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Cult Cinema Club, Dagon (2026)

11/09/2026

Dave Stevens' Rocketeer comic series brought Art Deco, aviation, mobsters, and N**i spies together in one gorgeously drawn, jet-powered package. It was a sublime love letter to the golden-age of mystery men and old adventure serials.

Director Joe Johnston’s 1991 adaptation kept every bit of that retro-futurist charm intact, and he delivered a film that matched the Saturday morning matinee feel of Raiders of the Lost Ark. It was also written by Paul De Meo and Danny Bilson, the dynamic duo you’d call on to screen write your superhero project before David S. Goyer cornered the market.

A daring pilot with a stolen jetpack, a swashbuckling Errol Flynn-inspired villain, Jennifer Connelly as the smouldering noir leading lady - this one had it all. And yet, despite a killer score, stunning production design, and a tone that nailed the earnest, two-fisted heroics of its source material, The Rocketeer never quite took off at the box office.

Blame bad marketing, blame the fact that audiences were still warming up to big screen superheroes, or just chalk it up to bad luck - either way, it remains one of the best adventure films of the era. -Pop

11/09/2026

A movie that's a tall drink of water.

In Real Men, Ritter and Belushi represent the two tentpoles of 80s American masculinity. Ritter's the cushioned suburban yuppie who’s polite, hesitant, professionally successful but socially defanged. Belushi's the all-purpose tough guy, a confident man’s man who’s dismissive of feelings, and constantly wants to be in control. One drinks diet soda, the other could kill a man with a milk carton.

Writer-Director Dennis Feldman, who also wrote Just One of the Guys, plays with exaggeration just enough to signal that it might be a self-aware satire at first, but what unfolds rarely goes for that same level of subversion. Belushi’s character isn’t deconstructed so much as repeatedly validated. He’s the one who knows how the world works, and by the film’s end, Ritter’s been reshaped to match him. He becomes more decisive, more confrontational, more assertive.

It was the 80s, so the typical reward structure usually involved standing up for yourself, taking charge, and not overthinking. Sensitivity was fine, as long as you knew when to throw a punch between quiches. If you had to be a yuppie, at least be the kind that John Wayne would call ‘son’. Caring about your kid’s stolen bike didn’t make you less of a man. But getting it back made you a real one.

Beyond the taupe suits and the boxy cars, this movie is very 1987 - at times it does seem willing to lampoon those macho tropes, but it always lands squarely in their corner. It doesn’t question the idea of masculinity so much as reaffirm the version that was marketable in the 80s.

You were charming when necessary, dangerous when required, and you never apologised for either. -Pop

11/09/2026

It wasn't a big hit, but Sam Raimi's pulpy homage to Universal horror helped usher in a new wave of 90's comic book cinematic heroics.

In a post-Batman (1989) world, which itself is a post-Frank Miller and Alan Moore world, the tone was set, and Dark was in. Darkman was one of the first ones out of the gate.

I was a huge Sam Raimi aficionado after the first 2 Evil Dead movies, and this seemed like his first real step towards big tentpole studio legitimacy.

So naturally, I was going to support the hell out of this one. I saw it in theaters twice, bought the Marvel comics adaptation, bought the film on video, and hung the gorgeous John Alvin poster proudly. I'd found my niche with Darkman, it was a stylish and Kinetic throwback to tragic monster-heroes worthy of Stan Lee and James Whale. Basically, everything I loved was thrown into a blender.

While the movie did lukewarm business at the box office, the rental numbers were solid enough, so the remainder of the franchise found itself going straight-to-video with Arnold Vosloo shemping for Liam Neeson in the titular role. Larry Drake would, thankfully, stay on board to chew up any available scenery.

It's a gonzo mix of horror, heroics, and hammy melodrama. It's not perfect, but it's glorious.

And maybe more importantly, it's better than the sum of its parts.
-Pop

11/09/2026

It’s easy to forget just how important the Nintendo Entertainment System was in the late 80s.

Soon after the NES had its proper North American release in 1986, it quickly shifted from an after-school hobby to a pop-cultural mainline. By 1989, it was at the absolute peak of its global dominance and made up 79% to 90% of the entire home console market. It was one of the 3 most important things plugged into our TV sets.

And The Wizard was perfectly positioned to capitalize on this touchpoint. The Mario 3 preview was just the icing on the cake.

If you were raised on the afterschool Sunbow-type cartoons, you already knew those 65 episode syndicated shows were designed to move plastic toys, and this movie wasn’t doing anything you weren't already used to seeing every day on TV. Critics calling the movie a Nintendo commercial wasn't going to dissuade anyone under 16 from loving it.

Growing up in the 80s meant getting used to sales pitches being baked into our daily entertainment, we knew the deal. And knowing was half the battle.

That said, I’ve always had a soft spot for this pre-teen road movie, in spite of being just old enough at the time to scoff at the obvious marketing drive behind it. I too was raised on Sunbow, so I had some degree of inoculation and I could see past it. It was like a live-action Nintendo Power magazine, with Fred Savage and Christian Slater, and that was alright with me.

If anything, it was nice feeling some legitimacy about the countless hours we’d spent on our living room carpets playing video games.

No scratch that, we weren’t playing, we were training. -Pop

11/09/2026

They managed to squeeze a lot of skin into that skimpy PG rating.

Sheena was one of the first female comic book heroes to headline her own solo series - beating Wonder Woman to the punch by a few months in 1942.

By the time of the movie's release, Sheena hadn’t graced comic book pages for decades, but the jungle queen archetype she helped define never really left the public imagination - and Tanya Roberts looks every bit the classic buxom blonde jungle goddess.

The movie makes the most of its lush Kenyan filming locations, but for all that natural splendour, it also includes the sort of breathtaking visuals that had every teenage boy attempting to pause a VHS tape just right.

Sadly, Sheena didn’t tame critics or audiences. But the movie is a wholly watchable attempt to deliver epic adventure, empowerment, and more than a little cheesecake.

It's definitely worthy of a rewind (and maybe a pause or two). -Pop

11/09/2026

It didn't mean “Safe For Work" back in 1994.

This is a movie for the nihilist in all of us. A big, loud, obnoxiously sarcastic middle finger to... everything.

Because everything is lame, everything sucks, and if you were the right age in 1994, this felt absolutely true. If this movie had anything to say to us Doc Martin-wearing rebels without causes, it's that it had absolutely nothing at all to say. And it owns that nothing.

Afterall, why should we listen to what movies have to say? Especially TV? It's all fake manipulative consumerist propaganda. So effin' What, indeed. Stop listening to people on camera. Just stop caring about what the media is trying to get you to think. Stop getting lost in that hopeless little screen. And don't take everything so seriously.

Or like, whatever.

Anyway, even though it regularly gets overshadowed by its cuddlier Slacker contemporaries like Singles (1992) or Reality Bites (1994), it’s no less a fun work of peak ultra 90’s complete with appropriate "in your face" edgy soundtrack.

Seriously, the soundtrack is perfection.

I've always had a real soft spot for this angsty militant Slacker manifesto that also doubles as a sneering attack on mass-media manipulation and idealization.

Because when all is said and done, media literacy actually does matter, and this movie's trying real hard teach you a thing or two.
It just won't admit it.

It was clearly aiming to sit on the shelf with the likes of Heathers or Natural Born Killers, but I think it earned a place somewhere between Pump Up The Volume (1990) and Airheads (1994).
-Pop

11/09/2026

I didn't ask for any of this. Is what every teenager eventually thinks of the life their parents created around them.

It doesn't matter if they're perfectly comfortable, they're living inside someone else's decisions, and sooner or later they need to find out how to make their own.

In Sidney Lumet's Running on Empty, Judd Hirsch and Christine Lahti play former hippie anti-Vietnam protesters who bombed a na**lm laboratory in 1971 and accidentally blinded a janitor in the process. Seventeen years later, they're still on the lam, dragging their two sons through a life of fake identities and sudden relocations, and their oldest, played by River Phoenix, is starting to realise that the cause his parents sacrificed everything for has become the thing that's suffocating him.

The parents aren't the villains of the piece, though. They genuinely believe that what they did was right, and maybe it was. The bombing was an act of conscience against a war that history hasn't been kind to. But conviction has a cost, and when you're so defined by a choice you made before your kids were born, those kids end up paying for it whether they understand it or not. Danny doesn't argue politics with his parents, he doesn't tell them they were wrong, he just wants to play piano and maybe go to Juilliard and have a girlfriend he doesn't have to lie to. He wants a life that belongs to him.

Phoenix got a Best Supporting Actor nomination for playing Danny Pope, though he's really the lead. Naomi Foner's screenplay was also nominated and won the Golden Globe. This is a performance movie. The actors carry some hefty issues on top of the central teen melodrama, particularly a scene between Lahti and her estranged father, played by Steven Hill. That's one of the most devastating five minutes I've seen from that decade.

You can tell he's thought about what it looks like when the cause outlives the conviction, and the kids are left flipping the bill.

The movie made under three million dollars theatrically, but Roger Ebert gave it four stars and called it one of the best films of the year. It's still one of my faves from the era.

I rented this as a teenager and while my suburban life looked nothing like Danny Pope's, that feeling of being stuck inside a world that fully belongs to your parents, of knowing that their version of how things isn't necessarily yours, that's about as universal as it gets.

Every generation inherits a mess it didn't make, and the brave thing, maybe the only thing, is to walk away and figure out your own mess.

The rest can keep running. -Pop

11/09/2026

Where, wolf? If you’re a teenage zombie, your best friend’s a vampire, and your stepmother’s an alien, then you might want to sink your teeth into this long-forgotten mixed bag of mon-com kibble.
There, wolf.
My Mom's A Werewolf (1989) is a Crown International release, so that means it's fast, cheap, and chasing the tail-end of a trend. To throw it a bone, it sniffs around a few familiar names, it wags some light creature gags, and let’s face it, that title rents itself. There’s a lot to dig here, even if it tries hard to fetch Teen Wolf’s schtick.
I'll happily lap this up every Halloween, it just Socrates an itch.
These Lycan tropes belong on the shelf somewhere between Once Bitten (‘85) and Mom (‘90).

22/04/2026

🎬 BABA YAGA: HOUSE OF SHADOWS (2026)
⭐ Starring: Keanu Reeves • Anya Taylor-Joy • Eva Green • Javier Bardem
🎭 Genre: Horror • Fantasy • Thriller
💬 “Some houses don’t stand still… they hunt.”
Deep within a forgotten forest where light barely touches the ground, a legend awakens.
In Baba Yaga: House of Shadows (2026), a young woman searching for answers to her mysterious past is drawn into a cursed woodland where reality bends—and survival is never guaranteed. At the heart of the forest stands a living nightmare: a house that walks on twisted legs, hiding secrets older than time itself.
As she ventures deeper, she encounters a group of unlikely allies—each with their own connection to the dark folklore. But guiding them all is the chilling presence of Baba Yaga, a haunting figure who watches… waits… and decides who leaves—and who becomes part of her legend.
Anya Taylor-Joy delivers a gripping, emotional performance, while Eva Green embodies the eerie elegance of Baba Yaga with unsettling intensity. Keanu Reeves and Javier Bardem add depth to a story filled with betrayal, ancient magic, and psychological terror.
From shadow-filled forests to surreal nightmare sequences, the film creates a dark fairytale atmosphere where every step forward could be your last.
⭐ Rating: ★★★★☆ (4.6/5)

22/04/2026

HARLEM NIGHTS (2026)
⭐ Starring: Eddie Murphy • Michael B. Jordan • Donald Glover • Regina King • Wesley Snipes
🎭 Crime • Comedy • Drama
The night runs the city… and everyone wants a piece.
In HARLEM NIGHTS (2026), the streets of Harlem come alive once again—filled with ambition, hustle, and danger.
As rival crews battle for control of the underground scene, alliances are formed in smoky backrooms and broken just as quickly.
Because in Harlem…
power belongs to those who take it.

Cult Cinema Club

11/09/2026

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