Orrin Grey

The title screen for La Llorona, with the name of the movie opaquely set over a glowering sculpture of a skull

Strange Things Happen There: Two Early Mexican Horrors

By Orrin Grey • May 17th, 2022

A piece of history – not merely Mexican cinematic history, not merely horror history, but a broader snapshot of a period in time, and the changes that were happening around it.

I Played It, Like, Twice...

A cropped selection of the box art for Horrified: American Monsters, featuring the head of a Sasquatch and a spectral figure.

We Did Warn You: Playing Horrified 2 During [checks notes] Still a Pandemic

By Orrin Grey • May 5th, 2022

The good news is, most of the winning formula that made its predecessor tick is reproduced nicely here.

A still from the trailer for Red Angel, where a spooked and unclothed nurse has a tense conversation with a doctor in a warzone

Hell Couldn’t Be Much Worse: The Grim Anti-War Message of Red Angel (1966)

By Orrin Grey • April 28th, 2022

“If people at home saw me, they’d realize how terrible war was and hate it.”

Good Kung Fu Part Three: Shawscope Volume One from Arrow Video

By Orrin Grey • April 14th, 2022

After this, though, there are two more discs…

I Played It, Like, Twice...

Versus Mode: Batman: The Animated Series – Rogues Gallery x Sinister Six

By Orrin Grey • April 5th, 2022

To be honest, at the time I played Rogues Gallery, I had never so much as heard of Sinister Six. Once I had played them both, though, the startling similarity of their concepts was enough to make me briefly wonder if they shared a designer.

Still from the movie Challenge of the Masters showing a bunch of martial arts fighters with bo staffs.

Good Kung Fu Part Two: Shawscope Volume One from Arrow Video

By Orrin Grey • March 9th, 2022

More films from the Shawscope Volume 1 box set of Shaw Brothers kung fu films.

A still from the movie 5 Shaolin Masters showing a bare chested man foisting off a man in a martial arts pose.

Good Kung Fu Part One: Shawscope Volume One from Arrow Video

By Orrin Grey • March 2nd, 2022

Monsters are better than kung fu, kung fu is a whole lot better than nothing.

I Played It, Like, Twice...

figures from the game Space Hulk, blue and red, moving across a tabletop.

They’re Coming Out of the Goddamn Walls: Reliving a Moment with Space Hulk

By Orrin Grey • February 28th, 2022

It is difficult, for me at least, to separate the game itself from that dream, solidified by glossy magazine photos of massive Space Hulk boards set up.

Kim Basinger in a white shift with her hair blown back sexily

Don’t Have to Be Cool to Rule My World: My Stepmother is an Alien (1988) on Blu

By Orrin Grey • February 24th, 2022

My Stepmother is an Alien seems like the kind of movie I would have seen as a kid.

Beware of Falling Blocks: The Many Attempts to Translate Tetris to the Tabletop

By Orrin Grey • February 10th, 2022

Tetris…board games?

Exploits Feature

What We Never Saw

By Orrin Grey • January 31st, 2022

Where the Saw franchise didn’t go, but maybe should have.

A woman in a yellow dress holding a red rose.

A Dangerous Dream: Revisiting Mill of the Stone Women (1960) on Blu-ray

By Orrin Grey • December 23rd, 2021

“Trouble began with a woman…”

I Played It, Like, Twice...

The board game Marvel United showing a chibi Captain America.

Heroic Action: Defeating Evil with a Little Help from Your Friends in Marvel United

By Orrin Grey • December 16th, 2021

The feeling of teamwork is what really makes Marvel United special.

I Played It Like Twice...

A series of cards from the deck building game Ascension laid out on a deck mat.

For Honor and Small Plastic Rocks: Ascension’s Place in the Pantheon of Deck-Building Games

By Orrin Grey • November 18th, 2021

With so many deck-building games on the market, the aesthetic is going to be a big part of what draws a player to one over another.

A Japanese woman with her head in her hands and two miscolored eyes sitting at a table in front of a wall of sculptural eyes.

A Dark, Dank Death: Blind Beast (1969) on Blu-ray at Last

By Orrin Grey • October 28th, 2021

Blind Beast is a film that I had been meaning to watch for decades, ever since I worked in a video store.

Feature Excerpt

A World Beyond: The Inadvertent Sci-Fi of Universal’s Original Mummy Sequels

By Orrin Grey • October 27th, 2021

If you think about it, mummies are the original time travelers.

I Played It, Like, Twice...

On a playmat with characters are the playing cards and tokens for Campy Monsters, brightly colored and showing creatures.

Of Monsters and Mortals: Playing Campy Creatures On a Dark and Spooky Night

By Orrin Grey • October 21st, 2021

Campy Creatures is, as the box declares, a “Ghoulish Game of Deduction & Bluffing.”

Performers from the David Lynch Dune movie, specifically Sting and Patrick Stewart are visible.

The Sleeper Has Awakened: Watching the David Lynch Dune for the First Time in this, the Second Year of the Plague

By Orrin Grey • October 14th, 2021

So, nearly forty years later, in a world with a very different cinematic landscape, on the cusp of a new, much bigger-budget adaptation, did I come out knowing that I’ve seen Dune?

Goldie Hawn in Overboard, laying on a deck chair in a red swim suit with one foot up in the lap of a man who is doing her toenails.

A Distinctive Experience: Overboard (1987) on Blu-ray in 2021

By Orrin Grey • October 7th, 2021

Overboard must be saved from itself.

Exploits Feature

“The Call of Cthulhu”

By Orrin Grey • October 1st, 2021

There are a million ways to read “The Call of Cthulhu,” but this one sure is the prettiest.

I Played It, Like, Twice...

Dead Ends: Learning Something About Myself with Cursed City

By Orrin Grey • September 30th, 2021

I dove into Cursed City in the hopes that the familiarity of its similarities to Silver Tower would help to ease some of that intimidation fact, but Cursed City has more in common with Blackstone Fortress.

in a griny shot, a woman sits in fear across from a white man holding a knife.

New Order, Same As the Old Order: Siege (1983) on Blu-ray

By Orrin Grey • September 23rd, 2021

Siege is a 1983 Canadian exploitation flick that is one of a long line of movies aping John Carpenter’s Assault on Precinct 13.

An asian woman with her arms outstretched and her mouth open as if in a cry.

Tough Business: Giants and Toys (1958) and the Tragedy of Modernization

By Orrin Grey • September 16th, 2021

Every figure in Giants and Toys is ultimately a tragic one, caught up in a web that is eating them all alive.

I Played It, Like, Twice...

two character pieces with colored based standing on a board game surface.

Candles Against the Dark: Surviving the Night (and Each Other) in Deranged

By Orrin Grey • August 26th, 2021

A character who is Deranged is normal by day but becomes a monster by night.

in a painted box art fashion, a man (a commando even) holds a large gun and shouts into a Vietnam-ish jungle.

They Were Heroes: A Strike Commando Double-Feature

By Orrin Grey • August 19th, 2021

I’ve seen a couple of the Italian schlockmeister’s other films, so I had some inkling of what to expect when it came time to watch Strike Commando and Strike Commando 2.

A Japanese woman with an extensive back tattoo, her shoulder exposed so that a man can look at it.

A Born Man-Eater: Irezumi (1966) on Blu-ray

By Orrin Grey • August 12th, 2021

One of the things that makes Irezumi work as brilliantly as it does is the way these moments of violence are handled,

In grainy black and white, the top half of a very tall man with his arms outstretched and his mouth open.

I Created It as I Went Along: Bill Rebane’s Weird Wisconsin Box Set from Arrow Video

By Orrin Grey • August 5th, 2021

Prior to sitting down with this substantial Bill Rebane Blu-ray set the full and complete extent of my knowledge of his filmography came from Mystery Science Theater 3000.

Exploits Feature

The Shadow of the Cat

By Orrin Grey • August 1st, 2021

An old lady gets knocked off by her husband and servants in a relatively brutal opening, and the only witness is the cat. So far so good.

I Played It, Like, Twice...

On top of a board game (Ex Libris) lays an orange cat.

Shelf Stability: Good Design Gets Out of the Way in Ex Libris

By Orrin Grey • July 29th, 2021

Ex Libris looks complicated, but all the moving parts click together pretty seamlessly, and there are rarely any of those awkward moments where you’re left scratching your head over how one card mechanic interacts with another.

A white faced woman in the back of a van, her hands pressed to the glass.

Unholy Blood: Santa Sangre (1989) on 4K Blu-ray

By Orrin Grey • June 1st, 2021

Whatever really happened on the set of El Topo, Jodorowsky is, at best, a guy who bragged about raping someone for publicity, and this is what I knew about the director of Santa Sangre.

A blonde woman reclining in a wicker chair with a drink in her hand and an eyepatch over her left eye.

Black-Hearted Women: Switchblade Sisters (1975) on Blu-ray

By Orrin Grey • May 27th, 2021

Does it always work? Naturally not, this is Switchblade Sisters, after all, not whatever venerated classic movie title you want to put here that, in your mind, always works.

an Asian man whose body is invisible except for his head and his hand, which is holding a banana.

Evil Washes Out Evil: A Daiei Invisible Man Double-Feature

By Orrin Grey • May 20th, 2021

It’s something of a homecoming to be tackling The Invisible Man Appears and The Invisible Man vs. the Human Fly on Arrow Video Blu here

I Played It, Like, Twice...

On a wooden tabletop sits a bunch of cardboard playing tiles. On these tiles are three plastic zombie figures.

Rising Tension: The Odd and Appropriate Specificity of Resident Evil 2: The Board Game

By Orrin Grey • May 13th, 2021

I decided it was high time for me to crack open my copy of Resident Evil 2: The Board Game and see how it stacked up against my memories of the real thing.

a man with long hair and short bangs, his eyes made so that you can only see the whites of his eyes.

Days of Beasts and Cocaine: An Alex de la Iglesia Double-Feature

By Orrin Grey • April 15th, 2021

That’s what I did; two-fisting this particular double-feature with a shot of Day of the Beast and a chaser of Perdita Durango.

two men sitting in an old car with the text "we kill all sizes" above their head.

No Bright Side: Crimewave (1985) on Blu-ray

By Orrin Grey • April 7th, 2021

In many ways, Crimewave is the kind of movie I live for: a bonkers, underseen, early-career flick from legendary filmmakers who went on to much bigger things.

I Played It Like Twice

A part of the set up for the tabletop game Overboss.

Fearful Symmetry: Building the Best of All Possible Overworlds in Overboss

By Orrin Grey • April 1st, 2021

In a world where plenty of board games at least claim to be playable with only one person it is, in my experience, rare to find one that actually plays well in solitaire mode.

I Played It, Like, Twice...

Versus Mode – Arcadia Quest x Super Dungeon Explore

By Orrin Grey • March 2nd, 2021

For the first installment of this periodic feature, we’ll be looking at Arcadia Quest and Super Dungeon Explore.

I Played It, Like, Twice…

a still picture of figurines from warhammer quest

The Moorcock Connection: Sailors on the Seas of Warhammer Quest

By Orrin Grey • February 2nd, 2021

I realized what Age of Sigmar really was: Games Workshop leaning hard into that Moorcockian strain of cosmic fantasy that had always been there.

I Got Myself a Plan: Tremors (1990) on a Very Fancy New Blu-ray

By Orrin Grey • January 22nd, 2021

When I was a kid, I had a short list of favorite monster movies that had come out during my lifetime, and Tremors was right at the top.

I Played It, Like, Twice...

Only Trust Your Fists: The Side-Scrolling Beat-‘em-Up Vibes of Streets of Steel

By Orrin Grey • January 6th, 2021

When Streets of Steel is at its best, it is tapping into my fondness for these types of games in a way that makes for innovative tabletop play, rather than just nostalgia.