Seasons Greetings! This week’s Christmas pick is the 1990 action sci-fi classic I Come in Peace (a.k.a. Dark Angel). International action star and He-Man type (no pun intended) Dolph Lundgren stars as a Houston, Texas cop who tracks down an alien who is killing people in order to harvest the universe’s most powerful narcotic. You may be saying to yourself “That’s really the plot?” and yes, it is. The film also stars Brian Benben (from the HBO classic comedy series Dream On), Betsy Brantley, Matthias Hues, and Jay Bilas.

Jack Caine (Lundgren) is a cop who disregards proper procedure in order to get the job done. While on a routine drug bust to catch a syndicate of yuppie criminals known as the White Boys, Caine’s partner is killed when he is discovered as a cop while trying to entrap them.

This week’s Christmas pick is the 1987 buddy cop classic Lethal Weapon. The film stars Mel Gibson, Danny Glover, and Gary Busey.

Being the first film in the successful movie franchise, Lethal Weapon is not just a classic action film, but it’s also a Christmas film as well. The film centers around two L.A.P.D. detectives who are reluctantly partnered together in order to solve a murder that was disguised as a suicide.

Roger Murtaugh (Glover) is an aging officer who has just celebrated his fiftieth birthday and is looking forward to an early retirement. Martin Riggs (Gibson) is a burnt out, borderline psychotic officer who is grieving over the recent death of his wife.

After an undercover drug bust in which Riggs’ life was in jeopardy, Riggs’ superiors have him transferred to homicide where he is partnered with Murtaugh who is aware of Riggs’ illustrious reputation. Both men see this new partnership as an inconvenience and are less than thrilled to work with one another.

George Romero’s second chapter in his Living Dead series, Dawn of the Dead (1978), picks up after the events of Night of the Living Dead (1968). Dawn of the Dead is a fantastic, gory and at times satirical look at America and especially at American consumerism. Despite it gruesome effects, many consider Dawn to be of the greatest horror films ever made and it still continues to hold records for its popularity in pop culture and rankings among film critics.

Set not too far after the events of Night of the Living Dead, Dawn opens where the United States (and possibly the entire world) has succumb to a phenomenon which has caused the bodies of the recently dead to return to life and to pray on the flesh of the living.

This week’s Monday pick is the 1982 horror classic Alone in the Dark which was the debut film from Jack Sholder (A Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge (1985), The Hidden (1987), and By Dawn’s Early Light (1990). The film stars Jack Palance, Martin Landau, Dwight Schultz, and Donald Pleasence.

Alone in the Dark is one of the most intelligent and generally frightening horror films that came out in the early 1980s, a time where cinema was oversaturated with slasher films like the Halloween or Friday the 13^th franchises. Jack Sholder and fellow writers Robert Shaye and Michael Harrpster created one of the greatest cult horror films that would go on to influence a whole new generation of fans and filmmakers.

Dr. Dan Potter (Dwight Schultz, Murdoch from TVs The A-Team) is hired as a replacement psychiatrist for an institution known as the Haven. The hospital’s owner is Dr. Leo Bain (Pleasence), an unorthodox shrink whose very lenient approaches to the treatment of his patients is met with astonishment by Dr. Potter. Dr. Bain refers to his patients as “voyagers” individuals who are having trouble adapting to an already insane world.

As the two men walk the grounds, Bain shows Dr. Potter the third floor of the hospital where four of the most dangerous “voyagers” are contained with an elaborate electrified security system.  The four men who reside on the third floor are former POW and paranoid schizophrenic Frank Hawkes (Palance), pyromaniac and former preacher Byron Sutcliff (Landau), Obese child molester Ronald Elster (Erland Van Lidth), and Skaggs aka ‘The Bleeder” (Phillip Clark) who hides his face throughout the whole film.

In celebration of October and all things associated with Halloween, horror, and the macabre, this week’s pick is the John Landis comedy/horror classic An American Werewolf in London (1981). The film stars David Naughton, Griffin Dunne, and Jenny Agutter.

After making a name for himself in Hollywood with such comedy classics as The Kentucky Fried Movie (1977), Animal House (1978), and The Blues Brothers (1980), director John Landis’ next project would further solidify him as one of Hollywood’s newest breed of film makers. An American Werewolf in London is a tongue-in-cheek film that has always been considered a comedy, but Landis says that it’s a horror film with comedic elements.

Landis had come up with the concept of the film while he was a production assistant in Yugoslavia working on the classic war film Kelly’s Heroes in 1970.  While driving through the Yugoslavian countryside, Landis and his driver/interpreter came to a crossroad where they witnessed a gypsy funeral. Landis and his driver watched as these gypsies performed rituals over the dead man’s corpse in an attempt to make sure that he didn’t come back to life and caused mischief.