Category Archives: bluray

EVIL Inspires a New Concert. “Nightmare Symphony” reviewed! (Reel Gore Releasing / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Nightmare Symphony” is a Falsetto of Praise for Lucio Fulci.  Purchase the Blu-ray Below!

Unable to cope with another large box-office failure, the American indie horror director, Frank LaLoggia, is in the travails of a make-or-break psychological thriller overseas in Kosovo.  With an executive producer forcibly pulling LaLoggia’s creative marionette strings and the film’s screenwriter displeased and disapproving LaLoggia’s arm-twisted version of the story, the struggling director finds himself frantic and in the middle of a breakdown caught between a rock and a hard place with a postproduction from Hell.  Those around him, the conceited producer, the upset screenwriter, the pushy wannabe actor, and more, are being hunted down and brutally murdered by a masked killer and the imaginary line between Frank’s reality and paranoia grows in intensity coming down the wire of completing his career-saving, or rather lifesaving, film.

Long time since I’ve heard the name Frank LaLoggia enter the dark corners of my brain as it relates to the horror genre.  The director of 1981’s “Fear No Evil” and 1995’s “Mother” had seemingly vanished from the director’s chair spotlight and more-or-less, or rather more so than less so, vanished from the broader film industry altogether.  Then, Domiziano Cristopharo’s “Nightmare Symphony” suddenly drops on the doorstep and there’s Frank LaLoggia, starring in the lead role of an Italian horror production.  Domiziano, known from his entries of extreme horror, such as with “Red Krokodil,” “Doll Syndrome,” and “Xpiation,” engages LaLoggia to act in an unusual role, as himself, and turns away from the acuteness depths of uber-violence and acrid allegories to a toned down, more conventionally structured, narrative inspired by the Lucio Fulci psychological slasher “Nightmare Concert,” aka “A Cat in the Brain.” Co-directed with first time feature director Daniele Trani, who also edited and provided the cinematography, and penned by the original screenwriter of “A Cat in the Brain,” Antonio Tentori, “Nightmare Sympathy” plays into questioning reality, the external pressures that drive sanities, and weaves it with a meta thread and needle. The 2020 release is produced by Coulson Rutter (“Your Flesh, Your Curse”) and is an Italian film from Cristopharo’s The Enchanted Architect production company as well as companies Ulkûrzu (“Cold Ground”) and HH Kosova (“The Mad MacBeth”).

Much like “A Cat in the Brain,” Frank LaLoggia depicts his best Lucio Fulci representation as a horror filmmaker whose storyline production mirrors the individual slayings surrounding him. As a character, LaLoggia is not entirely aware of the murders as the peacock headed slasher’s string of sadism runs parallel to LaLoggia’s post-productional workload. Cristopharo pays a simultaneous tribute to not only Fulci but also LaLoggia with a built-in brief, off-plot moment of the editor, Isabella, a good friend and longtime partner of LaLoggia, running a reel of “Fear No Evil” to reminisce over his debut picture. Antonella Salvucci (“Dark Waves,” “The Torturer”) plays Isabella but also LaLoggia’s pseudo film lead actress Catherine in a dual role performance with the latter marking Salvucci’s topless kill scene that hits and sets up the giallo notes. Isabella denotes the director’s only real friend with everyone else, from the screenwriter to the executive producer, push their own self-gratifying wants onto the American filmmaker from all angles. A vulgar herd of personalities descend upon LaLoggia to exact their strong-willed ideas on how the film should appear and be marketed. From the screenwriter Antonio (Antonio Tentori, ‘Symphony in Blood Red”), the imposing desperate actor David (Halil Budakova, “Virus: Extreme Contamination”), to the uncultured and pushy executive producer Fernando Lola (Lumi Budakova) and his aspiring actress Debbie (Poison Rouge, “House of the Flesh Mannequins”), they all look to exploit LaLoggia’s modest career for their own benefit. Performances vary with a range of experience, and we receive more noticeably rigid recites and acts from the Kosovo cast in a clashing pattern with the Italy cast that has worked with Cristopharo previously. Ilmi Hajzeri (“Reaction Killers”), Pietro Cinieri, and Merita Budakova as a chain-smoking lady stalker that has glaring eyes for Frank LaLoggia.

While not necessarily thought of as a remake, “Nightmare Symphony” is certainly a re-envision of the Fulci’s “Cat in the Brain.” What Cristapharo and Trani don’t quite well connect on is connecting all the pieces of the psychotronic puzzle together into what is meant to be expressed. The giallo imagery is quite good, a praise of the golden era period in itself, with a mask and glove killer, the closeup of gratuitous violence, most of the score, and the stylistic visuals imparted with ominous shadow work, foggy and violent dream sequences, and with congruous cinematography and editing of earlier giallo. Plus, audiences are treated to not only the aforementioned Antonio Tentori, screenwriter of “Cat in the Brain,” but also have composer Fabio Frizzi score the opening title. Frizzi, who has orchestrated a score of Lucio Fulci films, such as “Zombie,” “The Beyond,” “Manhattan Baby,” and even “Cat in the Brain” just to select a few notable titles, adds that proverbial cherry on top to evoke Fulci directing “Nightmare Symphony” vicariously through Cristapharo and Trani. There are some questionable portions to reimagining’s take on the original work that are more the brand of the contemporary filmmakers. The presence of death metal prior to one of the kill moments puts the overall giallo at odds with itself in a fish out of water aspectual scene composition. Another out of place component are the external characters that are not directly involved with LaLoggia’s peacock-head themed slasher; the ironical venatic of an animal hunting down people is the reversal of a Darwinism theory that instead of sexual selection, the beautiful and elegant peacock forgoes using grace to attract and aims to survive by natural selection and thus the killer kills to remain alive. However, the story and the directors never reach that summit of summation and with the oddball characters adrift from the core story – such as the stalking woman and the eager actor – “Nightmare Symphony” flounders at the revealing end with its severe case of blinding mental delirium.

With a cover art of an upside skull overfilled with film reels and unfurling celluloid through the soft tissue cavities, “Cat in the Brain” continues to be reflected in “Nightmare Symphony” up to the release’s physical attributes on the Reel Gore Releasing’s Blu-ray. Presented in on a AVC encoded BD25, with a high definition 1080p resolution, and in a widescreen 2.35:1 aspect ratio, the Reel Gore Releasing espouses the Germany 8-Films’ Blu-ray transfer for a North American emanation, which might explain some of the complications with the bonus features that’ll I’ll cover in a bit. Situated in a low contrast and often set in a softer detail light, “Nightmare Symphony” doesn’t pop in any sense of term with a hazy air appearance and a muted color grading that goes against the giallo characteristics, especially when the clothing and set designs have the same desaturation or are colors inherent of low light intensity. Despite appearing like a slightly degraded transfer on a lower BD storage format, compression issues are slim-to-none with artefacts, banding, or blocking and this results in no tampering edge enhancements or digital noise reduction. The release comes with three audio options: A German DTS-HD 5.1, German DTS-HD 2.0 Master Audio and an English and Italian DTS-HD Stereo 2.0 all of which are Master Audio. The German audio tracks are a dub from the 8-Film Blu-ray and the 5.1 offers an amplified dynamics of the eclectic soundtrack and limited environment ambience. Dialogue remains outside the dynamics on a monotone course but is clean and clear with good mic placement and a neat, fidelity fine, digital recording. The German dub has a distinct detachment from the video because of its own layer environment, sounding a little sterile than the natural English or Italian, but works well enough as expected with the supplement multi-channel surround sound. English SDH and German subtitles are optional. Bonus contents feature a behind-the-scenes which is entirely just a blooper reel, an English language interview with co-director Domiziano Cristopharo whose secondary language is English, the original soundtrack playlist, and the teaser and theatrical trailer. I mentioned an 8-Films’ transfer complication with the bonus content because there’s is also an interview with Italian screenwriter Antonio Tentori that’s only in German dubbed and subtitled with no option for English subtitles or dub. When you insert “Nightmare Symphony” into your player, an introductory option displays to either pick German or English and I considered this to be the issue for the German only interview with Tentori; however, that is not the case as both country options are encoded in German for the interview, so at the beginning option display, I would recommend the German selection because the setup will have contain all audio options for the feature whereas the English selection will only contain the English 2.0. Reel Gore Releasing’s Blu-ray comes housed in a red snapper case, the same as the company’s release of “Maniac Driver,” and has a less tributing reversible cover art with more revealing and illustrated aspects of the narrative. The release is region free, unrated, and has a runtime of 78 minutes. Another little fun fact about the release is the incorrect spelling of the director’s name on the back cover that credits his surname as Christopharo instead of Cristopharo. Influenced by Lucio Fulci beyond a shadow of a doubt, “Nightmare Symphony” proffers the Horror Maestro’s less notable credit with a companion piece that punctuates both films love for the giallo genre, love for the violence, and love for the morbidly unhinged human condition.

“Nightmare Symphony” is a Falsetto of Praise for Lucio Fulci.  Purchase the Blu-ray Below!

EVIL Embarks with Cons and Cops in “Project Wolf Hunting” reviewed! (Well Go USA Entertainment / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Project Wolf Hunting” on Blu-ray and Available for Purchase by Clicking the Cover Art!

After a disastrous Philippines-to-Korea extradition processing of criminals that resulted in an airport suicidal bombing with multiple casualties, the procedure to transport dangerous criminals moves to a decommissioned Cargo ship known as the Frontier Titan.  The 3-day journey is expected to be a safer option to extradite Korea’s most wanted as highly trained and experienced detective accompany the criminals as armed escorts.  Every contingent has been covered except for what lies in the belly of the cargo ship.  Hidden in the bowel, underneath the engine room, a top secret biological weapon, involving an ancient wartime prisoner’s chromosomes commingled with the agility, strength, and prowess of a wolf, being transported across the sea.  When the criminals plan an elaborate seizing of the ship, the monstrous hybrid man known as Alpha is also inadvertently released and kills his caretakers, leaving him free to roam the ship and engage the good and bad guys alike as fair game to hunt.

Only a handful of times in my life have I’ve seen a film with so much blood.  “Project Wolf Hunting” is one of the bloodiest, most violent, Korean films to come out of 2022.  The hybrid action-horror with a genetically hybrid superhuman is the latest effort from writer-director Hongsun Kim, sticking with the horror genre after his positive reviewed 2019 evil spirit family drama “Byeonshin.”  The title, in reference to the operation of transporting Alpha through to East China Sea, into the Korean Strait, and dock at Busan, is the international marketing title for the Korean name “Neugdaesanyang” and is a film I can confidently and merely describe as “Predator” meets “Con Air” on a cargo ship.  Seasoned civic officers of the law, hardened criminals with sordid pasts, a special op consisted of superhuman soldiers are up against the odds to stop the Alpha, the original specimen.  Film between the ports of Busan, Korea and Manilla, Philippines, “Project Wolf Hunting” is the Korean venture production from Content G with Gu Seaon-mok serving as producer and is presented theatrical by The Contents On in association with CJ CGV.

What’s interesting about Korean cinema is what you know what you’re getting with the characters who are greatly upfront, unpretentious, and full of attitude.  There are not a lot of false veneers with the cast of characters, something that can be said with most films spawned out from the Asia Pacific industry.  I might dangerously be overgeneralizing but from my viewings and writeups, but I’m fairly locked into my statement with confidence as “Project Wolf Hunting” paints a stark contrast of who’s who from the beginning without casting any doubt or even suspicion. Even with the some of the ship’s crew, Hongsun Kim clearly delineates their allegiances despite not coming right out with it initially and the cast immerse themselves into the appointed role with well-designed idiosyncrasies that seeing them out of character can be a bit of shock. Park Jong-doo perhaps is the most archetypical with Seo In-Guk, in his first feature performance, becoming the despot amongst the thieves. Guk transforms his appearance with full body tattoos to denote mafioso status and even takes that extra step with a few naked from the rear scenes to establish a conspicuous nonchalance for what anyone else has to think, say, or do. When many of the insurrectionary inmates take the ship, Jong-doo’s counterpart, Lee Do-il, isn’t so easily intimidated but is reserved and quiet in his strong posture. Dong-Yoon Jang offers a less violent option only to bide time for what’s ahead of them, the Alpha. Gwi-hwa Choi, who been hot right now in Korean cinema with having roles in “Train to Busan” and “The Wailing,” is the extraordinary and mysterious monster prowling to kill every single person on and off the ship’s manifest. With Alpha’s eyes stapled shut, maggots feeding off the festering tissue inside his mouth, and has a near spartan approach to liquidating, Choi completely transforms into the silent hunter with unstoppable and wild violent mode, but Alpha is only a name and the implicit meaning of the name does change hands throughout the course of the film that makes “Project Wolf Hunting” all that more the interesting. Female principals are not meek, weak, or helpless in his all-out brawl in a confined space with Jung So-Min as an eager cop with acumen and Jang Young-Nam as the dangerously uncouth companion to one of the mafia’s leadership and the fact that none of them are a love interest, or become even remotely involved romantically, sexually, or even innocently, speaks volumes on “Project Wolf Hunt’s” no room for romance rampage. The large cast lends to a high body and the acting pool rounds out with Dong-il Sung (“Byeonshin”), Park Ho-San (“The Call”), Chang-Seok Ko (“Lady Vengeance”), Lee Sung-wook (“Spiritwalker”), Jung Moon-sung (“The Cursed”), and Son Jong-hak (“Thirst”).

There’s so much blood. That statement was worth repeating. “Project Wolf Hunt” is reminiscent of the Japanese samurai films of yore or the absurd comedy gore film with geyser sprays of red with every blow.  Literally, tons of fake blood was used to coat the sets crimson in an impressive feat of movie magic carnage.  I’m also doubly impressed how the special effects team was able to achieve multiple sprays from out of the nostril cavities in what might seems small, insignificant, and simple looks amazingly palpable on screen that stopping to think about the difficulty in how that effect can be accomplished can be easily overlooked.  The blood sprays are only a fraction of the wide variety of violence and gore put on display and we’re treated to an abundance of slaughter and a superb, choreographed melee in each and every tightly confined skirmish that makes “Project Wolf Hunting” captivatingly adrenalized.  Production design creates the illusion of a cargo ship without question and the visuals, though soft in some scenes, sell the nautical voyage through clear skies and a storm rough patch.  Much of a part of “Project Wolf Hunting’s” success is cinematographer Ju-Hwan Yun’s framing.  The example I like to use is the post-elevator attack when the hoisting cord snaps that sends the lift plummeting down the chute with Alpha inside.  Yun then sends the shot from the top down the chute to the exposed opening of a mangled lift to see Alpha turn his eye-stapled face upward toward the narrowly escaping prey.  The shot gets the heart pumping and relays, in one sequence, the unkillable nature of Alpha.  If “Project Wolf Hunting” isn’t already thrilling enough with the brimming, cutthroat tensions spilling onto every deck between the police detectives and the criminals in their custody, the evolutionary plot twist that welds the age-old divide between the two frictions is a bloodbath you don’t see coming and one you’ll enjoy experiencing. 

Action, horror, human experimentations, and with a complemental nod to the hard-hitting Asian cop films of 90’s, “Project Wolf Hunting” has teeth and stamina for 123 minutes of knockaround bloodshed. A winning Blu-ray release for Well Go USA Entertainment, the film is presented in a widescreen 2.39:1 aspect ratio. The AVC encoded BD50 offers a topnotch 1080p resolution that translates well to the big screen with granular detail in the interior and exterior of the cargo ship set and displays the stylistic choice of a warm color scheme consisting of prominently yellows and greens, providing less shadowy, higher contrast areas to suggest there is nowhere survivors can hide. Though quite a bit of CGI throughout the film, the end result doesn’t appear half bad with more fleshed out textures built into the renders to make them less gummy-looking. The release offers four audio options – a Korean and dub English 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio and a Korean and dub English 2.0 stereo. Obviously, you receive more bang for your buck with the amped up surround sound option and don’t have to contend with dubbing if you go the original Korean language route. A high velocity range sounds strong through the rear channels with gunshots, the ship’s indiscreet hum, and the overall ricochets, clinks, and skirmish shuffles submerge an enveloping blanket of directional sounds right in your ears. The Korean dialogue is clean, clear, and vociferous in Korean inflections. English subtitles are optional and available well synched and error-free. Like status quo with other Well Go USA Entertainment releases, bonus features are an ornately produced, one-sided interview vignettes with the cast and crew and of the behind-the-scenes making of the film as well as a making of Alpha which was more actor Gwi-hwa Choi’s excitement about this different kind of role per his usual. The trailer is also available in the bonus content. Physical features include a traditional Blu-ray snapper with latch with the grisly, dirty face of Alpha blended into a black background. The film is unrated and is coded region A for disc playback. Despite minor convoluted expounding, “Project Wolf Hunting” kept the attention at high alert with a high body count, an indomitable super soldier, and a cargo ship load of blood.

“Project Wolf Hunting” on Blu-ray and Available for Purchase by Clicking the Cover Art!

EVIL Terrorizes the Parisian Women of the Night! “A Woman Kills” reviewed! (Radiance / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“A Woman Kills” Now Available on Blu-ray! Click the Cover Art to Purcahse!

The execution of Hélène Picard, a convicted murderer of prostitutes in Paris, France circa 1960s, is carried forth and thought to have snuffed out a string of brutal killings.  Louis Guilbeau carried out the execution orders that gave Pairs a moment of relief and a sense of safety for the working girls on the streets, but when the similar murders spark public fear and the newspapers compare the scenes as Hélène Picard handywork, Paris is once again thrown turmoil with a serial killer.  Is Hélène Picard really dead?  Is it a copycat?  Or did they not catch the real killer?  Guilbeau, unphased by the recent atrocities, begins an affair with the lead investigator into the murders and continues to always be one step behind the suspected female culprit with no remorse, no shame, and no limits to her brutality against prostitutes.

Thought to be lost in obscurity for forever, the reels for French director Jean-Denis Bonan’s “La femme bourreau,” aka “A Woman Kills” was discovered in 2010.  The master of the unfinished film became destined to be born again with a new home video release as Bonan’s debut directorial embodied parallelisms of the French sociopolitical unrest and protests, known as the Paris economic-stopping May 68 event, during the late 1960s, and hitched a ride on the narrative wave of post-“Psycho” gender identity complexes within the confines of a La Nouvelle Vogue, or the French New Wave movement.  Though “A Woman Kills” was the inaugural film of the young director’s career, Bonan simultaneously also became one of the few to document in real time the May 68 upheaving protests as he and the crew went back-and-forth filming a fiction story and nonfictional protests.  The film incorporates a semi pseudo-doc that treats the script like a mixture between a crime thriller and the experimental qualities of its playful, singsong soundtrack and harsh editing.  The 1968 film is a production of Luna Park Films and is self-produced by Jean-Denis Bonan.

For those casted in film, “A Woman Kills” was there first auteur film if not their first feature film role all together. What could be considered as a blend between New French Wave and Neorealism, Bonan rarely has his cast express their own vocal cords. Lots of action and expressiveness devour the attention but that doesn’t go on to say Bonon completely nixed dialogue altogether with his montage of interviewees, a jest-and-jovial troubadour descriptive songs of the scenes, the narrator’s file readings of victims, the newsboys hawking of murder headlines, all become the dialogue in lieu of the real McCoy. The cast does have their voices heard in rare moments, often in scenes of great exposures and difficult in detail. A case in point is Claude Merlin as the prison executive Louis Guilbeau. Merlin, who went on to be involved in another May 68’s connected film from 2001, “Toutes les nuits” or “Every Night,” is eager and excited in character when going into the medical details of the various way his profession executes prisoners or falls into a somber regarding his mother’s abusive behavior to him when he was just a boy. Guilbeau’s dialogued moments are precise and point plots toward his character and toward the end game. The affair Builbeau has with police investigator Solange Lebas, from Jean Rollin’s “Rape of the Vampire” and Bruno Gantillo’s “Girl Slaves of Morgana Le Fay’s” Solange Pradel, provides roughly the equal amount of dialogue time in a role that’s typically casted for men, a lead investigator on a high-profile murder case. Gender reversal and identity themes are accentuated by Merlin and Pradel’s tenues of the characters. Myriam Mézières (“Spermula”), Jackie Raynal, Catherine Deville (“Rape of the Vampire”), and Velly Beguard (“Endless Night”) work out the remaining cast.

I wouldn’t necessarily call “A Woman Kills” avant garde.  In fact, I firmly believe the propagating audio and video experiments and the themes are far from it.  Bonan borrows a little here and there from different techniques and cinematic trends to fashion a stake in the French New Wave movement.  Splashes of eroticism, which are greatly descriptive visually and narratively, don’t warrant “A Woman Kills” to be a full-fledged erotica film.  The same can be said about the crime or investigator angle that too just seems to be woven sporadically through this melee of classification. Pseudo-documentary montages and script narrator push the labeling in another direction as well. “A Woman Kills” doesn’t exactly fit into a mold, wears patchwork pastiche, but also has flare ups of Bonan’s call to add chaos into the traditional scheme of filmmaking. More so linear than not, the narrative transitions between scenes without a care for being comprehensible early on. Heavily relying on the narrator to give exposition on the background of the notorious prostitute murderer Hélène Picard and how she became under the executioner’s thumb, this event provides framework in introducing the executioner Louis Guilbeau and his professional ups-and-downs that ultimately land him working in the prison system. The association that connects the murders, Louis Guilbeau, and Hélène Picard is all very vague during initial proceedings and Gérard de Battista’s freeholding over-the-shoulder camera work provides passim POV shots and agley angles to keep the wheels of motion mysteriously slipping in order to not fully grip the reality of the situation. Bonan borders the edge of German Expressionism toward the third act by disenchanting the way of guilty thinking aesthetics and to root the killer in insanity on various levels, ending with a chase sequence that is seemingly endless amongst a pile of building rubble and ruin.

A provocateur of storytelling and of the celluloid vision, director Jean-Denis Bonan finally has his film, “A Woman Kills,” released onto a limited-edition Blu-ray home video from Radiance Films twelve years as being unearthed. First released on DVD in 2016, distribution for the film was all but easy due to Bonan’s deemed unclassifiable feature by large scale and indie firms. Today, the original reversible 16mm elements have gone through a 2K restoration scan for the feature’s Blu-ray debut and the presented in the original 1.33:1 aspect ratio and black and white format. For being undiscovered for four decades, unfinished, and receiving literally no support from any state funds to complete, the image has remained nearly pristine with only a few dust specks and faint scratches being the worse of the wear. The Cinémathèque de Limousin and the restoration by producer Francis Lecomte doesn’t feel to have overcorrected the natural grain or go high on the contrast but rather retain much of the classic, original elements for an honest viewing aside from the liner notes mentioning a few special effects added to remove equipment from out of the picture. Father time has forgotten all about Bonan’s lost relic, staving off age degradation to those with more day-to-day exposure. The French language Dolby Digital mono track also retains a remarkable, near stainless net result. The absence of the camera whirring and lack of electrical interference points to a complete dub track of the actors’ voiceovers to which the dialogue is distinct with only a handful of crackling peppered in throughout. English subtitles are optional on the menu settings and offer an error free, well-paced synchronization. The bonus features include a video introduction to the feature by Virginie Sélavy, an audio commentary by Kat Ellinger and Virginie Sélavy, the trailer, and a 37-minute, newly updated 2015 documentary On the Margin: The Cursed Films of Jean-Denis Bonan featuring one-sided interview responses from Bonan, cinematographer Gérard de Battista, editor Mirelille Abramovici, composer Daniel Laloux, and actress Jackie Rynal. There is also Bonan’s short films – “la vie breve de Monsier Meucieu,” “Un crime d’amour,” “Tristesses des Anthropophages,” Mathieu-fou, “and “Une saison chez les hommes.” The limited to 2,000 copies release does not disappointment with tangible material within this clear snapper, untraditional Blu-ray case that doesn’t sport the Blu-ray logo at the top. Much like Bonan’s work, the Blu-ray, too, rebels against marketing norms with cover art that displays the film’s synopsis and documentary bons feature on the front cover. The reversible cover also has the original 2016 DVD art on the inside along with a limited-edition booklet featuring “A Woman Kills” essay by film author and scholar Catherine Wheatley and writer-broadcaster Richard Thomas regarding the film’s themes and Bonan’s short films. The 51-page booklet also includes newly translated interviews and offers film credits as well as black and white stills of “A Woman Kills” and other Bonan credits. The feature has a runtime of 69 minutes, the release is region free, and Unrated. Jean-Denis Bonan disrupts the narrative routine, but his film remains a timeless, psychosomatic portrayal with a contentious backdrop of French sociopolitical unrest that makes the context of “A Woman Kills” that much more engrossing.

“A Woman Kills” Now Available on Blu-ray! Click the Cover Art to Purcahse!

A 13-Year-Old Girl is EVILLER than Skinheads! “Becky” reviewed! (Ronin Flix / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Becky” is Clearly a Special Girl!  Purchase the Blu-ray by Clicking the Below Cover!

Cancer has taken Becky’s mother away from her.  Over the past year, the 13-year-old girl finds comfort in being angry, especially at her father who choose to move forward with his life that stirs a flurry of pent up uncomfortable, rage-filled emotions inside the teen.  As Becky stays in her constant stew of angst, her father surprises her with a trip to their cabin getaway he initially planned to sell but had a change of heart.  There is one small caveat, he plans to propose to his girlfriend who joins them on the trip, cornering Becky into one-sided fight and meltdown with those who love her and care for her and sending her to retreat into her woodland fort.  At the same time, a group of escaped convicts take her family hostage in search for a mysterious key left behind by the escapee’s neo-Nazi leader, Dominick.  Dominick has planned for years every possible scenario to secure the key that will undoubtedly serve every race with what he thinks they deserve, but Dominick didn’t plan for one scenario:  Becky. 

Amongst the movie nerds, there’s a particular phenomenon that occurs when a film is first mentioned across the internet and an immediate acclaim and attraction follows in its wake toward the film’s actors or actresses flipping the script on their stereotyped industry roles and playing totally unorthodox personalities that may shock. “Becky” was one of those films.  The 2020 released home-invasion, revenge thriller has been labeled by critics and fans alike as a horror, but the Jonathan Milott and Cary Murnion codirected production is more than just blood and guts.  The Ontario, Canada production is based off an original and debuting script from Nick Morris with “The Devil to Pay” and “Rattle the Cage” screenwriting husband and wife team, Lane and Ruckus Skye who have specialized credentials in the thrillingly brutal, hardnose character genre.  With a punk energy and engrossing family themes, “Becky” is a heart-stopping, heart-stomping, mischief making, ball of fury.  Jordan Beckerman of Yale Entertainment (“Cut/Print”) and Boulderlight Pictures’ J.D. Lifshitz and Raphael Margules (“Barbarian”) serve as the U.S. production companies in association with Bondit Media Capital, SSS Entertainment and Buffalo 8 Productions and is presented by Quiver Distribution and Redbox Entertainment. 

Aforementioned, this strange manifestation of hype for an upcoming feature leads the world, or at the very least film aficionados, in extreme anticipation. The conspicuously, incongruous piece glimpsed briefly in the trailer, one-sheet, posters, and stills claws for our attention as our brains can’t quite compute or process Kevin James in an Aryan acolyte. With a shaved head, long beard, and covered in swastikas, SS doppel sigrune, and other various Nazi-symbolic tattoos, Kevin James transforms his loveable and comedic “Paul Blart: Mall Cop” and “I Pronounce You Chuck & Larry” self into a ruthless and irredeemable skinhead. James absolutely nails the look of escaped convict and neo-Nazi Dominick with growing out his facial hair and shaving his head that takes his usually unassuming presence to a whole new level of calculated evil, but the script spoon feeds Dominick too much leeway to tolerate insubordination amongst his four-man crew, to allow hostages to talk back, spit in his face, and antagonize against his goals, and lacks the know-how of how to appropriately bait Becky with her own family, if Dominick is truly a despicable person as we’re lead to believe in earlier scenes of an approved prison leadership shanking and the implied murdering of children sitting in the backseat of a family roadster he aims to hijack. Yet, Dominick allows to be taken advantage of despite his cruelty stating to the contrary. In a stark contrast to evil embodied, there’s teenage girl Lulu Wilson.  The New York City child actress has been quickly making a name for herself in the horror genre, as a scream queen prodigy of sorts, with having supporting roles in “Deliver Us from Evil,” Ouija:  Origins,” “Annabel:  Creations” and Netflix’s “The Haunting of Hill House” before landing the titular lead in “Becky.”  Instead of scared pretense, Lulu Wilson gives a visceral, violent performance.  It’s teenage angst on steroids.  “Becky” is the only child versus adult cat-and-mouse game where the audience will get more out of the younger, smaller rival full of enraged paroxysms.  Joel McHale is another comedic actor wiggling his way into more dramatic roles that expand not only his resume but his range to showcase the other side of the once syndicated television comedy host.  From his stint into horror alongside Lulu Wilson in “Deliver Us From Evil” and in dark comedy, such as “Happily” that released the same year as “Becky,” McHale is finding a different voice other than laughter that has come natural to the actor and does show a lot of promise in more compelling roles as in “Becky’s” widowed father looking to move forward with his life but treads on pins and needles with his angry daughter.  Those relationship complications between Becky and her father never wander but rather do wonders for the connection on coming to terms with little go of the past.  The robust range of characters continue with an eclectic and noteworthy remaining cast that includes Amanda Brugel (“The Handmaid’s Tale”, “The Infinity Pool”), former Canadian-turned-actor Robert Malliet (“Pacific Rim,” “300”), Ryan McDonald (“He’s Out There”), James McDougal (“Heinous Acts”), and Isaiah Rockcliffe (“Random Acts of Violence”).

Kids committing hyper-violence in films is not entirely uncommon but they’re also not run-of-the-mill either.  Yet, films like “Becky” produce an unsettling affect that churns in the back of our psyche when witnessing a young teen girl intently stabbing a grown man with a jagged ruler and a handful of colored pencils in the neck.  Fans and critics label “Becky” as an adult, violent version of “Home Alone,” but the comparison I would draw would be closer to “Die Hard” for the barely young adults.  “Becky” plays out like a graphic novel or a young adult novel, stylish and impulsive in its edgy execution and character.  Unlike “Home Alone,” hardly anything sweet and endearing radiates from Milot and Murnion’s ferocious family retaliator and though Becky may set a trap or two (really just one trap) to inflict pain and punishment on her pursuers, the youngster is more inclined to John McClane wing it as the plot plays out, going toe-to-toe, face-to-face with adults two and three times as big as her without a moment of hesitation. There are some unique and graphic death scenes that ooze Becky’s personal satisfaction, and the Derek Liscoumb (“Possessor”) special effects blood reel is perforating, shredding, and cutting to pile on perfection as the kills go deeper into mutilate pool. Tremendous raw emotion superhumanly strengthens Becky’s adrenaline rush as the tragedies aggregate into one big horrific destruction of familyhood, contradicting the first act’s despisal of her father with a regret-filled, redemptional theme that without family there’s nothing else to lose. Its powerful for Becky to lose people she, in the moment, abhors yet are close to her because of her own unworked out pain and suffering that in all innocence pit her against the world.

“Becky” is the quintessential diamond in the rough as an unsurprising hit with fans. This small, independent Canadian film can hold its own in story, style, and sanguinary. With a sequel in the works, entitled “The Wrath of Becky,” our friends at Ronin Flix have released a collector’s edition Blu-ray to enlighten those new to Becky’s inherent mean streak. Released on an AVC encoded BD50, the feature is presented in 1080p high-definition on a widescreen 2.39:1 aspect ratio. Nothing to particularly note negatively on the digitally recorded image quality to the tune of compression storage as there doesn’t appear to be an issue with a clean-cut picture that delineates the hell out of the image, capturing every contour, fiber, and skintag inconvertible. Colors are potent with a natural grade along with plenty of textures to salivate over with a palpable tongue, such as Becky’s wool hat or Kevin James’s thick beard. The compressed image unloads at a gloriously hefty 36-38Mbps. The CE comes with two lossless English audio options – a Dolby Digital 5.1 Master Audio and a Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo. Unless your audio outputting on the television speakers, the surround sound is the optimal and preferred choice for “Becky’s” unmanage mischief making through the rustling brush. The small aspects of her plotting and executing her revenge are what give the ambient padding meaning and offer a plentiful and grotesque semiliquid, semi-flesh sound effects. Dialogue comes through clean, clear, and robust. Optional English subtitles are available in SDH. Over 60 minutes of bonus features are on this release with interview commentary by directors Jonathan Milott and Cary Murnion, an interview with Joel McHale, and an interview with Lulu Wilson that all pretty much do a similar roundtable of remarks of their time and experiences working with each other. Milott and Murnion provide more backgound, backstory, and insight to their directing process compared to solo directors. Behind-the-scenes gallery, fan art, audio commentary with Lulu Wilson and screenwriters Ruckus and Lane Skye, and individual pre-feature introductions by the directors. Physical features include a cardboard slipcover of composite art by Tim Johnson, which is also on the latch-featuring clear snapper case cover art, a reversible cover art featuring a solo Lulu Wilson, and an anime-esque, illustrated disc art by Andrea Michel. The Blu-ray is rated R for strong bloody violence, graphic images, and language with a runtime of 94 and is region A locked. “Becky” is brutal with blood and guts galore and is more fun than can be describe with Lulu Wilson delivering an atomically hot-headed performance and Kevin James sporting uncharacteristic, fascist tats.

“Becky” is Clearly a Special Girl!  Purchase the Blu-ray by Clicking the Below Cover!

Before Careful What Hotel You Book Online. There Just Might be an Ancient EVIL Lurking in the Basement! “The Ghosts of Monday” reviewed! (Cleopatra Entertainment / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

 “The Ghosts of Monday” is now on Blu-ray Home Video!  Click to Cover to Purchase!

A small film crew of ghost hunters travel to the Grand Hotel Gula, a magnificent resort that accommodated tourists from all over the world, to document the hotel’s horrible past on a rare 53rd Monday of a year when the hotel befell into notorious tragedy as guests attending a party were poisoned and the three owners had committed suicide soon after.   Eric, the director of the show, is on his last leg to make the show a success as he becomes pressured by local benefactors and even the show’s host personality, Bruce.  At the request of Bruce, Eric brings his wife Christine who Bruce raised as a child.  From day one, the empty stunning foyer and luxurious accommodates pale against the ambient creepiness of the dark corridors and basements and the ominous sounds that lurk from within the shadows.  When the shooting commences into an investigation, the unsuspecting filmmakers find themselves in an ill-boding situation with an ancient evil that has been kept hidden away from the world for eons.

I want to prelude this review by saying that my thoughts are with Julian Sands family and if there is any hope left to grasp onto, we want sincerely to yearn for the outcome of Julian Sands disappearance in the hiking region of Mount Baldy, California to be a positive one and see the actor, the husband, the father of three alive and well.  As an entertainer, Sands gave us a malevolent sorcerer in the “Warlock” trilogy and providing us with notable performances in David Lynch’s “Naked Lunch” and the fear of spiders-inducing “Arachnophobia.”  Since the turn of the century, Sands has more-or-less fell out of the limelight with sustaining his presence mostly on direct-to-video releases and appearances on TV series.  The British actor’s latest low-budget horror “The Ghosts of Monday” is a film helmed by Italian director Francesco Cinquemani on the little-known getaway island of Cyprus, a country located in the Mediterranean Sea.  Cinquemani, who typically directs his own scripts, co-writes the film with Andy Edwards (“Zombie Spring Breakers,” “Midnight Peepshow”), Mark Thompson-Ashworth (“POE 4:  The Black Cat”), and Barry Keating (Killer Mermaid,” “Nightworld: Door of Hell”).  “The Ghosts of Monday” appears to be a blend of region myth and cultural belief pulled locally and from the stories of Greeks Gods into one abandoned hotel horror full of cult sacrifice and betrayal, produced by the “S.O.S.:  Survive or Sacrifice” producing team of Loris Curci (“The Quantum Devil”), Marianna Rosset, and Vitaly Rosset under the Cyprus production company, Altadium Group.

Julian Sands might not be the principal lead of the story but is a major player in what culminates into an ambuscade of doomsday deliverance at the expense of others.  As the documentary’s host and a Cyprus local, Sands plays the eccentric, often frisky, heavy drinker Bruce who has been a father, or the adopted father-figure as it’s not entirely clear, to Sofia (Marianna Rosset, “S.O.S.:  Survive or Sacrifice”).  Christine is distant and disordered returning to her Cyprus homeland with her husband Eric, the director, played by “The Turning’s” Mark Huberman.  Almost seemingly estranged from each other, Eric and Sofia display some noticeable pensive and tension-riddled issues between them that the story never fully fleshes out for the audience.  Christine is under medication for a sleep disorder, Eric’s feeling the pressure from powerful producers, and none of that external strain has defined or even as much delineated itself in full in their aloof relationship that has glimmers of hope and smiles as the wall between them is more up than it is down despite Eric’s constant vigil over her.  Performances from Rosset and Huberman meet the need of concern, desperation, and pressure forced upon them more from in the outside than in, especially in Huberman with a slightly better angle on his creative-driven, project-lead sudden derailed from his narrow focus to deliver a quality product as his career careens out of control and that brings out his rougher edge we see in the latter half of the story.  In comparison, the more iconic and recognizable figure, Julian Sands, doesn’t land his role well in what could be seen as if his performance landing gear only had one wheel down before touching pavement but was able to jerry-rig a not-big-enough wheel to get him safely through.   “The Ghost of Monday” has some mysteriously odd and menacing individuals in hotel owner Frank (Anthony Skordi, “Carnal Sins”), his wife Rosemary (Maria Ioannou, “Waiting Room”), and the producer couple Dom (Loris Curci), and Pat (Joanna Fyllidou, “Girls After Dark”) as hovers, prowlers, and the overall conventional creeps in the corner, watching you.  On the other side of the coin, you have a film crew who are more or less victim fodder for the evil powers to be with Anna (Kristina Godunova) and suspected lesbian lovers in sound designer Christine (Elva Trill, “Jurassic World:  Dominion) and cinematographer Jennifer (Flavia Watson) because A/V is just another acronym for LGTBQ+.  With the exception of Frank and Rosemary’s background on why they bought the forsaken hotel, none of the other characters constitute a piece of the pie as they are thrown into the mix, sprinkled with tidbits of intrigue, before their dispatched into the feast or famine categories.

We have ghosts in the title. There are cult members, sometimes shrouded in obscuring clothing, sometimes just lingering exposed outright. We have silent but deadly twin girls with kitchen knives. There is also a slithering creature lurking in the basement. “The Ghost of Monday” is a variety show of vile villains with very little coherence to bring the elements together, but what is clear is a mythical being at the center of the surrounding maelstrom that’s quickly closing in on the protagonists. With the script penned by a cohort of writers experienced in resort massacres and killer aquatic creatures, all director Cinquemani has to accomplish is the effectuation of ideas, but what results is haphazard derision from what feels like “Ghostship” in a hotel and looks like “The Shinning” without the isolating madness all in the confines of a very shaky and marred cinematography. The core of the story is inadvertently lost amongst the competition of where audiences should retain their attention which is a shame because at the core is a deeper, broader, and more mythically rich in Grecian horror with a gorgon immortal that’s equated as the devil itself and linked to life’s destruction if not sacrificed a corporeal shell.  Viewers will be treated to only a glimpse of that circling terror during the climatic end and, more than likely, budgetary reasons ground the story’s larger-than-life concept with only a mixed bag clash of content leading up to the end.

Plugged as Cyprus’s first native horror production, “The Ghosts of Monday” arrives onto a Blu-ray home video release from the Cleopatra Entertainment, film division of Cleopatra Records, and Jinga Films with MVD Visual distributing.  The featured release is presented in a widescreen 2.35:1 aspect ratio, shot on what IMDB has listed as the Sony CineAlta Vince with a Zeiss Supreme Prime Lens.  The AVC encoded Blu-ray retains a quite a bit of compression issues throughout the entire digitally recorded package as video ghosting is the biggest image culprit.  I’m sure that type of ghost was not what “The Ghosts of Monday” were referring to in the title.  Aliasing, banding, and small instances of blocking also appear occasionally and in conjunction with the ghosting which makes this transferred format nearly impossible to watch with hardly any detail in what should be a high-definition release that renders closer to 480 or 720p as the video decodes at a low 22 to 23Mbps average.  The Blu-ray has two audio options, an English 5.1 Dolby Digital and a LPCM Stereo 2.0. Though both outputs render nearly identical because of the lack of explosions or an extensive ambient track, the surround sound mix offers a better side to the A/V attributes with a barren-disturbance sound design and a solid score that keeps the concerned glued to the television sets, waiting for something spooky to pop out from behind. Dialogue doesn’t perceive with any issues with clear and clean conversation, as expected with most digital recordings, and is greatly centered and balanced without sounding echoey and out of depth’s scope. The bonus features are scantily applied with only an image slideshow and feature trailer, plus trailers from other Cleopatra Entertainment productions, such as “The Long Dark Trail,” “Frost,” “A Taste of Blood,” “Baphomet,” “Scavenger,” “The Hex,” and “Skin Walker.” The physical attributes of the release come with a traditional Blu-ray snapper cast with latch and cover art, that’s slightly misleading, of a glowing apparition. The region free release has a runtime of 78 minutes and is unrated. “The Ghosts of Monday” doesn’t buck the trend for Cleopatra Entertainment’s string of C-grade horror but is an unusual, new venture in the sense of strictly being a horror story without an eclectic soundtrack of signed artists to carry it through to the end.

 “The Ghosts of Monday” is now on Blu-ray Home Video!  Click to Cover to Purchase!