Category Archives: abduction

No One Can Hear You Scream in EVIL Found Footage Space! “V/H/S/Beyond” reviewed! (Acorn Media International / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Go Beyond the Limit with “V/H/S/Beyond.” Now on Blu-ray!

Six new tapes push the boundaries of what we know is true and what we know as reality.  Six new tapes confirm that we are not alone on this Earth or even in this universe.  Sex new tapes shows the horrors beyond our plane of existence and into another dimension of fear of the unknown.  A special tasked police force raids a house horded by violent, brainless baby-nappers only to discover the horrible creature lurking in the attic.  A megastar under the pressures to perform breaks from the mortal chains of human greed and power.  Skydiving friends encounter an alien attack miles above the Earth surface.  A doggie-daycare aims to transfigure and train people to sit, rollover, and behave like good, obedient hybrid canine creatures, a woman determined to find proof of extraterrestrial’s in the Mojave desert found curiosity didn’t just kill the cat, it also brought it back to life to kill it again and again and again, and a two flea market bought VHS self-tapings quite possibly reveal the horrifying truth of if we are alone in the world.

The next grand tour through “V/H/S” horror has entered orbit!  “V/H/S/Beyond” abducts and probes our fear receptors with invasive and terrifying cold instruments of science-fictional horror tales.  “Beyond” marks the 7th entry into the found-footage anthological franchise formed over a decade ago in 2012, created and produced by genre devotee Brad Miska under his founded, longstanding horror website Bloody Disgusting, and this entry’s theme “Beyond” denotes a sci-fi flare from the hellish man-made creations to vicious visitors from the void above.  Miska returns as producer alongside Josh Goldbloom, James Harris, and Michael Schreiber all of whom have been a part of the series since 2022’s “V/H/S/99.”  Cinepocalypse Productions, Studio71, Spooky Pictures, and Shudder serve as coproduction companies for the shorts directed by Jay Cheel “Abduction/Adduction,” Jordan Downey “Stork,” Virat Pal “Dream Girl,” Justin Martinez “Live and Let Dive,” Christian and Justin Long (yes, that Justin long from “Jeepers Creepers” and “Tusk”) “Fur Babies,” and Kate Siegal “Stowaway.”

“Beyond” introduces a variety of situations, mostly flipping between man-made mistakes to alien encounters, with a medley of spirited characters to shepherd the shorts where they need to end in a timely outcome.  Each found footage story is inherently different with no two situations nearly alike, keeping to the same synonymous rhythm that has garnered fandom for the “V/H/S” anthologies.  The wraparound segment has the facsimile of a mystery documentary of two flea market purchased tapes that are believed to be evidence of alternate life beyond this universe with mock interviews given by the actors casted in the film – Brian Baker, Gerry Eng, Sam Gorski, Mitch Horowitz, Wren Weichman, and Trevor Dow discussing the history of tapes and the house they’re filmed in, social alien background and perception, and determining if the tapes are authentic.  Like all the other wraparounds, story progression is interspersed between the five other shorts with the first being “Stork” where the special police task force W.A.R.D.E.N. takes the fight to the paranormal.  Officers Broome (Thom Hallum, “Bull Shark”), Aubert (James C. Burns, “Lake Dead”), Bennet (Jolene Andersen, “Doctor Death”), Ivy (Tyler Andrews), and E.T. (Vas Provatakis, “Children of the Pines”) storm an infested monster house with rookie Segura (Phillip Andrew Botello, “Devil’s Revenge”) to save stolen infants.  From here, paparazzi Arnab (Sayandeep Sengupta) and Sonu (Rohan Joshi) find themselves at the mercy of an all-powerful and vengeful goddess in megastar Tara (Namrata Sheth), birthday boy Zach (Bobby Slaski, “White Terror”) finds himself free-falling into an alien invasion, doggie daycare owner Becky (Libby Letlow) is dead serious about Frankensteining the purrfect fur babies, and UFO researcher Halley (Alanah Pearce) will find that discover the truth will be a painful purgatorial experience.  “Beyond” brings a wide range of talent to the table with ensemble casts, streamers, Bollywood actors, and solo preformists to exact another side of fear for the franchise with a principal supporting cast rounding the anthology with Virat Pal, Rhett Wellington, Hannah McBride, Matthew Layton, Braedyn Bruner, Phillip Lundquist, and Kevin Bohleber.

One would think an anthology series built upon the idea of a found footage would eventually become stale amongst the public who are feeling the fatigue of an overused subgenre, much like the zombie subgenre in the early 2000s to early 2010 where every George Romero wannabe with a handheld camera set out to either homage or hit it big with the next undead head success.  Found footage is currently, or rather vaguely, in the throes of being overworked because of how cost efficient and effective films of its ilk can be to those inspired to create.  However, the “V/H/S” series hits differently.  For one, it’s an anthology series that brings a fan of imagination to its whole and we’re not subjected the one type of found footage narrative as dissimilar styles, tastes, direction, writing, etc., converge by means of short films.  Another element of “V/H/S” staying power is the series created and developed by genre admirers, such as Brad Miska whose veins course with literally nothing else but the blood cells of the horror.  Lastly, “V/H/S” continues to evolve by colliding past and present, nostalgia and current, and myth and fact together with a serrated surrealism that can thrill you with, often times, hell on Earth entertainment as well as scare the living bejesus out of you.  “Beyond” maintains the trend by coming out of the 80’s and 90’s vibe from the last three installments and diving headfirst into beyond the scope of traditional monsters, terrestrial creatures, and iconic monsters for nothing born of his Earth, such as with the wraparound story, “Stork,” “Live and Let Dive,” and “Stowaway,” and nurturing more a mad-science madness in “Dreamgirl” and “Fur Babies.”  A possible detriment to “Beyond’s” ability to connect with fans of fear and frights with the latest entry leaning heavily on the physical side of action-gore that sometimes is a tall order of campiness rather than the instillation of underlaying, psychological terror aside from the Mike Flanagan (“Oculus,” “Doctor Sleep”) penned “Stowaway” that evokes some segregated space isolation and a death-defying situation that still feels the repetitive painful sting.

“V/H/S/Beyond” lights up the night sky with blood red intergalactic splatter and takes mad science to a whole new abominable level with a new Blu-ray from the UK label Acorn Media International.  The AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition, BD50 presents the film in a widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio with an occasion retro-slip into pillar box 4:3 for that VHS façade.  Image presentation ranges because of the home movie, handheld camera, and body cam found footage trope that’s this series bread-and-butter.  Through the intended static, interlacing and tracking lines, fuzzy darkness, quick movements, and mostly whichever video interference objects one can think of, minus authentic celluloid print damage, to pseudo-sell found footage realism.  The outcome is superbly effective and highly captivating albeit moments that are too agitated to understand and connect objects and sounds in the narrative, another part of the collective that makes it effective yet also makes it wasted runtime space for viewers.  What’s not wasted is the chainsaw point of view in “Stock” where ripping through and decapitating monsters has DOOM inspiration all over it. A majority English with some Hindi DTS-HD 5.1 surround sound mix is, too, designed to mimic the gimmick of handheld found footage. Distortions and other audio mic cuts and external interference on the audio system are included to sell the illusion and are often done at great detail in time, overlay, and spatial fractions in-between viewer and what the view is experiencing on screen. Depth is mostly front loaded within the context of first-person viewpoints while the surrounding channels take a subtle backseat but whisper through when there’s a sound behind the camera. LFE charges in during more rambunctious moments, which there are a lot of, and are not quelled for the sake of dialogue that’s mostly discernible when necessary. English subtitles are available. The encoded special features on a static menu include the pre-visuals of explosions, disintegrations, and free-falling bodies on the practical skydiving of the cameraman explain how many jumps were needed to put the pieces altogether for that breathtaking scene at 20,000 miles in the sky, actress Libby Letlow’s audition tape for Becky in the “Fur Babies” short, the making of “The Dreamgirl,” a behind the scenes of “Stork” with IGN, and the how the timelapse was created in “Stowaway.” Physical areas of the releases are about the same other Acorn Media Releases with the thicker UK Amaray casing that has the illustrated cover art of the “V/H/S” thematic skull worked into the swirling steller-laden of scary space. Inside is just the disc pressed with the same image art. UK certified 18 for strong violence and injury detail, “V/H/S/Beyond” has a runtime of 114 minutes and is not noted on the back cover in regard to the region playback, usually Acorn Media releases are hard encoded with region B, but this particular release play on a Region A setting and could be very well region free.

Last Rites: The “V/H/S” team continues to maintain a sustainable supply of fresh meat for the grinder in relation to its current theme. Plenty of splatter, mayhem, lunacy, and backbone quivering chills to get lost in “Beyond’s” cosmic Hell. Can’t wait to see what’s next in store for the anthology!

Go Beyond the Limit with “V/H/S/Beyond.” Now on Blu-ray!

Beware of Friendly Strangers, They Just Might Be EVIL! “Speak No Evil” reviewed! (Acorn Media International / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Speak No Evil” has Speechless Horror! Now Available at Amazon!

A Danish family on holiday in Tuscany meets a family from Holland.  The two families hit it off enjoying each other’s company on the final days at the getaway villa.  Weeks after returning home, a postcard arrives from the Dutch family, inviting the Danish family to stay with them for a weekend at their home.  What starts off as the pleasant beginnings of friendship slowly degrades to an unsettling suspicion something is not right with the Holland family.  Abel, the Dutch couple’s mute son, is held to a higher standard with uncompromising, punitive measure, the husband and wife’s acute uncouth behavior sets an uncomfortable stage, and their attention toward the Danes’ daughter, Agnes, is unconscionably overstepping parental boundaries.  An attempt to call out or even leave the home altogether has been met with disbelief, guilt, and pleads for stay and enjoy under their guise of sincerest apologies soon to be dropped for something far more sinister. 

Before James McAvoy grew a beard, got jacked, and attired himself in buffalo plaid for his manly maniac performance in the 2024, usurpative family thriller, “Speak No Evil,” directed by “Eden Lake’s” James Watkins, the Netherlands and Denmark were the original blunt forces behind the sociopathic caprices of those assumed normal and amiable adults.  Only released two years ago, the 2022 film that spurred the American remake and the feature’s namesake is directed by the Copenhagen-born Christian Tafdrup (“Parents’) and co-written between Christian and brother, Mads Tafdrup, as one of their numerous collaborations since 2017, beginning with a manipulative tale of a viperous female in “A Horrible Woman.”  Profile Pictures (“Holy Spider”), in a co-production association with OAK Motion Pictures, serves as the production companies on the Jacob Jerek, of Profile Pictures, and Trent, of OAK Motion Pictures, produced motion picture shot primarily in the southern portion of Netherlands in the Friesland region.

The Danish father and mother, Bjørn and Louise, are played by Morten Burian and Sidsel Siem Koch and before becoming ingrained into the crux of the story, the couple reflect a complicated complexion all on their own, especially and specifically with the focus toward Bjørn who seems unsatisfied or unhappy with his life as he’s shown staring off in the distance or mentally checking out at the dinner table.  The Danish are represented as a couple who are too nice to a fault, unable to say no most of the time, and try to keep to themselves mostly when a problem arises, skirting away without notice in a dust of avoidance.  That’s not so much the case with the Holland father and mother, Patrick and Karin, bordering as an equally amiable couple performance by Fedja van Huêt and Karina Smulders.  That is until the outer appearance of friendly strangers turns into an uncomfortable nightmare of being caught between a rock and a hard place of how other people live and do things, especially from another culture or country.  Patrick and Karin show more passionate displays of anger, sexuality, and bohemianism that wasn’t on display on their shared holiday with the Danes.  Then, there are the children.  Agnes (Liva Forsberg) is a lovely young daughter perhaps too coddled by her parents, especially by Bjørn who can’t resist saying no in going to find Agnes’s beloved stuff animal when she constantly loses it.  Abel (Marius Damslev), on the other hand, is shy and can’ talk due to a tongue malformation, but the overly critical parenting by Patrick and Karin keeps Abel on a silent edge.  The Holland family’s outer haul slowly regresses, facades drop, but still the Danes are reeled back in by their own niceties despite all the red flags.

I can’t help but think those comportment particulars are somehow a reflection of the Denmark peoples’ true nature as a statement to their culture and social relations between themselves and, in this case, their neighboring countries.  The Tafdrup brothers prelude the script with verbal contrast between the two countries, such as their similarities, but the Tafdrup’s firmly stamp that just because you’re similar doesn’t mean you’re the same.  The notion can be applied to anybody of people from groups to individuals living amongst each other in a neighboring fashion and that their differences are being conducted right under your noses.  Of course, the script then embellishes more a distributing sensationalism of a spider leading the innocent moth to it’s sticky web by an attractive, orienting glow of light.  The analogy is right up Bjørn’s alley as a man who is looking to loosen the chains of parental and marital, perhaps even inherent to his nationality, suppression in a misguided notion that his promises have put a limitation on freedom; he finds himself attracted to Patrick’s freewheeling way of life and wants to emulate that in some sort of way.  The psychology behind “Speak No Evil” runs rampant with a paralyzing inability to let wicked do what it wants without confronting it head-on or without fighting it.  “Speak No Evil” is a chilling story of the all too familiar Edward Burke phrase, the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing. 

“Speak No Evil” arrives onto UK DVD from Acorn Media International co-presented as a Shudder Exclusive and IFC Midnight production.  The MPEG 2 encoded, upscaled 1080p, DVD9 is presented with an anamorphic aspect ratio of 2.35:1 that encompasses an array of landscapes from vast fields, rocky dunes, and Tuscany vistas.  Contrastingly, director of photography Erik Molberg Hansen goes for an austere, harsh grading with little less light to give everything surface a rough edge from skin to fabric to natural to synthetics.  Colors a held at neutral browns, tans, grays, and blacks to accentuate the severity that continues to increase as the story progresses when moving away from holiday in Italy to the morose, rock-strewn dunes in Holland and while details are generally lost in dense nighttime exteriors, the more brightly lit corners excel in isolated spots.  The Danish-Holland-English audio comes in only one format, a lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound mix.  Adequate for this type of interpersonal awkwardness, the score and sound design offers a plentiful mix free from compression issues or physical obstacles on the recording in post.  “Speak No Evil” is person-on-person violence in the most primal form that leaves the possibility of added effects from violence next to nothing in what is more of a less is more design under a suppressive audio format that’s akin to trying silence a low-talker.  Dialogue is clean, clear, and at the bow of all the other layers in the audio boat.  What’s interesting about the encoded English subtitles is that they’re only available for the Danish dialogue and not the Netherlanders’, which adds an additional layer of intrigue and suspension as the non-native Dutch speakers with not understand what Patrick or Karin are communicating between each other.  The static menu offers no special features option and there is no stinger at the end of the credits.  The clear DVD case showcases that austere black and gray look with one of the story’s most engagingly odd scenes involving Abel.  The insides are standard edition bare as well with this disc pressed with the same primary image.  THE PAL disc is hard coded with region 2 playback, has a runtime of 93 minutes, and is certified 18 for strong violence and injury detail.

Last Rites: The original “Speak No Evil” speaks volumes of the dangers of societal pleasantries that turn a blind eye to caution for the sake of not hurting the feelings of others, but those subconscious hints are a part of the innate, primal early warning system in us all. Once we ignore those insinuations, we might as well dig our own grave.

“Speak No Evil” has Speechless Horror! Now Available at Amazon!

EVIL Backwoods Cannibals Are Back for Seconds! “Butchers Book Two: Raghorn” reviewed! (Breaking Glass Pictures / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Ready to Eat? “Butchers Book Two: Raghorn” Available Here on DVD!

The abduction of a wealthy family’s daughter drives the four kidnappers onto the backroads of rural America toward their way to riches.  However, things turn south as their vehicle strikes a large raghorn, instantly dissolving their escape route and their previously teetering plan.  A festering betrayal and greed divide the group that leads them into the cannibalistic hands of the sadistic, backwoods inhabitant Clyde and his monstrous freak of a brother Crusher.  Always looking for a good piece of meat and with a brutal penchant for playing with his food, Clyde takes them hostage at gunpoint, ties them up, and has fun torturing and tenderizing his foraged prize before chopping them up to pieces on a bloody stump for stew makings.  Yet, the abducted woman refuses to be the victim and let terrible, awful atrocities happen to her, and not even let it happen to her kidnappers, by escaping her confines and managing to get ahold of a double barrel shotgun.  A standoff ensues but nothing gets in between Clyde and his food. 

“Butchers Book Two:  Raghorn” is director Adrian Langley’s 2024 standalone sequel to his lowkey breakout 2020 hit, the indie backwoods cannibal-survivor picture, “Butchers”.  The sequel doesn’t stray too far from the precursory film’s primary premise with a family of degenerate provincials with a taste for human flesh whisking away stranded travelers in some kind deranged version of roadside assistance.  Langley directs and writes the script for the film based off a story conceived by Langley and Kolin Casagrande, who previously collaborated with Langley as a producer on his 2010 crime thriller directed feature entitled “Donkey.”  More than a decade later, Casagrande and Langley are again making beautiful violence together with Blue Fox Entertainment’s James Huntsman (“Bunker”), a parent company of the film’s distributor, Red Hound Entertainment, and “Butcher’s” Doug Phillips as producers and another “Butcher” producer, Kevin Preece, as associate producer.

Aforementioned, “Butchers Book Two:  Reghorn” doesn’t subsequently follow the first feature and introduces new set of paltry protagonists versus a new set of insatiable and vile cannibals deep within the middle of the woods of Nowheresville, America.  The party forcibly partook in the cannibals’ cruelty isn’t necessarily all an innocent party as they’re mostly kidnappers looking to score big from their captive.  Dave Coleman (“Ghoul House”), Miguel Cortez, Sam Huntsman (“Bunker”), son of producer James Huntsman, and Hollie Kennedy portray the ensnared antiheros with the latter two being most of the focus amongst them, seeing that they are cousins that evoke more empathy than the less empathic former.  The wild car outside of that and who are not the viciously outweighing outliers is the girl in the trunk, who is actually a man named Corgand Svendsen.  The androgynous model from Canada hikes up a skirt and wears a tight top crop to become the damsel Ash but Ash is no damsel in distress.  The story shifts from Ash’s bagged head and wrists tied helplessness to become the infiltrating protagonist to take up Clyde and Crusher to do what’s right, even if that means saving the skin, literally, on a couple of her captors.  Svendsen gives a calm and subdued performance, especially as a hostage in the money scheme and in the bloody mitts of cannibals, but perhaps there’s more than what meets the eye for Ash.  Perhaps, Ash is a part of the kidnapping scheme in a theorized plot between Ash and Sam Huntsman character Josh who frequently tries to make Ash comfortable in the whole ordeal and Ash is just trying to salvage her investment, but the strength of that theory never fully materializes in Ash’s motivation to go against two ruthless killers rather than to flee free with her life.  Clyde and Crusher are the two mysteriously originated characters who live in the woods and eat people.  Their background is not specified or shared in any minute way but “What Lurks Beneath’s” Nick Biskupek plays a mean, man-eating son of a bitch in Clyde while Michael Swatton, who previously played one of the Watson brothers in original “Butchers,” compliments his “little” brother as a colossal, head-crushing freak of a nature left in the audience’s peripheral view.  The sequel’s casts ends with Mark Templin (“We Are the Missing”) as a moment of reprieve stopgap sheriff tracking down the vehicular accident victims who may not be victims after all.

Watching “Butchers Book Two:  Raghorn” is like watching in a déjà vu fog.  The similar premise to the 2020 film peruses familiar aisles of country-chic cannibals chopping careless characters who stumble into their killing grounds.  What the sequel drops is the perversive and family legacy angle, reducing the story to just two brothers living isolated on the outskirts and barbequing people as they happenstance wander by.  Langley also doesn’t up the graphic nature but sustains the same amount of gore and mordacious violence.  Even when cutting down the killer contingent down half its size, violence remains taut and palpable for shock effect as Langley does make the savagery purposeful rather than just gratuitous.  “Raghorn” is by no means a bigger, badder sequel, as most sequels tend to try and exceed expectations and outdo the first, i.e. more blood, bigger body count, detailed special effects, etc., but the indie roots that made the original film palpable are still firmly grounded with a, literally, grab-it-by-the-balls, suit yourself story without the poking and prodding influences of a rapacious producer or studio with flashing dollar signs in their eyes. 

Breaking Glass Pictures’ “Butchers Book Two:  Raghorn” would have been a perfect fit for the distributor’s short-lived extreme horror sublabel, Vicious Circle Films.  However, we’re still glad the sequel made the home video market under one of Philadelphia’s most prominent indie distributor labels with a DVD release.  The MPEG-2, single layered, DVD5 is presented in an upscaled 1080p with a widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio.  While not receiving high-definition resolution, you’ll be fairly pleased with the quality of this release that retains some faithful reproductions in textural details, such as Clyde’s cutoff jean jacket and overall grimy attire that does highlight the jacket’s frayed ends and the outlined dirt patches or the engulfing variety of foliage that naturally exhibited innate green shades, but also the general appearance is soft in the more depth of details.  Langley, who wears multiple production hats between editing, directing, and writing, also is behind the cinematographer lens to create the space of depth and to be stylistic with a few pan and track occurrences.  The English Dolby Digital 5.1 surround mix is the only lossy option available that renders a traversable diffusion of sound throughout with balanced layers between dialogue, ambience, and soundtrack layers.  Clyde’s intelligent intelligibility under a twang tongue clearly finds the audio receptors with the remaining dialogue denoting clarity in the same fashion. English subtitles are available for optional use. While Breaking Glass Pictures’ releases do not have a wealth of bonus content, most have some content to peruse; however, this particular release is feature only. The region 1 playback DVD has a runtime of 89 minutes and is not rated.

Last Rites: From the book of Andrian Langley’s cannibal misfits, a second story lives and breathe in “Butchers Book Two: Raghorn,” a gruesome, miscreant fanned, survival of the hungriest for their cravings tale wrapped just a tad too lightly for proper consumption.

Ready to Eat? “Butchers Book Two: Raghorn” Available Here on DVD!

An EVIL Cult Summons Back “The Hangman” reviewed! (Dread / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“The Hangman” Now Available on Blu-ray!

Turbulent connecting father and teenage son, Leon and Jesse, retreat to the West Virginia wilderness for a little rekindling before Jesse goes off to college.  Still reeling after his mother’s death five years ago, Jesse blames his father’s inactivity and his rebuff mismanagement of their family’s pain.  The next morning, Jesse has disappeared, the car has been sabotaged, and Leon fears his son might be in the hands of a pair of racist rednecks encountered the day before.  However, what Leon finds himself in the middle of is much worse when a demon summoning cult retrieves The Hangman from the depths of one of Earth’s seven gates of hell and needs a fresh, young, and angst-riddled body to continue his unharnessed hell on Earth.  Jesse becomes the unfortunate soul at stake and it’s up to his father, and a few local God-fearing allies, to try and stop The Hangman’s noose from gripping tighter.

New York City-based director Bruce Wemple has teamed up again with Dread Production to bring another terrifying tale.  The “Monstrous” and “Island Escape” director cowrites the script with frequently collaborator, actor LeJon Woods (“Baby Oopsie:  The Series,” “Island Escape,” to deliver “The Hangman,” a demonic horror thriller that catapults a father and son’s dysfunctionality into the throes of Hell.  Filmed in the rural regions of upstate New York, doubling as the rural Appalachian wilderness of West Virginia, which makes filming having occurred likely around the Adirondack Mountains instead, “The Hangman” carries with it a longstanding racial infamy attached to a father’s supernatural pickle, being the middle of a demon conjuring cult and the lynching-loving demon itself.  Traverse Terror productions, a division of executive producers Cole Payne Traverse Media, in association with Dread Presents sees executive producer Patrick Ewald from the Epic Pictures Group back “The Hangman” feature while Daniel Booker and Vincent Conroy coproduce.

LeJon Woods not only cowrites the script but the actor for Cleveland, Ohio essentially customizes the role of the father, Leon.  What starts as a man looking to just escape into the great outdoors quickly closes in around him as he feels the pressures of latent hostility when son Jesse (Mar Cellus, making his feature film debut) accuses him of running from his past after the death of his mother, Leon’s wife.  What exactly happens to her is not yet apparent other than an offscreen gunshot but the palpable tension between Woods and Cellus is worth noting in a handwringing moment of enmity around the first night’s campfire; a good tall tale sign that this camping trip is going to be doomed from the start.  This tension sets the stage for what’s to come, a missing son, aggressive bigots, murderous cultists, and a Netherworld lyncher, showcased with an awfully underutilized purpose and screentime appeal, especially being the titular villain.  “An Angry Boy’s” Scott Callenberg gets his chance to shine as an inhuman character, prosthetically made-up with burn scars, greasy strands of hair, and cladded darkly in country chic, but doesn’t have the room to spread havoc or really build the character who’s mostly reduced to lurking the background and letting the telekinesis-driven rope to asphyxiate those not in the know of cult activity.  There’s also a slew of throwaway characters that either are too short-lived to really flesh out their role, such as the eye-gouged, bedridden clairvoyant and the tied-up local Leon saves and becomes a flirtatious love interest/gun-toting assassin (see what I mean by not really understanding the character?) in Lindsay Dresbach (“Pitchfork”).  Except for LeJon Woods, the rest of the cast is comprised of mostly short film or background actors and actresses given the opportunity for an expanded principal performance, including Kaitlyn Lunardi, Rob Cardazone, Jefferson Cox, Daniel Martin Berkley, William Shuman, Ameerah Briggs, Jessy Holtermann, and Richard Lounello.

Riding parallel to “The Hangman’s” resurrected demon on Earth, a father and son’s struggle to grow in postmortem of the only woman in their lives, and the fact that there is one of the gates of Hell located in the West Virginia’s Appalachians premise, the story entails a rather barefaced, as well as slightly overtone, racism theme coursing through its veins.  The Confederate flag sporting rednecks and the all-white, Southern accent contingent of white people against a black man and his son shout bigotry as louds as possible through your personal media setup.  Yet, the Hangman himself is the very representation of lynching, a heinously taboo act that has become a stain on America history, typically executed by racially prejudice Southerners on black people when that simmering, seething hate turns red and vigilante justice rears its ugly head.   Though the villain doesn’t don a white hood and gown or perform any gesture of white power, to say Leon, a black man, who must stop the evilly monikered hangman from taking his son’s soul to Hell, is too big a coincidence to not call a spade a spade.  Wemple and Woods make it clear that Leon’s calling is to be a savior, the chosen heroic that can destroy the Hangman, but while the first two acts climb the ladder of an naïve hero, all the indicating signs point to arbitrary means met with arbitrary characters for Leon with no concrete reasoning why his being deceived into the gateway to Hell area is more than just serendipitous destiny, turning the last act of “The Hangman” into just a one man wrecking ball of hillbilly hell spawn that loses that fate-driven connotation.

“The Hangman” nooses a high-definition, 1080p Blu-ray from Epic Picture Group, the at-home distribution label of Dread Presents.  The AVC encoded, single-layered, BD25 has good curb appeal with negligible compression issues in the feature’s 2.00:1 widescreen aspect ratio, so we get a deeper, broader picture with less resolution flaws.  While the certain background or tree-top scenes present a good visual intake of a bird’s eye views, the grading resides to just above a flat overlay, likely within the 10th percentile of grading possibilities, resulting in a more natural tone.  Details are generally fine when in focus or out of the shadows, which is where the Hangman lurks most of his screentime.  The presented audio options are a lossy English Dolby Digital 5.1 and a Dolby Stereo 2.0.  Dialogue has clear and prominent staying power throughout the stock soundtrack that slightly chintzy the ambience audio works of self-acting rope and other mystical milestones whenever the hangman comes calling.  There’s not a ton of spatial volume to diffuse the audio with balance, leaving a lot of the milieu and action resonances as lopsided near the foreground.  English and Spanish subtitles are optionally available.  The Blu-rays special features include a Bruce Wemple commentary track, a making of featurette with interview snippets with LeJon Woods, a lengthier interview with writer-star LeJon Woods, and a deleted scene.  Physically, the deep scar recesses of “The Hangman”s” white-eyed face and long, unkempt hair becomes the front cover face of Dread’s conventional Blu-ray with a disc pressed with more fascination of a coiled hangman’s noose working down the center ring.  There are no tangible bonus materials included. The region free release comes not rated and has a runtime of 90 minutes. 

Last Rites: “The Hangman” won’t snap the neck of novelty and wanders off the path of the tangent, but does instill a strength of cause, a father-son bond that’s being challenged and motivated when threatened, backdropped by systemic racism.

“The Hangman” Now Available on Blu-ray!

He’s a Beast. He’s Ferocious. He’s EVIL! “Mad Dog Killer” reviewed! (Cheezy Movies / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Mad Dog Killer” Unleashed onto DVD!

A daring hostage-taking breakout of an Italian prison puts four of the most ruthless killers back on the streets.  Sadistic and full of revenge, Nanni Vitali, the leader of the gang, has one thing of his mind before he begins a reign of outlawing terror, to find and exact due mortal punishment on a stool pigeon that cemented his incarcerated fate during the trial.  Hot on his trail is officer Giulio Santini who will stop at nothing to bring Vitali back into custody or even put a bullet between his eyes, that is until a young woman, Giuliana Caroli, girlfriend of the police informant, becomes caught unwillingly in Vitali’s web of sexual obsession and deviant plans as she’s raped and exploited for Vitali’s personal pleasure and robbery schemes.  When the frightened Caroli betrays Vitali’s trust, she becomes a kill target while Santini’s family also falls into the miscreant’s violence coursing crosshairs. 

“Mad Dog Killer,” aka “Beast with a Gun,” aka “Ferocious Beast with a Gun,” aka “La Belva col mitra,” is an Italian action-crime thriller from the late “The Sinful Nuns of Saint Valentine” and “Violence for Kicks” director Sergio Grieco in what would be his last directorial before his death five years later.  The Rome-born filmmaker also writes the 1977 exploitative and violent caper with additional dialogue from fellow Roman screenwriter, and furthermore director, Enzo Milioni who has had a hand in “The Sister of Ursula” and “Escape of Death.”  A part of the larger, multi-faceted Euro Crime subgenre, or better known as Poliziotteschi, “Mad Dog Killer” hits all the trademark elements, squeezing in a packed lot of similar content as well as stretching out for breathing room by elbowing out the era popular Italian subgenre of the phasing-out Spaghetti Western and bracing for impact against the up-and-coming Giallo films which starts get a footing with Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci paving the way.  The Supercine production is produced by Armando Bertuccioli (“The Sister of Ursula”).

In the crazed-eyed, take-no-prisoners, sandy-blonde shoes of a handsome yet hardnosed criminal in Nanni Vitali is the Austrian born Helmut Berger.  The “Salon Kitty” and “The Bloodstained Butterfly” star is another international actor who found modest success in the Italian film industry of the 1960s-1970s as well as the German movie industry afterwards, but as Nanni Vitali, the rugged actor with piercing eyes doesn’t hold back in a defining performance that’s nowhere near a one-time paltry pass over.  Vitali is so animated and over-the-top, the hot-headed character completely overshadows Inspector Giulio Santini as a counterpart, played by American actor Richard Harrison of “Orgasmo Nero” and portraying many Ninja Master Gordon films in Hong Kong in the late 80s.  No Ninja kicks or ostentatious smoke screens with officer Santini in a rather matter of fact, routine chaser of escape convicts.  The personal connection he has with Nanni, where Santini’s Judge father (Claudio Gora, “The Nun and the Devil”) was Nanni’s convicting judge, is greatly underused to extrude the ferocity needed to match Nanni’s, as so he is described in one of the many titles – a ferocious beast.  This beastly criminal takes captive and tries to psychologically manipulate through sex and threat the wrong place, wrong time victim Giuliana Caroli by the chiseled facial features of Marisa Mell (“Violent Blood Bath”), a fellow Austrian actress.  Caroli’s tall and beautiful on screen but lacks that damsel in distress in initially helpless apprehension of a woman who must restructure her bearings to take matters into her own hands.  Mell’s acting is forced throughout her span, and without that frightened bird despondency in her eyes, she looks as if she could handle Nanni Vitali by herself with ease in stature, broad shoulders, and a fierce look, diminishing Richard Harrison’s Santini role almost out of the picture entirely.  “Mad Dog Killer” rounds out the cast with Marina Giordana, Luigi Bonos, Ezio Marano, Albert Squillante, Nello Pazzafini, Antonia Basile, Sergio Smacchi, and Vittorio Duse.

“Mad Dog Killer” lives up to the designation that attentively develops the lengths the titular principal will go to achieve a wrongful debt that must be paid in full with excessive violence to spare.  Sergio Grieco lays Nanni’s nihilistic sleaze and transgressions on thick, coating the character with monolithic and enduring characteristics of a sordid and lawless bandido with Spaghetti Western type intensity, especially inside a compositional scene where he slowly walks back to the car toward a frightened Giuliana Caroli, eyes affixed onto her soul, and the all-pervading, debut score by Umberto Smaila just swallows you into the moment.  Like a true mad dog, the story never lets up on an unpredictable temperament and trajectory; it foams at the mouth with rabid blackguard that is true Euro Crime fashion, but unlike most Euro Crimes, “Mad Dog Killer” ends on an unconventional note, perhaps an unsatisfactory to some, but definitely askew yet fresh compared to the genre’s dominantly preordained doppelgangers. 

A film that goes by many names usually suggests numerous releases from around the world.  “Mad Dog Killer” receives a cheapie DVD release from our friends at Cheezy Movies with a MPEG-2 encoded, standard definition 480i, DVD5.  Not an upscaled presentation, the transfer used retains the lower quality pixel count that bleeds the definition, often better in brighter contrast scenes than in the darker settings. The forced English dub LPCM mono track, though you can clearly lip read that most principals actors are speaking English, has auditory value; the lossless quality removes compression from the table, offering a clean and robust dialogue and Smaila score through just a thin, faint even, layer of interferential static, and pops. The English dub track is the only audio option available with no optional English, or any other language, subtitles. Cheezy Movies primary goal favors a feature only release so there are no special features encoded or tangible supplementary content. Cheezy Movies pulls the stark front cover image, laced intently with suspense, sex, and violence, from one of the marketing one sheets, used by other labels such as foreign companies like 88 Films and Polar. The disc is pressed with the same image. Not rated and region free, “Mad Dog Killer” has a runtime of 91 minutes.

Last Rites: An enjoyable sadist manhunt romp, “Mad Dog Killer” does criminals gone wild Italian style. Without a higher resolution release, quality of life with this Euro Crime actioner is not at peak levels but the film, by itself, lays waste to many counterparts with a fiercer hand and a charismatic leading villain in Helmut Berger that tips the scale in the film’s favor.

“Mad Dog Killer” Unleashed onto DVD!