into their custody. Actually tries to pull off the “kindly old gentlemens’ club employees have to get with the times” gambit with an unwholesome promoter, name of Steve Vector, making the women uncomfortable and constantly dabbing his nose with a handkerchief. Goes nowhere, does nothing, but it’s such a wild premise that it’s worth enduring to see how it pans out.

THE BARBARIANS (1987, d. Ruggero Deodato)

One of the best Cannon features of the period comes from Cannibal Holocaust director Deodato, who squeezed the hell out of this lurid, threadbare sword and sandals steamer in the Conan vein, shot in the European countryside and getting all the ambiance for free. Though their career failed to launch and the bodybuilder Paul brothers eventually became so yoked that Hollywood couldn’t afford to insure them, at this early vantage point they hit their single note – that of wonderful knuckleheads – and plow their way through mountains, forests and hastily-assembled sets as if they were set for life. Movie has no end of interesting costumes and fairground makeup jobs, big boobs and penis monsters that squirt green go ... and Richard Lynch, as game as they come playing the heavy he was known for. About as low as the brow will drop, but honestly it’d take a special kind of asshole to not have at least a little fun with this. Pairs well as an afterdinner mint to Lucio Fulci’s bugnuts Conquest (see below)

MR. MAJESTYK (1974, d. Richard Fleischer)

Christ, there are so many Charles Bronson films that are simply garbage served back to you. I really can’t abide by most of his Cannon run; he looks so miserable, giving about as little as he can muster against these scaremongering villains of the week, for some of the same directors who once served him glory. This agony period starts at Death Wish 2 and 10 to Midnight and just keeps wearing on our collective conscience (though I’ll stand down – and potentially alone – for 1986’s Murphy’s Law, a Defiant Ones knock that is so completely batshit you gotta be along for the ride, and I suppose for Death Wish 3 just for being as ridiculous as it is). The movies Bronson got to make in the early-mid ‘70s essentially made him, paved the path he would hobble down in the following decade, and nearly all of them are true hard man classics right on down the line. Mr. Majestyk stands next to and maybe surpasses Chato’s Land and Rider in the Rain as my favorite, as Bronson navigates the incredibly hard time given to him as the title character’s simple desire to harvest his watermelon crop with migrant labor, and the circuitous path he has to carve to get himself out of increasingly difficult obstacles thrown in his path. What finally sold me on this one was digging up truck commercials on YouTube with my girlfriend, when I landed on this gem. These clips come from Majestyk taking a shortcut, but it’s the only one this movie allows. It’s a complete game, so methodical, and so unexpected that you should probably go in cold and see it for yourself.

GO GORILLA, GO! (1975, d. Tonino Valerii)

During the pandemic I had the chance to watch all of Umberto Lenzi’s pre-zombie work, largely in the poliziotteschi vein, Italian cop and crime dramas that found an officer, or a very motivated citizen taking down some form of Mob retaliation in the years of lead. Some are fun, some far less so, but there wasn’t any sort of lever Lenzi wouldn’t pull, sometimes to success (any of the ones he did with Tomas Milian, especially how his ultra sleaze cut both ways across the sickening Almost Human and the triumphant Syndicate Sadists). I started cutting across the works of the other pioneers in the field: Enzo G. Castellari, Ferdinando di Leo, Sergio Martino and the like, finding myself generally entertained by a bunch of competent yet thoroughly outlandish tales of men being pushed too far. It wasn’t until I started to stray from the pack that I began to see some real talent vying for Hollywood attention, and Tonino Valerii’s Go Gorilla, Go!, with Fabio Testi as a cop who serves as off-duty muscle for a shady businessman that doesn’t feel like paying the extortion racket threatening his livelihood. Unlike those other guys who play with their own emotions, Valerii taps Don Siegel’s leanest moments and opens the bruise for some scenes of real brutality, but Testi plays it close and tough, transforming Western elements into city crime with real effort. There’s only one other I’ve seen from a lesser known director (we’ll get to it below) and both simply stood out from the rationality that underscored the hardest hits.

THE DIRTIES (2013, d. Matt Johnson)

I’ll admit I was late to the work of Matt Johnson, and ultimately dismissed him after squandering a lot of the good will he’d built for himself in BlackBerry, inserting himself as this weird goofball into the rise and fall of Canada’s big player in the PDA space. It took some significant pushes to get me back in, but the second time around it was for the series Nirvanna The Band The Show, and the movie that rolled out this year, all utter delights in vision and conceptual sampling for a band that would rather do anything than play a show. He built so much out of his relationship with co-star Jay McCarrol that it became impossible not to love these guys, how low they’d keep stooping to humiliate themselves for laughs, and in the long run showing the sort of damage that being locked into a fruitless creative partnership can create. The Dirties was Johnson’s first feature, and carried a lot of the playfulness of the show against a far heavier conceit, that of a school shooter being created by years of constant bullying and violence, and being so ineffective and backbiting in his responses that even his best friend wants nothing to do with him over time. To say nothing of the queer issues the film dredges up, it’s especially heartbreaking to see someone with so much unbridled joy in their life constantly get knuckled down, and I haven’t been able to stop thinking about it (especially in contrast with a certain 2026 release with Robert Pattinson and Zendaya). This guy doesn’t always land it but when he does it’s remarkable, and I look forward to his Bourdain biopic.

DEMONWARP (1988, d. Emmett Alston)

Near the top of the ‘80s video wall diaspora, this is an incredibly sly and ambitious horror movie that doesn’t let up, dragging us further into mania with few moments wasted. When it revealed itself as Bigfoot horror against a boobytrapped woods, I got excited, but when it hit that third act I was dumbfounded. Someone who truly loved ‘50s sci-fi got to step up and top all expectations, and it shows. Takes itself so seriously that they cast George Kennedy (pre-Naked Gun). I don’t think I’m overselling this, but it captures a certain type of fandom and reverence to the form so well it might as well be a headstone. A nice one, or a really old one in chiseled block letters.

ROOMMATES (1982, d. Chuck Vincent)

I’ve seen a couple of Chuck Vincent tongue baths that were a hair or two shy of hardcore inserts, but the opportunity to pick up a bunch of ‘80s pornos on LaserDisc put this one in front of me, and I can hear Dirk Diggler talking about how they can make serious adult movies with stories that matter as this unspools. Tries its best to be a ‘30s melodrama updated for NYC in the early ‘80s, three women living in the same place and forced to deal with one another and their decisions, only with graphic sex acts dropped in every five minutes or so, and a truly gnarly sequence with Jamie Gillis who revolts as usual. But the disco scene in this one, with the poppers in the bedroom to follow pulling some peak no-budg drug cinema.

UFORIA (1984, d. John Binder)

Got excited to see this mild one, which had never seen much of a release after getting shelved for five years, and just landed a restoration on Blu-ray. Nothing much goin’, simply three characters collidin’ with one another in a small Southwestern town: ornery drifter Fred Ward, tent revival preacher Harry Dean Stanton and supermarket cashier Cindy Williams, who really wants to see a flying saucer. Short-statured but pleasant little whistler, leads prove what they set out to do (Cindy Williams is better than you remembered), more fun than it should be and more touching as well.

SCREAM FOR HELP (1984, d. Michael Winner)

(watch the whole movie right here)

Michael Winner doesn’t need me to support him, so I won’t. But I will back this bugnuts, tone deaf thriller, made for Lorimar in between Cannon assignments, that plays like a mass market paperback. A teenage girl named Christie Cromwell (remember her name, you’ll be serenaded it by no less than Jon Anderson by the end) lives under the suspicion that her stepfather is trying to kill her mom, and once he catches on to her snoopin’ around, puts her on the list too. Completely matter-of-fact, like a brick wrapped in newspaper, but also plays at the maturity level of Christie, too preoccupied with survival to be good at anything but that. Winner focuses on the most non-obvious portions of this, like a teenager without a license believably driving a huge 4-door sedan as recklessly as possible through the streets of New Rochelle, or the bad guy running down a flight of hotel stairs, knocking into a cleaning crew and going ass over elbow so hard that one of his shoes flies off. The rest of this, outside of the action scenes, seems like he was busy heading down to the pub, but I started noticing these strange details after watching this twice in one day, and I’ve probably put it on more times than any other movie this year. Has one of the worst scores of all time, care of John Paul Jones. Absolute stoater. Get on this.

NOWHERE TO GO (1958, d. Seth Holt)

End of the line for Ealing Studios with the first feature from British director Seth Holt (a reliable Hammer thriller helmer; he did Scream of Fear and The Nanny), a slyly brilliant late-era noir with Canadian con man George Nader in London to pull a scam, only to find the payoff keeps getting further and further away from him as he tries to close the loop. Great jazzy score by Dizzy Reece, sharp camerawork, and a deep bench of character actors (including Dame Maggie Smith in her first role) doing what they do best. Highly recommended.

CONQUEST (1983, d. Lucio Fulci)

Fulci’s absolute craziest film is this bizarro swordfest, a fantasy movie in the Conan era that leaves everything on the field. The whole thing looks like it was shot on an acre of beachfront whenever it’s not in some cave, and even with a 4K remaster the film’s murky look make it seem as if the negatives were left in a rain puddle. It plays, remarkably, like a breakup movie, as a guy with a gift and no one to share it with meets another dude to help him get over somebody – in this case, some sort of goddess with a gold mask who splits virgins in half and has a bunch of hairy half-men doing her bidding. I get the most out of an Italian movie where the subtitles are literal English translations but the dub just does whatever, and here most scenes where the evil character is spouting off lewd warnings in native tongue, all we hear is someone moaning wordlessly into an effects pedal, cutting the film’s dialogue by an astounding percentage. There’s some neon bow and arrow with spread gun capabilities, lots of carousing and eating roadkill, a great deal of loss and peril, and a sea rescue by dolphins, reversing the curse of the shark vs. undead battle from Zombi. Absolutely unforgettable film that you can’t un-see. A must, with a wild synth score by Claudio Simonetti from Goblin.

REMOTE CONTROL (1988, d. Jeff Lieberman)

Kitsch or kill with Kevin Dillon as a video store clerk who stumbles upon the secret behind a popular new rental – it makes whoever watches it either a homicidal killer, or one of their victims. That it’s a vintage sci-fi looking movie adds to the intense sets and production design, floor to ceiling ‘80s deco revival, neon, Memphis-lite furnishings and sci-fi trappings. The movie looked like a slightly exaggerated version of a certain ‘80s thrift store style, but in 2026 it’s like the coolest estate sale you’ve ever been to. The movie is pretty bad and runs out of steam with a good 20-30 minutes to spare, but up until that point it is an unstoppable style and fashion showcase of LA and the Valley in the heart of the ‘80s, and a great way for younger generations who never had the pleasure to see what a video store could really be like. 

SAVAGE STREETS (1984, d. Danny Steinmann)

Always heard this mentioned in the same breath as Vice Squad and Class of 1984 as S-tier revengers from the horror/slasher era, and I’ll add to that chorus: this one goes incredibly hard, with black leather high schooler Linda Blair and her teen gang running afoul of some terrible dudes who won’t back down after she and her friends fill their leader’s convertible with trash. Horrible things happen, payback comes out of those guys’ asses and Blair outacts any role I’ve seen her in, an absolute maniac in a world full of murder, assault and shower fights.

BUTCHER, BAKER, NIGHTMARE MAKER a/k/a NIGHT WARNING (1981, d. William Asher)

Another true buster with murderous Susan Tyrrell who will do absolutely anything to stunt on her nephew Jimmy McNichol. She’s not even chewing on scenery, it’s the corners of the screen. Didn’t know TV and Frankie & Annette vet Asher had anything like this in him, and while he can barely hold onto Tyrrell, he steers Bo Svenson into this supremely vile homophobic sheriff who’s even more loathsome. Extreme discomfort in an itchy-eye vein; this one’s an allergen. Look out for a young Bill Paxton as an antagonist, and Newhart’s Julia Duffy as a girl in peril.

A CANDLE FOR THE DEVIL (1973, d. Eugenio Martín)

Horrifying Spanish religious zealot brutality with two sisters running a small inn who take it upon themselves to murder any guests whose morals don’t agree with them. Starts off kinda dumb but stick around as this gets every bit as crazed as it can, with some gnarly kills and real tension as a young Judy Geeson tries to figure out what’s going on. Made in the time of Franco and depicts matronly Catholic damage to the extreme.

BOOMERANG (1992, d. Reginald Hudlin)

Got the Criterion 4K of House Party (all-timer) and realized I’d never seen the film that Reginald Hudlin got off its success, a stab at classic Hollywood comedy with Eddie Murphy as a lothario in the ad industry who meets his match with new boss Robin Givens before setting his sights on a young Halle Berry as someone too pure and special to be a rebound. Incredible, stacked cast in this of some of the best Black comedic actors around, a real showcase (Melvin Van Peebles steals it in a cameo) with a scene involving Grace Jones in a perfume commercial that should be better remembered.

FEAR IN THE CITY (1976, d. Giuseppe Rosati)

Here’s that other Italian crime/action movie I warned you about up above. I don’t know much of Rosati’s work but he knocks the hell out of this one, with a bunch of criminals being sprung from a jail who immediately get down to crook things and assault, and a game Maurizio Merli (the guy you could get if Franco Nero said no) as the police commissioner who goes after them to avenge his family’s death. Falls apart any time there’s a bunch of dialogue explaining what just happened (sadly couldn’t find anything but a bad English dub with no subs), but Rosati has a patience and an eye for motion that extends far beyond a lunatic Lenzi crash-zoom, and out of almost all cop/action movies this is the only one I can recall where shooters are actively aware of how many shots they’ve fired and stop to reload. When this movie isn’t stumbling over itself it’s setting up some truly hot chase scenes and gunfights, including an incredible one inside a cemetery.

WHITE CHICKS (2004, d. Keenen Ivory Wayans)

It is time for White Chicks to collect its due. The transgressions of this one have aged remarkably well, particularly as gender has become more of a construct. It’s really funny all the way through, incredibly crass, and solidified Terry Crews’ comedic talents. You can find a way to get down to its level, and it’s pretty far down there.

NIGHT SCHOOL (1981, d. Ken Hughes)

Giallo-steeped slasher where teenagers are totally written out of the picture, but the lovely co-eds at a Boston college keep meeting their untidy ends at the hands of a black leather motorcycle helmeted killer who cuts off their heads and soaks them in water. That’s really specific, and so all the instances where this could happen – a water barrel, sure; a toilet, I’m listening ... the backed up sink of a greasy spoon diner, now we’re goin’; a fucking saltwater sea turtle exhibit ... RIGHT ON. The cop-buddy detective angle (y’see one’s Harvard educated, the other just some Romanian immigrant) wears thin, but it doesn’t matter – for whatever reasons Ken Hughes had to make his final feature in this vein, he really grabs onto it. Mostly shot in dark, underlit spaces, cinematographer Mark Irwin (in the midst of his run with early Cronenberg) makes Boston look like a medieval torture chamber, impossibly cold and damp and stone-filled, and it becomes a character as much as the weird professor guy, or Rachel Ward as his lover who he smears tribal red paint on in the shower, or anyone else. Works like a charm.

RETRIBUTION (1987, d. Guy Magar)

(watch the whole thing above)

Let’s close it out with a real original, a movie with no good way in and a tremendous amount of heart. An artist named George Miller (Dennis Lipscomb, looking like if you left Will Forte out on the patio all winter) tries to commit suicide by jumping off of his LA apartment building, but he survives, with the spirit of someone who was slain at the exact same moment attaching itself to him. He spends time in a psych ward but is released back to his home, and everyone is incredibly happy to see him, especially pink-haired sex worker neighbor Angel (Suzanne Snyder from Weird Science). But George goes into somewhat of a fugue state now and then, and winds up around Italian people he doesn’t know, and when he comes to, the morning paper has reported all of them dead. Really gruesome kills too, the best of which involves a guy being stuffed into a pig carcass at the slaughterhouse and sawed in half. Every scene is this riot of color and action, and though it’s a bit long and takes some time to get going, the things you see within – all of the community and good nature and legitimate care for a guy who thinks he’s losing his mind – are as redemptive as his actions are retributive. Used to see this all alone on the video store shelves, completely ignored every run on cable, but somehow I got around to it and was really impressed. Great locations and set design throughout, including a trip to a museum of neon sculpture.

Thanks for reading — Doug M