Comrade Courant Culture Critic

A Punk Rock Grindhouse Horror, Spare Parts (2020) A Punk Rock Grindhouse Horror, Spare Parts (2020) What's more punk rock than getting your arm hacked off and replaced with a rivet-shooting axe by a cult of junkyard freaks? On paper, Spare Parts should play like a scratched-up VHS discovered at a squat party — a bloody, DIY manifesto against good taste. In practice, it's more like a band with all the right influences but no distinct sound. Ambitiously grimy, knowingly trashy, but leaving its best riffs on the cutting-room floor. Short-Ass Summary Directed by Andrew Thomas Hunt, this Canadian flick follows Ms. 45, an all-girl punk band touring through hell—or, at least, the worst parts of America. After a setup ripped from a seventies revenge thriller, they're captured by a cult led by a wannabe Caesar (the great Julian Richings) and forced into gladiatorial games. The ticket price? Their fucking limbs, swapped for cr...

Rumpelstiltskin (2025): A Grimy, Retro Fairy Tale from the VHS Crypt "A cursed bargain, a demonic imp, and a film that feels like it time-traveled from 1999." — 3/5 Stars Andy Edwards’ Rumpelstiltskin (2025) resurrects the Brothers Grimm classic not with new polish, but with a CRT feel, muddy grays, and a 4:3 aspect ratio that screams late-night Sci-Fi Channel rerun. Clocking in at a lean 87 minutes, this UK-certified 18 horror-fantasy feels less like a modern release and more like a lost artifact from the golden age of B-movie fairy-tales on the Sci-Fi channel, terror—complete with demonic pacts, period costumes, and a devilish imp who’s far more unsettling than his poster suggests. The story remains largely faithful: a miller’s daughter (Hannah Baxter-Eve) promises the king she can spin straw into gold. With the help of a sinister, otherworldly imp (Adrian Bouchet), she suc...