Category Archives: Chilly Thrilly

The EVIL Clown Takeover is Has Begun! “Helloween” reviewed! (101 FIlms / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Just in Time for the Season. “Helloween” on a 101 Films “Bluray!

October 31, 1996 – A disturbed 10-year-old Carl Cane, donning red and white lashes and slashes clown makeup, slayed his fostered before brutally axing down a healthcare social worker assigned to his case. Twenty years later, Cane has been locked away at Morton Psychiatric Prison for most of his life but still manages to be a high-risk inmate wearing the same clown makeup.  In ward of his care is Dr. Ellen Marks who endorses stringent safety protocols and has a stern bedside care for her dangerously persuasive patient.  Flash forward 20 years later during the 2016 #clownpanic craze, the mass clown sightings provide cover for Cane to mastermind his escape and influence the disenfranchised to wear his lashes and slashes maquillage and rise against all of Britain, Dr. Marks must race home to protect her daughters as they become marked in Cane’s chaos scheme of nationwide epidemic violence.  This year, Halloween is more tricks than treats in a manipulative game of incited rise against authority with a murderous madman at the helm. 

Not to be confused with the German metal band of the same name, the 2025 film “Helloween” is a UK production that’s been compared to “The Purge” meets “The Joker” from writer-director Phil Claydon (“Vampire Killers,” “Within”).  “Helloween’s” story pans briefly from 1996 to primarily set in 2016, the year when clown panic was a national news item where mysteriously scary clowns would show up in random places and projecting a menacing way about them, enough so to cause public concern.  Claydon expands upon the year-specific-craze with a killer clown motif and a coordinated attack on a nation’s infrastructure, creating national havoc while the mastermind of ceremonies stays with his bubble of motive, to completely destroy his psych ward physician in charge of his austere care.  “Helloween” is a production of Shogun Films under the producing eye of Jonathan Sothcott with Lance Patrick co-producing. 

For “Helloween” to be centered around an incitive massive violent force, one that’s purely evil, demented, wicked, etc., that character is required to be bigger than life in a show of calculated malevolence and will be ultimately the driving juggernaut key to the film’s success.  Carl Cane is that described character, an educated mental case hellbent on being a reign of chaos from the very moment his 10-year-old self, fostered and abused through the social childcare system, chops up his foster parents and social worker without blinking an eye of hesitation.  However, the 1996 boy and the 2016 man of Carl Cane showcase two different genus of the same sociopathic species as adult Carl Cane has a knack for the flamboyant flair and is a talkative taskmaster whereas his younger version is about as quiet as a calculating church mouse.  Forever the bridesmaid and never the bride, Ronan Summers finally receives his time to shine and expel his talent to the world as a prominently gaudy villain donning edgy Joker-esque clown face makeup and sporting a dirty inmate jumpsuit.  There’s always the expectations Batman will be coming down from the rooftop or creeping from out of the shadows at any moment!  Summers, who did have a small role in “The Dark Knight” as well as be a supporting actor alongside Richard Brake in “The Dare” and had numerous voice acting roles in notable videogames, such as “Dead Island 2,” “Wolfenstein:  The Old Blood,” and “Cyberpunk 2077,” has tremendous presence with a spine-shattering laugh and creates a dark arura around Cane’s ambivalent supernatural abilities.  Jeanine Nerissa Sothcott, wife of Shogun Films producer Jonathan Sothcott, goes up against the antagonist playing Summers as Dr. Ellen Marks, head of Cane’s psychiatric ward.  The “Peter Rabid” actress finds herself on the precipice of a clown barrage against her family that has its own secrets and troubles teenagers (or adult?) as there is divisive tension between the planned daughter of Leah (Caroline Wilde, “Ghost”) and the unplanned and resentful daughter Alice (Megan Marszal).  Michael Paré (“Streets of Fire”) is perhaps the biggest name, an American name, attached to the project as an investigative reporter unearthing a theorized connection between Cane and the coordinated clownpanic sightings and Paré’s about as straightforward and conventional unimpactful in performance as they come.  The cast rounds out with Shanton Dixon, Samantha Loxley (“Hosts”), and Tamsin Dean (“Everyone is Going to Die”).

Though “Helloween” borrows pieces of “The Purge” and “The Joker,” another generous portion of the inspirational pie is “Halloween.”  Not only does “Halloween” and “Helloween” share similar titling but also certain “Helloween” plot points and framed shots that resemble a clown costumed Micheal Myers expressionlessly exiting his family home after murdering older sister Judith.  Claydon’s nods may dilute the original story some but the mashup manages to curate an interesting tale of a large scale terror on a small time budget by using televised media to indicate Cane’s grandiose scheme from the confines of his impenetrable holding cell and creation tension with good, old-fashioned editing and framed shots for those jump scare and distressing moments.  One thing is for sure that hinders the large-scale scenario but doesn’t obliterate the affect it has in its entirety is the small number of locations used.  Much of the story takes place between two locations:  the Morton Prison and Dr. Ellen Marks’s home.   These two primary locations service most of the story’s core elements and, perhaps, Claydon relied too heavily on news media to spread the clown carnage rather than have it unfold in frame with not only more locations of active aggressive assaults, like we see in “The Purge” series but also hire more extras as clown faced Cane acolytes and have a number of victims suffer at the hands of clownpanic.  Set designs, colorful lighting, stark contrasting features, the rapid pace storytelling, and the performances do pick up the slack and hold onto that collapsing of society sensation in more of a localized manner rather than widespread.  The twist ending pops disjointedly with a welcomed turn of events but isn’t setup with a crucial visual or expositional detail, leaving on the table the one important puzzle piece of the considerable why rather than focusing on the exposed when and how. 

101 Films isn’t clowning around with their new Blu-ray release of “Helloween.”  AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition resolution, and stored on a BD50, “Helloween” has plenty of picture quality positives going for albeit the film’s primary color spectrum, a Spirit Halloween store amount of haze and smoke machines, and plenty of negative area shadows all of which wreak havoc of the encoding of data.  One way to judge video compression is the ability to delineate every object in the feature from inanimate to animate and there’s no questioning in the presentation as all objects have an elucidation effect that doesn’t work the mind harder than it should.  Claydon works depth to create effective highly taut moments while staying in the purge of light and hope atmospherics of omnipresent darkness.  Curiously, the Blu-ray back cover mentions the feature containing an English uncompressed Stereo PCM and a compressed English DTS-HD MA 5.1 with the extras solely being a Stereo PCM.  However, the Dolby audio icon is stamped on both back cover and DVD art.  While there’s no menu option to toggle between either feature track, my play listed the encoded audio as the PCM Stereo and DTS-HD MA 5.1 which can be concurred with by the uninhibited punchiness that heightens the scares and the eerie hallmarks of lightning cracks, creaky floors, and other loud bang sounds.  Ronan Summers’s is a proper English speaker with great emphasis on his pronunciations, much like Paré’s classic westerner approach to any situation and role, but there are some UK dialects that skirt the cockney accents and though difficult to cling to, the mix greatly makes clear the intended word or sentence without any issues.  UK English subtitles are optionally available.  Special features include a commentary track with director Phil Claydon, a behind-the-scenes featurette with cast and crew interviews going through their experiences and roles, and the film’s theatrical trailer.  There is also listed deleted scenes but there’s an issue with the encoded playback as when pressed, the option glitches back to the bonus features scene, never moving forward into the deleted scenes.  The clear Amaray case with one-sided art has a less-is-more cover art with a face closeup of Summers in a sinister expressed Cane makeup with a blade silhouette just in front-right of him.  While we’ve seen a few inconsistencies with these release – the audio track conflicts and the deleted scenes bug on the encoding – there’s one more variance with the UK rating.  The case has a UK rating of 15 for Strong Violence, Bloody Images, Threat, and Language; however, the disc is pressed with a UK 18 classification.  “Helloween” clocks in at 93 minutes and is locked with a region B playback. 

Last Rites: The energy from Phil Claydon’s “Helloween” amps up and matches Ronan Summers’s intellectual madman persona with a smoke and mirrors widespread mayhem and reliable jump scares that breed infectious tension for clowns and the disenfranchised in this quaint and modern day clownsploitation.

Just in Time for the Season. “Helloween” on a 101 Films “Bluray!

EVIL Minds the Door! “Raw Meat” reviewed! (Blue Underground /2-Disc 4K UHD Blu-ray and Standard Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Raw Meat” Its What’s for 4K UHD and Standard Blu-ray Dinner!

Young lovers Alex Campbell, an American studying abroad, and Patricia Wilson discover an unconscious man on the steps of a London metro subway station.  When they alert a beat cop and make their way back to the spot, the man had vanished.  Assuming the well-dressed man an alcoholic sleeping off a bender, David and Patricia move on with their lives while the police report comes across the desk of Inspector Calhoun, an eccentric investigator who recalls a recent string of disappearances surrounding the same London station.  Over the next few days, several more station related disappearances occur, forcing Inspector Calhoun to dig deeper into the mysterious circumstances involving a missing Mi-5 agent and three subway employees with David and Patricia his only witness to at least one of them.  When Patricia suddenly goes missing with her last known siting at the subway station, a concerned David explores the train tunnels that connect the last known whereabouts of all whom have vanished, leading him to a tragic history of collateral damage survival, long forgotten generational lineage, and cannibalism. 

London, England was the first to introduce the metro subway station to the world in 1863 with the Metropolitan Railway.  It seems only fitting that London be the setting for “Raw Meat,” a subterrain horror that integrates London’s metro history with the consequential hazards of an early underground railway, the insufficient costs that prove to be costly, and the pitied blamelessness of unthinkable survival from neglectful businesses.  Originally entitled “Death Line,” rebranded to “Raw Meat” for American audiences, the 1972 film is actually directed by an American, Chicagoan Gary Sherman, in his debut and would go on to helm “Dead & Buried” and “Poltergeist III.”  Based off an original concept form Sherman, one that takes the plausibility and some fact of workers being buried under a collapsed railway project and survive generationally living off the nourishment of each other in more ways than one, the script is penned by Ceri Jones and is a production of Harbor Ventures and Kanter-Ladd Productions with the late “Police Academy” franchise’s Paul Maslansky producing

I’m going to preface this character introduction with “Raw Meat” would not have been as entertaining if it wasn’t for the peak performance by a more eccentric Donald Pleasance in a pre-“Halloween” performance.  As Inspector Calhoun, Pleasence is fully in charge as an intimidating case investigator with a snarky wit, or as Christopher Lee’s MI-5 character put it, what a droll fellow you are in a stiff yet jab remark exchange interaction between the two British icons of a bygone cinema industry.  Lee’s role is only a fraction in comparison to Pleasance and would have been two big personalties too big for the meager production to contain.  Another staggeringly highlighted performance comes from an unknown in Hugh Armstrong’s portrayal of the subhuman cannibal whose fellow inbred family members have all left by deceased means, leaving him alone and the last of his kind with mumbling tunnel vernacular and unkempt open sores all over his body and face in a state of unhealthy living conditions.  Armstrong’s acted ungainliness renders the man a monster amongst society standards but also sheds a softer, compassionate light upon reflection of his forced position into a world he knowns no better about having grown up completely in the railway tunnels all his life, living off what he can scramble up which included human flesh and organs.  In contrast to Pleasance and Armstrong, David Ladd (“The Klansman”) and Sharon Gurney (“Crucible of Horror”) impress as middle ground, plain as can be, characters being two lovers in the midst of mystery, almost becoming history themselves when the man targets her to amend his loneliness in a gibberish mind the door effort to show her affection.  Normal Rossington (“House of the Long Shadows”) and Heather Stoney are the only two understated completely overstated in the film as Inspector Calhoun’s constant whips demands for bolos and tea.  James Cossins, Hugh Dickson, Jack Woolgar, Clive Swift, Gerry Crampton, Terence Plummer, and Gordon Petrie pull into the station as the remaining cast.

Hovering between the horrifying truth of early construction, underground railway accidents and the urban legend of trapped workers under tunnel collapses, Gary Sherman unearths middle ground terror somewhere in between the two with a plausible terror line narrative that not only instills recognition of the past and those who gave the ultimate sacrifice but also invites the nonfictional hunting-cannibal rising to the surface in search for food and, to an extent, companionship.  The cast elevates “Raw Meat’s” character efflorescence but there’s also other areas to illuminate its noteworthiness that take the film from out of the tunnel shadows as cinematographer Alex Thomson’s bleak tunnel aesthetic rouses filth and a sense of hardcore survival over a century.  The 7-minute tracking shot near the beginning, at the introduction of the cannibal’s tunnel home depicted with a decorum of decaying and freshly strewn corpses salvaged for their organic parts, is an astonishing backwards tracking shot without a blip of hesitation and lingering just enough to seed an unsettling undergrowth of grisly ghastliness.  The only drawback from “Raw Meat,” if looking for one or perhaps it’s not even a big deal, lies with the young couple Alex and Patricia.  It’s possible to stumble into a situation, as they did after coming off the last train for the night and crossing paths with an unconscious man on the staircase up to the surface; however, Alex and Patricia were not exactly looking for trouble or pursuing a follow up on the man’s health-and-wellbeing, God knows they argued over about their stance on helping ailed strangers in public, but they wind up having this off topic tangent about said contentious topic and rebuild the tumbled down building blocks of their relationship for a stronger bond.  Yet, lightning strikes twice in the subway tunnel and Patricia is whisked away by the tunnel ghoul in a second pure coincidental interaction that ignites Alex to make good on that stronger bond with Patrica by investigating her last known whereabouts.

Be a cannibal and consume “Raw Meat” on a new 4K UHD and Standard Blu-ray 2-Dsic combo set from Blue Underground. Restored and scanned in 4K 16-bit from the original uncensored camera negative with Dolby Vision HDR and presented in a widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio, “Raw Meat” comes from out of the near total blackout of tunnelling darkness of standard definition and poorly contrasted previous Blu-ray editions with a precision of delineating crafting brilliance, adding depth of separation between object and background.  The HVC encoded,2160p ultra high-definition resolution, BD66 was well aimed to squash any compression issues, leaving blacks black and textures coarse that nearly lift off the screen.  You can actually try and count the whiskers on Christopher Lee’s caterpillar mustache.  Colors have also improved and enhanced in saturation without being overly intensifying; “Raw Meat” thrives on the dank, dark world of not only the abandoned tunnel line but also the cold and sleazed London streets.  Alex Thomson’s tunnel life aesthetic musters an earthy and dingy frontage and coupled with some hard glowing red, yellows, and the subsequently mix orange, there’s a real harrowing subterranean tone in the man’s macabre ossuary home.  The 2nd disc standard Blu-ray is AVC encoded, 1080p resolution, BD50.  Blue Underground’s release offers multiple audio options, including a new Dolby Atmos mix alongside the already established DTS-HD 5.1, both rendered in English.  Toggling between both surround sound mixes, there’s little-to-no difference in the immersive experience.  Atmos provides an echoier shaft experience that can be heard as directionless whereas the DTS specifies the reverberating soundwave direction based on channel markers.  Mind the Door is certainly more accentuated as it lingers through the chambers just a little more ubiquitous and chillingly underscored.  With no crackling or hissing, dialogue is clean, clear, and robust that solidifies Donald Pleasance as a master of quick wit and blunt investigation tactics as well as the track cherishing the quality of all other players involved.  Some instances of dialogue are ADR, likely due to poor record quality, resulting in an artificial separation between the action frame and the post-production recording.  Train sounds play a supporting factor and are acutely integrated into the design of a makeshift substation construction from an abandoned platform.  The other audio options include an English 1.0 DTS-HD and a dubbed French 1.0 DTS-HD.  English SDH are available.  Disc 1 – the 4K UHD Blu-ray – contains two commentaries a 1) archived writer-director Gary Sherman, producer Paul Maslansky, and assistant director Lewis More O’Farrell and 2) a new critique and analyst commentary discussion from film historians Nathaniel Thompson and Troy Howarth.  Bringing up the UHD rear are radio/TV spots and various trailer cuts.  Disc 2 – standard Blu-ray – has all of the above on disc one plus an interview with writer-director Gary Sherman and executive producers Jay Kanter and Alan Ladd Jr. Tales from the Tube, an interview with star David Ladd, producer Paul Maslansky, and assistant director Lewis More O’Ferrall From the Depths, and an interview with the now late Hugh Armstrong, the cannibal tunnel man, Mind the Doors.  An extended poster and still gallery flesh out the standard Blu-ray’s supplemental content.  The classic poster art has been upgraded to a textile vision of blood red and half-naked men and women with blank chromium eyes within the embossed image on the slipcover and that extends to the sides and back of the O-slip.  The same illustration also graces the black 4K UHD Amaray as primary cover art, but this different variation has more natural coloring on the hair, tattered clothes, and skin tones on the white-eyed ghoulish faces.  The reverse side of the cover is the original “Death Line” titled cover art as seen on the old MGM DVD with the bearded man walking on the railway with a lit-up train to his back and a woman lying seemingly dead on the rails in front of him.  The Blue Underground release is Not rated, clocks in at 87-minutes, and is encoded to play in all regions.

Last Rites: A classic of subterranean horror, “Raw Meat” is much more than a broad line of cannibalistic terror. The new Blue Underground Ultra Hi-Def release illuminates the wretched state of being and the ugly truth of generational survival that provides a strange brew of compassion for the forced feral human who feeds on human flesh.

“Raw Meat” Its What’s for 4K UHD and Standard Blu-ray Dinner!

Enjoy The Last Night in EVIL’s Hotel. “The Innkeepers” reviewed! (Second Sight Films / 4K UHD Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Book a Copy of “The Innkeepers” on 4K Ultra High-Definition!

The Yankee Pedlar is a historic hospitality hotel with over 100 years of service that comes with its own notorious past and haunted tidings.  On the verge of closing for good, the Yankee Pedlar has one more weekend to remain open and house guests but with only a handful of rooms occupied, there’s not much else to do for the two innkeepers, Claire and Luke.  As a way to pass the time, Claire is eager to video capture spooky events to feed into Luke’s website based off the hotel’s history in the death of Madeline O’Malle, a bride to be who committed suicide on her wedding day when the finance no-showed and her corpse was left to rot for 3 days in the basement as hotel owners feared for bad publicity, but when eerie begin to plague, call for her, with visions of a bloodied O’Malle in a white gown, Claire finds herself in the dangerous company with a permanent guest at the dying hotel. 

Ti West, the established genre director with the famed “X” trilogy, kept audiences pale in fear and the hairs on the back of their neck stiff and straight up with his written-and-directed horror films that retained staying power amongst fans.  2009’s “The House of the Devil” is considered one of the more recent better throwback horrors of our time surrounding classic tropes like a satanic cult and a home alone babysitter.  West’s 2011 film  “The Innkeepers” comes at a rebound time when his commercial picture, “Cabin Fever 2:  Spring Fever”, sequel to Eli Roth’s breakthrough hit from 2002 about a flesh-eating virus, didn’t quite feel like his film and “The Innkeepers” also hit a little different by shielding audiences from any type of horrific, on screen splatter violence and be concentrated on pure fear of the senses.  Though narratively set in perhaps Pennsylvania due to some references of towns an hour outside of Philadelphia, “The Innkeepers” was actually filmed more North in Connecticut with the real-life Yankee Pedlar building.  Larry Fessenden (“The Last Winter,” “Rehab”) of Glass Eye Pix and Derek Curl of Darksky Pictures co-produce the film along with Peter Phok and Ti West. 

In the two principal roles of Claire and Luke is “Barbarian’s” Sara Paxton as an unmotivated hotel clerk coasting until the very, bitter end and “Cheap Thrill’s” Pat Healy as a blasé and uninterested front desk colleague interested in getting on the popular haunted house train with his own website about their employer’s centenarian hotel.  Paxton inarguably shoulders much of the screentime as the girl who cried wolf when she experience’s the sounds of a wolf, aka the spooky serenades of one Madeline O’Malle, and the visual eviscerations of her bloodied corpse that would scare the bejesus out of anyone.  However, the frights are not enough to seemingly strike fear in Paxton’s shield of composure or even enough to put West’s story to rest with a simple I’m outta here as most of us chickens would flock toward the exit on the first instance waking from a vivid dream too real for comfort.  Healy ultimately steals the primary performance away from Paxton with his own gruff and irritated by everything:  the hotel, the guests, his own pitiful existence.  Healy does a nice job creating that subtle tension between Luke and Claire, knowing Luke’s own hangups lie somewhere in between and haven’t been exposed yet, all the while being a sarcastic boor for most of the time.  There are also side characters in the form of random guests occupying the skeleton-crewed hotel bringing with them their own set of baggage.  One of guests is Kelly McGillis and the “Top Gun” actress, in a bit of a meta-role of an aging actress turned mystic.  There’s also Alison Bartlett (Gina from various Sesame Street shows and specials) and Jake Ryan (“Asteroid City”) as scorned wife and her son and the peculiar older gentlemen, played by George Riddle, who requests a special room and will not take no for an answer.  One of the more curious castings is Girls’ Lena Dunham as a coffeeshop barista in a one and only brief scene that doesn’t add really anything to the whole in a pointlessly random interaction with Claire that, perhaps, plays off Claire’s repetitiveness and stasis life of going there everyday but not really knowing much about the barista, who is apparently always there too. 

Juggling between the blended tones of comedy and horror, Ti West doesn’t commingle the two directly into one scene, keeping distinction for one or the other in their individualized moments.  This leaves little room for alleviating dread levity inside the scare moment after building tension and fear of being chased or waiting for the silence to be broken but an unsuspected jump scare.  Outside the context of the fright-filled moment, back and forth quips and playful antics between Luke and Claire as two bored and starved for company innkeepers in the hotel’s waning days are delivered in brightly lit rooms and mostly shared with another person to be a telltale safe space against the malevolence of serrating spook-house intensity that often lingers and waits on with bated breath.  In the innermost between is Claire’s internal struggle to cope with the impending outcome that there is nothing on the horizon for her.  No secure job, no ambitions, no plans of any kind are seemingly providing the character with no hope and in that stagnation, she desperately holds onto what’s nearby – Luke’s interest in the Yankee Pedlar’s hauntings.  Enhanced by the odd actions and placement of the modicum of guests – McGillis as a crystal charm intuitive and Riddle as a strange-enough older man with a specific room fascination – Claire motivation to reveal Madeline O’Malle becomes tenfold because of her unconscious lack to move forward in life, which then spurs the question, is Claire’s experiences grounded in truth or are they just a downspout of manifestations induced compensation?  You’ll have to be the judge.

Like “House of the Devil,” another of Ti West films makes the Second Sight Film cut onto a newly restored 4K scanned UHD Blu-ray release.  “The Innkeepers” HVEC encoded, 2160p ultra high-definition, BD100 has the true presence of quality video with a gradual improvement in the finer details of a greater pixel count inside the HDR with Dolby Vision.  Though digitally recorded with a no imperfections to note from previous releases, Second Sight’s release does appear sharper and deeper around the black levels that often improve with better resolution and suitable compression and with a good portion of the story taking place in the dark recesses of a hotel basement and the in the shadows of unlit rooms, there’s no visual compression issue or loss of expected detail.  Contrastively, darker scenes appear more lit by a lower contrast but still, the details are there in depth and in closeup.  The English DTS-HD 5.1 surround sound audio track diffuses the spread of atmospheric creepiness – ghosts whispers, nondiegetic bangs and clangs, and a Jeff Grace building orchestral score that keeps the heart bumping (think Richard Band’s “Re-Animator” but with more lulls”).  Dialogue is prominently clear and in front of the aforesaid layers with depth mostly between Claire and Luke’s conversing in the lobby and range limited to, again, the aforesaid.  English subtitles are available.  Though this review is catered to the limited edition, rigid slipbox release full of tangible goodies, the standard release does have encoded a small army of special features that has two audio commentaries with the first including Ti West, producer Larry Fessenden of Glass Eye Pix, producer Peter Phok, and sound designer Graham Reznick and the second commentary also West but with principal actors Sara Paxton and Pat Healy.  A slew of new interviews provide a well-rounded, in-depth look at the creative design as It West A Lasting Memory, Pat Healy Let’s Make This Good, Larry Fessenden Our Dysfunctional World, director of photography Eliot Rockett Living in the Process, composer Jeff Grace Cast a Wide Net, and line producer Jacob Jaffke A Validating Moment contribute to the retrospective.  Special features round out with archival behind-the-scenes and the trailer.  The physical presence of Second Sight’s “The Innkeepers” keeps in-line with previous standard edition 4K releases with a black Amaray case and a monochromic grayish illustrative cover art setting audiences up for ghostly expectations.  The UK certified 15 release contains strong horror, gore, language, and sex reference – though the gore is subtle and definitely not over-the-top or even explicit.  This particular UK release, that has a runtime of 101 minutes, is region free and presented in a widescreen 2.40:1 aspect ratio.

Last Rites: “The Innkeepers” works, if not wriggles, into the brain, much like the invasive worthlessness inside Claire’s swirling mind, and the Second Sight Films’ 4K UHD Blu-ray is an ultimate celebration of not only the film itself, but also the venerable work of the horror genre’s freshest master Ti West.

Book a Copy of “The Innkeepers” on 4K Ultra High-Definition!

Rash Decisions Permeate EVIL’s Presence. “When Evil Lurks” reviewed! (Second Sight Films / 4K UHD Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“When Evil Lurks” 4K UHD Blu-ray for Purchase!

Two brothers in a small, remote community discover a neighboring man infested and rotting with a demon inside the body.  Fearing evil will spread once the birthed demon is free from the bloated and pus-oozing human host, they move the body miles out of town with the help of an impatient and bellicose farmer, but when they lose the body, a dark violent force spreads across their rural outlook, beginning with the horrendous death of the farmer and his pregnant wife.  Escaping to the city, the two brothers hightail out of town, picking up family along the way, only to unintentionally spread evil from contamination by the rotting body.  Local folklore has a set of established rules, seven rules in fact, when face-to-face with a demon and they enlist a reclusive woman, a proper cleaner of the rotten, to help them against the clinging evil determined to never let their family go unscathed. 

The 2023 released, heavy demonic and folkloric horror from Argentina, entitled “When Evil Lurks,” tells the whole story of a family’s past regrets, the road-splitting life choices they make, and the consequences that follow using graphic, unabashed violence and a campiness that’s corrosive to the soul.  Demián Rugna writes-and-directs “When Evil Lurks,” aka “Cuando acecha la maldad,” after his breakout hit “Terrified” from 2017.  The Buenos Aires filmmaker continues to push a singular amalgamate of wide-range tradition and horror to the extent the world has never seen, and he continues to shoot on location from his own country, mostly in or around his home municipality.  Fernando Díaz of Machaco Films alongside Roxana Ramos under her founded production company Aramos Cine with the support of the national cinema institute, the Instituto Nacional de Cine y Artes Audiovisuales or the INCAA, and the streaming horror service and productions, Shudder.

“When Evil Lurks” primarily follows Pedro and Jimi, two brothers living on the outs of their own lives stagnantly inside their rural family home.  Ezequiel Rodríguez (“Legions”) sports a grizzly beard as the lead, older brother Pedro who frantically and desperately needs to get his family away from the spreading evil while returning to collaborate with Rugna “Terrified” actor Demián Salomón tracks as a more youthful footloose, Jimi, not tied down by a family or even a girlfriend but rather is dialogued as free lover amongst women.  Every character they encounter exposes them to the evils that lie ahead, or generally around the vicinity, as the this rotten, as they label the formless rotten presence that is solely an inhabitant of people and animals alike, can jump to another host if the rules are not followed, with the most common rule being broken is using gun powder to kill the possessed rotten.  Up for to be demonic fodder is Pedro’s estranged family who have alienated him because of his ambiguities’ surrounding possible unforgivable crimes and family abandonment.  The latter speaks more specifically to his severely autistic son Jair (“Emilio Vodanovich, “Fever Dream”) Pedro once hated himself for spawning, per his ex-wife and restraining order enacting Sabrina (Virginia Garófalo, “La Vagancia”), but his Pedro’s pre-narrative occurred change of heart sends him frantically into the fire to save his children Jair and younger brother Santino (Marcelo Michinaux, “Fever Dream”).  Also demonically targeted is Jimi’s once city affair now turned socially isolated former cowwoman-turned-rotten cleaner Mirta (“Silvina Sabater, “The Wrath of God”).  Mirta pivotally provides audiences insight by solidifying what other characters only know by hearsay or try to understand intuitively about the rottens, or the possessed, and how it spreads and what rules to follow.  Without Mirta, a lot of the supernatural circumstances involving children, the insidiousness, and the mindset of evil.  Other cast members interlocked with the gruesome violence and gut-wrenched storytelling is Luis Ziembrowski (“The Rotten Link”), Paul Rubinstesztein (“Portraits of the Apocalypse”), Isabel Quinteros (“High Heels”), Lucrecia Nirón Talazac, Ricardo Velázquez, Desirée Salgueiro (“Luciferina”), Federico Liss (“Portraits of the Apocalypse”), and Berta Muñiz (“Plaga Zombie”) as the voice of the bloated rotten Uriel.

“When Evil Lurks” accompanies with it a strong theme of children replacing their parents or adults in a metaphorical, supernatural demon enriched context.  Children are drawn to the demon as the demon is drawn to children, a verbatim more-or-less statement said by Mirta about the rotten, or demon, that shows children as it’s bewitched devoted servants and protectors, like little underage Renfields, who try and trick adults off the rotten’s hidden location or carry out for more sinister acts.  One of those acts is literally devouring adults which becomes a regular theme throughout seen with Jair and Eduardo, and even in anecdote told by Mirta about a previous witness to a rotten’s case of regurgitation.  In a way, the demon is a child itself being birthed into the world under a swelling and oozing Uriel’s sinew and viscera and indulges in childish acts of fibbing, mischievous tricks, and playful portents that happen right under our noses and can be shocking to the system as we want to believe what our children, our flesh and blood, have to say but there’s always that inkling of untruthfulness in our minds. Rugna couples the manipulation with bold, visceral violence, even some on children, and a grotesque folklore inflamed by poor and naïve choices by those who don’t understand or are unwilling to fully comprehend the extent of consequences that follow because of their hastiness to act, solve, and be rid of a threat.  “When Evil Lurks” clearly points out our innate flawed existence and makes abundantly clear our mortality with our progeny to dominate the world. 

Second Sight Films emerges “When Evil Lurks” onto a 4K UHD Blu-ray.  The BD66 is HVEC encoded with an ultra high-definition, 2160p resolution and presented in the original widescreen aspect ratio 2.39:1.  Second Sight Films produce the high dynamic range with Dolby Vision, approved by director Demián Rugna.  The result is immense image immersion that inarguably has the wherewithal for a fluently stable color timing, a range of depth, and phenomenal detail.  Every aspect of what is on screen is crisp to the bone and Rugna’s violence, under Mariano Suárez’s eclectic cinematographer eye that builds toward suspense, benefits from the grisly faced display.   Audio fidelity through a Spanish DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio holds and delivers exact reproduction.  Plenty of back and side channel clinks and clunks to establish a presence created coincidingly with the image.  Dialogue is unobstructed, confidently paced, and above the layers whenever appropriate with Pablo Fuu’s score sneaking int folkloric tones and a despairing timbre and tempo there in the mix but subconsciously eats away the soul of the viewer.  Optional English subtitles are available and accurate but in moments of great hasty dialogue, the rhythm of display can be quick.  Special features include a new audio commentary by cinematic academic Gabriel Eljaick-Rodriguez, four new interviews with director Demián Rugna It Was Always There, actor Ezequiel Rodríguez Tragedy is Inevitable, actor Demián Salomón We Made a Movie, and actress Virginia Garófalo Stripped to the Bone, and a video essay by UK film podcaster Mike Muncer Terror and the Unknown in When Evil Lurks.  There are no during or after credit scenes.  The 4K UHD Blu-ray release comes in a black UHD Amaray with a new monochromatic art rendition of young Vicky holding the leach of the French Mastiff, same as the pre-release promo still for the film.  There are no internal supplements with the region free release that has a runtime of 100 minutes and is UK certified 15 for Strong Horror, Bloody Violence, Gore, and Language.

Last Rites: There’s no stopping death. Our children will replace us no matter how hard we try. A seemingly evil accursed death will come for us all and the choices that are made will be the design to our destruction. Director Demián Rugna sees the path and knows “When Evil Lurks” it has us completely encircled with no escape, no hope, and no compassion. How soon we choose to parish depends on how rash and unwise our decisions are in the grand scheme of life.

“When Evil Lurks” 4K UHD Blu-ray for Purchase!

Midnight Showing of the Lost EVIL Tape Will Be the Last Thing You’ll Ever See! “Transmission” reveiwed! (Jinga Films, Danse Macabre, MVDVisual / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Transmission” Transmitting to Your Television on DVD!

A Santa Mira elderly man sits in a dark room with a glowing television illuminating his silhouette.  As he channels surfs through the night, amongst what’s being broadcast over the airwaves is a bible-thumping televangelist, a children’s puppet show, an 80’s teen romance comedy, a live local news broadcast of a hostage situation and a documentary on the investigation of the disappearance of notorious cult horror film director Frank Tadross Roth pursued by his granddaughter Rachel and her boyfriend.  Going deeper into Ross’s disappearance through archived interviews with the director and crew, on set raw behind-the-scenes footage, and the examination of Ross’s quest for an obscurely treasured videotape by an occult group, the director’s pursuit of, and his eventual unearthing, of the tape become the push for his last and recently discovered film Transmission, thought to have been lost in a building fire after his suspected involvement of the film’s lead actress murder.  Going back and forth between the channel programs builds a sinister, terrible dread that will soon be revealed to terrorize all those glued to the set. 

Late night television has never been so bodingly evil!  Channel surfing transmits an anthological approach between mockumentary and found footage in this uniquely crafted scrolling of boob tube terror entitled “Transmission.”  The 2023 horror is from writer-director Michael Hurst, the English director behind a pair of franchise sequels in “House of the Dead 2” and “Pumpkinhead 4:  Blood Feud.”  His latest venture takes twist to a whole new level different from his repertoire of linear independent horror with backlot dark legend surrounding an occult obsessed horror filmmaker.  Hurst also produced the film, his first in over a decade since 2017 with Andy Hurst’s (“Are You Scared?,” “Wild Things: Foursome”), alongside other self-employed filmmakers with the How to Kill Your Roommates and Get Away with It” producing duo Robbie Dias and Pat Kusnadi.  New Blood Productions serves as the production studio.

“Transmission” traverses in guile under TV guide pretenses of local channels, channeling the horror through the back and forth of unsettling, televised channels that have a familiarity of broadcast shows – sponsor subsidized children shows, perfunctory local news, and black and white sitcoms – but there’s more than what meets the eye.  The film uses recognizable genre names to get the message across with “Sleepaway Camp’s” Felicia Rose in her most vanilla action news reporter role, “Scary Movie’s” Dave Sheridan as an over-the-top protective father caricature in a teen romance comedy, and “The Road Warrior’s” Vernon Wells at the center of the amassing occult suspense as the missing notorious horror director Frank Tadross Roth.  Over the years, Wells’ performance has tapered to a subtle crawl of expression as if the veteran actor is now just running through the motions of the everyday hired gig that’ll headline his name, unlike his former wide-eyed and eccentrically villainous roles in “Commando” and “Innerspace,” but “Transmission” suits his stern act portrayed in video flashback as an occult maniac and peculiar director gripped by the search of an arcane, dark sect’s perniciously videotape.   Spearheading the effort to track down the filmmaker is his granddaughter Rachel, played by Nicole Cinaglia (“Death House”) with an inexplicable character shifting of gears from curiosity and intrigue from the documentary to the frantic and fearful ramblings of a paranoid hostage taker in the new story stemmed by her findings surrounding her grandfather’s disappearance.  There’s potential gap there in the lack of development, or rather the lack of acknowledgement overall, with Rachel’s parents as it’s just a grandfather and granddaughter affair without the recognition of those in between.  There’s also a gap in Rachel’s attained information about the sect, the videotape, and her grandfather’s endgame as she seemingly has more knowledge about the insurmountable otherworld evil on the horizon but how she got there is a few clicks short to fully bridge.  Sadi Katz, Del Howison, Marcella Di Pasquale, Ben Kaplan, Hunter Johnson, Raymond Vinsik Williams, Jennifer Nangle, McKensie Lane, Jessica Cameron, Charles Chudabala, Michael Glenny, Christopher Bryan Gomez, Ruby Reynolds, Ben Stobber, Mark Schaefer, and Robin Hill fill out the channel surfin’ cast of characters.

“Transmission” has a neat story structure built upon components with the premise being a movie inside a documentary while amongst a flipping through the broadcast waves that coincide with another movie as well as television shows, podium preaching, puppet skits, etc., to which is then wrapped up inside and latched onto another movie, a metanarrative with a preamble setup.  The Roth directed Transmission, presented for the first time on Malvolia’s spooky late night show (an Elvira rip) is a space horror off-brand for the filmmaker that mirrors vaguely the reality outside the boob tube but told through the Rachel Roth investigative documentary that builds the timeline pieces while flipping back and forth between the late night movie and the documentary as well as the scroll through every other broadcastings of paralleling programming in what feels like an antiquated prelude to the cable guide button on a tube television with depicted content that resembles much like what programmed over-the-air decades ago down to the very staticky outlines of porn stars expertly doing their fleshy vocational craft in snowy pixelations.  The edited series of a varietal shows creates an erratic unsettlement with an atmosphere churning over the idiosyncrasy content of what’s eventually to spoil or come to chaos by Transmission’s, or rather ”Transmission’s,” twist ending and what a fairly good twist ending it is, even with the slightly ham-fisted acting, by pulling off misdirection as you think you know where the finale is heading but the forces of evil seep through with a backup plan. 

Jinga Films, Danse Macabre, and MVDVisual present “Transmission” onto a MPEG-2 encoded, upscaled 720p (but upconverted on my player but since this title is shot digitally the image appears fairly good to begin with), DVD5 and presented in a widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio.  As stated, imagine quality has a fair amount of detail and intended panache interference amongst a broad range of different aesthetic styles and gels through the varied televised broadcasts from static and grain filters to colorless sepia, to filming scenes on television screens, and to other mock-electrical afflictions inside a digitally shot story truck to intermittently snap normality and cause a rising fear of curiosity amongst the TV goers.  Throughout the picture, there were no noticeable true compression issues with the picture.  Some scenes felt slightly stretched by that I chalked that up to filmmaker style when rendering various programming for the narrative.  Though not listed which format is used, the player registers an English Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo.  With imitating the perspective of someone watching television, audio tracks are distinguished with a flat concave that elevates the pitch but disperse through a single channel.  Emitting through a dual channel stereo, the audio can discern potently through, providing clarity.  When looking at the perspective, we’re either the old man watching the television or when inside the show itself watching from the fourth wall in and subsequently the strength and tone change often quite a bit, creating a rich depth when done correctly.  English subtitles are optionally available through the moving menu.  The DVD is essentially a feature release but there are other Jinga Film trailers that include, “Iconic,” “Tonight She Comes,” “The Protos Experiment,” and this film, “Transmission.”  The DVD comes in a standard single, push-lock, black DVD case with single-side cove art that I personally found gratifying when considering the film as it speaks to the abnormal and drawing glow of a brightly illuminated television in place of a head on top of the shoulders of an opened-armed cultist with a pleasingly red and black contrast.  The DVD is pressed with the same yet cropped image.  “Transmission” has a R rating (no singled-out rationales but there is some language and nudity), has a runtime of 74 minutes, and is region free for all players.

Last Rites: There are no mixed signals from “Transmission’s” gradual rise to impending cosmic doom with an exceptional Lovecraftian twist to nightcap this Michael Hurst channel-hopping and ominous occult production.

“Transmission” Transmitting to Your Television on DVD!