Dennis Paoli Movies

Re-Animator star Jeffrey Combs assumes the guise of the most famous figure in gothic horror literature in director Stuart Gordon's adaptation of the classic Edgar Allan Poe story The Black Cat. It seems that as a literary figure, Poe is a man before his time, and when the dedicated writer fails to gain a following for his dark brand of poetry, his taste for spirits strengthens as his debts continue to mount. While his wife slowly succumbs to the wasting effects of consumption, her deranged pet feline bears witness to every excruciating moment, and Poe is soon driven to commit a grisly act of madness that will rival the darkest depths of even his most morbid prose. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide

The nightmares of Paul Marsh (Ezra Godden), a successful businessman, are haunted by a mermaid that neither he nor his beautiful girlfriend, Barbara (Raquel Merono), can figure out. While on a boating vacation off the Spanish shore, a sudden storm sends their sailboat crashing into the rocks, causing Paul and Barbara to paddle to the nearby fishing village for help. But the village is inhabited by a race of people who are half-human/half-fish, and the time has come for them to sacrifice humans to their monstrous leader, Dagon. Not only that, but Paul's nightmares become horrifying reality when he encounters beautiful and passionate Uxia (Macarena Gomez), the mermaid of his visions, and boy does she have a surprise for him besides the double tentacles under her skirt. ~ Buzz McClain, All Movie Guide

An American family discovers the horrific mystery that lies within a spooky Italian castle in this low-budget horror film from cult director Stuart Gordon, best known for such works as Re-Animator and From Beyond. Castle Freak reunites Gordon with Re-Animator star Jeffrey Combs, who portrays John Reilly, an American who inherits an Italian castle when a distant relative passes away. John, a recovering alcoholic, travels to Italy with his estranged wife Susan and blind daughter Rebecca. On the advice of the estate's executor, the three plan to stay at the castle until they can liquidate the estate. Little do they know, however, that a horrible, freakish monster has been kept locked away in the basement. Soon, the beast has escaped and emerges hungry for blood, leading to a series of unexplained deaths and disappearances. When the police name John their prime suspect, he must find the true murderer before he or his family becomes the next victim. Along the way, he must not only battle the creature itself but overcome demons from his own guilty past. ~ Judd Blaise, All Movie Guide

In this tense and surprising thriller, a parish priest is torn between honoring his vow to never violate the sacred trust between a confessor and a cleric and telling the law that one of those he listens to is a serial killer who is ritually killing the women in his congregation. Devout and kindly Father Cusack is still new to the priesthood and takes his vows very seriously. Because he cannot tell the police, he tries to stop the killer on his own and nearly loses his life in the process. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide

Sherilynn Fenn heads the cast of Full Moon Productions' Kiss of the Beast. Fenn plays an art student who inherits a mysterious, accursed Italian castle. Before long, a troupe of Felliniesque circus performers take shelter in the drafty old manse. Assuming that Fenn is there against her will, a few of the performers draw up plans for her rescue. Malcolm Jamieson enlivens the proceeding as a pair of doppelganger twins. Also known as Meridian, Kiss of the Beast can best be described as Beauty and the Beast with blood and nudity. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide

The production team responsible for the twisted cult classic Re-Animator -- including director Stuart Gordon and producer Brian Yuzna -- returned the following year with this equally depraved (perhaps more so) follow-up, based once again (and very loosely) on the pulp-horror fiction of H.P. Lovecraft. Also returning to the fray is Jeffrey Combs, here playing the mild-mannered Crawford Tillinghast, apprentice to the dangerously obsessed Dr. Pretorious (Ted Sorel) and co-inventor of an enigmatic and ominous-looking device known as "The Resonator" -- a machine designed to stimulate the vestigial sensory apparatus contained within the human pineal gland. Such stimulation allows participants to "see" the slimy creatures which occupy a dimension parallel to our own, but with some chilling side effects -- the first of which being that the interdimensional vision works both ways. When a powerful sentient force devours Pretorious and assumes his consciousness, Tillinghast panics and destroys the Resonator -- soon to find himself in a padded cell, accused of his mentor's murder. Called to the case are Dr. McMichaels (Barbara Crampton, another Re-Animator alum) and amiable cop Bubba Brownlee (Dawn of the Dead's Ken Foree), who escort Tillinghast back to the shattered laboratory in an attempt to corroborate his deranged account by re-creating the experiment. Their attempts are all too successful, and the Pretorious-thing emerges to take control of the reactivated Resonator and draw the others into its hideous realm. Also called forth are the participants' darkest sexual desires -- another interesting by-product of pineal stimulation -- and, in Tillinghast's case, an uncontrollable urge to devour human brains. Just when it seems it can't get any weirder...it does. Gordon explores this demented scenario with relish, allowing nearly every scene to go completely over the top into surreal mayhem while retaining the dark brooding sense of menace characteristic of Lovecraft's work. (It's not likely, however, that the author's dignified upbringing would have explored the psychosexual dimensions of the premise -- at least not in the kind of detail seen here.) All manners of perversities abound, accompanied by the wizardry of four dueling special-effects studios and the rich, creepy score by Richard H. Band, bringing the film to a literally explosive climax and a chillingly poetic final shot. ~ Cavett Binion, All Movie Guide