As many of you are aware, the great genre film pioneer, Producer (and sometimes director) Menahem Golan, passed away earlier this year at the ripe age of 85. Dying in his eighties is fitting, since that's the decade for which he'll always be remembered. With his producing partner Yoram Globus, together they formed the Cannon group that was putting out classic genre fare each and every year throughout the 80's, grooming stars like Charles Bronson, Chuck Norris, Jean-Claude Van Damme, Sly Stallone, Jeff Speakman, and everyone else who is awesome. They also made one hell of a horror slate too, both as producers and distributors. Let's celebrate the greats...which Cannon gets you must fired up?
I have to go with LIFEFORCE here. It has the urgency of an old Hammer Quatermass film as well as eye popping visuals, great music and a fun cast. Mathilda May's effects are pretty amazing too !
Contamination? As in the Italian film from Luigi Cozzi? If so, that would be on my Nr 2 spot after Lifeforce
I love sci-fi/horror and Mathilda May so LIFEFORCE is my clear favorite. 10 TO MIDNIGHT and X-RAY are pretty great too.
I don't have a favorite Cannon horror film because, frankly, I'm not terribly familiar with many of them. But I would like to say that I think Shout should mine this catalog more deeply when looking for titles to release instead of rehashing and recycling the same stuff. Upgrades from DVD to BD are always nice but any time something NEW is announced I find it 10x more exciting.
A lot of the Cannon films DVDs I own have horrendous transfers and could use an HD upgrade. That is especially true of Charles Bronson's films.
I am partial to 10 to Midnight obviously, but I don't really consider that a horror film so I voted for TCM 2, which I've always loved.
Yep, they were theatrical distributors here in the US and on the IMDb company list, so it made the cut.
Lifeforce and Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2 are a complete tie and own both movies, Lifeforce on Blu-Ray, wish that Texas 2 was on Blu-Ray, I do own it on DVD. I ended up voting for Texas 2.
Charles Bronson was never in a straight up horror film was he? Well, I've always had a soft spot for him as an actor and thought Gene Davis was excellent in 10 till Midnight, so that gets my vote. Hard to pass on Chuck Norris' groovy mullet in Hellbound though......
I consider 10 to Midnight a slasher, it's of the time and has most of the elements, including the disturbed psycho-sexual killer and crew members like J. Lee Thompson and Adam Greenberg, who are both no strangers to the sub-genre. Whether you want to call it a slasher or not doesn't matter, because it rules either way! :banana:
Bronson (under his given name of Charles Buchinski) was in the Vincent Price horror classic HOUSE OF WAX.
I voted for Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2. While it took me a while to warm up to the first film back in the day, I loved this one immediately. (I also saw this one first.) In middle school, a friend who had cable taped TCM 2 and Friday the 13th: The Final Chapter for me. That tape got a LOT of play over the years! TCM 2 is on Blu-ray: http://www.amazon.com/dp/B008MU8ZHU?tag=digitalmonste-20
Good catch Erick. I remember his character now, brutish and silent - right in his wheel house While not straight up horror, I also remember him in a pretty good episode of The Twilight Zone.
TWO (1961). I spent the entire episode wondering why the smoking hot brunette looked so familair. It was Bewitched's Elizabeth Montgomery.
Lifeforce - in many ways it's one of the few Cannon films that came closest to looking like one of the major studio pictures. Normally when I think of Cannon I think of "Barbarians", "Gor" and "Breakin'". Plus that movie is pretty scary and the finale is exciting as F.
