About my Ratings:
5.0 out of 5.0 stars = Excellent – If I ran the Oscars, this movie would win an award for something.
4.0 out of 5.0 stars = Great – A movie that falls just short of being Oscar worthy. Still a fantastic film.
3.0 out of 5.0 stars = Good – A flawed movie that still retains a high degree of quality.
2.0 out of 5.0 stars = Fair – Might only appeal to fans of a particular genre or actor/actress.
1.0 out of 5.0 stars = Poor – Not worth renting or seeing.
About the Site:
MovieAssault is a movie review site with a particular affection for the weird and the unusual. It’s also the work of one person: Sean Caszatt.
MovieAssault was born out of two previous movie review sites. The first was called The Projectionist, which was started in 1997 on Geocities. The Projectionist was so-named because I used to be a projectionist for a Pittsburgh-based movie theater chain between 1988 and 1992.
In 2006, The Projectionist’s reviews were incorporated into a site called MediaAssault, which also reviewed music and video games. MediaAssault also spawned a YouTube channel and a short-lived podcast of the same name. Since that site was written, edited, and maintained by one person, I thought it would be best if I narrowed the site’s focus back down to written movie reviews to help keep things more manageable.
Hence, in 2018, MovieAssault was born and its focus is solely on movie reviews.
All of the reviews written between 1997 and 2016 were featured on The Projectionist and/or MediaAssault and have been incorporated into this site as they were written at the time of their original publication. So, there may be references to Blockbuster Video or a movie being the best of “this year” when that year may be 2004. Rather than re-edit the reviews to update them, I thought it was best to leave them as they were originally written to maintain their charm and integrity.
As I assembled the site and re-read some of the old reviews, I’ve found that my opinions on several movies have changed. For example, The Big Lebowski would receive a higher grade now than it originally received when I reviewed it in 1998. I may, in the future, post updated “Second Chance” reviews that will more accurately represent my current thoughts on those types of movies. I may also give films that I hated the first time around – like Event Horizon – a second shot and see if my opinion has changed over time.
Some of the reviews here are more than 21 years old, so please give me a little wiggle room if I don’t remember the facts from a particular movie. I watch so many films that I have a hard time remembering things from one movie to the next, especially after several decades have passed.
You may also notice a gap in the number of reviews written between approximately 2010 and 2018. These were the years that I was primarily reviewing films on YouTube. I have not yet decided if I will include the original videos or transcribe my reviews from those videos for inclusion here. I’ll still make videos but the movie reviews will be posted here before they make it to YouTube.
I hope you enjoy the site and the reviews. Please take advantage of the new comment system to engage me in discussion on new reviews. I’m also available on Twitter as @MovieAssault so feel free to send me a direct message there as well.
Here’s to new beginnings!
Sean
7/4/2018
Want to send in a movie on DVD or Blu-ray for review? Please send to:
MovieAssault
PO Box 1153
Mentor, OH 44061
Please note that I cannot return any disc/media that are sent in to the site. Thanks.
About Sean:
I’ve been a voracious movie fan since my early childhood in the 1970s.
In 1988, I began working as an usher for the Basil Theatre, a two-screen theater in Hermitage, PA. Shortly after starting there, I was asked if I wanted to learn how to be a projectionist. I also served as the assistant manager/projectionist for Cinema World, a three screen theater that was also in Hermitage until 1992.
During the 1990s, I was an occasional movie and music critic for the Youngstown State University student newspaper, The Jambar.
In 1997, I founded The Projectionist, a movie review site, as a way to keep my writing skills sharpened. In 1998, I started GameAssault, a video game review site. In 2006, I combined the two sites into MediaAssault.com and added music reviews.
In 2001, I began working for a Cleveland-based theater chain. Over the course of my tenure, I managed two theaters in Northeast Ohio.
In 2016, I was added to the Selection Committee of the Cleveland International Film Festival. I took some time off from that position in 2018 to focus my attention on MovieAssault.
About this Guy:
In the 1973, when I was approximately five-years-old, I sat down to watch a movie called The Brain that Wouldn’t Die. I had seen the previews for the movie on WUAB-TV (Channel 43) for over a week. As a young monster movie fan, I couldn’t wait to see it. So, at 8 PM on a Saturday night, a plopped down in front of the large black and white console television in my bedroom at the time. But my five-year-old brain couldn’t comprehend the fright I received when the movie’s monster-in-the-closet revealed himself. I ran down the flight of stairs outside my bedroom door so fast I don’t think my feet touched a step on the way down. That was my first experience being scared out of my mind by a horror movie. The image is of Eddie Carmel, who was credited as “Monster” in the movie. As a tribute to his effect on my love of horror movies and the singular scariest moment of my life, he is the mascot of this website and its social media accounts. I refer to him as “Salty.”