The Most Dangerous EVIL Isn’t the Hunter! “Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity” reviewed! (Full Moon Features / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

The future for beautiful women holds little promise as they are slaves across a patriarchal-oppressed galaxy.  Daria and Tisa are two of those women, scantily cladded and stowed away in shackles on a galactic starship.  Their harrowing escape crash lands them on the shores of a jungle planet where they’re recovered and hosted by game hunter Zed and his two robot servants in his lavish castle abode.  Dressing, feeding, and providing them comfortable room accommodations, Zed appears to be Daria and Tisa’s savior against those who have enslaved them and from the wreckage of their getaway ship, but along with another couple of salvaged survivors from another ship, Zed has nefarious plans for each one of them.  Plans that put the survivors back into the mutant-infested jungle where fervent game hunter Zed’s need for worthy sport aims to capture and kill his pampered and mount their heads on his trophy room wall.

In a male-controlled universe, the battle of the sexes rages on!  “Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity” takes gender warfare into the jungle thicket with assumed male insuperability going up against the strength and will of woman.  The amalgamating sex, violence, and horror director Ken Dixon, known for his credits in exploitation with “The Erotic Adventures of Robinson Crusoe,” “Filmgore,” and the documentary “The Best of Sex and Violence,” helmed his last entry in 1987 with this underclothed and campy science-fiction chase of human game.  Dixon, along with John Eng, Mark Wolf, and Don Daniel produce progressive gender boundaries with the film’s opposition to the laid ideology of Charles Darwin who once said man have a higher eminence, in whatever he takes up while woman intuition powers are characteristic of a lower race.  “Slaves Girl from Beyond Infinity” worked to balance the scale with women who won’t lie down and die because of man-favored gifts of sexual selection.  Beyond Infinity and Titan Productions served as the co-production companies and distributed theatrically by then Charles Band’s Full Moon Entertainment subsidiary, Urban Classics, until It’s sequential acquisition by Band and its assimilation into the Full Moon collective.

With the title like “Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity,” there better be a skimpy garbed cast of gorgeous women pew-pewing with futuristic laser guns and using their sexual promiscuity as a dangerous weapon.  Fortunately for us, Ken Dixon doesn’t drop the ball fulfilling the fantasy or, how I see it, is necessary for such a midnight showing title.  The film follows the imprisonment, escape, and into the hands of a human hunting madman story of Daria and Tisa, played by the super fit, super sexy blondes Elizabeth Kaitan (“Necromancer,” “Friday the 13th:  The New Blood”) and Cindy Beal (“My Chauffeur”).  Kaitan edges out Beal as the lead set early with Daria’s relentless confidence and better adept at taking advantage of a situation but both women play into the strong female heroine as they knock out well-armed and body-armored male guards, intoxicate the male, and even to the implied extent of a male identifying robot, gaze, and take on the murderous Zed in his own devious game albeit both barely having any clothes on for most of the duration in the cold of space and in the heat of the jungle.  Kaitan and Beal are not the only bodacious bods in the cast with the 80’s household scream queen Brinke Stevens (“The Slumber Party Massacre,” “Sole Survivor”) puts a foot out of the girl in a shower and other unnamed nude girl role and into a more principal character with Shala, a fellow planet stranded survivor from a previous crash told anecdotally, and in an opening, nonspeaking minor role, but definitely bursting with screams, and at the seams, of a barely covered flesh, is the unknown beauty Sheila White.  Stevens is sister to whom would become the “The Dark Half’s” special and visual effects supervisor, Carl Horner, as he plays Rik, a handsome, young man with a sneaking suspicion about their too-gracious of a host and a toying, on-the-brink love interest to a firm and more confident Daria in a steamy show sex scene to throw Zed off their conniving scent toward his do-no-good plans.  Zed’s a hard card to turn over and understand his true nature.  Played with impeccably classy and sporting glittery adorned, gun metal leather like a Niel Diamond on-stage outfit, Don Scibner has a traditional charm about him that he’s carried with him from his debut role in this Dixon film to other B-pictures laced with cult impression, such as “Moon of Scorpio,” “Night Shade,” and “Witchcraft XI: Sisters in Blood,” and really sells it as a game hunter giddy with the opportunity for new blood to track – male and female.  Between starship guards, robots, and planetoid mutants, Kirk Graves, Randolph Roehbling, Bud Graves, Jeffery Blanchard, Fred Tate, Jacques Schardo, Mike Cooper, and Gregory Lee Cooper fill in the supporting role gaps. 

“Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity” sounds like a busty-bust-up from the likes of Jim Wynorski but whereas Wynorski goes after a blend of buffoonery and boobs, and we’re talking about to the likes of really big, Russ Meyer-sized voluptuousness, Ken Dixon’s takes on a more earnest and natural approach, to an extent that “Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity” feels like a science fiction film of yore, circa 1950s with starship models, impractical attire, men in creature suits, and a timeless tone that is at odds with a futuristic setting.  A subtle whiff of campiness keeps the film from being monotonically stale.  The story itself is constructed from a historical literary framework, loosely based off the 1924 short story “The Most Dangerous Game” by Richard Connell with a big Russian aristocrat and game hunter, bored out of his gourd hunting animals, has turned to hunting shipwrecked people that find themselves stranded on his island.  Dixon replaces the Russian aristocrat with a lavishly leathered bachelor served by robots and skilled with a laser crossbow and the prey is technically shipwrecked but no longer worthy game man bur rather half-naked women comfortable in their loincloths and confident in their survival in an alien jungle amongst mutants, zombies, and a deranged hunter.  “Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity” certainly has that sublevel of sexual objectification and fantasy, or even perhaps is on par level with the murder of another human for sport premise as Kaitan, Beal, and Stevens not only bare most of their bodies, but their bodies are used as tools to subvert Zed’s snooping and are used by Zed in an exploitational sex act stemmed for this post-hunt thrill.

Full Moon delivers the most dangerous game in space down to insatiable fans of 80’s sex symbols and sci-fi oddities with a new Blu-ray release.  Unlike previous re-issue catalogue releases, either from standard definition to high-definition or high-definition to high-definition, “Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity” does not notify of any restoration or remastered efforts onto the AVC encoded, 1080p resolution, BD25.  However, not much needed to be improved on the already stellar picture from a virtually clean 35mm film.  I will say that the transfer did buffer out the natural grain of the film stock, but the details appear greatly featured amongst bronze and near blemish free skin tones from the model-esque actresses with big, teased hair down to the stubble and scarred faces of Rik and Zed, respectively.  Fabrics also come out on top with Zed’s outfit showing the stress marks of a leathery hide to the entirety of jungle epidermis, and even the forced perspective effects of composite mattes to enlarge the jungle setting, though an obvious matte effect, looks positively punctuated in detailed.  The soft lighting used to make the women stargazing eye candy does go against the detail grain but more accentuates the warm tones of a portrayed early science-fiction capture-and-kill.  The English LCPM audio comes in two formats:  a 2.0 stereo and a 5.1 surround sound mix.  The latter immerses you quite effectively but keeping the bass level and handled by the subwoofer reigns, dialogue comes over clean and clear in the front channels, and the sides offer atmospheric chitter of a strong world jungle.  Plus, all the laser fodder presents a satisfactory electric discharge familiar with the genre over the decades.  This suggests an optimization of the audio design for a full package of a sci-fi sonic palette.  This release does not contain a subtitle option.  The modest special features bundled with the feature include a skin-idolizing tribute to Elizabeth Kaitan that showcase her most memorable clothes-on and clothes-off moments from her film credits, the original theatrical trailer, and other Full Moon Features trailers.  The new HD suffers from the company’s consistent business structure of re-issue the film onto just a standard release with barely an encoded special features and little-to-no physical content, but the original film one sheet for the one-sided cover art offers an illustrated sexy and science-fiction splendor and the disc is pressed with select faces from the cover art floating amongst the stars in near translucency.  “Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity” Blu-ray is the R rated cut with a well-paced 75-minute runtime and is region free for global players, presented in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio.

Last Rites: Entertaining and easy on the eyes, “Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity” is an homage to the old science fiction psychotronic that’s vixenly sexy and savagely saucy under the guise of a cruel and deadly hunt on another world.

“Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity” Blu-ray Now Available! Order Here!

To be a Rich and Famous Rockstar, You Must Sign with EVIL! “Hell’s Bells” reviewed! (SRS Cinema / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Sign Your Soul To Satan for the “Hells Bells” on Blu-ray!

A pair of middle-aged best friends and rockers named Arthur and Herb have minimum waged jobs, no ambitions, and two level-headed wives on the brink of divorcing them if nothing changes.  All the friends have is their band, Devil Music, and their glam rock music. Out of the blue, a music talent agent signs them in a heartbeat and before they know, Devil Music is rocking out to a packed-full arena full of adoring fans and obsessed groupies, raking in money beyond their capabilities of higher counting.  What they’re oblivious to is the band’s collective souls now belong to the Devil under the contract terms with the servile music agent doing the Devil’s fear-based bidding and whose life and soul hangs in the balance.  When the Devil comes to collect, sending his demonic minions to slay each member of the band, Arthur and Herb must find a way to save themselves from the Devil cancelling their life show forever. 

For over a decade now, filmmakers Jim O’Rear, who’s minor zombie role in George Romero’s “Dawn of the Dead” has launched a career in indie horror in front and behind the camera with “Hayride Slaughter,” “Three Tears of Bloodstained Flesh,” and the “Cruel Summer” trilogy,” and Scott Tepperman, who’s more recent filmography into the indie market also saw highlights of horror, have been in business together ever since co-starring in the 2013 haunted hospital flick, “Hospital.”   From then on, the two had formed their own production company, Los Bastardz Production, specializing in low-budget horror with a select entourage of talent.  The devil and his contract film, underscored with a rock-n-roll fame theme, released in 2020 is duo’s “Hell’s Bells,” a horror-comedy built around if it seems too good to be true, it probably is narrative.  “Hell’s Bells” is also produced by the two filmmakers.

Like most of their produced product, it comes to no surprise that the Los Bastardz themselves, Jim O’Rear and Scott Tepperman step in the principal leads of a Beavis & Butthead or Bill & Ted type of heavy metal music centric duo who are daft beyond repair.  Any innovation aimed for the setup is instantly dissolved by the derivative tepidness as we’ve seen these characters before over the decades now, but O’Rear and Tepperman make for a good dimwitted and guileless pair with a gullibility and an innocence that makes them appear sympathetically simpatico, even when their levelheaded wives (Rebekah Erb, “Death Care,” and pornstar Layla Dawn. “Slumber Party Slaughter Party”) use threatening divorce language to motivate their one-track mind toward another desire in life.  The jokes are a bit long in the tooth and there are a handful of needless fart jokes, but the overall gags do land even if the terrain they contextually touch down on is rocky at best as they play to their individual character strengths of being a grocery bagger enthusiastic about making it big and a loafer who actualy has some intelligence underneath his Jesus hairstyle.  Their band mates, the cocky loudmouth drummer Vic (Paul Van Scott), the butch backup singer Shirley (Lisa Kirk), and the catatonic bassist Gary (Cameron Scott), all have their own quirks, and all are played by actors familiar with El Basterdz having donned roles in previously produced films from the company, such as the “Cruel Summer” series.  As the band Devil Music, they are targeted for soul reaping as a part of a contract byproduct against their music agent Caleb (Tom Komsar), drawn up by the devil himself in Marc Price (“Trick or Treat”) by duplicitous means with deceitful promises.  Without the horns, pitchfork, and red skin, Marc Price makes for a good Devil in human skin with only the economized visual effects fashioned glowing eyes.  Harold McLeod II preludes the story as a victim of contract, Cayt Feinics draws attention with a show of toplessness as Shirley’s lover, Jerry Reeves plays the demon x many going after Devil Music, and a sorely underutilized Jimmy Maguire, as the exasperated grocer manager tired of Arthur and Herb’s lack of common sense, fill out “Hell’s Bells” cast.

To preface with my previous experience with El Basterdz films, “Cruel Summer” didn’t do it for me with a dowdy slasher that’s didn’t leave impression.  Yet, “Cruel Summer” has two sequels plus a 4th soon to be on home video, making this series their most popular commodity.  What can I say?  Cinema is subjective.  That bad taste didn’t deter “Hell’s Bells” from the ever-growing review pile and a second chance to get this long-time horror fan aboard with Jim O’Rear and Scott Tepperman’s blithe outlook toward the horror genre, one that doesn’t take itself too seriously.  With that understanding, going into “Hell’s Bells” was rather easy with no expectations for commentative material and top-notch gags and laughs, but what El Basterdz provides has been long appreciated and continuously favored in genre films:  decent VFX, decent practical effects, and, of course, the provocation of nudity.  There may be times when films can get away with having only one of those key elemental pieces present with great immensity and intense projection that the film can’t be denied it’s due right to seen and heard as a well-made film but have all three and the formula works like a charm amongst genre fans no matter how bad the storyline gets and no matter how bad the acting is portrayed, leveling up a mediocre production to potentially the penthouse of the independent skyscraper.  To be fair, neither the story nor the acting in “Hell’s Bells” is atrocious but the technical aspects during principal photography and post-production throw the film off-balance into slapdash hogwash and that can be rather off-putting right out the gate for most audiences.

“Hell’s Bells” finds itself being a story having been told before, many times over in its airheaded budding duo faced with great task none think possible to complete, but O’Rear and Tepperman manage to befit themselves satisfactorily in archetype with a rock-n-roll nightmare by sticking to their character quirks and incorporating the backbone preferences of shoestring genre filmmaking.  SRS Cinema is a distributing house built on shoestring films and “Hell’s Bells” is another brick in its schlock-sturdy foundation with a Blu-ray release.  Encoded with AVC compression, presented with 1080p high-resolution, on a 25GB BD-R with the purple underbelly, “Hell’s Bells” looks pretty good for commercial grade encoding and minimal capacity.  Details are sharp enough to cause no concern to capture skin variations, the contrasting wardrobe textures, and the shifting compositions between reality and fantasy stemmed from visual effects and fade-in/fade-out montage sequences.   Scenes are mixed bag of grading, some more intense than others that are set with a brighter natural veneer, but all retain their intended quality without any substantial issues from compression.  The English language LPCM 2.0 stereo renders a mix of feeble commercial equipment and green technical knowledge that permits a large noticeable swing in all areas of principal sound recording with most of the pain points affecting dialogue with retreated vocal presence in certain scenes while robust in others, and even an in-moment change of the same scene at times.  Post sound design isn’t marred by the same scenarios that’s a clear as crystal with the added rock soundtrack, crowd cheers, and demonic gutturals.  No English subtitles are offered.  Special features include a commentary track with writer-directors Jim O’Rear and Scott Tepperman, a behind-the-scenes featurette, Arthur and Herb’s Devil Music music video, blooper reel, the feature trailer, and SRS Cinema catalogue trailers.  SRS Cinema’s Blu-ray mirrors their limited 100 count release without the director’s signatures, retailed with a regular Blu-ray Amaray case with illustration composition artwork of mostly the chief principal characters, and as always, the graphic artistry SRS uses is always 100x better the film.  There are no other physical accompaniments.  The not rated release has a runtime of 80 minutes and has region free playback. 

Last Rites: Throw up the sign of the devil horns for “Hell’s Bells’s” comedic contract with a hair metal Satan, but don’t let this narrative fool you by hawking new something old and done before.

Sign Your Soul To Satan for the “Hells Bells” on Blu-ray!

In the Middle of the Timor Sea, Lurking EVIL’s Hungry for Raft Afloat WWII Survivors! “Beast of War” reviewed! (Well Go USA Entertainment / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Beast of War” on Blu-ray from Well Go USA Entertainment!

Timor Sea, 1942 – A group of newly trained Australian soldiers are heading to fight in the second great war when a Japanese air raid torpedoes their ship, stranding seven soldiers on a floating shrapnel piece of the ship’s hull.  With little food, few defensive measures, and no water, rationing their supplies is key to survival as they float back in the direction they came.  When a hungry great white shark attacks their makeshift lifeboat, dying of thirst is no longer top concern.  Below the surface, the predator circles the prey, sniffing every droplet of blood from their wounds, and striking when the opportunity presents itself to drag one of them under the water.  As hidden danger lurks below, tensions rise above the surface between them and their warfare enemy isn’t quite done with the lot yet either.  Nowhere to run, nowhere to hide, they must fight with everything at their disposal to survive.

Most U.S. military enthusiasts know of the U.S.S. Indianapolis, a heavy cruiser warship sunk by Japanese torpedoes after delivering the atomic bomb on a covert mission, killing over 1000 naval servicemen, and dumping the rest into shark-infested waters where more lives succumbed to mother nature’s deadliest aquatic predators, but I’m sure the sinking of the HMAS Armidale in the Timor Sea is lesser known but follows parallel catastrophes and survivals to the U.S.S. Indianapolis with Australian soldiers left stranded in the middle of a shark-infested Timor Sea of the Indiana Ocean after their ship was sunk by Japanese forces.  Writer-director Kiah Roache-Turner, the Australian filmmaker behind the zombie epic “Wyrmwood” films and “Sting,” gets his feet wet with blending historical war action with sharksploitation in his latest film “Beast of War,” produced by “Daybreakers’s” Chris Brown and Blake Northfield, who saw 2025 as the year of producing period shark horror along with “Fear Below” involving a bull shark and the retrieval of sunken car in the early 1900s.  “Beast of War” is a production of Bronte Pictures and “Pictures in Paradise.” 

“Beast of War” doesn’t begin with a ship full of soldiers you barely get to know before being blown out of the water and become chum for a chomp-happy great white shark.  This route would have undoubtingly provided less setup of character and situation.  Roache-Turner takes us back to bootcamp where the ragteam bunch of privates learn fighting tactics, survival tricks, and comradery.  That last one, comradery, is an important and, in fact, it is the theme of Roache-Turner’s story introduced early in bootcamp trials and present through to the end.  Leo knows all about a comradeship being an aboriginal, Australian natives with an ancestral culture rich with a sense of community.  Embracing his heritage in the character Leo, Mark Coles Smith (“We Bury the Dead”) instills everything morally just within the ranks of man and militarism, earning the respect of his outfit apart from fellow private Des Kelly.  Sam Delich (“Christmas Bloody Christmas”) acts as a simmering bigot against the aboriginal, and perhaps to all those who are not white based off the dialogue, and this places Kelly to be the very anthesis of Leo in how he represents self-serving qualities and an intolerance for other races.  Kelly goes through satisfactory arc when he finds his back against the wall and his acts cause consequences his soul can’t recover from whereas Leo’s confidence brings him selfless courage though his own tragic backstory, the loss of his younger brother to a man-eating shark, may cause him to be more reckless against his own stare into death’s black eyes.  Joel Nankervis steps into somewhat of that little brother role for Leo as Will, a more of a thinker than a physical specimen of a soldier taken under Leo’s wing as Des Kelly shuns the weakest during comradery trials.  The remaining cast fills in with shipwreck beaten meat for the posturing, ultra-aggressive shark as well as other bootcamp attendees in Maximillian Johnson, Lee Tiger Halley, Tristan McKinnon, Sam Parsonson, Lauren Grimson, Laura Brogan Browne, and Masa Yamaguchi.

World War II soldiers versus a ravenous great white shark.  While that scenario might induce post-traumatic stress on a veteran navy seaman who lived through the watery Hell, for this guy, the sharksploitation scenario is salivating entertainment.  Highly stylized through color gels, fog, and a practical shark that’s damn scary, “Beast of War” not only brings high tension swimming beneath the surface but also educates history with a great deal sensationalism, evoking varying levels of bravery, the change in human condition, and a calming sense of sacrifice for a brother in arms, even if the shark took their arm.  The shark itself is pure nightmare fuel and though for cinematic value, it’s also an unfortunate continuation of demonization of the majestic creatures, especially when this particular great white shark acts and looks off from the real deal.  The movie shark, appearing with scars and a giant gaping mouth full of rows of flesh-ripping sharp teeth, doesn’t don the black doll eyes once eloquently put by the salty fisherman Quint in “Jaws.” Instead, this shark’s eyes are cloudy white as if possessed to prey and create havoc amongst the HMAS Armidale survivors, a menacing attribute heightened by the swallowing of an ordinance damaged air raid siren lodged in the interior gill resulting in death wailing screams that indicate its closing presence.  The shark also perches just below the surface with its nose just barely touching the water line, like a puppy dog waiting for a treat, ready to strike when a hand, foot, or even a portion of a blanket that’s wrapped around the injured becomes too appetizing to pass up.  All this adds to the element of certain death if even a toe goes into the water, removing any kind of chance from the safety nets of our minds for anyone who accidently fall or must dive into the water.  Roache-Turner doesn’t burden the shark to be the sole antagonist that spurs problematic situations from a Japanese fighter pilot, to the Des Kelly’s bigotry and self-interests, and there’s even complications from the severely injured parties that threaten their lives.  “Beast of War” is multifaced warfare with jaws. 

If you’re looking for next big shark horror, “Beast of War” on Blu-ray from Well Go USA Entertainment should be your next film! The AVC encoded, 1080p high-resolution, BD25, presented in a widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio, doesn’t accommodate Mark Wareham’s visual color range, tinctured with gels and hazed with fog to create that soft glow with blues, reds, and greens, with limited compression that creates black crush around the darker aspects and banding around the outer edges of the coloring. The not-so-hued scenes do depict punctilious details around fatigue textures and the stubby and course skin. The monstrous great white shark in the water, which is a little reminiscent of “Jaws 3-D’s” infamous control room scene, holds more ambiguity than when it breaks the surface, mostly around the gill to the snout to denote the scars, white eyes, and rows of razor teeth. The set stage to mimic a shrapnel raft is greatly constructed with a production design of strewn ship parts, cargo, and deceased bodies floating buoyant about and in play for the protagonist and antagonist to interact against. Wareham and Roache-Turner’s camera movements deliver dynamic scenes between calm and chaos with only seconds apart as the shark can surface at any moment. The English DTS-HD 5.1 master audio offers a complete and complex audio design that very much integrates the background sounds into the problem-at-hand fold. Japanese fighter planes, machine gun fire, explosions, air raid sirens, the swish of a shark in the water, the echoing strains of stretching bulkheads and metal shrapnel, and the back-and-forth splashes of water that give “Beast of War” that extra element of realism and suspense, channeled through the back and side channels to immense audiences inside isolation. Dialogue’s crisp and colorful amongst biting bigotry and Australian military dialect of the era with no issues and obstacles opposing the conveying conversation. English and French subtitles are available. Aside from a string of pre-feature trailer previews for other Well Go USA releases, “Beast of War” is essentially feature-only. A glossy, cardboard slipcover with an embossed title adds a textural bonus overtop the accurate described picture of action. The Amaray inside has the same primary image with no other physical contents. The region A release has a runtime of 87 minutes and is rated R for bloody violent content, gore, and language.

Last Rites: There’s nowhere to hide, nowhere to land, and no one to come save those left behind for the hungry great white in “Beast of War’s” World War II sharksploitation.

“Beast of War” on Blu-ray from Well Go USA Entertainment!

EVIL Versus EVIL to the Death! “Mad Foxes” reviewed! (Cauldron Films / Limited Edition 4K UHD and Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Mad Foxes” LE 4K UHD and Blu-ray Still Available to Get Before X-Max!

Playboy Hal drives fast cars and enjoys a good time.  While driving his girlfriend out for a night on the town, a road rage run-in with a Nazi biker gang leaves one of biker’s dead and Hal continues on his way to the nightclub for bubbly and music.  The bikers track him down, beating Hal to a pulp and raping his date as the night ends.  Not to roll over and be passive take to insult, Hal recruit’s a friend’s dojo class for an all-out brawl during the outside funeral ceremony for the biker’s fallen comrade, taking violence to the extreme by castrating the gang leader.  In retaliation, the entire dojo class is gunned down in a vengeful massacre days later.  Hal and the biker gang continue their back-and-forth as they embark on a short-term blood feud aimed to annihilate each other’s lives, spilling violence beyond friends and into family ties without mercy. 

A tale of perpetual revenge and exploitation from Spain, “Mad Foxes” takes one-upping to a whole new grotesque level.  After production manager Paul Grau worked on the tantalizing pictures “Secrets of the French Maid,” “Caged Women,” and “The Amorous Sisters” and before helming the comedic sexploitation “Six Swedish Girls in the Alps,” the Nordic born filmmaker debuted with tit-for-tat terror in the streets film cowritten between Grau and softcore, erotic film producers Hans R. Walthard (“Six Swedes in Paradise”) and Jaime Jesús Balcázar (“The Couple’s Sexual World”), leaving no surprise to the shocking and provocative nature of this Euro-nasty that castrates Nazi bikers, shotguns old ladies in wheelchairs, and blows up entire apartment buildings all in the name of spite.  Erwin C. Dietrich and Hans R. Walthard serve as producer and executive producer under the production collaboration of Jaime Jesús Balcázar’s  Balcázar Producciones Cinematográficas and Reflection Film.

A biker gang revenge story sounds right up there with “Death Wish” starring Charles Bronson, but instead of Bronson’s character going up against the impossible odds by way of an organized and self-controlled planning, executing, and removing the threat for good, “Mad Foxes” strikes impulsively while the iron is hot with such ferocity it’ll make your head spin right off the neck.  José Gras (“Hell of the Living Dead,” “Conquest”) envelopes himself to the solo side as Hal in contra the larger Neo-Nazi biker gang.  Hal’s a bit of a philanderer though it’s not entirely explicit but his raped date Babsy (Andrea Albani aka Laly Espinet, “The Hot Girl Juliet”) is a quickly and inexplicably out of the picture before he picks up free-spirited nomad Silvia (Laura Premic) and, by then, Hal seemingly doesn’t have any other care in the world though the aforesaid date Babsy, or perhaps it was his young girlfriend, was raped, and his good friend’s entire dojo, plus said friend (Paul Grau), are massacred in an open fire execution of bullets after they wipe the floor with the Neo-Nazis in a karate skirmish that ends in the gang leader being gratuitously castrated.  Having already cross paths with the gang at least four times, Hal hops in his fast car and drives to the countryside to get away from it all, picking up Silvia on the way, but he inadvertently leads the ruthless camo and leather-cladded gang, led by character played by Peter Saunders and Eric Falk (“Blue Rita,” “Ilsa:  The Wicked Warden”), to his wealthy, elderly, and impaired parents and their house servants.  From there you can imagine the bloodshed that quickly spirals into payback but all throughout the retaliatory strikes, one begins to question who the actually is the good guy in all of this because Hal actually initially ran one of the biker’s off the ran and to his death, driving away with speed and a serene sense of no remorse or concern.  Does Hal bring an ill-fated war upon himself?  One could argue a case for it.  “Mad Foxes” rounds out with Helmi Sigg, Brian Billings, Garry Membrini, Ana Roca, Hank Sutter, Iren Semmling, Hans R. Walthard, Esther Studer and Guillermo Balcazar.

“Mad Foxes” is a gratuitous showcase of trashy Euro cinema, the grindhouse champagne of Spanish sleaze, and has little worth toward elevated commentary or technical grandeur.  Yet, within our miniscule cinema-thirsty molecules and riding along our less trodden synapse highways, a spark of interest can’t keep our eyes off the lurid lunacy that’s unfolding before us.  Paul Grau has invested, produced, and released an entertaining indelicate that won’t bore, won’t tire, and won’t be a total waste of time in its eye-for-an-eye format.  Does one man’s need for revenge need to make self-preservation sense?  No.  Does a bike gang have the wherewithal to track down one man from city-to-rural without breaking a sweat?  No.  One aspect of the story that holds relatable consistency through the years, decades, or even millennia is that violence remains a universal truth, and “Mad Foxes” has plenty of teeth to tout when an act of pettiness turns into the next World War for one man and a biker gang.  The story is no “Death Wish” or “Death Sentence” but it does remove rationality from the shackles of a rancorous reality and plops viewers into the throes of an odd quarrel that won’t seemingly end until the very last standing have turned vertical, and all signs of life has ceased.  Hal’s no rogue ex-cop or former elite marine, just a regular playboy with friends in karate places and has a stubborn will to take on the gang singlehandedly on their own sordid turf.  Grau’s unabashed violence never stumbles or wanes to be implied with the Switzerland director helming a Spanish produce movie that churns out Italian-like shock with the closeup carnage and the cynical nature of a fatalistic bout. 

Cauldron Films proudly presents “Mad Foxes” Ultra High-Definition debut to the world featuring a new 4K restoration with Dolby Vision HDR color grading on an HVEC encoded BD66 with 2164p.  This limited-edition 2-disc set also includes a standard Blu-ray presentation that’s AVC encoded on a BD50 with a 1080p resolution.  The Dolby Vision HDR 10 offers extensive and immense saturation that’s balanced, stable, and more vibrant in it’s support of a wider pixel range.  Without compromising the story’s gritty nature with an unflexed amount of detail, textures retain their respective fabric types from the sheen of Hal’s silveresque bomber jacket to the taut leather of the neo-Nazi bikers.  The skin tones appear organic with a surface appeal that denotes and defines body hair, wrinkles, and other skin imperfections, more notably in close ups.  Focal depth does not completely wash out objects or landscapes with careful delineating a sandy beach and wavy ocean with distinction while the cityscape has the light and tone range in clarity of the object.  Only the UHD was covered for the image review, but the Blu-ray pulls from the same 4K restoration that I suspect has most of the same results but with a lesser pixel count in the quality that may be not as perceptible.  Both formats include an English DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio, a DTS-HD 2.0 mono, and a Spanish DTS-HD 2.0 mono mix.  All include optional English subtitles in, what I consider horrendous, ADR mixing.  Dialogue has clarity and is clean throughout, but the voice acting is just beyond reproach with drab inflection to express the right emotion during the scene, its all fairly monotonic and automaton deliveries through the asynchronous matching of voice and mouth.  With no innate recording during filming, the milieu sounds are limited to the immediate action of post-production kick and punch skirmishes, a volley of gunshots, car and motorcycle engines, and murderous snikts of blade strikes.  This, in turn, limits and relegates the surround sound channels to mostly the front with only a flutter of immersive quality, mostly with the revving car engines and the occasional gunfire.  Special features on the UHD only include the commentary by film critics Nanni Cobretti and Merlyn Roberts.  The commentary is also on the standard Blu-ray along with additional content in The Untold Story of Robert O’Neal:  a near feature-length interview with leading man José Gras discussing his career in Europe, Erwin and the Foxes offers interviews with producer Erwin C. Dietrich and actors Eric Falk and Helmi Sigg discussing their roles and the production, an additional interview Mad Eric has a second interview with actor Eric Falk, and Troy Howarth provides a video essay with stills and video snippets in Nazi Fox Bikers Must Die.  The special features round out with an image gallery and a feature trailer.  The curated packaging comes in a rigid slipbox with new compositional artwork by Justin Coffee.  Inside, is a clear Amaray Blu-ray case that display same primary artwork and is accompanied with an adjacent folded mini poster, also of Coffee’s art.  The UHD is region free and the Blu-ray is region A for playback as both films carry an unrated designation and have na 80-minute runtime in their widescreen, 1.85:1 aspect ratio, presentation. 

Last Rites: Revenge films are often formulaic but “Mad Foxes” is no ordinary payback thriller that continues to the hit back well into last man standing. The new Cauldron Films’ limited-edition boxset pushes the media technology to max superiority sure to squash any rival, unlike Paul Grau’s ceaseless chaos.

“Mad Foxes” LE 4K UHD and Blu-ray Still Available to Get Before X-Max!

A Bond of Friendship Formed Over an EVIL Annual Contest. “The Long Walk” reviewed! (Lionsgate / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“The Long Walk” on Blu-ray for the Holidays!

Over a decade ago, a divisive civil war nearly tore the United States of America apart, leaving in it’s wake a country on the brink of financial ruin and its place in the world behind other nations.  To help heal the nation back into an industrial superpower, an annual long walk was enacted to be a show of encouragement, an act of bravery, and to instill a sense of duty and production amongst the citizens of America.  Voluntary participants of young men, one from each state, must walk continuously at 3 ore more miles per hour with a military escort.  Last man standing will be bestowed a large cash prize and granted one wish of their choosing.  Those unable to continue their trek at the required pace will be issued three warnings before being gunned down, punching out their ticket.  Home state’s Ray and Georgia’s Peter form a bond on their walk that’ll test not only their friendship but their will to live in hopes to change the contest’s cruelty.  

“The Long Walk” has itself been on a long walk to being adapted on film from the first official novel by the prolific and renowned suspense writer Stephen King under his pseudonym of Richard Bachman.  I’ve italicized official because the late 60’s novel wasn’t published and released until 1979, five years later after “Carrie” was published in 1974.  Through the hands of George Romero and Ridley Scott, neither could materialize a filmic rendition of what is considered his most grim work.  That is until “Constantine,” “I Am Legend,” and “Hunger Games” director Francis Lawrence came along, acquired the rights, hired “Strange Darling’s” JT Mollner to script the project, and produced perhaps the most disturbed dystopian film of 2025.  “The Long Walk” feature is a collaborative production from Spooky Pictures, Electric Lady, and Miramax, is produced by Steven Schneider, Francis Lawrence, Roy Lee, Cameron MacConomy, Rhonda Baker, Ellen Rutter, and Carrie Wilkins, and has been given executive producer Stephen King’s blessing for minor, yet impactful, creative control.

“The Long Walk” courses with a young but up-and-coming cast with a veteran icon bringing up the rear as coxswain spurring the unpleasant action.  “Licorice Pizza’s” Cooper Hoffman, son of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, and English actor David Jonsson whose just came off his part in a big science-fiction horror franchise with “Alien:  Romulus” from last year.  Together, Hoffman and Jonsson play the central characters of Ray Garrity and Peter McVries, two young men who formulate a bond while voluntarily participating in the annual deadly contest that traverses for hundreds of miles through heartland portions of an undisclosed state.  Right from the get-go, Ray and Peter hit it off as the check in for the contest simultaneously upon arrival with the story quickly introducing and discerning a select sundry of other walkers that are either in it to make friends, be an in-it-to-win-it antagonists, or be a formidable indifferent with a spectacular end to their ticket or otherwise arc toward either direction.  In these walk-along parts are Ben Wang, Charlie Pummer (“Moonfall”), Joshua Odjick, Tut Nyuot, Roman Griffin Davis, Garrett Wareing (“Independence Day:  Resurgence”), and Jordan Gonzalez supporting the Ray and Peter narrative with their own in-state regionalism and dialect backstories and motives for sacrificial strutting, which their exit that much more poignant.  Then you have Mark Hamill, who needs no introduction, in a performance on a totally different plane of existence than the young man walking for their very lives.  Blind to compassion and stern on his belief sacrifice is necessary for the greater good of the nation, Hamill as no nonsense brass, known only as The Major,” is a mythical figurehead initially held in high esteem and awe or overall indifferent amongst the young men.  All except one with Ray being the firm outlier of contrarian using passive aggressive measures that build to an endgame goal.  Sporting large aviators, green fatigues, and occasionally holding and firing a sidearm, Hamill’s method ways really come alive within The Major’s gung-ho disposition inside an authoritarian America.  Judy Greer (“Jurassic World”) and Josh Hamilton (“Dark Skies”) round out the cast as Ray’s parents. 

No matter how grim “The Long Walk” spans the 108-minute runtime, the story isn’t necessarily all bleak.  While the time period is unknown and the war that has seemingly divided the nation goes unsaid, one can assume the decade is late 1960s to early 1970s based off the military fatigues and weaponry, the dialect and slang vernacular, and the outer shell of the world with clothing, cars, and storefronts that speak to a simpler time where no cell phone exists, transmitter radios are the news and music, and the presence of any modern-day convenience lost amongst the vast fields and deprived brick-and-mortars of small town America.  Yet, the story walks along the lines of some alternate, dystopian reality, pre-dating a “Hunger Games” like contest involving the permanent elimination of young people in effort to better society.  Fortunately for “The Long Walk,” director Francis Lawrence directed “Hunger Games” and that gives him a leg up on the tone this adaptation needed for the big screen but although the two share a similar theme, the differences between them are vast with “The Long Walk” set in a past instead of a future dysphoria, objects and places are established and grounded by reality rather than creative fiction, and the violence is by far the grislier.  Often, violence can be gratuitously supplemental and unaffecting but Lawrence’s intention to show closeup executions contrasts with weight against the boys’ bond building during their fear and their ambition test.  With every explosion of brain matter and bits of flesh the stakes are real and the tension is thick even if the panic is subdued amongst the walking competitors.  Yet, with every ticket punched, that tightness starts to show signs of shuttering in conjunction with fatigue and that carries on for miles.  Much like the film adaptation of Frank Darabont’s “The Mist,” the ending for “The Long Walk” has been altered from the novel with prior Stephen King approval and while “The Mist” absolutely shatters all the hope with tons of despair and irony in a blaze of glory ending where one’s heart drops like a cannonball in the ocean, “The Long Walk’s” finale barely fizzle to make the same impact and can even be said to be a predictable modern moving ending. 

“The Long Walk” puts one foot in front of the other toward a new Blu-ray release from Lionsgate.  The AVC encoded, high-definition presentation in 1080p, is stored on a BD50 with a widescreen 1.39:1 aspect ratio.  Sharp detail in the small percentage desaturated picture offers a mid-20th century America air along with the costuming and production sets and locations.  Fabric textures result better in sweat-induced cotton Ts overtop a variety of muted shaded pants and solid army fatigues while the rest of the landscape has a green, brown, and tan landscape of a scarce Midwest, harnessing widescreen and medium shots for the open terrain that equally freeing and beautiful yet also confining and harsh in the grim, dystopian contest; however, the textures take a back seat to the chunky bits of exploded flesh, blood, and brain matter splattering either in gray and painted asphalt or spreading amongst the wind.  While the detail doesn’t provide all the gory bits and pieces there’s enough there to really cause alarm from within.  The English Dolby Amos is the primary English track for best to enclose the immediate space surrounding the 50 State participates feet hitting the pavement and the escorting military convoy tank and wheel tracks.  Gun shots are jolting that tear into the audio senses in step with the graphic nature of the scene of apathetic militaristic executions.  There are curious post-execution sounds from the blood pooling on the street in what sounds like a continuous gush of blood that hits the side channels; its an odd action for sound to take audible shape, especially in scenes that are not an extreme close up but rather materialize out of medium shots.  Dialogue is perfectly suitable in the conversational piece between the young men and the gruff Major.  Other audio format choices include a Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 and a French Dolby Digital 5.1.  There are also an English 2.0 descriptive audio and subtitles in English, Spanish, and French.  Special features include feature length documentary Ever Onward:  Making the Long Wal” with crew – such as director, writer, and DP – and cast – including Cooper Hoffman, David Jonsson, Garrett Wareing and more – interviews discussing the depths of “The Long Walk” from A-to-Z, from it’s previous adaptation concept rights held in limbo down to the individual character mindsets.  Two theatrical trailers are the only other special features encoded.  Lionsgate Blu-ray Amaray case is encased a O-slipcover with straightforward (pun intended) artwork that’s also on the case artwork.  The digital copy leaflet is inside for digital moving watching pleasure.  The 108 minute film is encoded region A and is rated R for strong bloody violence, grisly images, alcohol, pervasive language and sexual references. 

Last Rites: An intense and somber America born out of division and fear is a reverse reality, an alternate take on what could have been or could be soon, as “The Long Walk” glorifies sacrifice as a scapegoat for national pride, strength, and the greater good in a warped sense of authoritarian rule and industrial encouragement.

“The Long Walk” on Blu-ray for the Holidays!