Author Archives: Steven Lewis

What Russian EVILS Lie Beneath in “The Lair” reviewed! (Acorn Media International / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“The Lair” Has a Deadly Secret!  Blu-ray Now Available!  

Royal air force Captain Kate Sinclair is shot down over the arid planes of Afghanistan.  Swarming with Taliban insurgents and her command officer killed, Sinclair takes shelter in an old, abandoned Russian bunker from the Russian Afghanistan invasion of the 1980s.  What she stumbles into is an experiment lair housing numerous stasis chambers and dark secrets.  Sinclair manages to barely escape with her life when one of the creatures inside the capsules is released, tearing to shreds her well-armed pursuers.  Rescued by a ragtag team of U.S. military outcasts based in the middle of nowhere as peripheral punishment and joined up by a trio of British special forces in the area, the Captain attempts to warn her rescuers what’s out in the desert only to be on the receiving end of a monstrous invasion that sees the slaughter of nearly everyone in camp, including the camp commander.  Miles from anywhere and not enough supplies to withstand another attack, those soldiers left alive band together to stage their own last stand assault on the creatures’ Russian bunker lair to ensure hostile eradication.

Acclaimed horror director Neil Marshall (“Dog Soldiers”) returns to his roots with a claustrophobic, high-energy, and violent creature feature known as “The Lair.”  Having experienced underwhelming success with the fiery Dark Horse antihero “Hellboy” remake in 2019, Marshall returns to independent scene for the 2022 released film having been shot in the barren lands of Budapest, Hungary to create the illusionary Afghanistan territory backdrop.  Marshall co-writes the script with “The Lair” star Charlotte Kirk, a reteaming affair from Marshall’s last feature “The Reckoning” from two years prior in which Kirk also produced and starred.  Also returning from “The Reckoning” and into the producer’s chair is Daniel-Konrad Cooper along with “Infinity Pool” producers, Jonathan Halperyn and Daniel Kresmery, and “Lords of Chaos’s”, Kwesi Dickson in this Shudder exclusive collaboration from Rather Good Films, Scarlett Productions Limited, Highland Film Group, and Ashland Hill Media Finance with Neil Marshall and Peter Shawyer’s private equity investment group, Ingenious Media, providing financial support.

Star Charlotte Kirk and Neil Marshall have a seemingly natural rapport that has transposed well from their collaboration on “The Reckoning” to the “The Lair,” crossing subgenre that involve the equivocal occult to a more plainspoken physical presence of foreign experiments gone wildly bloodlust.  Instead of being hunted by a 17th century witch hunters just for being a woman saying no to man, Kirk steps into a role of authority as military captain with loads of smarts and adept at close combat as she’s being, once again, chased by predators, but these uber-predators are unearthly, unremorseful, and ugly.  Marshall provides just enough character backstory for understanding the stakes and strengths of each of them but to reach a little more into their history might have been key to stronger motivations and for something to prove in not just being jarhead screwups.  Sinclair finds commonality and sympathy from Sgt. Tom Hook (Jonathan Howard, “Godzilla:  King of the Monsters”) who bears the guilt of losing men in battle and punishes himself to do better.  Psyche profiles for each soldier makes them rise above being flat by providing depth of flaw but what is vexing and irking about each, and this element may very well be intentional as an international thespian bout of poking fun, is the cast is nearly all British playing Americans with stereotypical drawls, ebonics, and punctuating southern accents so overexaggerated it’s downright sickening to hear, like watching a bad old war film, but what’s even worse and what drives a sharp claw talon into the inane heart of trite-tired audiences is the group slow walk before embarking into the battle of no return.  Again, this might be the work of intentional satire.  Some accents are gargantuanly worse than others, such as with “Titanic 666’s” Jamie Bamber’s pirate-patched Major Roy Finch and the Mark Arend’s Carolina-born Private Dwanye Everett.  From there, the elocution grades get better with less cliché but not by much with a cast rounding out of Leon Ockenden (“The Reckoning”), who I couldn’t understand because his accent was so Scottish-ly thick, Troy Alexander, Mark Strepan, Hadi Khanjanpour, Kibong Tanji, Adam Bond, Harry Taurasi, and Alex Morgan.

Neil Marshall not only returns to his horror origins but he also returns to the heyday of prime practical effects with inset creatures of a spliced appearance between the build, the dark full body achromia, and the facial configural layout of Marvel’s extraterrestrial antihero Venom with the eye-less, tongue-lashings and grabbings of Resident Evil’s staple adversaries, the Lickers.  Obvious a man in a prosthetic suit, the simplistic, brawny-framed humanoid basks in nostalgia despite being in a modern day movie, pining for the days when large or small men in full body, head-to-toe, terrifying imagery suits were the antagonists of our youthful nightmares while also providing the cast something to act against for a more realistic and rancorous on screen rendezvous.  The smaller scale production limits Marshall’s possibilities with his Kevlar-fleshed and razor-toothed creatures but the veteran director sells every act of “The Lair’s” story with trenchant action with hardly any downtime to catch one’s breath in between because the next blood-laden blitz rollout is upon us in a blink of an eye.  Between the action, the anomalous characters, and the pulsating, downbeat synthesizer score that courses through its veins, “The Lair” leans itself toward being a callback to the late 80s-early 90’s last stand dogfight subgenre and you can’t one second cease your attention for a director who appreciates the narrative surprise more than anticipated predictability.

Become lured into “The Lair” now on Blu-ray home video from Acorn Media International, a UK distribution subsidiary of RLJ Entertainment.  The AVC encoded, 1080p high definition release is presented in a widescreen 2.35:1 aspect ratio.  The BD25 offers sold flexibility for a film with hefty amount of night shoots and action as potential compression problems seem to stay at bay without any severe noticeable banding, blocking, mosquito noise, etc., however, the details are quite flat with a smoother finish, often in the blur of the fast camera workflow and editing because of the action sequences, leaving depth on characters, as well as in the scene, at arm’s length with monocular vision.  The warm hint of chartreuse embedded grading offers industrials color tones with a rich grit of oxidized bunker steel.  Don’t adjust your audio dial on the release’s English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround sound track, the dialogue only sounds wonky because its deliberate Americanized dialect set at the forefront and prominent amongst the audio layers which has significant range and depth with explosions, rapid gunfire from different calibers, and the guttural growls of the creatures that echo nicely through the rear and side channels when under the bunker or even affixed in a slightly decreased volume of its form in the attack of the basecamp.  There were no interference blights with the audio track, such as hissing, popping, or other discernible issues.  Special features included only a making-of featurette with clipped interviews during the shoot with director Neil Marshall, actors Charlotte Kirk, Mark Strepan, Jamie Bamber, Jonathan Howard, Leon Ockenden, and others regarding their admiration for the project in different aspects.  Acorn Media’s physical release comes in a slightly larger Blu-ray snapper, typical of the UK releases, with the cover art featuring an up-close and personal look at the creature’s ugly mug.  The same art is also on the disc with no insert inside the snapper case.  The release comes region B locked with a runtime of 97 minutes and is certified 15 for strong gory violence, language, and threat.  If you can stomach the fatuity at times, “The Lair” is a fast paced and staunch creature feature with a bunker full of gore.

“The Lair” Has a Deadly Secret!  Blu-ray Now Available!  

Under an Urban Club Scene, EVIL Horrors Connect Us All. “Flesh City” reviewed! (Wild Eye Releasing / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Flesh City” Yearns for Connection on DVD!

An insomnious city pulsates with an industrial soundtrack and claws cantankerously at denizens without pity. Under one of the raging night club scenes, enamored raver Vyren follows the beautifully alluring Loquette, an inspiring electronic DJ, down into the club’s labyrinth of old stone corridors. Their coquettish play becomes the monitored study of Professor Yagov, a glowingly cadent and mad experimenter of anthropology. The two lovers are drugged and abducted by the Yogav with the intent of genetic mutating the couple’s anatomy that renders Vyren’s hand displaced with a bulbous nub and Loquette impregnated with an ingestible sludge. What becomes of their affliction insidiously infects the entire city population with a flesh tentacle curling through the city’s underground sewer and drainpipe infrastructure in what amasses to a single connection of brain-invading techno-horror.

“Flesh City” annexes our individuality for the sake of connective solidarity conveyed in an electronically infused and alternatively aesthetic experimental film from Germany’s own jack of all independent media and artistic trades, Thorsten Fleisch. The 2019 released feature is Fleisch’s first and only written-and-directed full-length film depicting his feverish analog avant-garde, reflecting the filmmaker’s menagerie of orthodox-shredding short films, video art, and written and produced music. Overseeing “Flesh City’s” cinematography and special effects, Fleisch has complete and utter autonomy of the visuals to obtain a harshly discordant image melody edited together, which Fleisch also manages, into an agglomerate of acetic aesthetics to shock and stress the audio and visual cortexes. Once under the working titles of “Berlin Blood” and “Zyntrax: Symphony of Flesh,” “Flesh City” is entirely shot in Berlin, Germany, produced by the director and United Kingdom producers Arthur Patching and Christian Serritiello, and is a feature of Fleischfilm and Tropical Grey Features.

One of the film’s coproducers and musical artists, Christian Serritiello (“Streets of East L.A.”), is at the front lines of “Flesh City’s” afterthought cast of characters with Vryen as essentially the naïve and lured-in Alice chasing the white rabbit Loquette, played by Eva Ferox (“Love Songs for Scumbags”), down the twisted rabbit hole of a cellar dwelling doctor.  I say afterthought because the characters take a backseat to Fleisch’s contortion of reality and the analogical subtext generated by Fleisch’s love for analog anomalies, using them as supporting pawns to carry out his visceral vision of vitality.  Music videos, psychedelic montages, and grotesques images of beetles absorb screen time like formless or arthropodal principals.  Even Professor Yagov (Arthur Patching”) is obscured by a rainbow shimmer, never visually seeing his face as an individual seemingly between two dimensions.  “Flesh City” is a very multiverse, multidimensional nightmare-scape of unconventional color that has culminated from Fleisch’s imaginative idiosyncrasies over the years and that’s what being intently showcased here with more evident display of a less-character driven, shapeless story within the technical aspects of the DVD release where the soundtrack drowns the dialogue into a muffled deaf tone, like any good loud music venue would subdue.  “Flesh City’s” urbanites fill out with Marilena Netzker (“Love Songs for Scumbags”), Shaun Lawton (“Possession”), Denis Lyons (“German Angst”), Anthony Straeger (“Call of the Hunter”), Maria Hengge (“Love Songs for Scumbags”), Helena Prince (“12 Theses”), and Thorsten Fleisch in a Max Headroom meets Total Request Live-like host role of Quantum 1337.

“Flesh City” will not be everyone’s approx. 90 minutes of how to spend their time choice.  The experimental film will only speak to a few select souls with a filmic affinity for Lynchian peculiarities, Terry Gilliam’s bold fantasy, David Cronenberg’s body horror, and a hellish capriccio along with an eclectic music palate for noise rock, henpecking alternative, and strident industrial bass.  I wouldn’t go as far as saying Fleisch’s film is akin to nails on a chalkboard but can be boisterously unpleasant to the ears at times while, in the same breadth, be stimulating visually, even if that stimulation may induce a photosensitive epileptic seizure.  Fleisch’s non-traditional narrative design splices in music videos from various underground and indie artists with him providing introduction as an illusionary host in a virtual world, breaking up the Vyren and Loquette’s post-punk-adelic core quandary with a teetering melodic cacophony of feedback rock electronic, a hostile rhythm, and bizarre lyrics and visuals.  Fleisch pushes the taboo envelope with not only liberal nudity, to which Germans are very at ease with their body image, but also within the unconfined stylistic creativity of multi-formats that razzle-dazzles like the innards of radiant plasma globe; the Tesla coil electrons that’s drawn to your conductive flesh won’t hurt you but provide a feeling of captivated wonder.  Yet, don’t expect to be thrilled in a traditional predator-and-prey sense as “Flesh City” appeals more to our disconnect from each other and how to reconnect must be through some kind of inclemency. 

Likely to transmit under the radar, “Flesh City’s” biomorphic body horror arrives onto unrated director’s cut DVD home video courtesy of cult and independent distributing label Wild Eye Releasing in association with Tomcat Films.  The DVD5 presents the transfer in a widescreen 2.35:1 aspect ratio with varying levels of image quality due to different types of equipment and methods used to create Fleisch’s tripped out vision that contains, but isn’t limited to, black and white, color, stylistic lighting, analog equipment, digital equipment, stock footage, and so forth.  This mishmash movie makes for divisible degrees of signal quality that can be look crystal clear in one scene and then heavy noise interference the next, but the overall clarity is remains stable without any scenes being rifted because of visual vagueness.  The audio comes in two formats:  a English Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound and a English Dolby Digital 2.0.  Frankly, the original English dialogue track is feeble under the tremendously potent soundtrack and sound design that makes comprehending Vyren and Loquette subterranean exchanges under the industrial rumble of the score virtually impossible to discern.  Even Quantum 1337’s cyber-stutter chat softly introduces us into his world, essentially leading the blind into a mound of musical mania. Bonus features only include other Wild Eye Releasing trailers with the physical aspects of the DVD come with a misconception cover art that has a terrifying gaunt and fleshy, humanoid creature front and center, but that creature doesn’t exist in the film until maybe at the climax that’s nebulously discernible at best what viewers are supposed to see. Inside the standard DVD snapper, the disc art is pressed with the same front cover image but with no accompanying insert. The region free disc features the unrated film with a runtime of 84 minutes. “Flesh City” is a delicacy of distortion, but the Thorsten Fleisch film is an acquired taste that general audiences won’t have taste for but, then again, general audiences are not Wild Eye Releasing’s target audience, now are they?

“Flesh City” Yearns for Connection on DVD!

A Horde of EVIL Won’t Stop a Father from Seeing His Child for the First Time. “Day Zero” reviewed! (Well Go USA / Entertainment)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Day Zero” on Blu-ray from Well Go USA Entertainment

Convicted on charges of assault, ex-special forces and all-around big guy Emon looks to keep his nose clean, banking off his good behavior to get him released from prison to see his wife and child, who he has never laid eyes on since being incarcerated.  When trouble finds him behind bars, Emon loses his chance with a dismissive warden until a mutated dengue fever virus sweeps through the city.  The virus turns people crazed and blood hungry, quickly engulfing the populated city and streets with chaos that fortuitously, as well as unfortunately, sets all the prisoners free in a tumultuous fight between the living and the infected dead.  Emon must battle through to save his family trapped inside their multi-storied apartment building but inside the dark, densely-packed corridors, the structure is infested with infected with not many places to hide and not much room to evade the bite of the hungry dead.

A running Z-charged, fight-for-your-life thriller hailing from the Philippines with “Day Zero,” the sophomore feature length film from brothers Joey De Guzman, the director, and Ays De Guzman, the screenwriter.  “The Ghosting” director, Joey De Guzman, revs up the slow-motion and high-octane gunplay and the barreling running zombie action set to the tune of a “28 Days Later” type virus that quickly spreads through the one of major metropolises of the Pilipino microcosm.  Ays De Guzman, authorial designer of a few independent Pinoy horror of the past decade with the horror-comedy “Da Possessed” and the dysfunctional family thriller “Santigwar,” Ays bends himself down a different avenue of anxiety-gear terror that taps into a semblance of Zack Snyder caffeinated zombie-violence.  “Day Zero” remarks the return of the “Rabid” producing team of Glenn Mark Salamat, Michaela Reyes, and Stacy Bascon under the production banners of Reality MM Studios and Regal Entertainment.

Speaking about Zack Snyder, I’m convinced hiring a leading man who looks like a Dave Bautista doppelganger playing a large-and-in-charge ex-special forces is undoubtedly derived from Snyder’s 2021 “Army of the Dead.”  Also, a shaved head doesn’t help avoid the lookalike image as Brandon “The Truth” Vera exits the mixed-martial arts arena for greener, lower-impact pastures of the picture business.   The Filipino-American made his feature film debut in 2018 with BuyBust, a narcotics bust and drug war shootout actioner filmed in Manila, going back to his heritage roots to be featured in homegrown productions.  Vera’s latest bout with action “Day Zero” has ingrained much of the same hand-to-hand and weaponry discharging skirmishes except with zombies.  Much like Bautista, Vera’s a broad shouldered, big dude and he’s massive in the tight corridors of the building interior sets yet the former arena fighter just doesn’t bring his large and imposing presence to the screen, he also brings his agility and grace choreographing complex tussles with the forsaken fiends trying to feast on him and others.  Amongst the axe slashing, neck breaking, face impaling, and gunplay galore, Vera also shows his softer side being a puppy-eyed father attempting to connect with his 7 to 8 year old daughter for the first time and rationalize with her on why he didn’t want her to see him in prison.  The softer side of the Emon incorporeally clashes with the rough and ready former special forces kill machine, diluting his character by pulling him in different directions that never consummated a mesh of the two sides.  Instead, we’re delivered a better arc in his wife Sheryl (Mary Jean Lastimosa, “Santigwar”) with initial discomfort with Emon’s troublesome woes only to then understand his internal hardships.  Coming out on top after injury over injury, Sheryl becomes a survivor for not only her deaf daughter but also for Emon who has finally made it back into their lives.  Because the Republic of Philippines is geographically limited, “Day Zero” has a relatively convey Pinoy cast that have crossed paths on previous projects; these actors and actresses include Pepe Herrera, Freya Fury Montierro, Yohance Levi Buie, Joey Marquez, Jema Galanza, Ricci Rivero, Shermaine Santiago, and Jovit Moya.

“Day Zero” is enjoyable, zombie destroying cannonade without the supplements of a patient zero other than radio chatter on the dengue fever mutation.  The well-traversed plot doesn’t ring any originality bells and adds nothing new overall to the zombie canon in what’s simplistically a good-ole fashion romp of the routine.  What Joey De Guzman renders well is progressing the intensity from a slow setup of familiarizing ourselves with Emon and his family to turning up the volume on the convulsing savagery between the rampaging infected and Emon busting out his full-on commando skillset that can eliminate scads of a charging herd.  Guzman’s able to deliver fast action and decent camera work with some satisfying scenes of sanguine splatter.  The sound design of the zombie war cry hones in on the maddening and frightening being cornered and out of options as survivors scatter in a deemed-derelict apartment building with junk-riddled hallways and sturdy but thin cardboard doors, the latter may denote poor set design, but the overall look and feel of enveloping darkness and cluttered walking spaces makes “Day Zero” have that original Resident Evil 2 environment atmosphere to a point.  By no means am I comparing “Day Zero’s” acclaim to the popular 90’s sequel of iconic survival horror but the narrative also plays into a similar storyline scenario which, ironically enough, is more parallel to the franchise than Paul W.S. Anderson’s adaptations aside from the lack of a diabolically Umbrella corporation.  Guzman shows his influencing hand with his latest venture and comes out unscathed with a tachycardia zombie-action movie that won’t flatline on you.

Not the usually novel, alternative horror Well Go USA Entertainment has released onto Blu-ray as of late, but “Day Zero” is no zero on our book with its nonstop, large scale, and gripping action on a limited budget.  The AVC encoded, high-definition 1080p, BD25 is presented in a widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio.  Graded with a grim cinereal of cadet blue and turquoise, the image has a nipping and snappy delineation within the heavily shadowed interiors with exteriors often bright but still greatly detailed and contoured for depth.  No issues with the format storage and transfer compression within those shadowy compartments that amply decode, or rather unload, the visual markers, perhaps aided by the limited color scale.  The Filipino, mixed with a smidgen of English, DTS-HD 5.1 track has immense depth surrounding the zombie war cry, hitting those rear channels nicely for distinct localization.  Though a lot of action is in confined spaces, depth also translate well to other environmental aspects of the sound design.  Muzzle fire has a brawniness with a consistent impact complimenting the nonstop action.  Dialogue is clean, clear, and intelligible with optional, error-free English subtitles in synch with the narrative flow.  Usually, Well Go Entertainment releases have promotional behind-the-scenes and interviews, special effects insight, or something in the bonus features content but, alas, this particular release only sees itself into our players with the film’s trailer on the static menu.  Same goes with the omitted slipcover that was present in their two previous horror releases. The Blu-ray is housed in a standard snapper case with Vera peering intently forward overtop a near silhouette of an apocalyptic Pinoy street with an odd, near-skeletal figure at the top right adjacent to Vera’s right shoulder and standing on a roof.  This particular, pretty-cool designed character is not in the film.  While the front cover can grab a prospective buyer or renter’s attention, the back cover diminuendos “Day Zero’s” appeal with a prominently goofy, white-eyed infected in the middle looking stupor than scary.  Inside, an advert tableau of other Well GO USA distributions, such as Donnie Yen’s “Sakra,” “The Tank,” and Jackie Chan’s “Ride On,” fill the insert section, which may vary per batch made.  Pressed disc art resembles “Evil Dead” with a red background and a profiled hand reaching upward.  Region A locked, the feature comes not rated at 82 minutes long.  “Day Zero” is my first Filipino horror film experience in nearly four years with the last being 1971’s “Beast of the Yellow Night” and continues to always be a pleasing sit-down with its taste for terror no matter how hackneyed or homage traced. 

“Day Zero” on Blu-ray from Well Go USA Entertainment

Amongst the EVILs of Digital, Analog Rises from the Grave! “Night of the Zodiac” reviewed! (SRS Cinema / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

A Mock VHS Retro on a Mock VHS Retro DVD!  “Night of the Zodiac” from SRS Cinema!

A bizarre and grotesque dream about the once notorious Zodiac killer inspires Richard Gantz to create a movie worthy of his idol’s praise.  With little income and having just lost his girlfriend and his job, Gantz is on the brink of being homeless and unable to materialize his dream into reality until he receives a mysterious, unexpected phone call.  The Zodiac killer got wind of his project and is offering support to finance and bestow guidance to Gantz’s film as long as the struggling, yet eager, filmmaker can crack Zodiac’s cipher and stomach the enigmatic task before him.  Gifted the Zodiac’s iconic mask and murder knife, Gantz sets out to record his first kills that pays homage to his aging idol but his mentor wants him to be creative with the new chapter worthy of the Zodiac name and gathering a whole new set of slaves for his paradisal afterlife.  When Gantz hits a barrier of inspiration, he solely becomes reliant on the Zodiac’s encouragement that has become few and a far in between. 

Susana Kapostasy is who I like to label a mad genius.  Many filmmakers have attempted to create antiquated formats of yore with watered down imitations, but for the Michigan-born videographer and editor-by-trade Kapostasy, what has been a challenge to most to faithfully recreate has simply become second nature for the video production enthusiast.  Scraping up any and all elderly video camcorders she could find, the “Metal Maniac” director wrote-and-directed her sophomore feature film “Night of the Zodiac,” pulling inspiration from one of the most notorious unsolved murder cases in America by the Zodiac Killer in San Francisco.  From the West Coast to the Midwest, “Night of the Zodiac” is filmed in and around the backdropped Detroit area for the Zodiac’s next round of sliced-up slaves – only in the creative, moviemaking sense, of course.  The 2022 film has the spitting image of a 1980s/1990s SOV with ghastly, gory effects, a killer hair metal soundtrack, and video characteristics that’ll have you trying to adjust the tracking setting on your DVD/Blu-ray player.  The Johnny Braineater Production is produced by star Philip Digby with Kapostasy serving as executive producer alongside co-cinematographer Apollo David Zimmerman.

Stepping into the shoes of the infamous serial killer to embark on a theoretical continuance of the real life mass murdering character is Philip Digby.  Channeling his best Jeffrey Dahmer vibe in looks alone with a crazed and obsessive personality suited for Charles Manson, Digby plays a hodgepodge of America’s most notorious killers, adding his own flare for film into the fold to make him a full-fledged psychopath, as he internally celebrates the moniker after his disparaging roommate/Landlord (Victor-Manuel Ruiz) labels him with an ear-to-ear grin and a nearly whoopie jump for joy.  Digby’s eccentric mania thrusts us beyond a threshold we didn’t even realized we had crossed from the very first opening dream sequences of a rotting, coffin-thronged corpse oozing maggots and putrid viscera and, believe it not, my opinion is this thrust doesn’t do justice to Gantz’s character because of the lack of foundation of setting up viewers with an inbred psychosis that puts into question, how did he survive this long without killing someone before?  Dreams are power but are they powerful enough to twist a seeming normal film lover into a frantic frenzy of vile fates and videotapes?  I think only Freddy Krueger can answer that.  Gantz goes around town slaughtering people in parks, in their driveways, and even makes one very bad magician (Derek Dibella) wish he requested to hire Gantz as a videographer for a promotional video disappear as Gantz strangles him to death.  “Night of the Zodiac” completes the cast with Logan O’Donnell, Mark Polonia (director of “Splatter Farm”), Tim Ritter (director of “Truth or Dare?”), and Benjamin Linn as the voice of the Zodiac.

From the video production veneer to the set decorations and locations to the characters themselves, “Night of the Zodiac” perfectly captures SOV horror in this modern day time capsule.  Not until the credits, when I see master craftsman of SOV horror filmming, Tim Ritter and Mark Polonia, appear in the cast credits did it dawn on me that what Susana Kapostasy had accomplished was a labor of love for the niche market, resurrected four decades later and revered by horror fans who were likely still in diapers or weren’t even born yet – maybe to go as far as not even a twinkle in their parents’ eyes.  Yet, there were clues to “Night of the Zodiac’s” contemporary construction, such as the opening title which had a clean, well-polished illustration and Kapostasy’s film is very self-aware by slathering horror in every recessed corner with mountainous stacks of VHS tapes, posters, and  and often, perhaps every other scene, displayed tribute to filmmakers, like Ritter and Polonia, who were still counterparts and establishing themselves as independent videotape artists during the 80s-90s.  This self-awareness harnesses more comedic relief than horror, accentuated by Gantz’s matter-of-fact imbalance, and the humor loosens the reins on “Night of the Zodiac’s” cold cruelty a tad but what the gore spools back in audiences by spilling lots of blood. 

SRS Cinema releases “Night of the Zodiac” onto DVD with a single layer encoding and presented in a throwback letterbox 1:33:1 aspect ratio.  Kapostasy uses a slew of equipment – Cannon XL2, Sony Video 8 AF, Panasonic AG 450, JVC GY X2BU, JVC GY X3, Panasonic AG 456, Panasonic AG 196, Sony CCD FX 330, and a Sony VO 4800 U-Matic S VTR – with some be more present-time cams run through U-matic VHS playback to degrade for SOV quality.  The intentional SOV has a variety of distinct looks with distinct quirks that flexes higher magenta levels in earlier scenes as well as tracking lines and aliasing artefacts.  Detail levels also vary but the overall VHS brands generally remain the same with soft, indistinguishable contours with also a surprising amount of depth and hue range.  The English Dolby Digital 2-channel (2.0) mix can sound boxy at times and come accompanied with a piercing, underlining interference.   Telephone conversations have no distortion depth so the other person on other line sounds present in the room.   The soundtrack from Anguish, Locust Point, and the brunt of it provided by Stoker is metal madness but does overshadow the dialogue when shredding through the scenes.  Dialogue is often clear, but again, no depth and echoey.  There are no subtitles available for this release.  Bonus Features include an audio commentary by director Susana Kapostasy, star Philip Digby, and costar Victor-Manuel Ruiz that goes over a lot of technical aspects of “Night of the Zodiac’s” look and how they obtained the gore and blood for the film, a Tim Ritter conversation about how he became involved with Kapostasy’s video enthusiasm and provided analog input, a blood cannon showcase that’s instructionally descriptive as well as you’ll see Kapostasy’s foot accidently go into the 5 gallon Homer bucket, a gore score Ouija board gag, recreating the Zodiac cipher, and the trailer.  SRS Cinema’s release dons a retro VHS design front cover with an exact and beautiful illustration of Gantz’s copycat Zodiac attire with a cropped version of the front cover on the disc art inside the traditional black snapper case.  “Night of the Zodiac” has a runtime of 86 minutes, is not rated, and has an all-region NTSC playback. Difficult to immerse oneself into a half-a-century old unsolved murder while sticking to glorifying merely the guts and gore, “Night of the Zodiac” stuns more qualitatively with video techniques thought archaic and obsolete but Susana Kapostasy steadfast proves otherwise in her undying love for the flawed, yet nostalgic format.

A Mock VHS Retro on a Mock VHS Retro DVD!  “Night of the Zodiac” from SRS Cinema!

A Teacher’s Raunchy Romance is Not the Only EVIL Being Committed! “Amor Bandido” reviewed! (Cinephobia Releasing / DVD)

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Forbidden Love and Severe Malefactions in “Amor Bandido” on DVD July 18th!

A remiss 16-year-old Joan is the son of a wealthy magistrate who doesn’t see eye-to-eye with his father’s wishes.  What was supposed to be the last day of school before Easter break turns into Joan’s most anxious day when he learns that his mistress, his teacher Luciana, is exiting her position at the school that very day.  Pleading to Luciana to take him with her, she reluctantly accepts his tagalong despite him being underage and her being more than double his age.  Their unlawful affair leads them to an isolated manor where they can romantically explore themselves in a paramour tour of passion.  A couple of days have past and Joan is completely smitten until Luciana’s brother arrives and the whole getaway has been a trick at Joan’s expense.  Now, the adolescent is being held captive and has to fight for his very life before he’s executed for being nothing more than a wealthy judge’s son and a naïve, jilted lover. 

More by more, news stories are printed of older women, specifically women in education, having intimate relations with a young, student boy – sometimes, another girl as well.  Men have always been the archetype of the infamously ugly term pedophilia, but women can be just as predatory despite the lack of widespread printed and televised attention.  Mostly, these new bites are mostly obscured in the newsfeed of an online aggregated newsreel, hyper-regionalized to the area where the crime was committed, but the story is nearly always the same – young (often good-looking) 20-30 year old teacher abuses young, under 18-year-old boy in the car, at her home, via text with lewd pictures, etc.  Honestly, boys have long been hot for teachers, but there is an inherent sliminess to the idea that has been rooted in steamy fantasy pubescent minds.  Iconic films like 1967 Mike Nichols’s “The Graduate” starring Dustin Hoffman aroused the notion of forbidden lust while others like George Bower’s 1983 “My Tutor” and even the more recent “No Hard Feelings” with Jennifer Lawrence, to an extent, makes light of the subject matter; however, no other filmmaker really captures the act’s grooming nature like director Daniel Werner.  Werner’s “Amor Bandido,” or “Bandit Love” depicts minor exploitation like never before with fellow screenwriter Diego Avalos in their feature film together after the production of their 2019 short, another contentious teacher-student relationship, entitled “Nadador.”  The Argentinian film is a co-production of The National Institute of Cinema and Audiovisual Arts (INCAA) and Werner Cine, produced by Werner and Nicolás Batlle.

The film opens up to Joan, a 16-year-old student with a bit of a chip on his shoulder as he glues together a volcano-like model in slapdash fashion.  Spoiled further into his innate teenage angst by his own abundance of wealth, Joan is able to get away with essentially disrespecting his empty-threatening father and boozy mother.  The extent of his entitlement spills into the classroom when learns his teacher, Ms. Luciana, is leaving the school at the end of the day and this is where we learn that Luciana and Joan have been in a forbidden affair as they meet in a storage room where she caresses his crotch as they kiss.  Though looking very much like a 16-year-old brat, Renato Quattordio is actually in his early 20s when the Buenos Aires born actor becomes passionately intertwined on screen with early 40’s actress, Romina Ricci.  The noticeable age difference places a stamp of scuzzy approval as the principals really put on a show of sensuality that defies the numerical age gap while also defining the maturity and the experience of individuals.  Quattordio hits the mark as the naïve teen eager to jump at the behest of his older, curvaceous companion.  And, boy, is Romina Ricci curvaceous, luring Joan in as the wanton teacher cautious of their alluring affair.  The erotic thriller quickly turns into a survival thriller when Joan’s eagerness to grow up comes face-to-face with Luciana’s past, embodied by Rafael Ferro (“Terror 5,” “White Coffin”) and Sergio Prina as two money greedy thugs eager to milk Joan for all that he is worth.  “Amor Bandido” rounds out with a few more bandidos in Mónica Gonzaga, Carlos Mena, Jurge Prado, and Santigao Stieben.

“Amor Bandido” is a coming-of-age tale with a pair of dichotomizing facades strung together by opposing forces in choosing between love or money.  Essentially, those two driving forces boil down to the relationship’s core and that is what director Daniel Werner simmers on, a test of idolatry strength between two people.  Werner pretenses the narrative with a forbidden love escaping to the rurality to make passionate, unjudged lust in a love context, well, at least for one of them.  The absconding is only a diversion for another unlawful act and is palpable in the undertone that something isn’t quite right with Joan and Luciana’s relationship, something that you can’t quite put your finger on and it’s not the surface fact that she’s a mid-30 something-year-old teacher screwing her 16-year-old student.  Werner leaves a breadcrumb trail of concerning clues that make sense when all is exposed but keeps those hints closed to the chest, protected to not giveaway too much until the summiting turning point of the exiting passion and entering perpetration.  Yet, despite our intuitive inklings of the funky air, the pivot still hits hard like a blindsided punch to the jaw that dislodges the mandible and rattles the teeth when the two lovebirds are struck with one payday load.  The only aspect that could be narratively tweaked is the introduction of the wounded stranger whose motives are understood but not quite absolutely clear his connections and how he became wounded in the first place with a gnarly gash on the calf that looks like a Great White shark attack had a snack on.  Digressing to figure out where he fits into it all becomes a distraction and a divergence from the main story that has now snowballed into additional but unwanted molestation, possible incest, and a ransom deal that won’t be faithfully upheld. 

“Amor Bandido” is the first feature to be covered by us courteously supplied by our friends as Cinephobia Releasing, a new distribution label from original world-searching and independent cult worshipping cinephiles of Artsploitation Films.  Coming soon to home video on July 18th, the single-layer DVD is presented in a widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio from a digitally recorded print and renders an expected damage and dust/dirt free picture with nature, yet smoothed out detail, skin tones and natural coloring.  There’s not a ton of visual risk here from cinematographer Manuel Rebella (“A Taste of Blood”) with the stimulation coming strictly from performances and the erotic, forbidden spirit.  The DVD5 format falls below par for darker portions within the frame that are seen with splotchy banding as well as the aforementioned smoothness around facial features.  The Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound and a Spanish Dolby Digital 2.0 are equally comparable with the focus primarily on the dialogue and less on the sound design to warrant extra channels so both tracks output relatively the same.  There are scenes or sequences all other tracks are muted or receded to make way for a vivacious musical soundtrack to accentuate the moment.  Dialogue comes across clean and clear without any interference in the balance of the little ambience of rustling leaves, water splashing, and gun shots.  Option English subtitles are available, but I did spot a pair of typographical errors.  Bonus features include a 3-minute sale and promotional make-of with director Daniel Werner, the original trailer – separated from the bonus features on the static menu – and trailers for future Cinephobia Releasing films, such as “Sublime,” “Emmanuelle’s Revenge,” “Brightwood,” “The Latent Image,” and “The Goldsmith.”   Pressed with the cropped but same image as the front cover, the DVD comes in a standard tall snapper with the front cover sporting that crotch-fondling moment of intimacy.  The Cinephobia Releasing title comes unrated, runs at 80 minutes, and is has region 1 playback.  The coming-of-age arc prevalently scores into the naïve, angsty adolescent tale but “Amor Bandido” also suggests that maybe maturing too quickly should be left off the table, keeping fantastical temptation at bay and keeping innocence intact for kids to be kids just a few years more.

Forbidden Love and Severe Malefactions in “Amor Bandido” on DVD July 18th!