Category Archives: Body horror

Earth’s Greatest Threat of Destruction is an EVIL Extraterrestrial Slug! “Slither” reviewed! (Visions Home Video / 2-Disc Steelbook 4K UHD and Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Slither” Steelbook Can Be Yours! Buy it Here Today!

Wheelsy, South Carolina is a small town where the biggest event of the year is the countdown to deer hunting season.  On the eve to the start of the great hunt, an aggressive, parasitic alien entrenches itself inside a human host.  It impregnates a young woman to gestate thousands of its spawn, slug-like creatures that form telepathic link to the host and undertake its bidding.  Newly appointed Sheriff Bill Pardy, alongside his deputies, the eccentric town mayor, and longtime high school crush, Starla Grant, who’s husband was first infected by the invading extraterrestrial creature, must fight through the zombified hordes of alien controlled friends and neighbors townsfolk to stop the source from spreading and taking over the world but with their force numbers dwindling and the alien growing bigger and uglier by the second, Pardy must himself avoid being a host to the meat-hungry creature that has come to plague his small town community.

James Gunn, who has taken the MCU and DCU by storm with his creative involvement directing all of the “Guardians of the Galaxy” films, and upending the David Ayer and Zack Synder-universes with his divergent take on “Suicide Squad, and “Superman,” while also producing the just released “Supergirl,” use to bask in horror with “Slither,” a creature feature that captured the appreciation of 80’s monster movies and body horror with a zombie chaser and plenty of practical, tangible effects.  Gunn wrote and directed the now 20-year-old, 2006 movie filmed in a collective of portions of British Columbia, Canada doubling as a backwater town in South Carolina.  Brightlight pictures and Strike Entertainment produce the Gold Circle films presented movie with Paul Brooks (“White Noise,” “The Fourth Kind”), Eric Newman (“Dawn of the Dead” ’04, “The Thing” ’11), and Jeff Levine (“Shadow of the Vampire,” “ATM”) serving as producers. 

An established cast of talent comprises “Slither’s” eclectic character pool of townies being invaded by an outer space slug with a bad attitude.  “Firefly’s” Nathan Fillion is in the newly appointed Sheriff Bill Pardy and Fillion adds his usual spaceship captain comedic charm and swagger in the more grounded role as he stumbles into a world of slithering extraterrestrials that infest, digest, and gestate inside organic organisms.    Fillion’s hung up projection is for Elizabeth Banks’s Starla Grant, perhaps the most beautiful, and nicest, woman in all of Wheelsy, South Carolina,  The “Uninvited” actress adds pleasantries that are a compliment to Starla Grant but also a detriment as she’s unable to express how she really feels about her much older, well-off husband Grant Grant, played by “Henry:  Portrait of a Serial Killer” Michael Rooker.  Effectively, a love triangle ensues between the three with themes of true happiness, dissolution of a marriage, saving a marriage, love, and heartache coming into play amongst a body transformative horror that exceeds our solar system.  Rooker’s the rich Wheelsy resident who’s very protective of his trophy wife and is starting to feel the pangs of his wife pulling away from his advances but still loves her.  The fourth principal character in this quartet “The Darkling’” Tania Saulnier in what is essentially her debut protagonist role as a teen touched by the shared collective of the slugs and with her insight, provides pivotal information for the survivals to work against.  Each play their respective roles to perfection inside the chaos and mayhem of a more dominant species quickly spreading, even Gregg Henry (“Bodily Harm”) and his jaggedly crude role of town mayor fields a certain level of entertaining value to the frantic fray to keep “Slither” a light-hearted Hard-R creature feature.  The remaining cast includes Brenda Gutierrez (“Stone Cold”), Haig Sutherland (“Halloween:  Resurrection”), Jenna Fisher (“The Office”), and Don Thompson (“Horns”).

“Slither” is one of those seminal movies of the creature feature that could, or more accurately did, being a small fry horror movie that made a positive profit financially and amongst the audiences.  Of course, James Gunn found influence in his favorite horror works and borrowed, to an extent, key elements to spin his own craft that works to stand on its own two feet told mostly by its fine performances of the cast.  The down-to-Earth sci-fi action and gore is palpable and designed well in its composition of practical and computer-generated effects, especially for a mid-2000’s horror.  Gunn’s knack for black comedy works to the advantage of his brand of small-town satire and eccentric characters who can range from being charismatic and likeable to crude and inimitable.  Seeing the influences from John Carpenter’s “The Thing,” George Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead,” and Irvin S. Yeaworth Jr. and Russell S. Doughten Jr.’s “The Blob,” or maybe more so closer to  Chuck Russell’s 1988 remake of “The Blob,” won’t create a rift between the film and audiences as there’s too much to like and laugh about “Slither’s” slimy infiltration and invasion concept without it feeling hackneyed and reaching to strive to be something it’s not in its hark of a classic creature feature and science fiction monster movie.

The first time transferred in 4K, Visions Home Video, a subsidiary label of Vertigo Entertainment, releases “Slither” onto a new 2-disc, steelbook 4K UHD and Blu-ray set.  Disc specs include a 4K UHD HVEC encoded with 2160p resolution on a BD100 and a Hi-Def Blu-ray that’s AVC encoded with 1080p resolution on a BD50, and both films are presented in a widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio.  Image quality has been greatly found immersion with an image that pops off of the screen in the 4K option with the additional pixel count.  The Blu-ray holds its own and is also a fine presentation but in UHD, we’re treated to a little extra texture and a little extra clarity from the DolbyVision that can’t be achieved on the standard Blu-ray, especially around night sequences which most of the chaos and action takes place.  This is not to say the Blu-ray is unclear or obstructed as too has plenty of clarity and detail but what it doesn’t have is that deep sensory engagement of picture.  Coloring and grading are equal on both presentations that involve a more organic approach during the date and a bluish grading during night sequences to work in against the lighting.  No issues with the original 35mm elements as it’s kept clean and persevered well last 20 years, contributing to the natural resolution enhancement of the 4K transfer while also maintaining a healty but subtle grain.  The lossless English DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio has no suppressive issues with fidelity and is just as immersive as the picture quality with distinctive directionals of the back and side channels and a balanced output of stereo, LFE, and central action.  Dialogue has no issues with clarity and is prominent above the audio layering.  The effects, such as slithering slugs sounds and gunfire, offer a good amount of bang for the cinematic budget and the overall main creature sound production eclectically engineered to be funny, in its whipping tentacles with that distinctive whip crack, as it’s scary and gross with its guttural growls and slimy trails.  English SDH subtitles are available for selection.  There’s also an uncompressed Stereo 2.0 audio format available.  Special features include an audio commentary with writer/director James Gunn and actors Nathan Fillion and Michael Rooker, featurettes The Sick Minds and Slimy Days of Slither and Bringing Slither’s Creatures to Life, Gunn discussions The Genesis of Slither in an interview with the writer/director, an interview with director of photography Gregory Middleton We’ve Got Worms, an interview with editor John Axelrad Feed the Fear, an interview with special make-up effects designer Todd Masters Just a Bee Sting, an interview with composer Tyler Bates What’s Gotten Into You, a location and set tour with actor Nathan Fillion, deleted and extended scenes, a blooper reel, and trailers for film.  The Visions Home Video set case comes in a steelbook with metallic luster and an exclusive, and uncredited from what I can tell, illustrated artwork of survivors in the throes of tentacle mayhem.  The backside also includes additional artwork that has the semblance of a veiny, Resident Evil-like giant eyeball.  Both sides are primarily colored in reddish orange with blue slithering in on the front cover.  Inserted inside is a dual-sided mini folded poster with the same front cover artwork plus alternative compositional artwork on the opposite side on its rigid heavyweight construction paperwork.  The 4K UHD is region free while the Blu-ray is region locked B as it’s a UK release.  The 95-minute film is certified 15 for strong gory violence and language.

Last Rites: An early 2000s oldie but a goodie, “Slither” gives a glimpse of James Gunn’s caliber of losers become winners and to not hold back much of the violence, gore, and rough dispositions of uncouth, unsavory, and unsophisticated characters. This new 4K UHD and Blu-ray release from Visions Home Video re-invades “Slither” into our lives, taking over our brains, and becoming part of our physical media collective.

“Slither” Steelbook Can Be Yours! Buy it Here Today!

What’s Fashion Without a Little EVIL Behavior? “Helter Skelter” reviewed! (Radiance Films / Limited Edition Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Beauty is Pain. “Helter Skelter” from 88 Films!

Lilico is the hottest Japanese fashion icon.  Fans adore her, brands want her, magazines crave her, and paparazzi and photographers yearn to shoot and work with her beauty that inspires all and commands undivided attention.  However, her astonishing beauty isn’t entirely organic as multiple surgeries through unorthodox surgical procedures that enhance her from a forgettable nobody to an unforgettable somebody.  Her radical surgeries begin to show blight side effects of the surface of her skin, sending her into vanity driven sociopathic spiral of sex, mental torture, and self-destruction, also affecting those closely around her, especially her assistant Hada who takes the brunt of her maltreatment.  When a new, hot model is presented by her manager and the world begins to fall in love with her, seemingly dropping Lilico from being the face of the fashion industry, the model’s snowballing and necrotizing surgical side effects can’t be stopped from becoming all but public. 

Social commentary horror movies like “The Substance,” “The Neon Demon,” and “The Ugly Stepsister” underline the vast awfulness and extreme lengths of beauty standards.  How to keep youthful, how to manipulate the face and body, and how envy can be weaponized from the worst of counterparts are just some of the attributes, which are very accurate outside the cinema, used as tropes for the body horror subgenre where attractiveness is the core catalyst that motivates monstrosities.  These late 2010s and early 2020 films might not have been directly inspired by Mika Ninagawa’s “Helter Skelter” but definitely pulls from the same cloth.  The 2012 Japanese fashion industrialized body and psychological horror is adapted by Arisa Kaneko based off the Kyôko Okazaki manga of the same name with established manga-to-film experienced producers, Morio Amagi (“Cutie Honey”) and Mitsuru Uda (“Xxxholic”), producing the WOWOW, Parco Co. Ltd, and Asmik Ace Entertainment film.

Objectification perspective isn’t always from the outside looking in but can be looking out as well.  In “Helter Skelter,” model Lilico believes in her self-importance, treating others in subordinate to her illustriousness career as the hottest flavor in Japan’s fashion society.  Society objectifies Lilico as nothing more than a stylistic Goddess who can do no wrong and even have the smallest bit of her in their space, whether be the hot topic of conversation or to the be face of their magazine cover, whereas Lilico objectifies those all around her with eviscerating self-proclaimed eminence and dominion over their mind, body, and soul.  “Ghost Train’s” Erika Sawajiri has the perfect look and approach to celebrity derision without blatancy toward others as her expressionless face never contorts with anger, never smiles without the devilish smirk and piercing eyes, that makes the fashion icon unreadable and to sway of control during bi-polar scenes where happiness and disgust swing rapid on a totalitarianism pendulum.  Personal assistant Michiko Hada, under the performance of “R100’s” Shinobu Terajima, takes the brunt of abuse during on-the-clock and off-the-clock professional and personal time.  Terajima’s ordinary bearings for Hada make the character an easy target in contrast to Lilico’s ornate wardrobe and lavish style of living spurred by ruthless nature to be best and most beautiful, taking an authoritative sovereign stance of control in the fashion hierarchy.  Lilico’s spoiled prince behavior coincides by a fueling Kaori Momoi in a queen-like mother figure as the talent agent who mostly advises her star pupil an instigating misconduct mindset with pro-surgical advice and like-minded guidance that artificially influences her body despite the pain and dangers as well as providing a mimicking behavior of dejecting and downcast harm.  Nao Ōmori (“Ichi the Killer”), Gô Ayano (“Woman Transformation”), Kiko Mizuhara (“Attack on Titan”), Hirofumi Arai (“The Neighbor No. Thirteen”), Anne Suzuki (“Returner”), and Mieko Harada (“Ran”) all play a role in the rise and fall of Lilico.

Much like Lilico’s quickly deteriorating fractured state of mind, and body, Ninagawa utilizes a cinematic style that’s overly brilliant with neon colors and a sharp polished look that contrasts reality and distorted perception, creating a disjointed narrative digression Lilico experiences.  The hyper stylization keeps in tandem with the fashion world of flash photography and gaudy maximalism, the ultra-violence and promiscuous behavior depict the cutthroat competition of remaining beautiful and the ugliness that’s truly inside, and the sheer flaunting of indifference and superficiality lingers throughout in and out of favor of our terrible protagonist who is actually the villain and the victim of her own tale.  Each character is flawed beyond reproach and having no redeemable qualities that make them appear strong or promising to be a virtuous type.  Not even the meek and eager-to-please personal assistant Hada who takes the punishing commands of her employer and manager in a purely pitiful subjugation of oneself to not lose a job position and be in the presence of stardom.  Hada even lets Lilico invade her personal life and continues to let it happen with no choice in the matter.  “Helter Skelter” embodies the very definition of the term with its confused and hurried chaotic state in design and in story while, in the same baroque breath, disenchanting the illusion of the fashion industry and beauty standards as not glamourous and genuine but fickle and fabricated with a heavy dish of backstabbing and self-destruction. 

In the same spirit as photogenic magazine models, UK label 88 Films releases a beautifully crafted, limited-edition Blu-ray release.  The numbered release Blu-ray is AVC encoded, 1080 high-definition resolution, onto a BD50 that was already shot digitally with a Red One MX camera through Zeiss Ultra Prime and Angenieux Optimo lenses under cinematographer Daisuke Soma.  This gave “Helter Skelter” a glamorously polished look to accentuate the hyper-stylized and contemporary look that starkly discolor the centralized characters as ruthless people of fashion and high society.  When good finally enters the picture, a young model stepping to Lilico’s high heels as the next young, hot model, the harsh design of modernism is scaled back to simple and sterile aspects with more of the dramatics being held locally to the downfallen characters.  Higher contrasts create deeper shadows amongst a medium-heavy color saturation that primaries strong statement colors like fire-engine red and Duke blue.  The curvature of the anamophoric lenses, presenting in a 1.85:1 aspect ratio, do show intentional signs of wrapping at the sides to capture the entirety of the wide shots in smaller spaces but adds to the surrealistic effect and is implemented at the right moments to make it all sensible.  No compression issues to note.  The Japanese DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio and 2.0 Stereo tracks are the only two formats encoded.  The 5.1 has formidable attention to the side and back channels with the chaotic fashion-industry ambiance with erratic behaviors steering the scene.  Every action detail is highlighted to bring quieter scenes more tension and every tumultuous moments a fuller body.  The dialogue is crystal clear and layered appropriate with environmental track and soundtrack.  Moods rise up and down with the fluctuation soundtrack that pulsates in breath-holding, provocative, turning-point scenes that while melodies play in more of shocking portions to entice attention during climatic notes.  The newly translated English subtitles have no synchronization or grammatical issues to note and pace well with the visuals.  Special features include a feature in tandem audio commentary with Tori Potenza and Amber T., interviews with star Erika Sawajiri and director Mika Ninagawa, a behind the scenes of raw footage making the film, the Japanese premiere stage greeting, an opening day stage greeting, the Q&A from the Taipei Film Festival with director Mika Ninagawa, the original rehearsal footage, an image gallery, and the teaser and official trailers.  Like Ninagawa’s film, 88 Films tangible release is also hyper-stylized with newly commissioned art by Luke Insect that’s surreal, color, and slightly disturbing.  The clear Scanavo cases comes with an gold Obi strip with film and Blu-ray details and the sleeve is dual sided with original Japaense compositional design on the inside.  Inserted inside is a 23-page color booklet with a chaptered essay by Violet Burns, complete with color photo stills and promotional photos with the front and back art contrasting the two model women in a good and evil, light and dark, way.  The not rated, limited-edition Blu-ray has a runtime of 127 minutes and is A and B encoded to support playback in the Americas as well as Europe. 

Last Rites: There are plenty of horror as well as commentary films about fashion, but none do it with style quite like Mika Ninagawa and still develop an unrivaled cynicism of self-implosion.

Beauty is Pain. “Helter Skelter” from 88 Films!

EVIL’s Arms, Legs, Head…All Fall to Pieces and Want a Piece of You! “Colony Mutation” reviewed! (Visual Vengeance / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Colony Mutation” Literally Gives an Arm and a Leg for Blu-ray release!

A genetic scientist working on test batches of a resurrection formula finds out her public relations executive husband, both of whom are working for the same research company, is having a clandestine affair with another colleague.  In a fit of rage, she splashes the latest test batch liquid onto his face when confronting about his illicit affair.  As time passes, the side effects of the experimental drug crave raw red meat but requires the meat to be fresh and, more grotesquely, his appendages are able to separate and become monstrous to do his bidding driven by his impulsive need for meat.  He stalks young women, luring them into hope of a romantic evening, to feed his need.  With no cure existing, he throws caution to the wind and continues the monstrosities against the women, even against his contentious ex-wife and his side woman until he comes face-to-face with his lover’s gun-carrying sister who never trusted the married man in the first place.

Tom Berna’s one and only directorial and screenplay feature film, “Colony Mutation,” takes womanizing and sexual assault to a whole new disturbing level, mutating toxic masculinity for severe severed limb bedlam against young women.  Berna, who went on to having acting credits in independent productions of “Go to Hell,” “Vengeance of the Dead,” and, perhaps the most notable feature, “Jigsaw,” not the “Saw” spinoff story, from the late 90’s and into the early 2000s, shot the film in the Milwaukee metropolitan area to be the background for masculine predatory behavior, finding and integrating influence from body horror films from the likes of John Carpenter’s “The Thing” or David Cronenberg’s “Rabid” to show extremities with aggressive, mutated autonomy and parasitical symbiosis hungry for other humans.  Berna self-produced the film and listed as a film from Tyger Brand Coffee Productions.

David Rommel plays as Jim Matthews, a PR exec having a romantic affair with Jenny Dole (Joan Dinco) at the workplace.  Also at workplace is Jim’s wife, genetic scientist Meredith Weaver (Anna Zizzo).  While Meredith works nights or is away for business, Jim’s able to sneak away and play with Jenny, building a relationship that’s quickly getting serious for Jim, much to his chagrin.  A workplace triangle, by all means, will run to a confrontational head and does with Meredith confronting her husband’s credit card statement that lists hotel stays.   Rommel, Zizzo, and Dinco play to their character’s ability extremely well.  Rommel’s not the epitome of machoism as he’s favors a selfish and cowardice side that doesn’t allow him to break his union with wife Meredith and he doesn’t fully commit to Jenny’s head-over-heels love for him, we see this when Jim stutters and becomes reclusive when the mention of having future children come into the conversation.  Meredith’s rage causes her to toss her experimental resurrection and growth serum into his mouth agape face and this climatic act acts like a metaphor for Jim’s breaking point between the contentiousness with wife and his side piece’s neediness for more than just sex, sending Jim into sexual assault airspace where even his wife Meredith falls victim to a forced oral sex that results the mutation to blow a hole through her head.  Jim goes on to pick up bar women to then kill them for the fresh meat of his mutated biology but mostly done off screen or in the shadows and implied, which could be said as a double entendre for off screen sexual assault.  “Colony Mutation” rounds out the indie cast with Tammy Andersen, Nancy Brown, Clyaton Simchick, Tom Fugina, Yeng Monroe, Carri Krehl, J. Elizabeth Marhal, and Susan L. Cane as Jenny Dole’s sister who had a bad feeling about her new boyfriend Jim in the first place. 

If looking for a DIY body horror with plenty of ambition but short on cash, look no further than “Colony Mutation” that harnesses the B-movie mayhem of an appendage detaching, young woman feasting, monster of a man which, ironically enough, is created by a woman and is innately obsessed with devouring raw meat.  The curious about this modified man-thing, who can appear normal until time to strike then all parts detach into a feasting frenzy, is that he only attacks women, suggesting single-sex predator behavior.  Jim’s detachable limbs and other suggestive parts celebrate the independent spirit with crude construction, inventive editing and imaginative conceptions that appears antiquated on the outside but surely heartfelt in its objective – a David Cronenberg tiered body horror.  The unicellular organisms can be arms, legs, manhood, and even his head in a scene very reminiscent to John Carpenter’s spider-head moment in “The Thing” but the scene stand on its own two idiosyncratic pereopod legs, or rather four legs.  Shot on Super 8mm, the harsh details and near monochromic complexion with all the cell’s imperfections associated to provide the Tom Berna film a classic monster movie façade and since the film was shot in the early 1990s, there are very minimal period specific details that pin down a modern decade.  “Colony Mutation” could be set in the 1980s.

“Colony Mutation” is not longer detached from the body of filmic society with a new, director-supervised Blu-ray release from the Wild Eye Releasing associated company, Visual Vengeance.  The AVC encoded, 1080p resolution, BD50 is pulled, transferred, and restored from the original Super 8mm elements.  The 2K transfer retains plenty of the Super 8mm innate aesthetic with desaturated color palette, cell transparency bleed, and the dust, dirt, and scratches but never do anything of those distort the overall viewing experience.  “Colony Mutation” is a quintessential rare gem of indie filmmaking setting the bar high with practical and stop-motion special effects and pulling off a rough cut of said effects.  With the new and upped pixel count, many of the special effects scenes render over as cheesier than ever with all the minute details now exposed.  While that’s low-hanging fruit, the more problematic issue with Berna’s film is Brad Snowball’s choppy editing that often feels key scenes being cut too short or omitted for crucial continuity.  “Colony Mutation” is presented in the original full screen aspect ratio of 1:33:1. The uncompressed LPCM dual channel English Stereo offers a directionless and flat track that often sounds mono designed but the synched post-production dialogue, ADR, is evident with not an exact detailed synchronization between lips and vocals in its isolated and omnipresent attendance that never feels like it’s within the scene.  Range and depth are loss with the accompany audio track with often loss of Foley that creates moments of silence, typical with films shot on Super 8mm and kept on tighter purse strings.  Optional English subtitles are new and provided for optional selection.  Visual Vengeance always comes out swinging with supported special features on all their releases and this feature includes feature parallel audio commentary with Tom Berna, a second commentary with Weng’s Chop Magazine’s Tony Strauss, a new interview with director Tom Berna, new interview with star David Rommel, new interview with music composer Patrik Nettesheim, archived public access interview with Tom Berna In the Director’s Chair, alternate cuts from the original VHS and DVD releases, the original completed script, an image gallery, “Producer” teaser trailer, and Visual Vengeance preview trailers along with their trademark motion title menu.  The physical release comes with a Justin Coons illustrated slipcover art that’s “The Thing”-esque with additional artwork from Belgium artist STEMO.  The reversible sleeve art also includes the original VHS artwork.  Inside, there’s a sex-risky promotional illustrated mini-folded poster, a tri-folded booklet with an essay by Tony Strauss Of Milwaukee Mutations and Men:  Tom Berna’s Colony and Blu-ray acknowledgements, and a retro sticker sheet.  The region free product is not rated and has a runtime of 83 minutes.

Last Rites: Visual Vengeance brings out of the depths of obscurity Tom Bern’s “Colony Mutation” for a special features packed Blu-ray of body horror bonanza saturated with predatory male sexual addiction.

“Colony Mutation” Literally Gives an Arm and a Leg for Blu-ray release!

Cinderalla’s Beauty Evokes an EVIL of Jealously, Obsession, and Beauty Standards. “The Ugly Stepsister” reviewed! (Second Sight Films / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“The Ugly Stepsister” on 4K UHD Blu-ray from Second Sight!

Elvira’s mother weds a wealthy estate owner to re-establish life and permanence in high society.  Alongside living with her sister Alma and her new, beautiful stepsister Agnes, Elvira keeps on smile on her braced teeth though she’s passively mistreated by those around her.  When Agnes’s father suddenly passes away and it’s unearthed the estate has no money to its name, the opportunity to attend the monarchy ball for the prince to select a wife from a pool of available the virginal maidens is Elvira’s persistent dream to marry a prince and get her family back in wealth and power.  Elvira attends finishing school to learn proper lady etiquette but her braces, round nose, and pudgy exterior pushes her aside of teacher’s attention in favor of the beautiful, blond Agnes.  Primeval cosmetic surgeries, tape worms, and no sympathy from her mother send Elvira down a path of obsession despite the harm to herself as she eyes the prize of landing the prince of her dreams over her stepsister. 

Based off the classic folk and fairy tale Cinderella, debut feature film director Emilie Blichfeldt takes a different perspective on the story that retains its roots in happily ever after but redirects the core narrative to the eldest stepsister in immense obsession, pain, and suffering to obtain the seeming unobtainable, to marry a prince.  “The Ugly Stepsister” the 2025 dark comedy and body horror from Norway that emphasizes the lengths one will take to become noticeably perfect in every aesthetic way.  Blichfeldt regularly visit the concept of a deranged perception of beautiful in her short films from the 2013 documentary “Do You Like My Hair?” that aims to spin a reinvention on beauty standards by finding it from within and the more body fantastical “Sara’s Intimate Confessions” that follows a big and tall disproportional woman exploring what it means to be feminine with her overly talkative vulva.  “The Ugly Stepsister” also tackles beautiful in a more painfully, cathartic way in order to achieve, much the same way a cheerleader sustains a lower body weight to make the squad or the self-harm models put themselves through to stay thin and beautiful.  The film, entitled in it’s native Norwegian as Den stygge stesøsteren, is a coproduction between Lava Films, Film i Väst, Scanbox Entertainment, Zentropa International Sweden, and Mer Film with Lizette Jonjic, Ada Soloman, Mariusz Wlodarski, and Maria Ekerhovd in the role of international producers. 

Though a beauty already in her own right, Lea Myren donned prosthetics and makeup for the titular Elvira to make the appearance of later teen, early 20s woman just on the verge of losing the baby fat.  Other personal traits added to Elvira’s character are braces, dark corkscrew curls, and muted toned outfits to further and contrast as a perceived ugliness within the context of the era, but in reality, Elvira’s beautiful young woman already with soft, large eyes, a curvy physique, and a natural gift of goodness within her that’s twisted by exterior conventions on what is defined as beauty. Shedding some of those elements, like the braces and weight, transform Elvira into a more desirable young lady now visible to all, from her draconian etiquette teacher who initially wouldn’t give her the time of day to the Prince who first looked upon Elvira with disgust in her natural state before become an exquisite creature stemmed from surgery and other unnatural body manipulations.  Myren wonderfully careens the character right into the dirt as Elvira cuts off her nose to spite her face, damn near literally, on the quixotic quest to change her outer shell that ultimately changes her from the inside.  Constants in Elvira’s life, or way, are Agnes, who’s only referenced as Cinderella once in a look that isn’t too cinder-y, played by Thea Sofie Loch Næss (“Arctic Void”) who doesn’t struggles with her character’s looks but contends with her new family’s acute empowerment, mostly rooted in family favoritism and jealousy, as well as Alma, Elvira’s younger sister with a by far majority much more comfortable in her own skin despite having dressed similarly with frizzier, unkempt hair by way of Fo Fagerli’s approach. Loch Næss doesn’t portray the as pure and innocence of the Disney classic, with her passionate romance with the stable boy in the hay barn, but the character is fairly close in all other regards with the more significant change to the characters being the stepsisters, especially Elvira’s reserved notions turned bitter when being compared to Agnes.  Alma is altogether out of the equation with no bitterness in her heart nor with any malice whatsoever to anybody but tends to her sister’s rise and downfall with little pushback.  Ane Dahl Torp (“The Wave”) is in the role of the mother Rebekka who will do anything to advance her daughter in society, mostly for selfish reasons as we’ll gather later on through a course of characters, such as the Prince Julian (Isac Calmroth), stable boy Isak (Malte Gårdinger), brutal plastic surgeon Dr. Esthétique (Adam Lundgren), and finishing school head mistresses/lesbian lovers (Katarzyna Herman & Cecilia Forss) who have contrasting approaches, both negative, toward Elvira’s waistline. 

“The Ugly Stepsister’s” body horror is more than just a serious manipulation in losing weight and cutting more than corners toward image perfection.  The real horror is in the shame, the shaming of the body that’s overlooked, called out, and humiliated and to make matters worse for Elvira, her body type is by all of today’s standards curvy in the right places and beautiful albeit a body double was used for her pre-trim down nude scene.  Prosthetics are in place around the face and arms to make Lea Myren appear a little weightier, but the difference is extremely negligible and that’s the real power of horror when it’s terribly subtle, an already beautiful young girl succumb to peer and societal pressures that induces crazy self-harm for opinionated ideals and appearances.  Blichfeldt’s ideas of body-shaming extreme measures done by Elvira are not a far stretch from what self-conscious people do today about their weight.  Instead of swallowing a tape worm egg, one can stick a figure down their throat to achieve the same effect.  Instead of breaking a nose to re-mold with a hammer and chisel, surgery and medicines are abused ot be the new, easy, fast weight lost solution.  Blichfeldt comparative shots linger on Agnes with Elvira seething with envy and with the director’s bold choice of provocative nudity, exposing genitalia and depiction of X-rated acts, engages an alluring perversity that sheds light on a superficial world of beauty and sex, shielding the core, deeper problem of societal shame. 

Second Sight Films brings the Shudder and Vertigo Releasing North American marketed  “The Ugly Stepsister” to 4K UHD Blu-ray.  The ultra high-definition release is HVEC encoded onto a BD66 and presented in HDR10 with Dolby Vision, at 2160p, and in it’s the original aspect ratio, a European 1.66:1 widescreen.  Match the dark toned nature, the grading also exacts a somber coating with mahogany and ebony wooden structures and dimly lit castles of a Victorian era to bask in an austere state were, more so with personal happiness, is hard to come by.  Details are hard to stomach, in a good way, with proximate detail in the special effects closeups, such as in the mutilation scene where a nearly severed toes are hanging on for dear life by what little skin in left tethered to the foot, that go into macrolevel detail and is accentuated by the additional pixels.  Skin tones appear natural and unique to each individual in a purposeful contrast of fair and tanned skin along with different layers of texturing between organic qualities and the fabric outfits they wear, such as Agnes more single block outfit with a smoother design compared to Elvira’s multiple layers and pattern garb.  The Norwegian DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 has an eclectic powerhouse soundtrack of synth and string orchestra from John Erik Kaada and Vilde Tuv.  The story doesn’t have a great deal of direction use for the 5.1 mix with mostly a conversating piece with mostly diegetic ambience, leaving the 5.1 less immersive than required, but there is vitality and strength behind the dialogue and action, clear and unobscured in its clean presence.  The multitude of squishiness, again the severed toes and also the removal of the tape worm through an orifice, is highly emphasized more max effect.  Areas of depth mostly lingers around the front but there are opportune moments in medium shots for audio expression.  English subtitles are clean, accurate, and well-paced.  Special features on the standard 4K release include a new audio commentary with director Emilie Blichfeldt and filmmaker Patrik Syversen, a new audio commentary with critic Meagan Navarro, a new interview with Blichfieldt This is my Ball, a new interview with star Lea Myren Generational Trauma, a new interview with Cinderella actress Thea Sofie Loc Naess Take Up Space, a new interview with special effects artist Thomas Foldberg Character and Gore, a special effects featurette The Beauty of Ugly:  The Effects of the Ugly Stepsister, a visual essay from Kat Hughes A Cinderella Story, deleted scenes, and both the Blichfiedt short films mentioned earlier in this review:  “How Do You Like My Hair?” and “Sara’s Intimate Confessions.”  The review here is for the standard 4K UHD Blu-ray set but there is a limited edition set that includes the 1080p Blu-ray as well.  The black Amaray case features a character still of Elvira on the front cover in all her dark maiden and sweet-faced glory.  There are no physical extras inside.  UK certified 18 for strong sex, nudity, and gore, “The Ugly Stepsister” from Second Sight Films is region free and has a runtime of 109 minutes. 

Last Rites: “The Ugly Stepsister” is a yarn not yet explored in other Cinderella tales, especially when it involves body horror and a sexually explicitness that that will forever make watching the Disney classic now uncomfortable when a recalled thought from Blichfeldt’s film pops into the visual cortex. Yet, it’s a remarkably twisted story from a different perspective that isn’t magically fantastical but grim and tragic.

“The Ugly Stepsister” on 4K UHD Blu-ray from Second Sight!

A Hole in the Stratosphere Mutates a Whole Lot of EVIL! “Ozone! Attack of the Redneck Mutants!” reviewed! (Video Vengeance / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Protect the Ozone Layer or Else Meet a Mutated Redneck Fate! Buy “Ozone! Attack of the Redneck Mutants!” on Blu-ray

Arlene, a passionate university student of environment science, and acquaintance Kevin, the untroubled son of an oil tycoon, travel to Poolville, Texas where Arlene’s adamant cause to save the planet has put her on edge with the imprudent Kevin and his family’s oil drilling, planet contaminating business.  Arlene’s mission in the rural town is to test the Ozone layer after a chemical manufacture spill while Kevin tags along much to her chagrin.  Before she can analyze the effects of the spill, the residents of Poolville begin to mutate into festering, flesh-eating creatures and Arlene and Kevin are stuck in the middle of the mayhem.  The exposure mutates Poolville’s population at a slow and unpredictable rate that leaves no where safe to shelter and their own lingering presence exposes them also to the chemical agents.  The longer they stay, the greater the chance their body will transform into flesh-craving fiends, wild-eyed and disgorging green vomit trying to get to their next meal. 

On the heels of “The Abomination,” shot back-to-back in the same month and also at nearly all the same set locations, “Ozone!  Attack of the Redneck Mutants” is the perfectly obscure grindhouse film for a double bill from directors Bret McCormick, who helmed the house-shelled creature feature “The Abomination,” and Matt Devlen’s environmental bumpkin zombie horror!   Shot on location in and around Poolville and Fort Worth, Texas, the lo-fi, flesh-eating, in more ways than one, gory feature is written by Brad Redd and produced by the Devlen and McCormick due along with composer Kim Davis, credited as Marie Skylar (“Body Parts”).  The film has a strong cautionary, allegorical theme of man-made containing spill effects on the environment, such as the ozone layer in this narrative, and their underlining harmful effects on humans that go to an exaggerated level of devouring each other in bits and pieces.  The body horror indie is self-funded by McCormick and Devlen and had a short run on VHS micro-label Muther Video. 

If you’re one of the lucky ones and seen Bret McCormick’s “The Abomination,” you may notice familiar actors in Devlen’s “Ozone!  “The Attack of the Redneck Mutants!”  However, the protagonists do a reversal of demeanor with Blue Thompson as Arlene, the environmental science student who is thrust into being a competent and adept fighter against the mutants whereas her character in “The Abomination” was no different than the stereotypical female victim of horror trope.  Scott Davis tackled the creature in his house with mild composer, even when it devoured his friends and family, but Davis’s Kevin Muncy is foolish and cowardly, wailing to the top of his lungs and flailing his arms and legs when attacked like he’s drowning in deep water because he doesn’t know how to swim.  Arlene and Kevin are an unlikely pairing, environmental antagonists, stuck together in the mutated middle traversing the back country while rural residents transfigure before their eyes into flesh-hungry fiends.  Loafing gun-toter Wade McCoy and his mother Ruby are two of those Poolville denizens that that come under threat.  Played by Brad McCormick, Wade’s a bit of a stereotypical caricature of the term redneck with plaid shirt, truck hat, beer in hand, and shotgun at the ready, as seen in earlier scenes with his character blowing off the broad face of old gourdes in his backyard.  Wade’s mother Ruby (Jance Williams, “Tabloid”)) is a fireball in her own aged way that’s gives evidence to Wade’s beer, guns, and philandering ways.  The rest of the cast are all farming mutants who receive sangre-spilling screentime with Luther Webb, Barry Stephen, Londy Porter, Regina Hackenbush, Leon Bardol and Lorraine Dowdy, Rhonda Rooney, and Barbara Dow as their victims. 

Spitting in the face of the budget’s limited purse strings, or rather spewing neon green glop right into it, “Ozone!  Attack of the Redneck Mutants!” has tremendous cult appeal with its sly editing of human-to-mutant transfiguration and its evisceration and cannibalism gore effects that munches on intestines, a staple dish for the prototypical zombie, undead or otherwise.  The horror looks monstrously great on screen with simple syrup editing under its grindhouse celluloid aesthetic that concentrates a steady transformation of surviving environmental terror, a theme that’s been persistently weighty on activists, politicians, and science communities’ shoulders and minds to this date.  Man-made chemicals and chemical reactions have had a known effect on the ozone layer since the mid-1970s when chemists found chlorofluorocarbons, such as in certain aerosols, had a negative depleting result on the ozone in the stratosphere.  “Ozone!  Attack of the Redneck Mutants!” pulls from that scientific fact and swirls it with an extreme horror element devasting to humanity.  Devlen and director of photography Guy Rafferty secure perfectly framed shots, with one sequence coming to mind of a grass field with wildflowers and buzzing with nature and the camera pans up and over a rolling hill toward a smokestack manufacturer that makes the connection stronger and more impactful to the story.  There’s also a subtle conspiracy between oil tycoon inheritor having some involvement in his father’s oil business and the twist knowledge that his family has a relationship in owning and distributor culprit chemical substances that igniting hell on Earth, sparking extended internal beef, as if the protagonists weren’t already polar opposites butting heads and at each other’s throats between their ideals of big oil and an environmental science, the latter on the precipice of being a muckraker. 

Tapping into the same man-made environmental crisis horror to the likes of “Godzilla” and “The Crazies” and if you’re hungry for more of the same subgenre, “Ozone!  Attack of the Redneck Zombies” is a bloody good time on a downsized appetite, now available on Blu-ray for the first time from Visual Vengeance, a partner label from Wild Eye Releasing.  The director approved standard definition master from the original 8mm elements comes out of the antiquated format shadows onto an AVC encoded BD50 but the transfer was done from super 8 celluloid, retaining much of the emulsion gaps in light leaks and garners a fair amount of speckling, cigarette burns, and vertical scratching but the overall original print has been cared for, well preserved to offer an upgraded resolution as much as the increase in pixels allows with an untouched grading that keeps the nostalgic, sandstone complexion.  A full screen 1.33:1 is the original aspect ratio applied also here on the Blu-ray.  The English PCM mono track is about as a feeble as you expect but adds to the nostalgia in it’s muffled, boxy, and slightly hissy-scratching post-production recording.  You honestly don’t need it touch up or have it upgraded into channel multitude or else it loses that signature singularity associated with hard-to-find, cult budget horror from the 80s.  The front channel produces all the action and dialogue surrounded by simple fixed score and it works better than most of its ilk, but you’ll still find it lacking vitality and having a mismatch gap between the action and the audio.  English subtitles are available.   Where the technical aspects of a Blu-ray are always subpar, because of the fair warning received at the beginning of each film, the encoded and physical special features are what fans crave from the always happy to delivery Visual Vengeance label.  Encoded is a commentary with producer/co-star Bret McCormick and actress Blue Thompson, a second commentary from horror/film experts Sam Panico and Bill Van Ryn, an interview with actress Blue Thompson which is an extension of her “The Abomination” interview on that Blu-ray release, location visits, deleted scenes and outtakes, including special effects behind-the-scenes, without audio, the original VHS intro reel from Muther Video, an archived interview with Matt Devlen from a Cinema Wasteland screening, a producer trailer reel from Matt Devlen, Devlen’s short film “Babies,” actress Barbara Dow’s acting reel, an interview with fellow era director Mark Pirro (“Nudist Colony of the Dead”) on the film, an archived public access TV interview Hollywood Unseen, a Devlen interview on the Let’s Watch Movies podcast, feature image gallery, the trailer for McCormick’s “Tabloid,” and other Visual Vengeance preview trailers.  A massively encoded presence is always accompanied by a massive physical presence, beginning with a newly commissioned cover art by graphic artist, The Dude Designs, on the cardboard slipcover.  The same art is also the primary art on the reversible sleeve, but I like to turn it around, switch it up, to reflect the original VHS box art.  Inserted in the clear Amaray is a mini-folded poster with even more new art by a different artist, Andrei Bouzikov, an official, black and white comic book adaptation with Marc Gras doing all the artwork from cover-to-cover, a white paper puke bag with the feature title, a Muther Video sticker, and a retro sticker sheet from Visual Vengeance!  A Visual Vengeance release is like opening a present on Christmas morning!  The region free, unrated film has 93-minute run which, in my honest opinion, is a bit too long for the story being told as does drag between first and second acts, and if memory serves me, “The Abomination” was exactly the same way.

Last Rites: Gun-carrying, tobacco-spitting, beer-drink rednecks stand no chance against the manmade decay of planet Earth in this done-right DIY horror from Matt Devlen that’s creatively spewing its neon juices galore! Video Vengeance sheds light on another obscure release that doesn’t deserve to be at the bottom of the barrel with its natural celluloid intact, a whole lot of extra goodies in the special features, and a fun and yearned full physical presence too good to be true.

Protect the Ozone Layer or Else Meet a Mutated Redneck Fate! Buy “Ozone! Attack of the Redneck Mutants!” on Blu-ray