Secret Handshake

For the eighth spine number in the Secret Handshake collection, Marten, Jacob and Cody choose their own weapons and duel to the death over Battle Royale: Kinji Fukasaku's extreme cinema classic that's still infamous to this day. Get ready for a bonkers verbal throw down that shows no mercy.

Jacob, Marten and Cody begin the back half of Season One by tossing out a programming curve ball: 2020's deathdrone epic, THE EMPTY MAN. But does David Prior's mishandled supernatural mystery already belong in the pantheon of great underseen art? Or did Fox and Disney do the right thing burying this idiosyncratic oddity? The boys hash it out.

Jacob and Marten beamed a bunch of fest movies into their eyeballs and then spit out as many opinions as they could muster in a little over 100 minutes. What were some of their favorites from the fest? What did they hate? Is fest hype still a thing in the all-digital era? Find out now!

The midway point of Season One brings a super stylish serial killer thriller from Michael Mann. But is this the best Hannibal Lecter adaptation to ever make it to the big screen screen? Jacob, Marten and Cody investigate.

For Spine #5, Cody picks Berry Gordy and Michael Schultz's Motown-funded Blaxploitation martial arts epic. If you don't dig it, you can kiss our Converses.

Spine Four in the Secret Handshake Collection is Ivan Passer's bleak, melancholy LA neo noir, featuring a career best turn from John Heard and Jeff Bridges quietly adding another rogue to his eclectic gallery. But can something this sad also be a Certified Facemelter? Let's find out.

For Spine #3, Marten selects John Woo and Jean-Claude Van Damme's total scorcher of an American pairing, as Lance Henriksen hunts homeless humans and Wilford Brimley spits indecipherable Cajun gibberish. A POO-POO TAN!

For the second spine in the SH collection, Cody selects Lance Mungia's DIY post-apocalyptic action freakout, starring Hong Kong stuntman Jeffrey Falcon as a blade-wielding Buddy Holly. But will Buddy become the King of Lost Vegas? More importantly: will Six-String Samurai be deemed a Certified Facemelter? Let's get swinging.

For the inaugural episode of Secret Handshake, Jacob picks John Flynn and Paul Schrader's total ripper of a 'Namsploitation revenge picture. Starring: Billy Devane, Tommy Lee Jones, and Linda Haynes, ROLLING THUNDER is one of the ultimate slices of savage Texas genre cinema. But is it a Certified Facemelter? Stay tuned.