Category Archives: 90s-tastic!

EVIL Relaxes in the Serenity of a “Full Body Massage” reviewed! (Unearthed Films / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Lube Up and Get Ready for “Full Body Massage” on Blu-ray!

Nina, a middle-aged affluent art dealer, has just returned from a long business trip.  Settling back down into her own nature morte decked home, Nina pampers herself with a hot shower, a glass of wine, elegant music, and a soak in her open aired, backyard hot tub as she relaxes before for her masseur, Doug, a handsome young man she finds herself comfortably attracted to outside their professional relationship, arrives to put his oiled up hands up and down her naked body but when Fitch arrives, Doug’s more seasoned stand-in, Nina finds herself blindsided by the change and slightly disappointed in her sudden erotic deflation.  Fitch’s worldly approach to life conflicts against Nina’s narrow perspective on various topics, including art, happiness, and love.  Willing to be fully open with each other during the intimate and unorthodox massage, Nina and Fitch debate deep into their session without holding anything back with flashbacks on their experiences that led them to this very moment of unexpected connection.

Director Nicholas Roeg, the late acclaimed English director, is known for his in-depth humanizing of flawed or downcast protagonists, often times surrounded by desire and obstacles, having helmed such renowned features as “Walkabout,” “Bad Timing,” and “The Man Who Fell From Earth.”  Roeg has also dipped his directional toes in horror with films like “Don’t Look Now” and “The Witches,” running the gamut between adult and children thrills.  Later in his career, Roeg slowly moved away from theatrical features and into the realm of television, shorts, and TV movies with one of those made-for-TV films being “Full Body Massage” for the premium cable network Showtime.  Penned by “The Stranger’s” Dan Gurskis, “Full Body Massage” trades in a problematic mystery or obstacle for more of the unravelling of philosophical viewpoints of two strangers wounded in their own obvious way only to have the air purified each other’s different life paths and mere presence of mind.  The 1995 released U.S. network movie is produced by erotic thriller operators Julie Ahlberg and Michael Nolin of “The Pornorgrapher” under the LLC of Full Body Productions and Showtime.

Though a made-for-television movie likely marketed for and airing as a late night skin flick for the premium network channel in the cable box era of the 1990s, “Full Body Massage” was anything but your ordinary after dark tits up production with two well-known stars substantially casted and not just for the headline attraction.  “Ginger Snaps” and “Hider in the House” American actress Mimi Rogers is joined by Australian star and “F/X” leading man Bryan Brown who undertake the respective roles of world-weary Nina and worldly-candid Fitch.  While “Full Body Massage” has the hallmarks of softcore programming, an titillating title, sexy sax soothing tones, and a very naked Mimi Rogers, the machinating devices have more bark than bite as Rogers and Brown never engage into sexual intimacy albeit a lot of sensual massage manhandling by Fitch on Nina’s more than happy to be naked body with a stranger she just met.  The two mainstays are pundits for the story, verbally expelling their own viewpoints and experiences that have shaped their choices in life, molding them to who they are, and nearing the edge of gospel when in rhetoric with each other.  Their conspicuous dispute is nearly all narratively all consuming but not as nearly all argumentative in it’s very adult approach to discussion of just two people seeing the world through two very different eyes.   Other characters are told through mostly flashbacks and never interact in the same aortic piece with Rogers and Brown with Christopher Burgard (“Syngenor”), Elizabeth Barondes (“Night of the Scarecrow”), Gareth Williams (“Striking Distance”), Patrick Neil Quinn (“Swamp Thing” television series), Heather Gunn (“Ed Gein”), and Gabriella Hall (“The Erotic Adventures of the Invisible Man”) and Brian McLane playing younger versions of Nina and Fitch. 

“Full Body Massage” is not an intense, edge-of-your-seat nail biter bursting with action and suspense.  In fact, I struggle with film’s point and overall message to the world in what in essence boils down to a character study.  Fitch’s disapproving father no matter how perfection Fitch achieved, Nina’s continuous search for approvals in love, Fitch’s losing love that sends him on a spiritual journey, and Nina’s failed marriages between fast-and-loose husbands and hard to connect with ones make the two underlyingly wounded adults rigid and confidence in that unyielding measure until they meet each other and experience pliability out of a long-winded dialogue in not only a face-to-face manner, but also in the healing power of touch and massage that’s feels erotic per Roeg’s direction but also works out every kink in their twisted, knotted pasts to where they end in an uncertain but good place, a place they’ve never been before or have long forgotten.  By the course of two people talking, which most the world does every day, there had to be buzzier bright light to attract swarming audiences to the premium cable network’s thirst for viewership and that would be Mimi Rogers going nearly full-frontal for nearly the entire runtime and Roeg really plays into that erotic prance of unabashed confidence and comfortability while also, contrariwise, the dynamic progresses platonically. 

A newly scanned 2K transfer of 1995 film comes from an unlikely boutique distributor known mainly for extreme horror, gore and shock, and controversial material. Unearthed Films proudly presents “Full Body Massage” on Blu-ray as title lucky number 13 on their Unearthed Classics label. The AVC encoded, high-definition 1080p, BD50 exhibits cable vision veneer in a television widescreen 1.66:1 aspect ratio. Roeg’s choice to go virtually without style really hinges on the substance for success. The natural approach consumes any low-lit or candle-lit warm interiors exclusively for flashback sequences. The 35 mm print has been cared for and it shows with pristine HD transfer that keeps the natural grain and doesn’t need to really sugarcoat any sour patches. The English lossless PCM 2.0 stereo mix offers exact fidelity of the original discourse and milieu ambience of an innate digital sound capture. With the dialogue heavy story, the discourse is clean, clear, and prominent, comprehensible in every which way. Depth provides expansion and echo inside Nina’s vastly roomy mansion, but range is limited to talking and not the sensual, sexy, arousing kind. English subtitles and SDH subtitles are available on this release. Special features include the television version presented in 1.33:1 aspect ratio, a minute still image gallery that’s mostly Bryan Brown behind Mimi Rogers giving her the massage, and the original trailer. While not a great selection of bonus content, the physical exterior succeeds slightly favorable with a cardboard O-slipcover with flat, yet beautiful, illustration of, again, Bryan Brown and Mimi Rogers in massage therapy that could be misleading as sensuality. The Amaray Blu-ray cover sports the same image on the cover art and even compressed even further on the disc art. The Blu-ray is rated R, locked in region A playback, and has a runtime of 93 minutes. I’m not going to try and kid you with what is and will be “Full Body Massage’s” immediate appeal, a very well-endowed and nude Mimi Rogers, but this anomalous Unearthed Classic brings a different highbrow criterion class to the extreme horror label in what is a brazen change of pace. 

Lube Up and Get Ready for “Full Body Massage” on Blu-ray!

Never Trust a Script Written by an Egotistically EVIL “Scream Queen” reviewed! (Visual Vengeance / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

This Chainsaw’s Made for Cutting! “Scream Queen” on Blu-ray!

Malicia Tombs, an acclaimed horror actress known for B-movies and bad attitude, bursts into a wreckage of flames when her car sudden explodes after storming off the set of her new movie, “Scream Queen,” in which she wrote and starred as the titular character.  Part of the cast and crew were devastated by the accident that had cut their own career short while others were relieved the egotistical Tombs had perished despite publicly feigning grief over the loss of a genre fan-favorite.  Months later, the small cast and crew receive a mysterious invitation to gather at a creepy mansion butlered by Runyon.  When their host is unveiled as to be a very much alive Malicia Tombs, she offers them a lucrative sum of money to finish the film they’ve started but with a new script.  As the guests read through the new treatment, the cast and crew realize their present moments read just as their being played out in the script, even their deaths. 

If there was ever a single face deserving the representative distinction within an overpopulated categorized scream queen genus, Linnea Quigley would be that green-eyed, blonde-topped, beautiful face with an infectious smile.  Quigley worked with an array of filmmakers, ranging from some of the most renowned cult films of all times amidst reams of horror movies for nearly half a century (yes, we’re feeling old now) to the most independent of the independents films never having really receive the proper exhibition format or audience attention.  To what would be a delight to Quigley’s fanbase, one of those obscure features is Brad Sykes’ “Scream Queen,” a late 90’s filmed, 2002-released, SOV, U.S. slasher written-and-directed by the “Camp Blood” and low-budget filmmaker with Quigley in mind to play the scream queen character Malicia Tombs, now available, officially, on Blu-ray.  “Scream Queen” is the first major project for Brad Sykes in a collaborating effort in not only as a director but also as a co-producer alongside David Sterling of Sterling Entertainment.

“The Return of the Living Dead” and “Night of the Demons” Quigley puts on another memorable and wickedly fiendish performance as the haughty genre scream queen Malicia Tombs who superiority has gone to her head as she embraces her designation to an exact mania, displayed early on when her character’s character attempts to choke-kill another actress despite the numbered scene not being a death scene and Malicia harps on wanting to continue with the resembling act of murder.  As much as Malicia Tombs embraces the killer instinct inside of her, Linnea Quigley very much embraces Malicia Tombs without having to take her top off and despite having less screen time than her costars.  While Quigley fades in and out of the linear story, the narrative progresses with livelihood hardships of the now out-of-work cast and crew who relied heavily on that small film to boost their acting and filmmaking careers.  That crop of characters falls short tipping into their expectations, aspirations, and even their relations to be just slasher fodder for the mysterious maniac roaming the house.  Jenni (Emilie Jo Tisdale,” Escape from Hell”) and Devon (Nova Sheppard) are inferred romantic roommates who sell clothes on the side of the street to make ends meet post failed film but don’t have surmountable direction to either be a full-fledged couple to sympathize or seem terribly concerned about opening their own clothing shop other than what would be a bad decision to reside at the mansion overnight.  Again, no sympathy there either.  The special effects goof Squib (Bryan Cooper churns chuckles relentlessly by relating more to his crafted effects dummy more than people, marking him conclusively comedy relief as well as fated for death that, like in life, no one takes him seriously when he shows up gruesomely mutilated.  The other principal actress across from Tombs is Christine (Nicole West, “Dimension in Fear”), a buxom blonde tired of secretary work succumbing to lead man flirtations in a dark and scary house where every shadowy corner is lodged with threat.  The pair fall into that horror character cliché of have sex, will die, quickly downgrading their pre-professional relationship into nothing more than dark house desire.  Director Eric Orloff (Jarrod Robbins, “Evil Sister 2”), a presumed spin on the Awful Dr. Orloff and perhaps hints at his motives, seems to be stuck in angsty avoidance and melancholy stemmed by what could have been with Scream Queen but that also peters to a gross negligence end of an arc waste.  Rounding out the cast are a couple of special bit parts played by prolific Full Moon Entertainment and overall horror movie screenwriter C. Courtney Joyner (“Puppet Masters III,” “From A Whisper to Scream”) as a televised homicide detective and Kurt Levee in a quasi-return of his character Runnion from “Evil Sister” but alternatively spelled “Runyon” in “Scream Queen.”  

Though obviously and definitely not the first to do this, “Scream Queen” humors metacinema measures built upon horror tropes and spherical plot points that redirects the story back upon itself for a killer effect.  The feature has no issues making and poking fun at itself within a campy context albeit the usually grave apprehensions of a true scary slasher movie that’s less campy of which a scream queen is born – think Jamie Lee Curtis in “Halloween” or Neve Campbell in “Scream.”  Bryan Cooper not only portrayed the foolish effects guy persona but also actually did a lot of the gore gags for the film, achieving very detailed inlaid gore prosthetics for a smalltime picture with an axe embedded into a chest and a mangled face to name a few.  The story itself feels a bit rough and ready as it slips into supernatural obscurity and, as aforementioned, character setups flounder to a stagnation, killing instantly the miniscule arcs that were structured prior to their mansion gathering in what becomes a slapdash of serial offing that wraps up the story post-haste without much cat-and-mouse tension.  With that said, “Scream Queen’s” unpolished plot had once mirrored its fallowed physical release until recently but now witnessing its birth out of twilight has been multitudinous worth the wait. 

Another of Linnea Quigley’s lost films has been resurrected from the format graveyard by Visual Vengeance with a new Blu-ray release of “Scream Queen.”  The Wild Eye Releasing sublabel release comes with an AVC encoded, high definition interlaced scanned and director approved 1080i transfer from the 480p tape elements on BD50 capacity and comes also with the qualitative joys of a standard definition shot on video experience.  SOV tape upconversion can never completely eradicate the imperfections associated with tape and we also know this going in courtesy of Visual Vengeance’s standard practice of a fair warning before the film, but the overall “Scream Queen” presentation passes as clear content despite some minor tracking blips, 1.33:1 aspect ratio, original lower resolution, and scan line visibility, which is smoothed out nicely by the 1080i conversion. Exteriors and brightly lit scenes take on more shape compared to darker and low-lit areas that become like a void in standard DEF, which also hits the natural grading into a washed-out drab.  The English Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo labors to maintain some form of auricular strength but often nearly goes dark to where certain Linnea Quigley monologues periodically go silent for a few seconds, so the dialogue isn’t entirely clear but when it is, it’s relatively clean. There’s no hardiness pop in the audio track, staying suppressed throughout, and having little-to-no range or depth to the compile contexture. Some electro-interference throughout but nothing to be bothered by considering the grade of the SOV. Optional English subtitles are available. Special features include a commentary with writer-director Brad Sykes, a new behind-the-scenes documentary Once Upon A Time Horrowood that’s mostly Brad Sykes going through the stages of making “Scream Queen” and his recollections of his first big time produced film, a new interview with star Linnea Quigley, a new interview with one of the three various editors Mark Polonia (director of “Splatter Farm”), an original full-length feature producer’s cut of “Scream Queen,” a behind-the-scenes image gallery, Linnea Quigley image gallery, snippets from the original script, original trailer, and other Visual Vengeance distribution trailers. Along with the hearty software special features, hardware physical features include a six-page trifold with behind-the-scenes color photos notes by Weng’s Chop Magazine’s Tony Strauss and beautifully illustrated with dripping blood, a chainsaw, and Linnea Quigley on the front cover, a folded up mini color poster of a scantily-leathered Linnea holding one of the film’s murderous weapons, retro stickers, and your very own Four Star Video plastic rental card. All of this great stuff is stuffed inside a clear Blu-ray Amary case with a pressed disc art of a bloody illustrated Linnea sawing some unknown guy’s face off. The same illustrated graces the front cover in an expanded form and under a different hue. If you don’t like it, which I would be hard-pressed if you don’t, the reverse side contains one of the original cover arts with, again, a scantily-leathered Linnea holding that murderous weapon. The entire package is sheathed inside a rigid O-slipcover with an extended view of that chainsaw scoring with a bloody spray the eyeball from some guy’s face. The 13th Visual Vengeance release comes region free, unrated, and has a runtime of 78-minutes. Lost vintage now found and digitally revived to give us even more Linnea Quigley than we knew we needed with a meta-film shows initiative and fit special effects but swerves off trajectory into a more-of-the-same pathway. 

This Chainsaw’s Made for Cutting! “Scream Queen” on Blu-ray!

Crooked EVIL’s Fixation for Chocolate and a Childlike Girl Will be its Sole Destruction. “The Dead Mother” reviewed! (Radiance Films / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“The Dead Mother” Lives on a 2-Disc, LE Blu-ray/CD Set from Radiance Films!

A botched burglary of an art restorer’s home leaves the art conservationist dead and her daughter wounded by a shotgun blast at the hands of apathetic criminal Ismael Lopez.  Years later, the daughter, Leire, has grown into being a young and beautiful simpleton at a mentally disabled clinic where the mute girl often recesses to a caretaker’s city home off clinic grounds.  By coincidence, the lifelong crook Ismael catches sight of her on the street and becomes obsessed with her witness of his past transgressions.  Conferring with his love-hate girlfriend and felonious partner Maite, the two decide to kidnap her while she’s off clinic campus and put her up for ransom after Ismael couldn’t bring himself to initially kill her but an increasing preoccupation for the chocolate-fond and childlike Leire within a stoic Ismael places an insidious jealously and enigmatic strain between him and Maite that tests that already turmoiled codependency of affection and survival.

Emotionally recrudescent with multiple intrinsic layers of tough guilt, incontrollable desire, and maybe even a pinch of forbearing responsibility that can be labeled cossetting at times, “The Dead Mother” is a beautiful film with unsettling undertones from Spanish filmmaker Juanma Bajo Ulloa.  The “Baby” director cowrite the “The Dead Mother” alongside younger brother Eduardo Bajo Ulloa, their second collaboration after hit success with the duo’s crime thriller “Butterfly Wings” two years prior in 1991.  The Spanish film is shot primarily in Vitoria, Spain with the backdrop of a near classic medieval architecture of urban city with old wooden interiors, high ceilers, and gothic qualities, providing a relative old world air to a tale of petty ideals and madness that disintegrates by the mere site of pure, ingenuous goodness. Under the private and state run production companies Ministry of Culture and Gasteizko Zinema, “The Dead Mother,” or “La Madre Muerta,” is produced by Fernando Bauluz.

To obtain the intensity, the coldness, the unpredictable, the pitch-black humor, and the soft touch, Juanma Bajo Ulloa doesn’t hire a vocational dramatic.  Instead, the filmmaker chances actor just getting his feet wet the Spanish cinema with Karra Elejalde whose assortment of comedy and drama in his first years seasons him for the role of the reprobate Ismael Lopez, a coldhearted killer with a short fuse for anyone who defies or belittles him and, on the opposite side, can be pensive about his past and next steps in a haphazard way. Opposite Ismael is a devout partner/lover, equal in ruthless potential, yet happy, in her own way, to play house wife in their ramshackle, fly-by-night home.  Played by the Portuguese-born, Belgium-raised singer Lio, her stage name in lieu of Vanda Maria Ribeiro Furtado Tavares de Vasconcelos, the pop star, who still to this day floats between acting and singing, rivals Elejalde’s dark-and-light intensity within her own character’s amorous feelings for the petty crook and murder and would do anything to keep him, even if that means destroying what he adores.  And what does Ismael adore?  Ismael’s new fascination is with Leire, the once little girl who attempted to murder now all grown up, developmentally disabled, and beautiful.  While I can’t fault in any of “The Dead Mother’s” cast performances, I could not imagine Leire being portrayed by anyone other than Ana Álvarez (“Geisha”).  Exuding innocence in her eyes amongst a full-body vacuity, Lio might be the professional singer but it’s Álvarez who hits every note of amentia that constantly has us questioning how much of her facility is there, conscious of the bizarre love-triangle or the homicidal-involving abduction.  In the same breadth, a muted Álvarez talks with her eyes, her expressions, and her body language that subtly fidgets or does other under-the-radar subnormal behaviors to convey an unequivocal virtue starkly in contrast amongst her callous captors who enjoy playing house or even try to make her smile or laugh with jokes and play.  Eventually, the dynamic dissolves, like many love triangles do, between an advantageous perversion and deadly ultimatums that will result unfavorably for most.  “The Dead Mother” rounds out the cast with Silvia Marsó, Elena Irureta, Ramón Barea, and Gregoria Mangas.

Ismael’s fixation toward Leire is so tremendously opaque without much exertion it’s difficult to understand the criminal’s ultimate motives, leaving audiences with a shrouded aftertaste of open interpretation.  Perhaps guilty from killing his mother all those years ago and nearly killing her, a wash of responsibility for her now placid and childish existence courses through him, driving him to do the bare necessity in taking care of her.  Another facet to Ismael’s curious interest is Leire’s inherent beauty despite her absent situational awareness.  His attempts to make the young woman’s empty expression become joyous with a smile fails, as if that blank-faced barrier keeps him from moving forward with something akin to being romantically involved.  In a couple of brief, uncomfortable viewing stints, Ismael gropes with the second time being passionately fondled by Maite in attempt to win over affection in what Maite believes is a duel between Leire for his attention.  Leire can be interpreted as a burden that has passed from the mother, hence the title, to Ismael, an assuming responsibility pseudo-father figure.  When Ismael kills Leire’s mother during the bungled burglary, a hint of a smile extends upon her face before the blood drips down her eyes in a fantastic POV shot by cinematographer Javier Aguirresarobe.  Supporting this theory is the Renaissance painting of mother and child with a tear in the canvas between them, a painting that Ismael lingers over for a few seconds while rummaging through the art restorer’s home.  The ambiguous nature of “The Dead Mother” only succeeds because of the confident performances and Juanma Bajo Ulloa’s august eye for the impeccable shots he wants and achieves. 

“The Dead Mother” arrives onto a limited-edition Blu-ray, to the tune of 3000 copies, from Radiance Films U.S. line.  The new 4K scanned transfer, restored from the 35mm negative and stored on an AVC encoded, high-definition 1080p, BD50, is presented in a widescreen 2.35:1 Cinemascope aspect ratio.  Juanma Bajo Ulloa oversaw the pristine cleaning of film strip defects and the new, frame-by-frame color grading at the Cherry Towers lab in Madrid, Spain.  The excellent work by the restoration company and Ulloa’s supervision of the process resulted in a naturally clean edged and detailed saturated transfer to rejuvenate the image with a fresh look.  The overcasting shadows and slate aesthetics with brilliantly hued low-key lighting suggest an immense lugubrious tone throughout, accentuated by the antediluvian structures. The Spanish language uncompressed 2.0 stereo audio absorbs what’s absent, which isn’t much, with an uninhibited, original fidelity of the dialogue, surrounding milieu, and the bordering whimsical string soundtrack by Bingen Mendizábal. There are no hints of hissing, cracking, popping, or fragmented damage of the audio track that persists on being punchy with every Ismael scuffle down to the very rustling of the chocolate wrapper in Leire’s chocolate-stained hands. While range is plentiful and natural, depth is not as utilized unless absolutely necessary, such as with the oncoming horns of the diesel trains in the trainyard or Ismael whistling between the pews of a decrepit church shot from the chorus balcony. English subtitles are available and optional. Special features on this limited-edition set include a Spanish audio commentary by the director with burned in English subtitles, The Story of the Dead Mother an archive behind-the-scenes featurette of retrospective interviews from 2008 and some raw footage of takes that’s, again, in the Spanish language with English subtitles, Bajo Ulloa’s short film “Victor’s Kingdom” aka “El Reino de Victor” from 1989 and now restored in a 4K scan, the film’s trailer, and photo gallery. Physical attributes impress within the clear, slightly thicker amary Blu-ray case that’s been conventional distribution use with Radiance Films in its near retro, austere facade. Sheathing a reversible cover of the original media artwork inside, the outside cover continues to remind me of its Arthur Fleck appeal with a doleful Ismael Lopez in his very best clown make up. Both discs, the Blu-ray and the CD soundtrack, are overlapped and locked in place pressed their respective black and creme coloring scheme. On the insert side contains a 35-page color booklet filled to the brim with captured film images, promotional images, and cast-and-crew posed pictures along with the CD track listing, cast and crew breakdown, and expressionism written pieces and essays by Eduardo Bajo Ulloa, Juanma Bajo Ulloa, Nacho Vigalondo, and Xavier Aldana Reyes. The unrated feature has a runtime of 111 minutes and his region free for all you worldly, cultured lovers of cinema out there. The mother might be dead but Juanma Bajo Ulloa’s converging of cynical odd behavior with the breakdown of status quo by a wicked curveball makes for a darkly cherub of Spanish filmmaking worth coddling in Radiance’s exceptional release.

“The Dead Mother” Lives on a 2-Disc, LE Blu-ray/CD Set from Radiance Films!

Sucked Into Hell. Surrounded By EVIL! “Vampires and Other Stereotypes” reviewed! (Visual Vengeance / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Hell Wants You To Stay for Dinner!  “Vampires and Other Stereotypes” on Blu-ray!

Ivan and his hard-nose partner Harry work between the shadows as protectors of the Earth realm.  The pair of paranormal guardians battle demons attempting to sneak from the Netherworld for more domain and power in the human world.  After thwarting a demon’s reneging plans with a wealthy businessman, they find themselves sucked into a portal to Hell after a group of young partygoers become lost and inadvertently crossover everyone in the abandoned warehouse to the underworld, including the warehouse itself.  Confined to a room with the portal opening, they must band together to survive the night where gnarly demons roam behind every door and are master tricksters with one goal in mind – to breed human women with half-breed demons to procreate more of Hell’s minions.  Its up to Ivan and Harry to see the survivors through until dawn but not everyone is who they seem and when the masks are dropped, real Hell will pounce upon them.  

The northeastern American horror-comedy, “Vampires and Other Stereotypes” is the topsy-turvy and totally-transcendental SOV feature from first-time writer-director Kevin J. Lindenmuth (“Twisted Tales,” “Monsterdocom”).  Shot primarily in Cherry Hill, New Jersey with some exterior city shots of New York City, the film alternatively known as “Hell’s Belles” sought ambitious Hell below Earth undertakings, creating a maze-like dwelling for disfigured dwellers of the demonic kind, and a down-the-rabbit hole story where the head-lopping queen is actually the devil in a leatherjacket playing procreator matchmaker and the Cheshire Cat is a overgrown rat looking to nibble on human flesh rather than cheese.  The rat, as ostentatiously cool as it sound, is simply a slither of one of “Vampires and Other Stereotypes” few themes, which is fear.  Kevin J. Lindenmuth’s production Brimstone Media Productions serves as the studio and Lindenmuth serves as sole producer of his self-funded venture into the vile mouth of the demon world.

“Vampires and Other Stereotypes” follows two difference groups related to the existence of Hell, the demons that inhabit it, and the rogue demons splicing themselves into the human world. One group is the guardians Ivan (Billy White) and Harry (Ed Hubbard) who are very much aware of the esoteric magnitude of the abysmal situation and background while the other group, young Generation X’ers oblivious to the signs of Satan’s underworld seeping into their own. Lead by serial-dater and college girl Kirsten (Wendy Bednarz, “There’s Nothing Out There”) and her two tagalong best friends Linda (Anna Dipace) and Jennifer (Suzanne Scott, “Child of the Sabbat), the ready-to-party trio provide the state of affairs with Kirsten’s nonchalant taste in bad boy boyfriends, believing her courting apathy, treated as an impulse indulgence for the sake of fun, will one day run her out of luck. Enter Erik (Mike McCleery, “Deep Undead”), another misfit miscreant unearthed by Kirsten in her ever unquenching need to be wined, dined, and spoiled by the bottom layers of the dating pool. The two parties clash walking into the epicenter of an open investigation, denoted by an aperture in the middle of the room, where dead, decapitated bodies are strong upside down and Kirsten and her businessman father (Rick Poli, “Blitzkrieg: Escape from Stalag 69) are unexpectedly reunited in an air of something more happening behind the scenes other than Kirsten’s father’s flailing dealings with the demons and Erik’s party-sniffing nose leading them to astray and lost. The rest of the cast comes together with Laura Vale as Rosa the psychic, Monica Batavanis as the wife lost to the dark side, Mike Memphis as the Elvis impersonator, Bean Miller as the Lizard King aka Jim Morrison impersonator, and Sally Narkis as the demon waitress.

Lindenmuth’s dragged to Hell premise is a neat enough concept to peak the interests of the casual and diehard horror fan. However, the executed result is a whole other animal that tends to claw back, trying to maul away your viewership.  The special effects Scotts – Scott Hart and Scott Sliger – pull off practical prosthetics and latex with some side curb appeal that helps lift up “Vampires and Other Stereotypes” as best as possible, but the effects have a difficult time keeping up with the film’s innate ambitious concept to where much of the story relies on character exposition to fill in the gaps and where I note the exposition has a few cracks and leaks in themselves is in the very first word you see in the title that sets the expectation right off the bat before going far into a narrative that constantly and hurriedly builds upon the demonic construct.  That edifice evolves so high and so quick that the air becomes thin when the very first presence of a vampire insert comes late into the third act.  You nearly forget that the word Vampire was ever in the title.  Where Lindenmuth succeeds in this frenzy of fiends and folly is passively providing verbal cues of one of the character’s monotone-delivered pangs of extreme hunger.  Being a New Yorker and a rather large individual, you believe a NYC pizza or a greasy burger would be in mind here to feed the need but then the gag drops with well-timed revelation albeit the severe tardiness inside the narrative framework that suggests maybe the title should have been reworked or better thought through to really add upon that element of surprise and not sit waiting and waiting until bloodsuckers join the jittery jamboree.  While the demons are jovially wicked, their wily ways are playful to a fault compared to an “Evil Dead” Kandarian demon or a twisted and ugly demon from “Night of the Demons,” a class of demons that craft a special kind of deviance that maniacally fun as they rip you to shreds.  Not to say the “Vampires and other Stereotypes” demons are painfully dull or too good to be terrible, quite the opposite in the variety of severed head yappers or an oversized rodent, but they don’t offer that same fear-inducing merriment of playing with their food before they eat it. 

The 12th release on the Visual Vengeance line of dusted off sidelined SOV horror and cult films with a brand-new Blu-ray release with an AVC encoded, 1080p (note: off the original standard definition master 1-inch tape), BD50 presented in the original pillarbox of a 1.33:1 aspect ratio. Visual Vengeance provides the usual prefatory statement about the using the best possible elements out of consumer grade equipment, but I do think “Vampires and Other Stereotypes” has the best details within the Betacam SP camcorder, which was, at the time, the crème de la crème of videotape, and then have the video run through a millimeter gauge emulator to give it a 16, or even stretched to a 35 mm, appearance at times. Tullio Tedeschi cinematography is soft, light, and dreamy that forsakes stark details but does offer a sheen along the surfaces and textures that size up and adds to depth to the objects, even more so with the film’s hard lighting and deep shadows to provide a diversion away from the cheap sets but also a diversion away from what could be lurking from the horror-set tropes. The English language stereo 2.0 has decent dynamism between the dialogue, ambience, and soundtrack. Dialogue has a voice above the other sublayers, separating its prominence in front of the batty surroundings of a demon-riddled rodeo and against a soundtrack, or lack thereof, that’s repetitively uninspiring to takes away from the spirt of the level Lindenmuth attempts to reach with his debut. Optional subtitles are available. Special features include three new audio commentaries with director Kevin Lindenmuth, actor Mike McCleery and Lindenmuth, and Weng’s Chop Magazine’s Tony Strauss. Also included are new, brief interviews with Lindenmuth on the technical tangents of his film, actress Laura McLauchlin surrounding her role as Rosa and various recollection of principal photography, actor Mike McCleery as bad boy Erik fitting into his skintight, nonbreathable demon mask and having a good time on set overall, Suzanne Turner on playing Jennifer, Sally Narkis in her brief role as demon waitress and her sidetracking fashion career, and plus interviews with makeup effects artist Ralis Kahn, special effects artist Scott Sliger, photographer Sung Pak, and publicist Joe Mauceri with behind-the-scenes image gallery, original trailer, Visual Vengeance trailers, and Lindenmuth early Super 8 films along with commentary by the director. As always, the physical presentation is nothing short of a thing of pure beauty with a rigid slipcover graced with new illustration by Tom “The Dude Designs’ Hodge with a traditionally sized clear Blu-ray amaray case with reversible front cover that includes more new looming demon heads art and the original one-sheet on the reverse side that really relates to the dreaminess of the photography. In the insert pocket is stuffed a color trifold essay from Tony Strauss with behind-the-scene stills, a folded mini poster of the Blu-ray case cover art, and retro VHS stickers. Disc art is pressed with the slipcover art. Region free for the world to see, the Blu=ray is unrated and has a 87 minutes. Nominal and ambitious, “Vampires and Other Stereotypes” fights an uphill battle coming off the heels of an extremely gorified video nasties of the 1980s, but Lindenmuth fulfills with an indiscriminate spread of insanity at every turn with some vivid and vibrant vanward effects to drive this one home to the great people at Visual Vengeance, a boutique distributor of lost, but not forgotten, SOV buried treasure ready to be rediscovered.

Hell Wants You To Stay for Dinner!  “Vampires and Other Stereotypes” on Blu-ray!

Five Men. Two Women. What EVILs Could Be Committed? “The Last Island” reviewed! (Cult Epics / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“The Last Island” is Man’s Last Hope!  Now on Blu-ray!

The horrible, mangled wreckage of a commercial plane crash on a deserted tropical island only leaves seven survives – five men and two women.  Burning what’s left of the remaining passengers, salvaging through baggage, and setting forth a plan of survival until their hopefully imminent rescue,  the survivors lean on each other and on hope for only temporary residence on the idyllic island.  With a working radio only picking up static on every channel, a mysterious boat carrying a charred body to shore, and other clues that suggest the world may have just gone through a nuclear disaster, the possibility of never leaving the island seems very real despite their best efforts to the contrary.  Fear of being the last humans on Earth takes hold and for the species to survive, the idea of procreation insidiously warps their already traumatized principles.  Two women survived the crash but with one being an old woman, the younger fair of the sex becomes the object of necessity between the men of varying sexual orientation, beliefs, and ethics. 

Director Marleen Gorris helms another powerfully provoking and feminist perspective, gender divisive drama, but her 1990 released third feature, “The Last Island,” is quite different from her previous two films that have established her with such labels as a feminist filmmaker and the more preposterously perception of being a man-hater.  The differences are stark within the Netherland born Gorris’s penned script and directorial.  Unlike “A Question of Silence” and “Broken Mirrors,” “The Last Island” isn’t casted with frequent Netherland actresses of previous collaborations with this particular film seeing more native English speakers from the U.K. and Canada.  A large scale production also distances the previous handful of dressed interiors with exterior foliage, day-glow lighting, and a giant plane prop that elevate the tensions of exposition.  “Amsterdamned” and “The Lift” director Dick Maas along with colleague Laurens Geels produce “The Last Island” under Maas and Geels cofounded Dutch production company First Floor Features as one of their many English-run films. 

“The Last Island” had a cast that brimmed with over-spilling success having just come off acclaimed features within the last decade.  Paul Freeman was the first villainous face against one of America’s most beloved archeological heroes as Belloq in “The Raiders of the Lost Ark,”  Freeman pivots nearly a decade later in another strong, affluent role but as an older gay man with a taste for grooming younger men.  Freeman plays the Scottish born Sean, a seemingly ally to the one child-bearing able woman on the island but his own gender is turned against him with his need to live and his need to be in power to sustain the human race.  Opposite Freeman, and eyed as more of the principal character, is the lesser known Shelagh McLeod (“The Sleep of Death”) who is given a voice of reason, voice of choice, and voice of justifiable resistance against a crumbling male majority.  McLeod completely stands rivaling against a formidable Freeman without the backstory of ethical waning and as the well-rounded Joanna, she finds herself in opposition of other eclectic group of men with extreme strengths and flaws.  Pierre (Mark Berman, “Tom et Lola”) is a brilliant scientist but a craven coward, Nick (Kenneth Colley, “Star Wars:  Episode V – The Empire Strikes Back”) has military arms training for hunting but is a bigoted, pious fanatic, Frank (Mark Hembrow, “Out of Body”) is strong and compassionate but indecisive and insecure, and Jack (Ian Tracey, “The Keeper”) is the epitome of youth but is arrogant and motivated by sex.   Morris is able to turn each of the salient men seem small and insignificant beside Joanna steadfast candor.  Then there’s Mrs. Godame, the seemingly most insignificant character who is actually the most complex out of them all.  Age is just a number but the way Morris writes the old woman makes subtle suggestion that she might be more of a higher power than what she appears to be on the surface.  One suggest is hidden in plain sight right in the old woman’s name, Godame, and if you split the syllables, God and Dame equals Woman God.  “Willow’s” Patricia Hayes dons a charitable, mother-like performance providing hints of being the abstention Almighty by ending many sentences to the others with my child, knowledgeable in wisdom and in parable, trying to guide with conversation and compassion, and we’re even introduced to Mrs. Godame lying on the beach, arms stretched, and perceived from a top view as if in a crucifix position.

Religious imagery and metaphors run beyond the subtext of Mrs. Godame.  The world has seemingly destroyed itself from what is suspected to be a nuclear war and thrusts a reasonable suggestion that the age of apocalypse is nigh.  Man and woman are stranded on an island that’s been referenced as paradise on more than one occasion and Eden, a garden where the first man and woman lived, was known for its abundance of natural beauty and paradisal qualities.  Other aspects from the story of Adam and Eve and the Garden of Eden are also present, such as the forbidden (poisonous) fruit and the snake that bites one of survivors.  Joanna can be said to be the forbidden fruit as well in a reversal of the theological tale where man is tempted by the forbidden fruit, tries to take a bite, and is cursed by removal innocence and bliss and replaced with sin, misery, and, eventually, death, more specifically, death of the human race.  Morris blends these elements smoothly into the conspicuous concept, leaving a very few mysterious metaphors left unresolved by the natural consequence of the characters, and ending on a note of ambiguousness hopelessness because is Joanna pregnant or not – we’re neither informed by the story or Mrs. Godame herself with another imparting and inconclusive turn of phrase that bestows a classic curtain fall on the unforeseeable future of the survivors. 

Cult Epics releases “The Last Island” on an AVC encoded, high-definition 1080p, BD50 presenting the new 2K transfer and restoration scan from the original 35mm print in a widescreen aspect ratio of 1.85:1. An opening preface notes that the restoration done was done on the only working English-language 35mm print known available, accompanied by evident dirt and scratch imperfections. Comprehensively, the restored print is beautifully vibrant with popping tropical frondescence and a deep blue sky. Much of the imperfections come early on, during the aftermath of the crash, where faint but evident scratches are noticeable, dust specks can be visible but insubstantial, and with the only real blight being a rip-split frame that flashes a horizontal tear across the screen. Details are sharper than expected with a nice delineation in the space between, skin textures, amongst other tactile elements such as trees, the plane, and the sandy setting, don’t wash out under the brilliant sun that lights up everything, and black levels keep inky inside the naturally adequate grain. Though a Dutch production, the dialogue track is all in English with a DTS-HD 2.0 master audio. Also available is a LPCM 2.0 stereo. Even-keeled throughout the picture’s entirely, never did the levels intertwine or lose strength in what’s a satisfactory arranged overlayed soundtrack in suitable company with Boudewijn Tarenskeen’s grave dramatic score. Optional English subtitles are available. Special features include an audio commentary by film historian Peter Verstraten who returns for another Cult Epics release, an audio-less, raw footage behind-the-scenes of certain production creations such as the plane setting and certain dynamic scenes mantled with diverse song tracks, an archive interview with Politica columnist Annemarie Grewel, the original theatrical trailer, promotional still gallery, and trailers. Also include but not in special features is a Dick Mass audio-only introduction at the play film selection. The clear Blu-ray amary case sports the original composition “The Last Island” one-sheet of wrecked plane and stranded survivors. On the cover’s reverse side is a full spread of the cast in one of the more memorable, heartbreaking scenes. There is no insert included inside and the disc art has the same rendered front cover art. Clocking in at 101 minutes, this Blu-ray has region free playback and is not rated. Gorris’s eye for upending men rationales to use against them tears into the very fabric of their misguided intentions as the prospect of end of the world comes down to one, single-minded thought – to procreate when facing extinction and the only way to do that is a man’s way.

“The Last Island” is Man’s Last Hope!  Now on Blu-ray!