Waxwork
Blu-ray
Directed by: Anthony Hickox
Written by: Anthony Hickox
Cast: Zach Galligan, Deborah Foreman, Michelle Johnson, David Warner, Dana Ashbrook, Miles O’Keeffe, Patrick Macnee, John Rhys-Davies
Distributor: Lionsgate
Rated R | 100 Minutes
Release Date: October 18, 2016

“I do what I want when I want. Dig it or fuck off.”

The Vestron Video Collector’s Series unleashes cult horror-comedies Waxwork and Waxwork II: Lost in Time for the first time on limited-edition Blu-ray on October 18 from Lionsgate.

Written and directed by Anthony Hickox (Hellraiser III: Hell on Earth), 1988’s Waxwork follows a group of college students “” Mark (Zach Galligan, Gremlins), China (Michelle Johnson), Sarah (Deborah Foreman), Gemma (Clare Carey), James (Eric Brown), and Tony (Dana Ashbrook) “” as they visit a mysterious wax museum, only to enter another dimension where the morbid displays are living, breathing monsters.

The long and storied history of cinema is one to be studied, admired, and treasured for the many timeless classic feature films it has brought to our astonished eyes. But beneath that history lies buried a mass grave of unrealized films that were either killed at the treatment or script stage or were permitted to proceed in front of the cameras before being shut down and virtually forgotten about for the remainder of time infinite. In an alternate universe many of those unmade movies completed the journey from random idea to the new release section of your neighborhood Target and irrevocably changed the face of cinema forever.

This is the story of one of those great unmades. This is the story of Alejandro Jodorowsky‘s Dune.

“I must not fear. Fear is the mind-killer. Fear is the little death that brings total obliteration. I will face my fear. I will permit it to pass over me and through me. And when my fear is gone I will turn and face fear’s path, and only I will remain.”

In the new crime biopic Public Enemies, Johnny Depp stars as John Dillinger, the notorious bank robber who became Public Enemy #1 in 1930s in the United States in the beginning years of the J. Edgar Hoover-led FBI. During the Great Depression, the real-life Dillinger was a two-time escaped convict who not only pulled two dozen bank heists across the MidWest, but murdered several police officers and led a dangerous gang of unsavory characters.

But in the film, we see a different side to this criminal underworld figure, one of a graceful, charismatic man. Depp’s character is someone you can actually believe was able to woo his beautiful young girlfriend into total devotion and get a gang of ruthless thugs to give him respect as their leader.

It’s the combination of Dillinger’s supervillain-like abilities and Depp’s charming portrayal of this machine gun-toting crime lord that makes this on-screen character so alluring. But this role of the bad guy with likable charm isn’t a new one, though, there’s been plenty in cinematic history. Here’s a look at 10 Charismatic Bad Guys in Film.

Keyser Söze from The Usual Suspects

The Usual Suspects brought us so much as a movie. It exposed Bryan Singer to the mainstream, collated a lot of stars in a great ensemble cast (including one of Stephen Baldwin’s few good performances)… but most of all it brought us Keyser Söze.

Söze’s involvement in the criminals’ dealings is never actually confirmed at any point in the movie — everything we hear or see about him is pure conjecture. And this is what makes the character such a great bad guy. Verbal Kint describes him perfectly in the following sentence:

“Nobody believed he was real. Nobody ever saw him or knew anybody that ever worked directly for him, but to hear Kobayashi tell it, anybody could have worked for Söze. You never knew. That was his power.”

UPDATE #2: The Associated Press has confirmed upon a second autopsy by pathologist Dr. Michael Baden that the cause of David Carradine’s death was indeed asphyxiation and not suicide. Baden also made it clear that he does not yet know if this was accidental or homicide.

UPDATE: While complete details are still unknown, it does appear that suicide has been ruled out. At the moment, as sad as it is, it looks like Mr. Carradine had some rather extreme fetishes, and one of them went horribly wrong. While this doesn’t make things any less odd or questionable, it is comforting to know that this very talented actor did not take his own life.

CNN is reporting that David Carradine, the star of ’70s TV show Kung Fu and title character in Kill Bill, has been found dead in a Bangkok, Thailand hotel room. Sadly, Mr. Carradine was found hanging by a nylon rope in the closet of the room, leading authorities to believe the cause of death to be suicide. He was 72 years old.

Just coming down the wire from TMZ within in the past hour or so is word from a representative of Carradine’s who says that there is no way it was suicide, explaining “We can confirm 100% that he never would have committed suicide. It was an accidental death. Everybody is in shock.”

An autopsy was being performed in a Bangkok hospital which will hopefully shed more light on this all.

Carradine was perhaps best known as the Shaolin monk Caine on the TV show Kung Fu which ran from 1972 to 1975, but he also appeared in hundreds of other shows and movies including Gunsmoke, and Quentin Tarantino’s two-part Kill Bill, where he played the infamous Bill. In all, he has 222 IMDB listings, including six of which are in post-production. The last well-known movie he starred in was the sequel Crank: High Voltage. This incredible resume was similar to his legendary actor father John Carradine’s resume, who himself has 340 IMDB actor listings, including a short stint on his son’s Kung Fu.

Kung Fu Killer (2008)
Directed by Philip Spink
Written by Jacqueline Feather, John Mandel, David Seidler
Starring David Carradine, Daryl Hannah, Lim Kay-Tong, Lim Yu-Beng, Chau Osric, James Taenaka, Cheng Pei-Pei
Original Air Dates August 17th and 18th
Spike TV

In this two-part mini-series, an elderly Caucasian monk named White Crane (David Carradine) returns to his monastery after wandering the world for two decades to spend the rest of his days. But soon after he returns, an army battalion under the rule of criminal mastermind Khan sweeps into the monastery and systematically wipe out most of monks. White Crane vows to take revenge and soon finds himself in Shanghai, where he actually becomes the bodyguard of Khan in order to get close to him, and learns of Khan’s plan in creating a gas that will kill countless thousands.

White Crane also meets up with Jane (Darryl Hannah), a singer from Brooklyn who is now the main attraction at a local bar, and whose brother coincidentally is the scientist who is being forced to work on Khan’s death gas. When Khan is finally ready to test his new gas, White Crane sees this as the moment to show his true allegiance, and strikes with vengeance in his heart and in his fists! Meanwhile, back at the monastery which is slowly being rebuilt, White Crane is about to discover that there is one in the shadows who has been thirsting for his own revenge.