C-Cups, D-Cups, and EVIL-Cups All Must Pay! “Big Boobs Buster” reviewed! (Whole Grain Pictures / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Own “Big Boobs Buster” on Blu-ray Home Video!

Masako is well-liked amongst her high school peers, has an above average grades, and is a cyclist athlete with a killer body.  The one thing Masako doesn’t have but desperate wants is the popular boy Bando to be her boyfriend.  When Masako asks Bando to be his girlfriend, Bando rejects her requests on the account of her washboard chest.  Assigning blame to all her well-endowed classmates beyond a B-cup, Masako transforms into the chesty vigilante, Big Boobs Buster, by subduing targets from a pervert’s stolen list of girls with large breasts and making spray casts of their chests to blackmail them with exposure if they ever date Bando or any other boys on campus.  When she’s finally caught and discovered by a track and field competitor with big boobs, one who also might like girls more than boys, Masako is ironically herself blackmailed into being a substitute in a sprint competition her competitive blackmailer can’t compete in due to injury. During vigorous train, Masako begins to develop friendship feelings and questions the reasons for her body image crusade.

For all you flat chested women out there, don’t fear!  “Big Boobs Buster” is here!  Hailing from Japan, the adult-oriented comedic has a superhero Marvel has yet to call to the frontline!  Director Hisashi Watanabe embraces his debut directorial with burlesque eroticism that touches upon the breast of society’s biggest problems – body shaming and body positivity.  Watanabe pens the script based off a Manga by Kôichirô Yasunaga of the same title with the film adaptation and its sequel, “Big Boobs Buster 2,” released the same year, 1990 directly onto home video, or what’s called in Japan, V-Cinema.  Released by the Tohokushinsha Film Corporation, the company behind the anime-turned-live-action film “Shark Skin Man and Peach Hip Girl” and produced a feature film out of the Android Kikaider series with  Mechanical Violator Hakaider, as well as being a part of video game series, such as Sonic and Final Fantasy, the producing team consists of “Appleseed’s” Tarô Maki and “Wild Zero’s” Katsuaki Takemoto.

The live-action OAV, aka Live Action Original Animated Video, has a game cast of lesser-known actor and Japanese AV idols that really perk up the story.  Harumi Kai leads the charge as the titular character, and the “Oona Rambo” actresses pulls off the sugar-and-spice Masako by being an all-around good schoolgirl scorned by a superficial boy named Bando (Masakazu Arai, “Shigatsu kaidan”) who moonlights is in a tight outfit and disguise being a shakedown artist against girls a C-cup or larger.  In the process of snaring them and spray casting a mold of their chest, she inadvertently turns them on denoting a bit of homoeroticism between the women that continues when she meets field and track star Kyoko Mitoizumi who calls her bluff and becomes uncomfortably touchy-feely with Masako.  Played by Uran Hirosaki, Kyoto is a form of positivity and no fear that puts Masako in a corner of uncertainty but the two eventually become friends with quid pro quo arrangements both will benefit from.  The rest of the case, which in this case are the big-chested highschoolers Masako seeks to humiliate because of her own insecurities, are comprised of Japanese AV idols with Mariko Itsuki (“Groper Train:  Push It Deep!”), Marina Matsumoto (“Stepmother Slave”), and Natsuko Kayama (“Big Boobs Sisters:  The Yellow Panties of Happiness”) as well as a few AV actors in the sought after and large breast-loving role with Masakazu Arai and Tôru Minegishi (“Godzilla vs. Biollante”) and Aya Katsuragi (“Evil Dead Trap”) as Masako’s parents who have this unexplained odd relationship in the peripheral that doesn’t contribute much, or anything at all, to the core elements. 

With a title like “Big Boobs Buster,” audiences can expect an outrageous comedy that lives up to live-action anime standards with an off-the-cuff superheroine on a crusade against one of the most arbitrary and non-threatening to society foci that only affects a flat-chested girl’s ego – big boobs.  Having never read Kôichirô Yasunaga’s manga and with only director Hisashi Watanabe’s film to provide my Johnny-Five Alive input data center, “Big Boobs Buster” is intoxicated with Masako’s character arc of self-deprivation toward body positivity through a minefield of scorn-driven retribution against the wrong and innocently lot of larger than C-cups.  Through this zany premise, that’s about as innocently wanton as cold be, director Watanabe and cinematographer Jun Abe spruce and polish this knob with mood abstracting backlighting and vivify scenes with power poses and interesting framing to closely resemble manga panel moments and the editing by Shigeru Okuhara (“Orgasm:  Mariko”) is multifaceted to tell a quick action narrative with ease of scene cuts and transitions that make “Big Boobs Buster” a breeze to digest it’s melon-sized mania.  The story doesn’t glide through with a single flightpath of the superheroine picking off well-endowed girls one-at-a-time only to be discovered to enact a plot point problem with the antagonist; instead, the story takes a 180 degree turn toward a whole new level of thematic dilemma in trying to win a sprint race for an enemy-turned-friend.  Summarized with a montage of tough exercises that culminate toward Masako being a beast at sprinting strength, the “Big Boobs Buster”  campaign goes into hibernation until the race is done, a subplot that insidiously takes over as the main plot, cleaving the already less than a full-length feature film in half. 

Catalogued at number four on the Whole Grain Pictures label, “Big Boobs Buster” is one large cup size of comedic body positivity done in the style of live action anime.  The new 4K remaster is pulled stems from the original camera 5mm negative and AVC encoded on a single-layered BD25, decoding at approx. 30Mbps.  Presented in high-definition, 1080ps, and in an European aspect ratio of 1.77:1 widescreen, “Big Boobs Hunter” is like being motorboated from your television screen with the rich look of a converted celluloid transfer that elevates Jun Abe’s luminous fogged night scenes, a glowing arura around the titular titillating heroine, and a contrasting shots of day time that offer warmer, slightly yellowis-tan tinted tones.  Skin textures and tones are reflected within the same softer glow but the rigid-contouring, around what can be delineated when shooting close up on a pair of breasts, do define a nice bulging image.  There are scenes, mostly a result of the cinematographer, that look flat between the foreground and background, suggesting possibly an aspherical lens that provides less curvature and less compressed, stretched image.  The release comes with two lossless DTS-HD 2.0 tracks with the original Japan mix and an English dub.  Clarity and a solid amount of punchiness come through nicely enough on the Japanese track that’s review covered but there’s not a ton of depth here with mostly frontloaded dialogue and action and nothing to note in the background or any environmental ambience.  Special features include a blooper reel that doubles as a behind-the-scenes featurette done in a traditional pop culture Japanese style with a gameshow announcer overlay track and translucent title cards in Japanese.  Also included are the original Japanese DVD trailers.  What catches the eye is the very pinku film and retro stylized cover with an in-your-face panty-covered butt overtop thigh high boots set in the foreground framing a scared schoolgirl between the legs.  Who wouldn’t want to watch this based solely off the cover!?  The reverse side of the sleeve contains an enlarged image still of another character and the backside acts humorously like “nutritional facts guide” superimposed onto the back cover.  The release comes in a standard Blu-ray Amaray.  With a runtime of 45 minutes, “Big Boobs Buster” is a breezy microfeature for a region free encoded Blu-ray that is not rated. 

Last Rites: Busting out with body positivity and sexual orientation themes, “Big Boobs Buster” brings out the big guns on a new Blu-ray release, animating manga to life on the big screen to experience Japan’s wildest cinema at its finest.

Own “Big Boobs Buster” on Blu-ray Home Video!

EVIL Seduces the Woman of her Dreams. “Vampyros Lesbos” reviewed! (Severin Films / 4K UHD and Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Men Beware of the “Vampyros Lesbos” now on 4K UHD and Blu-ray

Linda’s dreams vividly disturb her with imagery of an idyllic island where blood rivulets watercourse down curtains while being in the romantic embrace of a swarthy beautiful woman.  These dreams are so powerful she must see a therapist about them.  When attending an nude performance art show with husband Omar, she’s shocked to see the woman on stage is the same woman from her dreams.   The coincidence lingers with Linda on her business trip to a Turkish island where she meets Countess Nadine Carody to discuss a large inheritance from a Count Dracula.  Come to her surprise, Countess Carody is the same woman from on stage.  Immediately, Linda’s under Countess Carody’s suggestive sexual influence of a lesbian vampire.  When Carody falls deeply for Linda, she will stop at nothing to have her whole, as one of her, to pass along the tradition of inherence as Dracula has done for her, but Omar, the psychiatrist Dr. Seward who’s familiar with vampirism, and a Memmet, a hotel clerk moonlighting as a rogue and vindictive vampire hunter, aim to help Linda from Carody’s grasp one way or another. 

The director behind some of Europe’s sleaziest erotic-horrors, such as “The Sadist of Notre Dame,” “Ilsa, the Wicked Warden,” and “A Virgin Among the Living Dead,” Jesús Franco, aka Jess Franco, was a prolific cult icon of the past, the present, and will still be in the future.  The Spanish born filmmaker grew up in the Francisco Franco dictatorship for over 30 years but that didn’t stop him from expressing his artistic freedom with the 1971 released “Vampyros Lesbos, “ a German production set in Turkey that mirrors the classic Bram Stoker tale but with teaks of character, scenery, and sexual orientation albeit “Dracula” is too thought to be a homoerotic tale to some filmic scholars.  Compositely filmed in Turkey, Spain, and Germany, “Vampyros Lesbos” is a production of Tele-Cine Film und Fernsehproduktion, Central Cinema Company, and the Fénix Cooperativa Cinematográfica with Karl Heinz Mannchen as executive producer and Artur Brauner as producer, both of whom worked on Franco’s “The Vengeance of Doctor Mabuse,” and the story, based loosely off of Stoker’s tale, is penned by Franco. 

Like other Franco productions of this caliber, the cast is comprised of internationals, ranging from Spain to Sweden, from Britian to Switzerland, and to finally Germany without a single Turkish thespian in sight despite the story’s setting locale of Istanbul.  As mentioned briefly above, “Vampyros Lesbos” follows a threadbare version of Bram Stoker’s iconic Gothic tale that trades the grotesque Gothicisms for sunnier skies and idyllic island houses.  The basic principal characters are present from Stoker’s story but have been tweaked to fit Franco’s feverous surreal aesthetic that has a really sink its teeth into the homoerotic indulgencies.  Swedish actress Ewa Strömberg (“The Devil Came from Akasava,” “She Killed in Ecstasy”) resembles something along the lines of a Jonathan Harker-type but instead of being in real estate, like Harker, her character Linda Westinghouse is an inheritance lawyer dispatched to Countess Carody’s island home where she is bewitched by Carody’s infatuation and lust for her lifeforce.  Countess Carody is the obvious counterpart to Count Dracula but spun in a way that makes Bram Stoker’s story more like a tangent rather than remake as it’s Count Dracula’s fortune Countess Carody is inheriting.  Spanish actress Soledad Miranda (who also costarred with Strömberg in “The Devil Came from Akasava” and “She Killed in Ecstasy”) is the sultriest creature on the screen in Carody’s nude and neck biting pastimes and coupled with the easy-going Linda, Strömberg and Miranda sizzle as lesbian lovers very comfortable with each other’s performances and bodies.  Van Helsing is embodied by Dr. Seward but with reverse tendencies that do not require the doctor to be the stake to stop vampirism but rather entertain an unexpected twist trait that’s quite opposite.  Seward is played by British actor Dennis Price (“Tower of Evil”) and is a comparable Van Helsing amongst the previous lot but definitely less harrowing and dramatic than most.  Seward’s deranged patient Agra is the final piece to the Stoker narrative semblance as the story’s Renfield.  German actress Heidrun Kussin (“The Swingin’ Pussycats”) does not eat or feign eat bugs and other nightcrawlers to aspire being a vampire but retains Renfield’s psychic connection while going hysteria topless as she squirms in bed for her master’s return to whisk her away into the night.  “Vampyros Lesbos” rounds out the cast with new cast not familiar to Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” with Andrea Montchal (“Eugenie de Sade”) as Linda’s husband Omar, José Martínez Blanco as Countess Carody’s loyal bodyguard Morpho, Paul Muller (“Lady Frankenstein”) as Dr. Seward’s assistant Dr. Steiner, and Jesús Franco in the role of Memmet, a hotel clerk with a visceral vendetta against vampires. 

Arguably the most notable film out of the prolific Jesús Franco filmography, as I believe it to rival another outstanding piece of work from Franco, “Eugenie… The Story of Her Journey into Perversion, starring Christopher Lee and Maria Rohm based off the Marquis de Sade novel, “Vampyros Lesbos” is perhaps Franco’s most recognized piece film that has a sliver of notoriety while also spurring a remake years later in a 20-minute short film in 2008 by Matthew Saliba.  Most of Franco’s repitoire can be said as messy, a mash up of other films recut to make a new film, hackeneyed, and a complete dull, but “Vampyros Lesbos” is different.  It’s also not the same Eurosleaze one might be familiar with in regard to his catalogue; in fact, “Vampyros Lesbos,” despite the name, doesn’t even feel like sleaze.  There’s a naturality about it underneat it’s Bram Stoker-homoericism message sans the gratuitous nudity that’s more of a playful exploration of sexuality.  The only resemblance of sex is through the vampiric rite of seductive foreplay and subsequential drinking of the blood and with only Linda and Countess Nadine in scenes of embrace.  Not even poor Linda’s husband, Omar, has conjugal interactions and that plays into the whole theme of the story that Oman and Linda have this sexless relationship and here comes along Countess Nadine and her oozing sexpot of Linda’s fantasies inside a one-side power dynamic.  There’s no degenerate-filled debasement in this sexploitation, one the story’s traits that actually separates itself from “Eugenie,” and Franco, like with “Eugenie” on this element, actually helms an artistic aesthetic with good editing, crafty angles, and a varied cinematography blend of natural and stylized imaging. 

Provocative European sexploitation that isn’t busk European sleaze, “Vampyros Lesbos” is zenith Jess Franco, a social-political rebel and artist unafraid to tell a story that won’t tickle everyone’s interest but definitely be an archetype of the director’s caliber.  Severin Films proudly presents “Vampyros Lesbo” onto a new 4K UHD and Blu-ray dual-format set with a 4K presentation scanned from the original 35mm negative.  The 4K UHD is compressed with HVEC encoding onto a BD100 and the standard Blu-ray is AVC encoded onto a BD50 with respective resolutions of 2160p and 1080p.  The European 1.66:1 widescreen is the aspect ratio on both formats, but the UHD uses DolbyVision to expand upon the already lush color pallet with a richer complexity within the color scheme even though Franco loves his most muted black dressings on characters and on sets.  The extra pixels offer deeper textural, mostly auspiciously perceived in the club scenes that present a room of textures and in often brightly lit captures that don’t washout the details but rather define them more accurately.   The standard Blu-ray offers the same approach but brought back a step or two due to format limitations on the color scale and pixel count but a lesser keen eye won’t take much notice.  The original negative print shows no egregious mishandling damage or degrading emulsion wear.  The only audio track available is the German Mono ADR track with optional English subtitles.  This release does not contain the English dub that’s lost out there in physical media land.  The mono track has a flat tone with no depth to speak of and is full of desynch between dialogue movements and audio overlay but never hides behind the other single output layers. German Manfred Hübler and Sigfried Schwab eclectic score is a fun listen with brass, piano, sentur, light drums, and bass compiled to an era swanky main score that’s quoted being a sexadelic dance party, and rightfully so.  There’s even a distorted vocals on a slow beat jazz track that provides the unsettling and sultry notes for the underplayed horror side of this sexploitation.  Special features on the UHD includes audio commentaries by Kat Ellinger, author of Daughter of Darkness, and a collab between film academic Aaron AuBuchon and Oscarbate Film Collective’s John Dickson and Will Morris.  The UHD concludes with the German theatrical trailer.  The standard Blu-ray has more wiggle room for bons features with all the above from UHD, plus an interview with Jess Franc just prior to his death Interlude in Lesbos, an interview with Stephen Trower, author of Murderous Passions:  The Delirious Cinema of Jesús Franco, a Jess Franco career appreciation by “Anora” director Sean Baker The Red Scarf Diaries, the Stephen Thrower hosted In the Land of Franco, Part 12 looks at iconic locales from Franco’s films with a primary focus on “The Sadist of Notre Dame” which his set in Paris, France, an interview with Soledad Miranda historian Amy Brown Sublime Soledad, a 3-minute mini interview with Jess Franco labeled Jess is Yoda that provides some comedic flair and “Star Wars” references, and the German opening title sequence.  Physically, Severin’s release has a stark, hard contrast cardboard O-ring slipcover with Soledad Miranda in a seductive position starring right aback at you in front of black background.  The backside of the slipcover contains no technical information but does have review quotes, credit acknowledgments, and lingering stare between Countess Carody and Linda Westinghouse.  Inside you’ll find the classic 4K UHD Amaray with Severin’s original Blu-ray art from 2015, commissioned by graphic artist Ben Benscoter.  There is no reverse image on the sleeve.  The discs are held separately with one each side of the interior.  The 89-minute film is not rated and is region free for global enjoyment.

Last Rites: Jess Franco’s “Vampyros Lesbos” is on the select short list of how the Spanish director should be judged by existing and new fans of his work and remembered in his long career and legacy as a truly psychedelic, auteur driven, lesbian vampire film with plenty of women-centric allure and flesh.

Men Beware of the “Vampyros Lesbos” now on 4K UHD and Blu-ray

Keep an Eye on EVIL Unloved Ones with a Camera in the Coffin! (Wild Eye Releasing / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Watch Me Sleep” Now Available on DVD!

After the death of his abusive mother, recovering alcoholic Sean returns to his hometown with ulterior motives other than attend her funeral.  He hires a webcam company service to install a camera inside her coffin to ensure that his mother, who would repeated micro-stab him in the back with knives, is, in fact, dead.  As he struggles with his addiction and plagued by nightmares of random occult images involving his mother, Sean can barely hold it together to watch the video fee but when he does, what he sees often horrifies him – a rotting skeletal corpse with maggots, brief movements caught in a glimpse, and even her staring right back at him.  He implores a town friend to check his sanity, but all seems normal as normal can be with a coffin-cam facing directly at a corpse.  As the nightmares intensify, a presence takes hold of Sean, a familiar presence that hasn’t terrified him since he was a child. 

“Watch Me Sleep” might sound like a ploy phrase your kids would say to get you to stay with them at night or during nap time but for John Williams – the director of the 2023 film and not the “Jaws” and “Star Wars” composer – the lingering effect of trauma can be a powerful, often adjacent to being supernaturally scary, and is nowhere near being child’s play.  The director of 2015’s “The Slayers” and “Creatures of the Night” writes and directs the British voyeuristic graveside thriller that concentrates on the lasting aftermath effects of trauma despite our past being buried six feet underground.  Filmed in Staffordshire England, “Watch Me Sleep” is an independent production with Williams and Claire Ward as their third production together since 2021, behind “Creatures of the Night” and “There Something in the Shadows,” and executive producer Volker Plassmann, producer behind “Next Door” and “The Beast of Riverside Hallow.” 

Small production equals small cast but that doesn’t equate to poor performance as “Watch Me Sleep’s” cast is brilliant within the oversimplification explanation of the plotline which is more or less a traumatized man obsessed with watching his dead mother on camera to ensure she stays dead.  That doesn’t sound too exciting but with the actors’ performances and with Williams evolving of the plot to keep Sean’s sanity teetering on edge, “Watch Me Sleep” is more fleshed out with richer than expected character backstory and development of Sean, played intently and without hesitation by William’s go-to actor Darren McAree, and his problems with alcohol, a tormented childhood, and his blinding spite for his mother.  Mum is played by Sarah Wynne Kordas in a dialogue-free peripheral of psychological spookiness as a lifeless head on a webcam for most of the picture but is able to shine in the shadows of Sean’s vivid imagination and be diabolically on point when that lifeless head moves unexpectedly in a not-so-subtle manner for the chill and thrill triggered moments.  While the mum is certainly a presence, Sean is basically a one-man show of bopping between his struggles with drinking, his affliction of nightmares, his hesitation of webcam voyeurism, and trying to blow off steam and showcase his questionable sanity to townie friend Tom (James Whitehurst, “Creature of the Night”) who humors his friend’s hysteria with rather tranquil patience that is unusual.  The rest of the characters support where needed with brief interactions surrounding Sean’s cam setup and AA meetings with  Zane Hopkins (“The Beast of Riverside Hollow”), Steve Wood (“Cannibals and Carpet Fitters’), Charles O’Neill (“The Jack in the Box Rises”), Katie Elliff, and David Tunstall (“Beyond the Witching Hour”) as a mysterious man once friend to Sean’s mother. 

Despite the budget and some unpolished areas, there’s surprisingly more bang for your buck in “Watch Me Sleep” with a thrilling storyline that houses competent performances, editing, and one hell of a movie magic accomplishment in its special effects.  The black and white dream sequences of randomized occult and supernatural imagery are reminiscent of “Ringu’s” the contents of VHS tape with more visceral sound design to give it a lasting, haunting discord and the editing done an all accounts of these dreams are spliced perfectly into Sean’s sleeping and waking nightmares.  Between this reoccurring onslaught of mixt pernicious phantasmagoria and the out of left field special effects that reap the success for “Watch Me Sleep,” John Williams’ little English film is a bit a sleeper itself we should watch in a statement that’s ironically punned.  Keeping it mysteriously ambiguous, Williams doesn’t define the context that is kept open to be obscure and confusing for Sean who’s trying to pieces his dreams, evidence, and his mother’s curious connections together, a puzzle that could be an explanation why she tortured him with a knife, but the gist of the story delves into the occult as his mother dabbled in ritual and paganistic indoctrinations in the layer much more satanists or demonology driven.  Yet, those details are never verbal explained and that keeps you guessing whether his mum had dark dealings with the Devil or is the trauma, stress, and alcohol withdraw doing a number on his fractured psyche.  

You never know what kind of film you’re going to unearth at Wild Eye Releasing with its mysterious grab bag of horror schlock and independent ambition.  There have been titles of questionable taste that not even the sleaziest or gorehound fans would touch with a ten foot pole, but titles like the now out-of-print first-person-shooter occult-actioner “Hotel Inferno” and the satirical crude-humor of “Race Wars:  The Remake” are absolute low-budget gold held in high esteem.  “Watch Me Sleep” ranks up in that small layered stratosphere for the company who releases it on DVD.  The MPEG2 encoded DVD5 leaves much on the table technically with fuzzy detail on its standard 720p definition.  There’s no intricate picture quality nor does it have textural achievement but what you see is what you get, a picture constant and watchable B-horror you may catch on USA’s Up All Night hosted by Rhonda Shear and guest starring Gilbert Godfrey on cable television, broadcasting in analog through a tube set.  I will say the special effects are damn good for money and with no signs of how they’re achieved, such as wires, CGI, nor other.  The UK English language PCM Stereo 2.0 has its problems as well with a boxy, depth-less dual channel output that has a subtle layer of interference static, likely due to inexperience or poor equipment, but the dialogue track remains front and center with prominence and the sound design, the jarring clicks and pops along with the discord sounds of Sean’s nightmares and the overall brooding score, shoulders a lot of the weight by carrying the film’s technical problems.  There are no available subtitles.  Bonus features include only an image gallery, the trailer, and other Wild Eye Releasing previews.  The clear DVD Amaray comes with Wild Eye Releasing’s on brand exaggerated artistic rendition of an intense and scary old woman emerging from her coffin.  It’s a bit hyperbolic but eye-catching.  The reversible sleep has a sheet spanning, bloody depicted still from the film and no other bonus inserts.  The region free DVD is not rated and has encoded a 91-minute runtime.

Last Rites: Definitely one Wild Eye Releasing titles to pick up and enjoy, “Watch Me Sleep” has mother issues, alcoholic issues, trust issues, relationship issues, paranoia issues, and supernatural issues in what is a sleeper hit from the writer-director John Williams.

“Watch Me Sleep” Now Available on DVD!

It’s Not Freddy. This is a Different Kind of EVIL in Your Nightmares! “Dream Eater” reviewed! (The Horror Section / DVD-Bluray Combo)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Dream Eater” Will Watch You In Your Sleep! Check It Out Here on Blu-ray!

Alex suffers from parasomnia, a sleep disorder condition that causes him to sleepwalk, talk and act erratically, and even produces violent behavior while seemingly conscious during his sleep cycle.  When one particularly violent bad episode nearly kills him, his girlfriend Mallory, a documentarian, rents a snowy, isolated cabin for a little rest and relaxation while also video documenting Alex awake and asleep per medical request from his doctors.  Over the course of a week, Alex parasomnia events become more frequent and even more strange when Alex refers to a man trying to get into the house but has no recollection of events when awake next morning.  As Mallory digs deeper into the conversations of his dreams, her investigation leads her beyond scientific explanation as there lies an evil influence possessing Alex family line, one where Alex was left orphaned and adopted as a child.  Alex’s uncovered past is key to his sleepwalking terrors that are insidiously taking him over. 

Trio collaborating filmmakers Jay Drakulic, Alex Lee Williams, and Mallory Drumm independently controls the market when it came to their script for “Dream Eater,” a modest cosmic horror that took the elements of the unknown and other terrifying Lovecraftian lore and put them into a found footage terrifier themed surrounding sleep disorders and how the science is not exact nor is it taken seriously to a fault within its frighteningly fantastical context.  The trio not only wrote-and-directed the 2025 released film but they also played key roles because of the real physical scenes involving snow and ice enveloping the isolated cabin.  The Canadian production was filmed in late winter of the Laurentian Mountains of Quebec to achieve the helpless sensation of being trapped with no signs of civilization to help.  Blind Luck Picture serves as the production studio with Drakulic, Williams, and Drumm in the executive producer roles under the company alongside “Godsend” actor Thomas Chambers as co-producer. 

Alex Lee Williams and Mallory Drumm spreadhead all the major areas of production, including acting as the parasomnia inflicted Alex and his worried documentarian girlfriend Mallory.  Yes, their character names didn’t stray at all away from their actual names, likely to be as natural as possible while character conversing, and because they’re already familiar with each other, the on-screen relationship doesn’t stick out and into the sides of our viewing pleasure as an odd couple; instead, Alex and Mallory, the characters, project examples of engrained compassion, fear, and loyalty.  However, I do feel Alex and Mallory, as a couple, also has an artificial aspect as they’re only boyfriend and girlfriend when they’re interplay more plays to the tune of a married couple that, in a way, feels like a one-sided relationship with little-to-no intimacy between them other than a couple of pecking kisses.  Mallory has the patience of a saint and it’s not because of Alex’s continual night walks and terrors that are getting more and more erratic each day, it’s more of Alex during the day that doesn’t express much love and care for Mallory’s endurance during this tough time.  Alex is quite endurable, insufferable, and aimless as a person with no ambition, job, or adoration for much of anything.  So, instead of an easiness of the presence that beleaguers them, much of the anxiety is created interpersonally that’s perhaps an intentional play by the filmmakers to metaphorically materialize troubling inner demons into an actual demon-like creature.  Brief supporting roles from Kelly Williams, Dainty Smith, David Richard, and Robin Akimbo fill in the gaps with video calls and photographical sequences while the third director Jay Drakulic implements his voice talents as a 911 operator in the prologued turmoil of Alex’s frantic self-harm during one of parasomnia episodes.

“Dream Eater” is one of those small but might films that has a larger-than-life concept beyond our realm and existence but contained to only a handful few.  Yet, the impacting result, by not only the story but also the Michael Caterina cinematography, has extensive reach to be massive and full of impending doom.  It’s “Dream Eater’s” cosmic horror that draws and builds as the reality hasn’t set in on the exact root cause for Alex’s increasing nightly episodes.  Once that corner has turned and there’s something more sinister, unnatural, at play, “Dream Eater” hooks securely with the enticing bait that reels in a timeless malevolent being on the precipice of all hell breaking loose as it slips into reality using susceptible Alex as the meaty vessel.  Viewers will know it’s coming but they won’t be prepared for it and that’s a welcome kink to work and chew on as Alex slowly becomes inhabited, or possessed, or manipulated by some thing. The found footage format doesn’t waste digital reel seizes the jump scare moments with max force, especially when Williams’s is grinning ear-to-ear and wildly abrupt in chase lurking just off frame to suddenly pop into view on cue.  The aesthetic of a snowy bleak setting adds to rise of calamity and ominous come forth and even the cabin as an austere interior without the comforts of modern security and technology in its mostly wooden veneered structure, rustic shed, and industrial-metal play equipment outside.  Where “Dream Eater” cheapens out is the finale scene that has a forced feel about it as if the Williams, Drumm, and Drakulic didn’t quite no how to end the story on any type of note and rushed a crude fate separated from the trunk of snow, cabin, and isolation.   

The self-funded film catches the eye of Eli Roth (“Cabin Fever,” “The Green Inferno”) and his media outlet The Horror Section as the one of three films produced by Roth’s company, sandwiched between “Bliss” director Joe Begos’” body horror “Jimmy and Stiggs” and the upcoming remake of the Clint Howard cult film, “Ice Cream Man,” helmed by Roth.  In association with Alliance Entertainment, the company releases a 2-disc, dual format set with DVD and Blu-ray.  The Blu-ray is AVC encoded BD50 with 1080p resolution and the DVD is MPEG2 encoded DVD9 with 720p resolution to upscaled resolution on the right system.  Both films are presented in a widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio.  The found footage image is what it is, or rather what its supposed to be, a hectic and erratic camera shuffle of ungraded film produced in lowlight and not a lot of contrast and that in itself can be a character of the story within the found footage trappings.  There’s no feigned rupture or distortion of the image because it’s set in more modern times with recent video capture tech.  The same descriptive qualities can be said about the audio where there’s no crackling, popping, or cuts in the formatted English language DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio that produces a clean sound with measured depth and a diffusion of atmospheric directionals from around the surround sound.  Dialogue has clarity under less than a full-bodied of potential with uncured found footage and some of the nondiegetic dialogue can sound more omnipresent and asynchronously afloat from any point of origin but does hit the side and back channels nicely for directional awareness. The environment sound has a delicate but effective touch with the swirling wind and snow and the motif sound cues that provide direction and rising tension, such as the door open announcement.  The DVD comes with a lossy Dolby 5.1 Sound Sound mix not reviewed in this coverage.  English subtitles are available.  Special features include director’s commentary, a behind-the-scenes featurette with Eli Roth presenting as more of sales pitcher of the project, a behind-the-scenes still gallery, and the trailer.  Underneath the video screen blue and white designed cardboard O-ring slipcover of William’s maniacally crazed screaming face is a traditional Blu-ray Amaray housing the DVD and Blu-ray on each of the case’s interior sides.  The one-sided sleeve art is exactly what I’ve described above about smallness felt amongst a larger impending setting with a near stark white cover and Alex’s silhouette standing small bottom-center.  There is a mini folded poster inside between the slipcover and the case that fits nice enough between the discs when you need to store it more securely.  The 89-minute film comes unrated and though unlisted, both Blu-ray and DVD are region locked in A and 1. 

Last Rites: As a micro cosmic horror with its Lovecraftian influence and fear of the unknown, “Dream Eater” is the perfect nightmare, a found footage of atmosphere fear and sanity dysphoria with an impending doom kicker.

“Dream Eater” Will Watch You In Your Sleep! Check It Out Here on Blu-ray!

When EVIL Messes with a Family of Blue, There’s No Other Choice Than Street Justice. “She Shoots Straight” reviewed! (88 Films / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“She Shoots Straights” and She Never Misses! On Blu-ray Today!

A widowed mother has four daughters and one son whom all work for the Honk Kong national police, more specifically called the CID, Criminal Investigation Division.  Her only son, Huang Tsung-pao, marries another cop, a promising officer named Mina Kao who is quickly rising up the ranks between her supervisor husband and the superintendent.  One could say the Huang family bleeds a brotherhood and sisterhood of blue, but none of Tsung Pao’s sisters approve of Mina despite her being a colleague in arms with the belief she’s stealing their brother away from them and receiving special treatment and recognition from a flirting superintendent who has eyes for her.  When the investigation team tracks down a dangerous, transgressing gang of Vietnamese refugees planning on robbing a night club at gunpoint, Tsung Pao is tragically killed in the one of the tussles, leaving Tsung-pao’s sisters, wife, and mother to seek revenge-seeking justice before the killers flee the country.

If you thought female-driven action films weren’t prevalent enough in the 1990s, 皇家女将,aka “She Shoots Straight,” aimed to prove that theory incorrect.  The Hong Kong production by “Yes, Madam!”) director Corey Yuen is nothing but women-in-action in this gun-fu actioner penned by Yuen, Kai-Chi Yuen (“Once Upon a Time in China”) and Barry Wong (“Mr. Vampire,” “Hard Boiled”).  The action dares with high wire acts that are kept grounded in reality but there’s plenty of intense hand-to-hand skirmishes made to be not only appear feasible on screen but awesomely cool while doing it.  Sunt coordinator and filmmaker Sammo Kam-Bo Hung, who we just covered as the stunt coordinator and second unit director in our review of Jean-Claude Van Damme’s “Knock Off,” produces the 1990 released venture to ensure palpable contact fighting with Pui-Wah Chan serving as co-producer and Leonard Ho serving as executive producer under the Sammo Kam-Bo Hung and Leonard Ho studio, Bo Ho Film Company.

Men certainly take a backseat to “She Shoot Straight’s” policewomen with a vendetta, removing all the substantial and good out of the few male roles assigned, and spearheading the task to Joyce Godenzi.  “The Ghost Snatchers” actress finds herself lead aggrieved party, the widow Mina, in grief and out for revenge her way.  She’s joined by her late husband’s closest sister Huang Chia-Ling whose character arc began loathing Mina’s acute entry into their large law enforcement family.  Played by “2046’s” Carina Lau, the two women compliment their initial oppositions while solidifying their bond over a tragic commonality that shows being an officer is more than just a pageantry rise to the top, it’s, as Dominic Terretto would say in “Fast and the Furious,” family.  Even the on the villain side of characters, the main Vietnamese agitator and all-around bad guy Nguyan Hwa (Wah Yuen, “Kungfu Hustle”) is overshadowed by his sister Nguyen Ying, a peak physical specimen of physical strength, courage, and loyalty to her brothers.  Agnes Aurelio is a pure picture of strength as Ying who is not only a presence on screen with her muscular look and large curly hair, she also takes the final one-versus-one showdown with Mina in a dusty exhibition of martial arts skill but it’s Hwa’s sister who also breaks him out of refugee camp, sets up his escape plan, and gives more a fight with physicality than her gun-reliant brother.  The other male parts are equally as overshadowed with the superintendent (Chi-Wing Lau, “Police Story”) a horndog for the married Mina, Sammo Kam-Bo Hung in perhaps the least as the dismissed Huang relative on the force who’s continued to be mocked for his in-law status, and even Mina’s husband (Tony Ka Fai Leung, “Flying Dagger”) is killed in the most transfixing way right in front of Mina and Chia-Ling to harden their character story’s broken relationship.  Pik-Wan Tang rounds out the chief cast as the respected matriarch Mother Huang honors her late husband with five children who follow his footsteps and as a mother hyper aware of her family dynamic-suspended micro drama between the women.  Anglie Leung (“Vampire Buster”), Lai-Yui Lee (“School on Fire”) and Sandra Ng (“Ghostly Vixen”) found out the sister siblings. 

This Yuen entry of heroic bloodshed has deeper shades of comedy that wade around the waters of slapstick rather than be an abyss of tenebrous noir.  While the comedy is apparent and can be considered outrageous in the action-comedy framework, there’s an underlining serious tone with the demonstration of violence with blood squibs and even a body being impaled multiple times.  There’s no skirting around the violence that shows little result from the martial arts portion of the action, leaving flying projectiles to be the ill-fitting, carnage-laden lifetaker.  Yet, the sibling squabbling, the flirtatious foreplay, and the snarky remarks tone down the severity, cleaving the intensity in two for the film’s bifold persona that makes “She Shoots Straight” an interesting little film aside from the strong heroine aspect in a male dominated era of martial art films that began to incline with the likes of Michelle Yeoh, Cynthia Rothrock, and Cynthia Khan to name a few.  Joyce Godenzi’s name is definitely on that list with her performance in “She Shoot Straights” that deliveries a diversity of fast and hard moves with a beauty and grace in tandem.  The story’s lose approach with the unlawful Vietnamese refugees keeps plot pliable to change on a moment’s notice, such as an undercover operation turning into a deadly consequence that pivots from the lighthearted antics with slivers of action to a grittier payback overreaching the law with vigilantism, that results and retains a positive and fresh narrative progression.

“She Shoots Straight” has a brand new 2K restoration Blu-ray from UK label 88 Films for the North America market.  The AVC encoded, 1080p high definition transfer is scanned from the original 35mm negative and stored on a BD50.  In a nutshell, 88 Film’s transfer is impeccable and flawless to present the naturally graded cinematography.  Colors are balanced in a diffused saturation, details are highly visible and charted with precision for the best-looking image, and the print restoration is one of the better products I’ve seen lately from a pristine original print from the Fortune Star Asian film archive.  The freshened image could even rival most shot-on-film movies of today, if not exceed it. The film is presented in the original aspect ratio of 1.85:1 widescreen.  The language ADR track is the original Cantonese mono with English subtitles.  The post-production audio hits all the necessary markers between action, environment, and dialogue, capturing with balance a crisp and clean dialogue that syncs very well with the subtitle pacing and is error free in t’s King’s English.  The fight hits have palpable impact with low muffled effects rather than the traditional chop-socky slappy whacks that all sounds alike in kicks and punches.  There’s never a time the action doesn’t synch with the audio and this create an authentic product rather than an evident post-production track that can be off-putting and feel disingenuous for viewers.  If subtitles are not your thing, there is an English dub available in 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio and a LPCM 2.0 mono.  Special features include an in tandem commentary by Asian film expert Frank Djeng, an interview with scriptwriter Yuen Kai-Chi, alternate English credits, an image gallery, and the original Hong Kong trailer.  An impressive characteristic of the 88 Films’ Blu-ray is their ever color, ever stylized, and ever showcasing slipcover with a rigid O-ring that has some great artwork by graphic artist Sean Langmore that is also as the primary art on the reversible inner sleeve of the Amaray case.  The reverse side has the original Hong Kong compositional design that shows off more of Agnes Aurelio muscular definition and badassery.  The not rated film is region A locked, which is surprising only the North American rights are acquired because it’s a UK-based company, and clocks in at 92-minutes.

Last Rites: 88 Film’s 2K restoration of “She Shoots Straight” looks astonishing that elevates this police action comedy with a violent edge from Hong Kong. With a perfect blend of humor, gun-fu, and emotional weight, director Corey Yuen’s fortunately legacy lives on, now in Hi-Def, for future generation moviegoers.

“She Shoots Straights” and She Never Misses! On Blu-ray Today!