Category Archives: abduction

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!

The Home Recordings of a Pure EVIL! “August Underground: Mordum” reviewed! (Unearthed Films / Blu-ray/DVD combo)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“August Underground:  Mordum” Limited Collector’s Edition!

Uncompassionately deranged serial torture and murderer Peter Mountain is back.  Along with his maniacal partner Maggot and his depraved sister Crusty, whose also Peter Mountain’s girlfriend, the terrorizing trio videotape their exploits with no shame and with no end from no matter how mundane to no matter how gruesomely vile.  Rage and lust mix together with sociopathy and psychopathy, resulting in a dangerous combination for whomever crosses their path.  Shocking glimpses of their killing spree reflect through the lens of their camcorder, capturing every kidnap, imprisonment, confinement, rape, mutilation, torture, and eventually murder of their sadomasochistic onslaught onto every random, unlucky soul but with every moment of madness captured, their no so friendly friendship verges ever closer toward a volatile collapse when Maggot and his sister Crusty hook up from time-to-time and the perpetually aggressive juggernaut Peter Mountain is on the brink of breaking more beyond his broken mental state.

The return of Peter Mountain marks the return of shock and gore director Peter Vogel with “August Underground:  Mordum,” the 2003 sequel to Vogel’s unnervingly raw depiction of depravity and exploitation in “August Underground” released two years prior.  Not a traditionally subsequent sequel, “Mordum” is a standalone entry with only the presence return of Peter Mountain to connect the two stories together, but “Mordum” initially didn’t start out as a sequel and only morphed into a feature when Vogel was requested to shoot gruing material for the aptly named death/gore metal band Necrophagia and the band’s lead singer, Frank “Killjoy” Pucci, suggested to turn the material in a follow up film of “August Underground” with Killjoy co-wring alongside Toe Tag Picture’s Vogel, Christie Whiles, Michael Todd Schneider and Jerami Cruise.  What emerged felt like an organic chapter in Peter Mountain’s found footage mausoleum of bloodlust mayhem.  Shot in and around the Pittsburg, Pennsylvania area, “Mordum” is a production of Toe Tag Pictures under executive producer Jerami Cruise.

2001’s “August Underground” brought a terribly raw image to the independent cinema fold that house realistic depictions of the utmost evil and perversion.  So much so, a few of the cast members decided to not use their real names.  For Peter Vogel, a follow up film was like another day walking in the park as a proud papa of his villainous protagonist Peter Mountain, an eclipsingly large and laughing feverishly fiend of a man who preys on the cries and screams of his victims.  “Mordum” introduces us to two new actors into the fold with Christie Whiles, who would reprise Mountain’s girlfriend Crusty in the third Entry “Penance,” and Michael Todd Schneider (“I Never Left the White Room”) as Crusty’s brother Maggot.  It’s not exactly made clear if Maggot is a returning character, the hyena chuckling man behind the character played by pseudonym Allen Peters, or not.  In either way, Whiles and Schneider are equally as vicious on screen as Vogel but invite a whole of a hell a lot more nudity, non-simulated genitalia fondling, and induced vomiting to give “Mordum” that extra mile of stomach-churning, eye-adverting discomfort.  As the fluids deluge in scene-after-scene of massacre depictions, the triple threat come across a like-minded individual, played by the person who very much encourage and inspired for the sequel.  The late Frank Pucci, aka Killjoy, the front man for Necrophagia plays an equal with a slaughter shed full of rotting, putrid corpses, beheaded babies with maggots, and prime meat tied and lying in wait for him to butcher as his leisure.  “Mordum” offers up a slew of victims in different abattoir and snuff scenarios, casted with a rising makeup artist in a pre-crew acting role Midian Crosby (with makeup credits including “Halloween Ends,” “Cop Car,” and “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3”) and Elmo Painter in the vomit and viscera evacuation scene, Rick Kundrach and Tim Grubjesik as unfortunate junkies, as well as Chris Shaw, Shelby Lyn Vogel, Allana Sleeth, Dave Brown, Erika Schultz a few pseudonyms in Daisy, M. Kadath, and E. Jay, and with Ultra Violent Magazine editor Art Ettinger.

Similar to the first film, “Mordum” has no plot in it’s a series of found footage flashes in the day in the life of a serial killer.  This approach makes what you’re having to behold for 70-minutes that much more plausible and realistic and what you’re seeing is quintessential gore porn.  “Saw” wasn’t the basis of the coined term.  No, my sanguine licking friends.  Fred Vogel pioneered that course three years earlier with his sick and twisted show of seminal underground.  The only reason why Vogel wasn’t at the top of the gore porn list was because none of his films had mainstream theatrical runs.  However, literally, “Mordum” contains that borderline porn element of exposed and molested nudity, the below the waste naughty parts that don’t see a tone of skin-to-skin action, and there’s certainly enough gore to go around and around and around and around again.  Some of those smaller gore elements were real, such as skin cutting.  Another element that makes “Mordum” effectively morbid is the special effects work by Vogel, Jerami Cruise (who has gone on to do major studio films from his extreme horror indies), and the late Ryan Nicholson (director of “Gutterballs” and who also was a special effects supervisor on a wide scope of studio and indie films) who provided many of the dismembered and grimed up dummy props framed through a standard definition, commercial camcorder for the Necrophagia music video.  If no story arises, one hell of a damn good show must come out of the horrific footage and Peter Vogel and the Toe Tag team achieve diabolical decadence with stomach content-emptying pizzazz.

Unearthed Films and Toe Tag Pictures have teamed up to release limited edition releases of Peter Vogel’s “August Underground” trilogy.  “Mordum” receives the royal physical release treatment with a 2-disc, Blu-ray/DVD, Limited Collector’s Edition.  The Blu-ray is an AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition, BD50 can only be so detailed with a shaky, consumer cam but the image could not look any better, or gruesome.  Presented in a pillarbox framed 1.33:1 aspect ratio, RGB color model leans more toward warmer reds, yellows, and greens so you don’t get an authentic color scheme on objects or skin tones.  Darker scenes render nicely enough despite the MiniDV magnetic tape’s e-interference compression artefacts and some tracking lines onto digital recording that makes the image jittery/jumpy, but all the in-your-face closeups, low-quality picture quality adds to “Mordum’s” rancid-sensing realism.  The English PCM 2.0 audio track has copious clarity for its unrefined, raw built-in mic recording that comes with some crackling and echoing if the decibels rise during screaming or shouting and the built-in can’t handle the received input. Depth is lossy with the range of the recording and range doesn’t factor into play as dialogue pushes through whereas the low-budget constraints leave the action audibility left to the imagination. Subtitles are not available on either format. The limited-edition regurgitation of the sequel warrants a ton of special features in its inauguration to the mainstream masses. Both formats share most of the extras but the Blu-ray features many more. Brief Dave Fogel touchpoints on certain aspects of “Mordum’s” obscure longevity Mordum Lives!, the climax’s most disturbing visuals The Most Disturbing Scene, and an ode to Necrophagia’s front man Remembering Killjoy dive into those specific nuts and bolts of involvement, a new interview with Michael “Maggot” Schneider A Family Affair of Love and Hate which also includes The Ravenous music video from Necrophagia, offering some more cut scene insight, a sit-down interview with between Unearthed Film’s Stephen Biro and Tog Tag’s Jerami Cruise on the gruesome special effects work on a budget of literally what was lying around, Necrophagia’s promotional video of Rue Morgue Disciple, a new Rue Morge Disciple Behind-the-Scenes gallery, deleted and extended scenes that prolong the violence of the most graphic, extreme scenes and add another level of behind-doors sexual deviation to near pornographic heights, the U.S. premiere from 2003, a brand new extensive photo gallery, original animation work, and trailers while the Blu-ray includes these features, also on the hi-def disc is a new interview with Ultra-Violent’s editor Art Ettinger and Allana Bleeth who both have small roles in the film, a new interview with Zobo With A Shotgun’s Zoë Rose Smith interview director Fred Vogel, filmmaker Dave Parker interviews Vogel as well, Severed Cinema interviews Vogel too in Snuff Purgatory, a new mockumentary and its trailer for Sickcess: A Necrophagia, and a Zombie Demo from Flashback Weekend circa 2004. On top of the special feature filth, the physical aspects of the release come in a clear and traditional Blu-ray snapper case housed inside a cardboard slipcover showcasing the infamously disturbing scene. The same scene is also illustrated on the Blu-rays cover art with reverse cover art providing a rough-and-ready composition alternative of the same scene. Both disc arts are pressed with camcorder blurry images of depicted carnage. The region A/Region 1 locked Unearthed Films combo set has a runtime 91 minutes and comes, obviously, not rated. If looking for the original 3 from Hell, Peter Vogel’s “August Underground: Mordum” assembles three monsters to ever savage the screen with their horrible, unspeakable acts of sadism. The unabashed Unearthed Films rightfully doesn’t lubricate our hole of curiosity, sodomizing our prurience with the metallic taste of blood and madness.

“August Underground:  Mordum” Limited Collector’s Edition!

An EVIL Re-Imaging of a Donald Farmer Classic! “Savage Vengeance” reviewed! (SRS Cinema / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Savage Vengeance” now available on DVD home video!

Best friends and law students Tara and Meghan take a much needed depressurizing road trip and run into a Ronnie and Thom, a pair of locals with car trouble looking for assistance at the nearby gas station.  Hesitate to offer a ride, Tara agrees to their proposal of a life for sleep accommodations at Ronnie and Thom’s lake house in the Ozarks.  A serene lake and a drink in hand relaxes Tara’s foremost suspicions about the sketchy couple who seemingly chill and all about a good time catering to Tara’s stressed out needs.  The next thing Tara remembers is waking up to Ronnie and Thom standing over her, tied up, and her and Meghan threatened to become dinner for a pair of bloodthirsty cannibals who’ve just about wrapped up their previous viscera meal, but Tara isn’t as innocent as she appears as she shares the same killer instinct as her captors.  A struggle ensues, the tables begin to turn, and what was once prey has now become the predator!

A re-imagining of Donald Farmer’s 1993 original of the same title starring “I Spit On Your Grave’s” Camille Keaton, director Jake Zelch takes a pun-intended stab at “Savage Vengeance” with a twist in the schlocky sordid and dark tale by replacing Farmer’s original motivation for revenge for cannibalistic carnage.  “The Haunting of Mia Moss” and “The Dark Web Tapes” director helms Farmer’s story as a base while attempting a revamp and build upon with new characters and new plot devices along with contributing screenwriting by “Another Evil Night’s” Jason Harlow and “Lycanimator’s” Sébastien Godin.  Shot in Tennessee, “Savage Vengeance” is a production of Zelch’s Missouri based company, Unreality, and is produced by the filmmaker and headlining star Tamara Glynn (“Halloween 5:  The Revenge of Michael Myers”) with Donald Farmer and Curtis Carnahan as executive producers, marking the third feature film collaboration between Carnahan and Zelch.  Stratosphere Films handled the theatrical distribution.

Zelch’s “Savage Vengeance” has an identity problem.  Having reformulated the original premise, which doesn’t offend me as I think reinventing the wheel can sometimes be fresh and creative under the same directive title, the script has trouble nailing down a proper principal by shooting, by my count, three different segments disconnected from each other and with three different protagonists leading the charge in each.  Tamara Glynn receives top bill despite only garnering about 10 minutes of screen time in the beginning due to much of the opening footage being lost due to backup hard drive failure, according to Zelch on the director’s commentary.  The “Terrifier 2” and “Halloween 5” actress is essentially captured, chained, and trying to find a way out after waking up in a scarce-looking attic but because of her aforesaid credits, the DVD front cover banner head makes for a great advert sell point.  Instead, modern scream queen Roni Jonah (“Kill, Granny, Kill!,” “The Bloody Man”) becomes the runtime face of “Savage Vengeance” as Jake Zelch intends for the girth of the story.  Jonah, as Tara, paired with Jasper Evans as best friend Meghan heading toward an in schtook situation not only the cannibals on the road ahead but internally with rape, pregnancy, and a dysfunctional love triangle that has more to do with illicit lust than love with Tara’s boyfriend David (Dave Ivan), a theme much closer to the original essence of Donald Farmer’s rape-revenge exploitation.  However, what’s assumed is taken for granted and not utilized to all its pathways the concept could have complexed the characters rather than freezing them in a face value understanding.  That understanding comes a tool against cannibals Ronnie (Kat Underwood) and Thom (Cody Alexander, “Eat the Rich”) who are your typical crazed anthropophagus antagonists, as well as sadistic sodomist as we see with Adam Freeman’s (“Debbie Does Demons”) character, of film.  When these characters meet and try to be merge an acquaintance or friendship, in Tara’s shoes, I might just be a little more judgmental of two heavily tattooed wanderers, the male sporting a knife sheathed in holster around his backside as he walks around his wifebeater tank-top, handing out to me mysterious drinks on their isolated, rural property.  The whole setup doesn’t do the story justice to Tara’s decision making but then again, she’s not as pulled together as Zelch’s useable footage relays.  The third segment pops up after initial closing credits with Jessa Flux (“Debbie Does Demons”) to possibly offer up an imminent sequel “Savage Vengeance 2:  Better Off Dead, starring Flux.

Almost seems unfair to cover and review Zelch’s “Savage Vengeance” because of so much of the footage being forcibly cut and the shot narrative going through essentially restructured surgery to make pieces segue and make sense on screen.  Honestly, the recut doesn’t work, leaving too much unanswered and too much to decipher to put a solidified stamp on the series of events.  Thus pushing forward the abridged cut may warrant an impartial review until a more definitive, complete cut sees the light of day.  The material “Savage Vengeance” shows currently splices together the MPEG files that survived the great blue screen of death and transfer fail, such as with the Tamara Glynn opening that’s only connected by the brief present of Ronnie eating cat guts and Thom surprising and looming over Glynn before her deafening scream.  The additional footage explained by Zelch added context to the cannibals and provided a memorable kill to setup the tone of Zelch’s homage to late 70’s rural horror.  Fortunately for Zelch, horror fanatic brains are wired differently, able to fill in most of the gaps of a formulaic building blocks; however, the success of this can also be attributed to Zelch’s scramble editing to make a semi-intelligible story with what’s left contextless of the low budget nitty-gritty.  Another highlight is the blood with pretty-penny special effects from the multi-hat wearing Kat Underwood and her colleague Erin Felts who drum the gore the best they can with prop dummies for splitting in two, a whistle dogged dildo-penis gag, and saucy blood and guts to give the film the edge it needs to tribute Farmer’s ferociously.

I’ve said it once and I’ll say it again, I do applaud SRS Cinema’s time, effort, and creativity in the physical media artwork as the gorgeously dripping blood, sex, and horror pulp is quintessential eye candy for fans in what is typically a microbudget and mediocrity poor effort in the graphic cover art department of terribly arranged and hack job compositions. None of that rubbish here with many of the SRS Cinema titles, including “Savage Vengeance” on DVD.  The 1.85:1 widescreen and 720p standard definition presented DVD5 might have a deliciously illustrated cover but the film itself is marred by the artificial VHS overlay of tracking lines and macroblocking, especially when Zelch aims for a 70’s exploitation veneer that was mostly 16 or 35mm.  Instead of a grainy-laced, dirt-spotted, cigarette-burned, and scratched up celluloid frames, or a resemblance of something akin to it, “Savage Vengeance’s” aesthetics only bask in the softer details of lower resolution clarity and in the ethereal of a delicate lighting that eliminates shadowy contours that offer depth.  Frame rate also seems to be slow down some sporadically throughout as well as the erratic focus as if you’re coming out of sleep and trying to regulate your eyes from dark to light.  The English Dolby Digital 2.0 audio mix stems from the onboard, built-in camera mic that captures the surroundings which has pros and cons, such as diluting the dialogue to a subdued audible.  Not a ton of balance from the surrounding environment when augmented sounds, like the zaps of the electric fence or the overpower roar of chainsaw decibels that don’t change in closeups or wide shots, make their way into the fold.  No subtitles are available.  Bonus features include a Jake Zelch commentary with scene-by-scene backstory and explanation as well as the full explanation of his lost footage, actor Adam Freeman commentary that revolves around his acting craft, male nudity on screen, and his opinions of rape and sexual assault in general, a gallery slideshow, and the feature’s trailer.  Aforementioned, the illustrated cover of Tamara Glynn looking slyly and sexy holding a blood chainsaw is primo quality on front of the standard DVD case.  Inside lies no insert and with the same image on the disc art. Until a completely restored version of director Jake Zelch’s vision, the filmmaker’s “Savage Vengeance” can barely stand as perspicuous testimony of an uncalled for 30-year-reimagining.

“Savage Vengeance” now available on DVD home video!

Punk Rock EVIL For All the “Wrong Reasons” reviewed! (MVD Visual / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Wrong Reasons” is this Year’s Punk Rock Film!  

Australian punk rocker Kat Oden has fame in her home country and is steadily trending in the U.S. but when a masked man kidnaps while she lays unconsciously high in a drugged-out stupor, she wakes up being chained to a bed far away from where she was abducted.  Her mild-mannered kidnapper’s intentions revolve around getting Kat clean of narcotic impurities while the media circus explores wild theories, interviews her self-centered parents, reveals ugly secrets of her American rocker boyfriend, and follows the browbeaten investigation of an actor-turned-detective handling the Kat Oden case.  When the detective goes rogue, burned out by constant belittlement from his chief and being blamed for the inadequacies of his clownish subordinate officers, he makes a deal with an eager news reporter to give them the exclusive solving of the case for his own news show.  As he inches closer to finding Kat, the kidnapper and Kat dynamic undergoes significant strides to understand one another’s wayward reasons. 

The one major difference between major studio productions and the micro independent features shooting during peak COVID weeks, months, or years was the indies made use of the time whereas the bigger budgeted and the hundreds of cast and crew employed were virtually on furlough, hiatus, or just plain scrapped future movie ideas altogether.  Independent films had structural concept advantages, such as a smaller cast and crew to lessen the changes of infection, locations were typically limited so travel was not necessary, and indies sometimes would shoot guerilla style anyway to capture the scenes required for the story.  Writer-director Josh Roush, who lived and breathed producing Kevin Smith documentaries for the “Clerks” and “Dogma” director’s more contemporary credits, decided to pivot into the fictional route and just as soon as his dark comedy script for “Wrong Reasons” was about to start principal photography fruition, the world shut down in a pandemic lockdown.  However, a global emergency didn’t hinder Roush’s ambition and scaled down his crew and cast on set to get the job done. Executively produced by Landon Thorne, Kim Leadford, and Kevin Smith doing his version of Cameo appearances as well as David Shapiro contributing the other half of the funds, “Wrong Reasons” is a production of Rousch’s AntiCurrent Media, with Liv Roush and Matthew Rowbottom producing, and Shaprio’s Semkhor Studios.

In the role of Kat Oden, a real life Australian making her full-length feature film debut, is none other than director Josh Roush’s wife, Liv Roush.  Co-producing the numerous Kevin Smith making-of featurettes and other independent productions, including her husband’s music videos, Liv Roush has always been a face behind the camera and now she’s stepping Infront of the camera, mainstage as the center of a kidnapping ordeal being a promising up-and-coming punk rocker who has lost her way by sinking into drugs and an objectifying relationship with an egotistical American rocker.  While Roush can obviously handle her own being chained to bed in fishnet stockings and dip into a range of rage, fear, hurt, and acceptance, “Wrong Reasons” splits the story with another centric character in Detective Dobson.  Kevin Smith film regular Ralph Garman has a grip on the competent yet pent up case detective Charles Dobson but the detective goes through a series of case mishaps to scheming his own rogue operation that pulls away from the Kate Oden kidnaping ordeal perpetrated by James Winandi, an ambiguously misunderstood role by James Parks (“Red State,” “The Hateful Eight”), son of the legendary actor Michael Parks (“Nightmare Beach,” “From Dusk Till Dawn 3”).  The connection made between Winandi and Oden faces challenges in fully fleshing out what Winandi is trying to accomplish in by removing the lyrically strong and influential rocker toward a path of permanency for other listeners to experience the epiphany that befell Winandi.  It’s a motivation that couldn’t be grasped fully because we’re more invested in this parallel plot of Dobson’s working of an advantageous angle for himself that the message or the theme becomes lost in the superficiality for one’s own sake.  The cast rounds out with perfectly suitable supporting cast including Teresa Ruiz, Daniel Roebuck (“Final Destination,” “31”), David Koechner (“Cheap Thrills,” “Snakes on a Plane”), Matt Passmore (“Jigsaw,” “Come Back to Me”), John Enick (“Project Eve”), Harley Quinn Smith (“Once Upon A Time in Hollywood”), Kym Wilson (“Deadly Cheer”), true to form punk rocker Donita Sparks of L7, Darren Hayes of duo band Savage Garden, as well as a relatively quiet genre icon Vernon Wells (“Commando”) as Kat Oden’s dad and Kevin Smith as the a news cameraman in cargo shorts.

The divided narrative limps unbalanced between the two parallel storylines soon to collide in eventual finality.  We don’t really receive much wisdom, clarity, or even any kind of progressive dynamic between Oden and Winandi who quickly and quirkily come to a sensible understanding with Winandi’s masked kidnapping and Oden being chained to the bed. There’s also piped in televised news reporters covering the kidnapping case or verbally attacking the president or something enthusiastically bias and gospel from the news channels in what becomes a motif of media circus frenzy, corresponding also with the live news coverage that vultures around the Oden case. What Roush is attempting to convey through the unlikely kidnapper and kidnappee pairing doesn’t strum the right chords and flutters in place to where we’re not exactly sure how Kat Oden’s music affects her kidnapper given little-to-no backstory on him and not foreseeing a future outcome of his act in what is almost an akin to winging the situation.  Instead, we’re more engrossed into Detective Dobson’s downtrodden investigation.  A seemingly capable detective with good instincts, negotiating with suspects, and even has a new woman in his bed every night, the luck he has with his professional counterparts, subordinates, and report-to doesn’t necessarily reflect his personality.  When Dobson starts scheming to finally be the one top, the audiences’ attention shifts from the fluttering wrong reason to kidnap your idol to the wrong reason for turning into a self-serving public servant.

“Wrong Reasons” has all the right A/V and bonus content moves on MVDVisual’s Blu-ray release.  The AVC encoded, high-definition 1080p package is presented in a widescreen 2.85:1 aspect ratio.  Cinematography by Josh Roush and Matthew Rowbottom ensure the look Roush wants to obtain for his first feature length fiction, a clean less-is-more, truth-in-practicality visual that often echoes Kevin Smith’s earlier body of work on the indie scale.  The Blu-ray’s BD50 storage capacity handles compression well to thwart any artefact popups and the limited variety of color range, aka a more natural grading, doesn’t pressure the digitally shot film to crumble under the compression.  Details are sharp and textural in what is a solid visual presentation.  The English DTS-HD 5.1 surround sound is equally comparable with a dialogue first clarity.  There’s slight continuous feedback on the underlay, perhaps equipment interference picked up by the mic as it becomes a constant throughout.  Range is also limited to what is essentially a talk head picture with bits of action here and there with “Wrong Reasons” driven by the performances rather than by action.  “Wrong Reasons” is made for and presented by punk rockers with a film that’s very much dedicated to the music genre.  The soundtrack highlights a faction of the punk rock with bands such as Tim Armstrong, L7, The Wipers, Channel 3, The Unseen, Black Flag, and Bi-Product having tracks on the production.  Optional English subtitles are available.  Special features include an lengthy but informative Kevin Smith introduction in his very animated and enthusiastic Kevin Smith style, an audio commentary with director Josh Roush, producer Kevin Smith as well as another a second audio commentary with the director alongside co-producer Matthew Rowbottom, composer Cam Mosvaian, and wife/star Liv Roush, a Q&A session with the Roushes, Kevin Smith, Ralph Garman, and James Parks, deleted scenes and outtakes, Josh Roush’s short film “Idiot Cops,” and the original theatrical trailer.  The exclusive MVD release comes with a cardboard O-slip of a generically staged, or promo-esque, Liv Roush ankle-chained to a chair with a masked man standing next to her in non-menacing positions.  Inside is a reversible front cover of the same image, but I prefer the reverse side of the black and red illustrated silhouettes of the same character inside the clear Blu-ray snapper as it invokes more intrigue and suspense.  The disc art misleads with a horror composite of Kate Oden screaming, looking afraid, and the kidnappers mask hard lit to look more dramatic.  There are no insert materials.  The not rated film has a runtime of 97 minutes and has region free playback.  Josh Roush’s debut dark comedy has transference troubles, perhaps I’m not too punk enough to fully absorb how the music should move me, but we see acting veterans and greenhorns mix it up fitly for this COVID era picture.  

“Wrong Reasons” is this Year’s Punk Rock Film!  

Limited Edition EVIL to the Extreme! “August Underground” reviewed! (Unearthed Films / DVD/Blu-ray Combo)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Limited Edition “August Underground” Ready to be Received! 

A young farm owner invites his quirky, video-taping friend into the soiled and confined basement of his home where he keeps a nude, young woman gagged and rope bound to a chair, previously been tortured, and covered in her own blood and filth.  Both feeling giddy with excitement over their new plaything, the two sociopaths revel inflicting more torment and pain on the woman while her boyfriend’s mutilated and dead corpse is being dismembered in the next room.  When their basement plaything expires after days of neglect, the two joy killers hit the New Jersey and Pennsylvania turnpikes and backroads to continue a merciless killing spree of whomever stands in their path.  Convenient store clerks, hitchhikers, prostitutes, even their tattoo artist and his twin comic book enthusiastic brother are not safe from their chockful of callous carnage and every moment is recorded via videotape for reliving the moment in posterity. 

As far as underground horror goes, Fred Vogel’s “August Underground” is about as extreme and underground as they come and still be recognizable amongst the most casual of horror fandom.  Vogel’s inaugural written-and-directed, pitilessly violent, exploitation begins a direct-to-video trilogy of torture-on-tape with SOV quality, imparting grisly shudders to the unfathomable amount of blank-labeled VHS cassettes through man’s stowage, collecting dust bunnies and remaining unseen over the years to the horrors the magnetic tape just might behold.  What “August Underground” essentially boils down to is a raw day-to-day look of two maniacal serial killers on a free-for-all of a butcher’s market, the shooting locations stretch from the recesses of Vogel’s hometown of Warren, New Jersey and all the way to the surrounding back roads and isolated areas of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania.  Self-produced by Fred Vogel and co-producer John A. Wisniewski, “August Underground” set inaugural voyage on the blood red sea for Vogel’s Toe Tag Productions in 2001.

There is a severe lack of story for Vogel’s debut and that’s no oversight or a sign of omission of a subconscious creativity.  Most normal, everyday people video-record with the intent on not making a feature-length film but rather to capture memories and store them away for another day.  Vogel strives for that realism here where a plot is, for lack of a better word, pointless for the depicted atrocities where the sole purposes is to exhibit dementedness and insanity.  The same can be said about the cast of nameless characters.  The freeform recording does not spout off introductions or make references to monikers to, again, portray as much as organic conversation or realism as possible to further skewer an already gore and violence skewed imagination into thinking what we’re seeing is authentic and inconclusive of its entertainment purpose.  Fred Vogel, under his so-called porno stage name of Peter Mountain, plays the main principal dressed in arrogance and apathy as he’s recorded in a thumbed selection of runtime filmed by an equally bad-natured, sociopathic friend behind the camera, played by a post-release distancing actor under the pseudonym of Allen Peters.  The two complement each other in a Beavis and Butthead friendship kind of way with Vogel in synch with his character’s bloodlust as well as the burly bulk while camera buddy perversely watches, giggling to his friends’ blood shedding exploits.  Their relationship feels like a lonesome outlet to do harm and senseless killing makes the connection firmer, more enjoyable, in the easiest opportunities of a rural area where bored people do evil just to pass the time.  Vogel sets up a series of scenarios rather than plotting acts of a linear story in what becomes an anthology of anarchy that has us climbing down the manhole of maniacal mischief.  Mania is soaked into every inch of “August Underground” and that fits snug and makes warm the scattered story into a much more coagulated coherency.  “August Underground” rounds out the victims, I mean cast, with AnnMarie Reveruzzi, Erika Risovich, Randi Stubbs, Aaron LaBonte, Ben LaBtone, Victoria Jones, Alexis Iris, Stephen Vogel, Dan Friedman, Casey Eganey, Kyle Dealman, and Andy Lauer.

“August Underground” is ugly, nasty, grimy, sordid, perverse, tasteless, callous, and not shot with technical or detailed perfection.  “August Underground” is also unique, bold, unafraid, successful, gory, realistic, practical, and not shot with technical or detailed perfection that’s actually, in its own way, gorgeous.  “August Underground” is all those things and more with its rough-and-ready, extreme exploitation that will be polarizing amongst horror fans and not be a film for everyone’s taste or collection.  Frankly, there are worse underground and extreme horror films out there in the world, but “August Underground,” through the disgusting trices of dismemberment, force feeding of feces, and vomit inducing snuff, has somehow ,at least in this reviewer’s humble opinion, who like in a Dr. Seuss line, has been here, there, and everywhere within the horror spectrum, slipped through the veil of obscurity, having a foot well positioned in the land of the universal acknowledgement where many genre fans putter around with the same old formulas.  The depth of this story is so shallow that digging any deeper into the themes and the possibilities isn’t necessary with its home-made movie facade of people joyfully torturing and killing people being already horrific enough. 

For certain to go out of stock and out of print into physical release obscurity once again, Unearthed Films’ limited-edition collector’s edition of “August Underground” is the 2-disc DVD/Blu-ray combo set to act on right now. The AVC encoded, high definition 1080p, BD50 comes from a MiniDV print, often considered the transitional format from analog and to digital in a tape format with lossy compression. Presented in the original aspect ratio of 1.33:1 aspect ratio, don’t expect image quality to be pristinely detailed and sharp as the MiniDV maxes out at 720p resulting in both, standard and Hi-Def formats, having indistinguishable presentations. Resembling the amateur, at-home movie, scaled down tape quality renders ghosting which shapes and details are bleary and the coloring resembles ember or incandescent with a warm, red-and-yellow layer. What we don’t see much of is a ton of tracking, static, or a ton of noticeable interlace but blacks can be prominently spotty with the horizontal bars. The lossless on-board MiniDV English audio is a PCM 2.0 that doesn’t extend beyond the limits of the camera’s microphone, but the clarity fairs well with clean and commanding dialogue with a natural range between the proximitous cameraman and his killing machine star of a friend in front of the camera. Also, equally interchangeable between the physical formats with what’s made to be a rough recording, discernible differences are minute at best. The Blu-ray and DVD have many of the same special features with the Blu-ray containing a few more frills over its format counterpart with a new Dave Parker interviewing Fred Vogel as well as a separate interview with Vogel and Mike Watt of Rue Morgue Magazine, another new interview with Fred Vogel from Severed Cinema Revisiting Infamy. The formats shared bonus content includes never before seen and new material, such as the original screener version of the film that comes with watermark and a slightly different color grading, a new audio commentary by Fred Vogel and Ultra Violent Magazine’s creator Art Ettinger, a new 10 questions with Fred Vogel answering some of the longstanding queries surrounding the film’s realism achievements and behind-the-scenes permissions and achievements, and a new Toe Tag Masterclass that compares storyboards with the screen version. Archived bonus content include audio commentary with Vogel and actors-producers-brothers Aaron and Ben LaBonte, another commentary track with Fred Vogel alone, an audio commentary by the witty, giggly “Killer,” Hammer to the Head closer look at “August Underground,” on location behind-the scenes, a behind-the-brutality of the film, outsiders’ perspective take in a Too Real for Comfort discussion, an introduction by director Fred Vogel, photo gallery, and trailers. The limited-edition collector’s set comes with a cardboard slipcover with a blurry, interlaced still of Vogel’s character wrapping a forearm around a gagged-girl’s throat while peering into the camera, but it’s the clear snapper case’s front cover that’s more developed with a graphic pencil-graphite illustration of the same slipcover image with more visible mutilated skin and visual weapon of human body destruction. Front cover is also reversible with an interlacing black-and-white image of the main killer. Both discs also sport two different art presses with the Blu-ray mirroring the slipcover image while the DVD has nearly the identical position of killer and victim but with a whole new victim. The region A locked edition has a digestible 70-minute runtime and is, of course, not rated. I would never say Unearthed Films has been diluting their pool of extreme underground gore and guts horror, but their “August Underground” release puts the brazen company back on the mondo-macabre map with definitely a too real for comfort twisted depravity and an au naturel sense of debauchery.

Limited Edition “August Underground” Ready to be Received!