Richard, a wealthy businessman, and Jen, his young, candy arm mistress, helicopter in onto Richard’s desert retreat house. While his wife and children are at home, Richard plans to spend his time away relishing a pleasurable weekend that involves relaxing by the outdoor firepit, swimming in the infinity pool, being sultry with Jen, and do a bit of hunting along the mountains, canyons, and riverbeds. When Richard’s associates, Stan and Dimitri, arrive a day early, a party filled night rapidly ensues, but events turn sour when Jen is brutally attacked the next day and Richard plans to snuff out the scandal before it unravels to ruin him. Unwilling to cooperate with a coverup, Jen is nearly murdered by her three attackers only to arise like the rebirth of the Phoenix, igniting a vengeful fire inside her as she uses everything she has at her disposal to finish what they started.
In a day and age when the slightest bit of a woman’s attention can explode into a vile reaction of testosterone warped misguidance and it’s the woman who is shamed as the accosted criminal being barked at aggressively by the unequivocal fearful and condemning voices of the male species, it’s movies like Coralie Fargeat’s action-packed “Revenge” that symbolizes woman’s resiliencies against men’s efforts in a show of violent force that’s “First Blood” without John Rambo, but rather with a scorned princess for retributive capital justice. “Revenge” is the French filmmaker’s first full-length penned and directed feature film that’s one gritty and bloody grindhouse vindictive sonovabitch, a pure punch to the throat, and a direct message to misogyny everywhere. Filmed in the Morocco desert during Winter, the small cast is swallowed by the vastly arid landscape of transfixing cruelty, a synonymous parallel to the feat the heroine Jen is drawn to task. It’s also a feat that Fargeat managed to salvage to finally release a rape-revenge thriller backed by a conglomerate of production firms and financiers to stand with a film from a first time director whose treatment offers up maltreatment of women, such as the rape, along with the savagery, the concept of revenge, and ridiculous amounts of blood. M.E.S. Productions, Monkey Pack Films, Charades, Logical Pictures, Nextas Factory and Umedia are just to name a few of the production companies to be supporting capital.
With a role embodying the symbolic brutalization of physical and mental rape, a role of complete loneliness in a fatal skirmish against their attackers, and in a role forsaken in the face of death only to be reborn from the ashes of their former self, Matilda Lutz’s fully charged capacity to tackle such a demanding performance is beyond praiseworthy, scrapping the timid traits from Jen’s ravaged glossy persona and replacing with a rigid exterior ready and willing to combat to the death. The Italian born Lutz has to go through a metamorphosis and refashion Jen to be able to differentiate from her more bubbly first half self as the easy kill or the disposable male plaything. In a twisted turn of events, Jen’s mortal adversaries have every advantage to douse out Jen’s existence: gear, guns, vehicles, clothes, water, fuel, numbers, etc. Yet, despite all the advantages, the desert, much like Jen, is unforgiving as it is bare. Richard (Kevin Janssens), Stan (Vincent Colombe), and Guillaume Bouchede (Dimitri) exude the utmost confidence their grip around Jen’s throat. Janssens’ fortifies as the rigorous cutthroat, a misogynistic philanderer, determined to save his own skin no matter the cost while Colombe’s Stan is a retracting coward with regretful impulses. Colombe’s brings the comedy to a grimly tale and positions Stan to be the teetering villain tarnished by his guilt of nearly killing Jen, but never apologizes to being the catalytic rapist that initiates the whole debacle. Bouchede supplements with his divestment to charm as the overweight, do-nothing witness to save Jen from Stan’s seizing urges. As Dimitri, Bouchede stalls his typical niceties to be the silent violator who can open up the flood gates of aggression when transgression warrants it.
“Revenge” has an ultra-violent and super-synth finish chapping with multiple motifs of a rebirth theme and supplies a hefty bloodletting of incorporeal measures. Knocking it out of the park in her first feature film, Fargeat’s cauterizes the unnerving serious tone with alleviated black comedy of the bloodiest kind. The roundabout endgame chase comes to mind, involving a frazzled Jen and a wounded, but indomitable Richard in a merry-go-round of a shotgun standoff is some of the best editing work of fast and ferocious content I’ve seen in some time while still able to vitalize a transparent sense of what’s occurring. However, not all the slick editing is flawless. Some minor inconsistencies in the editing are noticeable and while these moments of lapse are not detrimental or pivotal to the story, they reflect Fargeat’s challenges of making a hyper-stylized action-thriller in her freshman full-length feature. In a sense, everything Fargeat’s deploys positions “Revenge” into a surreal tonality, glamorized for those thirsty for blood gushing in a canyon-vast desert bristled with rape and payback where a mere four players in this ebb and flow game of killer combat chess can effortlessly locate each other, but one can always find their prey by following their blood trail, another motif that continues to pop up that speaks metaphors of their life blood is the very object gives them away in the end.
Giving the limited edition treatment that it deserves, Second Sight Films’s Blu-ray release of “Revenge” is a mouthwatering narcotic of raging cathexis and while the Blu-ray BD-R can’t be technically critiqued, the LE release offers HD 1080p transfer of the original, 2.39:1 aspect ratio and sports an English language DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix. While Fargeat might be inspired by Lynchian themes, the cinematography work by Robrecht Heyvaert also resembles “Pitch Black” director David Twohy’s films with making something small larger than life and a particular chase scene involving all four characters at the edge of a canyon stroke a familiar chord with Twohy’s “A Perfect Getaway.” There were Second Sight Films’ exclusive bonus features included on the disc, featuring new interviews with director Carolie Fargeat and star Matilda Lutz (entitled “Out for Blood”) an interview with Dimitri actor Guillaume Bouchede (entitled “The Coward”), a interview with Robrecht Heyvaert (entitled “Fairy Tale Violence”), a new interview with composer Robin Coudert and the synth sounds of “Revenge,” and a new audio commentary by Kat Ellinger, author and editor of Diabolique. The release is sheathed inside a rigid slipcase featuring new artwork by Adam Stothard as well as a poster and a new soft cover book with new writings by Mary Beth McAndrews and Elena Lazic Overall, “Revenge” received a monster packaged release ready for the taking on May 11th. “Revenge” destroys toxic masculinity and breathes a vindictive hope from the fiery embers of rebirth and destruction.
Monthly Archives: May 2020
EVIL is a Slice of Deep Dish Hell in “Creepy Tales of Pizza and Gore” reviewed! (Bayview Entertainment / Screener)
Pizza, that delicious concoction of bread, marinara, cheese, and your topping of choice kneaded and pieced together in a gooey circular of staple culinary awesomeness, has somehow found its way baked into an Italian-sans-meatball horror anthology that promises an equally saucy taste of crusted blood red gore. Five varied, harried tales of horror molded into a gruesome and terrifying VHS-style that will send chills down your spine as you swallow your first piping hot bite of pizza will either have you hungry for more or hurling out your pepperonis. These tales of macabre include the cursed audio tracks of a deadly screaming ghost, the grisly torture and murder in the name of Satan, the tragic and supernatural deaths of two ill-fated lovers, a wooded creature stalking stranded motorists, and a VHS tape that seeks revenge on its former, ungrateful owner.
Let’s take our time traveling machine back to 2014 where Italian filmmaker, Lorenzo Fassina, releases his second feature directorial film behind the horror-comedy, “Anamnesi Mutante,” transmitting by way of a five tale anthology humorously entitled “Creepy Tales of Pizza and Gore;” the titles of the shorts are “Screaming Ghost,” “Devil of the Night,” “Alone in the House,” “Wood,” and “Killer Tape.” Co-directed with producer Marco Giangiarelli, The Milan born Fassina’s background also includes being a director of a collection of short films and music videos for bands that include Italian metal bands Cripple Bastards and Viscera///, similar music scores the anthology. The eclectic tales that greatly homage horror of the 80’s that include rich in color film titles and poignant atmosphere audio mixes, each have a runtime average of approx. 10 minutes long, and offer a mixed macabre of subgenre goodness from technological horror to inanimate object horror besieged with an interlacing host, a faceless, demon-like presenter with much to say, much like the Crypt Keeper. My apologies in advance as the screener that was provided didn’t have subtitles so the host’s soliloquy goes mostly misunderstood, but by the way of editing and how the syntax is structured, one would assume the ghoulish emcee sets up the pizza eaters with the next short video nasty. “Creepy Tales of Pizza and Gore” is produced by Fassina’s indie company, DirtyTape.
Most of us in the States more than likely won’t find any familiar faces inside the confines of these five tales and, know what? That’s okay! Aside from our hell bound host, there’s not a lick of dialogue spoken, but the capability to connect with the characters and the capacity to understand the story without words is as transparent as crystal clear waters of the Venice canals. An assemble of facial and eye expressions and a well edited together script and structure by Fassina for each short provides a sustainable and a sufficient menacing mixed bag of mouthwatering horror. The largely novice cast has either worked on previous projects with Fassina before or are an unknown delight to us viewers and cast list includes Sara Antonicelli, Beatrice Cartoni, Jonathan Farlotta, Jacopo Grandi, Francesco Marra, Tommaso Meledina, Alessandro Melito, Riccardo Tiberi, and Bunny Roberts with a cherry on top topless scene for good measure.
I’m not a terribly big fan of anthologies. Yes, I enjoy “Creepshow 2,” like every other horror fanatic smuck, and I do revel in the grave zest of the low-budget spectrum, especially with compilations from directors of the “HI-8”, aka “Horror Independent 8,” that featured the bloodbath films of some 80s/90’s SOV prodigies in Ron Bonk, Donald Farmer, Tim Ritter, and Marcus Koch, but most anthologies find their unsuccessful way right toward the trash bin, condensed to third-rate releases with little-to-no marketing and hardly any surplus material in the special feature department. “Creepy Tales of Pizza and Gore” may be a foreign anthology barely making an insignificant speck in the cinema market, but certainly shouldn’t be overlooked as the derived golden age of an immensely beloved straight-to-VHS horror courses through the veins of Fassina’s reverencing anthology. The stories garnish b-reel content, but not necessarily effortless or incompetent in substance and range from serious, to tongue-in-cheek, and out right absurdity, with the latter stories being the weaker links. In all, it’s a fun and entertainment horror show from our Italian friends.
“Creepy Tales of Pizza and Gore is delivered fresh and blood warm onto DVD home video courtesy of the New Jersey based distributor, Bayview Entertainment. As aforementioned, Bayview Entertainment publicity provided a streaming screening link so the audio and video aspects will not be critique for this review, but the DVD specs include a single disc, Anamorphic widescreen presentation, with an unrated rating on an Italian language anthology that, supposedly, has English subtitles – my screener did not have subtitles. Bayview Entertainment’s DVD casing resembles entirely like a VHS-cassette with faux movie rental stickers stuck on the outer plastic. The packaging is a nice and warranted touch to a VHS-homaging anthology. There were no special features included with the screener or released in the press release. Chow down on night with “Creepy Tales of Pizza and Gore;” a validating horror anthology worthy of time and effort and reaffirming the faith in anthologies once again with wild, imaginative macabre ambitions without the stiffening efforts of pushy financiers calling behind-the-wheel shots.
“Creepy Tales of Pizza and Gore” won’t disappoint! Buy here on Amazon.com
Vampire + Psychopath = Evil in “Blood Widow” reviewed! (Indican Pictures / Screener)
A serial killer with severe mother and father issues stabs to death beautiful young women in urban Arizona. Two detectives are hot on his trail, but when they begin to find his victims with nonidentical wound patterns, including bite marks on their necks, the detectives are thrown into a loop of ancient supernatural proportions. Another pair of seekers, vampires whom have lived for centuries, track down the same serial killer for one very specific reason – his blood. The blood is a certain and rare hemoglobin type needed to resuscitate their dying breed, but with the killer’s instability rendering him volatile and dangerous, turning him into one of the powerful undead becomes risky business for humans and vampires alike.
With the backdrop of the city of Tucson, Arizona comes an off plumb detective-crime thriller smack dab in the middle of a vampiric rebirthing with Brendan Guy Murphy’s unconventional modern vampire tale, “Blood Widow.” Directed by Murphy and co-written by Dominic Ross (who had a main role in the Ron Jeremy starring’s “Blood Moon Rising,” “Blood Widow,” which is also known as “Viuda de Sangre,” is Murphy’s first venture into full length feature films. The veteran actor has starred in such films such as “The Minstrel Killer” and the unbeknownst to all, 2012 follow up to Dennis Hopper’s “Easy Rider,” “Easy Rider 2: The Ride Home,” but to his directorial credits, only a couple of short films are listed, testing Murphy’s hand at the proverbial helm of a multi-branched story with hard-nosed detectives, deranged killers, and a desperate vampire faction. “Blood Widow” is a production of Brendan Guy Murphy’s Tucson based production company, MurphySpeaking Films.
Murphy steps into the villainous shoes of Keller, the disturbed serial killer with mommy and daddy issues who remains elusive from two of Arizona’s finest detectives, played by James Craven, who has been virtually cinematically silent since the early 2000’s, and Dallas Thomas. Keller troubling backstory is briefly visual in the aftermath of his rage resulting in his terribly abusive and estranged parents. Murphy and Ross poorly incorporate the effects of Keller’s horrendous maltreatment into his transformed character; a battering character flaw untapped for persona turmoil that ultimately subsides to Keller’s newfound powers that give him nearly unstoppable bloodthirst and debauchery. Craven’s detective Valentine and the original vampire duo, Lilith (debut performance by Melissa Aguirre Fernandez) and Slight (Hector Ayala), also suffered from feebly storylines that involves a cocktail of Craven’s alcoholism and on-the-job trauma and Lilith and Slight’s early 20th century bond during the violent prejudicial times of vampire inquisitions in New Mexico. Each backstory is only merely, and half-heartedly, touched upon to give just a morsel of the full character that can never entirely arc to either redemption and falter. Aside from that, performances all around are solid enough to be enthusiastic charged. James Craven is chin deep into being a defiant detective with an obsession for capturing a killer who has become an elusive and terrifying figment of subconscious stress and haunting visions. Audiences can, again only briefly, be pulled into detective Valentine’s grim existence, provided by Craven’s unsullied efforts. Cisiany Oliver (“Jessicka Rabid”) and Abdul Salaam El Razzac (“Terminator 2: Judgement Day”) co-star.
I keep returning to the title, over and over again, puzzled in trying to explain or articulate why the film is titled as “Blood Widow.” Nothing apparent and explicit comes to the presentation forefront or to the bio-gears of my mind that would make the first instance of vampire activity with Lilith, I assume, a widow. Lilith’s brief backstory confides no pain of loss or grief and the little evidence that supports the possible catalyst front might have inkling hints at her sexual orientation, a prejudice witch hunt which would result in bearing bereavement, even if it’s 80+ years strong. Lilith has an arbitrary flashback that exhibits the brutal staking of another woman in her group of suspected vampires in broad daylight, one of the select unconventional vampire motifs revamped for “Blood Widow,” and though Lilith and the rest in her group were denying every aspect of the claim, their elongated fangs were in clear view and didn’t necessarily assist in their defense. The slain woman could have been a possible lover perhaps, paralleling a symbolic labeled perversion of lesbianism, but the fact that all suspects were women is the only clue toward that theory. Again, this is all objective and circumstantial on my part, but I can’t pinpoint another reason for such a title. Lack of connection comes to be a reoccurring theme in “Blood Widow” that fails to materialize more contextual value toward the scenes, titles, and characters for beneficial storytelling and less inscrutable acts.
Ultimate power is laced in the blood, but what if that power is used for evil? That’s what the Indican Pictures’s distributed “Blood Widow” sinks it’s teeth into with a digital platform release and the promise of a DVD home video release soon again. Unfortunately, I was provided with a DVD-R screener, so the video and audio technical aspects will not be critiqued for this review, but the dialogue audio mix is in English and Spanish with English subtitles. Some bonus features were included, such as outtakes and the trailer. “Blood Widow” has a premise of a promising, independent contemporary vampire hook, but without enriching mythos and some sort of connective coherency, “Blood Widow” wobbles through the approach to an unsatisfactory finale.
Watch “Blood Widow” on Prime Video!
It's Bloggin Evil! 