Category Archives: Chilly Thrilly

EVIL Manga to EVIL Movie! “Liverleaf” reviewed! (SRS Cinema / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“LIverleaf” Pushes Through the Bleak to Shine. On DVD Now!

The move from Tokyo to a dwindling rural town hasn’t been easy for middle schooler Haruka.  Most of her classmates have grown up with each other and formed vicious cliques that bully her relentless during and after school.  Mitsuru Abu, a photography enthusiast and Haruka’s classmate is also an outsider but has family ties to the area, is about her only friend and whom she finds attractive.  Upon returning home after spending the day together, Haruka finds her family home engulfed in flames, her mother and father dead, and her little sister severely burned over her entire body.  The loss of her family, her only emotional support, mentally compromises Haruka’s self-control and sends her spiraling into a revenge fueled murdering spree, targeting her bullying classmates who had a hand in the inferno of her family home.  The root of malevolence is not as it appears on the surface, and it will be up to Haruka to kill her way in finding the truth and reveal the secrets.

Adapted from the popular manga series, “Misu Misō,” written by Oshikiri Rensuke, the film version incorporates the indelicate dramas of being a school age teen in while reproducing faithfully the graphic gore, violence, and disturbing nature of character of the series in great detail.  Titled “Liverleaf,” as in the resilient, mountainous found three-lobe leafed flower that resembles the human liver and can withstand harsh winter conditions, is helmed by “Let’s Make the Teacher Have a Miscarriage Club” director Eisuke Naitô and penned by Miako Tadano of “The World of Kanako,” another manga-based film adaptation.  The 2018 film, which can be described as a revenge-drama with particle elements of horror, is shot in one of the snow-covered foothills of Japan’s mountain regions and is produced by Shigeto Arai (“We Are Little Zombies”) under the production banners of the Nikkatsu Corp. and the L’espace Film Co.

Anna Yamada is in the lead role that’s very familiar and culturally significant to Japanese cinema.  A scorn-born femme fatale that’s merciless and personnel, the kind of role that Quentin Tarantino exacted in his tribute to Asian revenge narrative with “Kill Bill,” starring Uma Thurman, hunting down the offending party and dispatching the scum from the Earth in a one-by-one fashion.  The “Suicide Forest Village” actress Yamada headlined “Liverleaf” as mid-to-late teen portraying the manga series’ preteen or early teenage girl Haruka Nozaki.  She isn’t the only nearly adult woman to play a teen in the throes of hormones, peer pressures, and angsty conditions sideswiped by wickedness and a taste for dominance as the whole student body pretends to be a youthful waste in a snowy, mountainside village on the verge of collapse.  Howling Village’s Rinka Ôtani, as Taeko Oguro, stands out with her bright orange hair and a sense of indifferent authority being the supposed head of the gaggle of bullying girls.  “Liverleaf” is Ôtani debut picture and Ôtani would eventually reteam with Yamada on “Suicide Forest Village,” but their first dichotomized performance as protagonist and antagonists brings a palpable tension to the screen.  Throw a boy both girls stoically can’t admit with a lot of expression and that pressure pot grows into an ugly shape of jealousy spurred love triangle.  Mitsuru Aibe is tall, handsome, kind, and a photography buff always looking for the raw and beautiful moment to capture on film.  Played by Hiroya Shimizu, “The World of Kanako” and “Sadako” actor instills that hope for the future and a glance of stability amongst the opposing craziness that has ensued between the rebirthed revenger Nozaki and the horrible highschoolers now fearing for their lives because of their responsible part for the monster they’ve created but does he really provide a safer, greener pasture Nozaki needs to return to once her retribution is complete?  Kenshin Endô, Masato Endô, Reiko Kataoka, Seina Nakata, Arisa Sakura, Aki Moita, Minoir Terada, Kazuki Ôtomo, and ReRena Ôtsuka are cast in one messed up and depressive high school student body that ends in a blizzard of bloodshed.

One thing about “Liverleaf,” if looking at and considering all the components of the feature as a whole, to take away from the adaptation is how Eisuke Naitô facsimiles the plot points of a manga series or, in more general terms, Naitô” has plucked the rudimentary concepts straight from any regular extreme manga series, not just from Oshikiri Rensuke’s Misu Misō.  Yet, “Misu Misō” is very faithfully extracted from the illustrated pages for live action execution down to many of the details with very few changes to the story’s original design. Gore has an extreme graphic nature juxtaposed against the snow, contrasting in homage to those historical revenge genre films set in the same harsh, white blanket, and like all the heroines, or anti-heroines, Haruka Nozaki speaks her soul in her outfit, dressed in a continuously deepening red after each gruesome dispatch of her classmates.  This saturation into crimson extends into this belief that Nozaki is bordering being supernatural, like most condemned women done wrong, who somehow find the superhuman strength, endurance, know-how, and resilience in their own disdain for blood and violence to slay beyond their normal means without batting an eyelash.  “Liverleaf” is not the chippiest of narratives with a coursing core of grim doom and gloom through a quickly dilapidating little town with an austere school, junk pits, and modest structures that inhabit indifferent teachers, brooding teens, and a mental illness that ranges from inherent sociopathy to social sociopathy of peer pressures and bullying. 

SRS Cinema brings manga pen and paper to the big screen with their unrated DVD release of the film adaptation titled “Liverleaf.”  The MPEG2 encoded, upscaled 1080p, DVD9 release is presented in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio.  “Liverleaf” stands out unusual from the other SRS releases, a company that prides itself on standard definition 480 and 720 resolutions and compressing features and their special features onto a packed DVD5 that creates eye artefacts on already low budget, commercial grade, inexperienced film.  Instead, “Liverleaf” has punchier colors and distinction on that segregates the austere from the vibrancy and the extra space helps allow for this decoding to be as smooth as possible on what some may now consider an antiquated format.  Decoding at a higher range of 7-9Mbps, compression imprudence doesn’t show itself here with a clean picture that retians inky voids, charted snow mounds and footprints in a white sheet of snow, and the colors and details on objects that natural enlarge themselves when in contrast, such as Nozaki’s red jacket or the red, orange, and yellow glow of house flames against the night sky.  The Japanese LPCM 2.0 stereo renders a clean mix of dialogue, ambience, and soundtrack.  Dialogue’s clean, crisp, and clearly upfront of a subdued diegetic sound mixed from the boom mic or from post and a Hisashi Arita soundtrack that scores Japanese revenge in non-traditional Japanese notes.  Post mix and action does create some separation that uncouples the visual onomatopoeia of the activity but remains negligible throughout.  The burned-in English subtitles synch well and are error-free.  Extras include a featurette from Manga to Movie that goes into the history of manga and the adaptation concept which most thought the film couldn’t be adapted, Elijah Thomas supplements with his own thoughts and opinions on “Liverleaf” as well as another featurette titled Liverleaf’s Obsession that looks at the character’s dangerous obsessive qualities, the trailer, a Oshikiri Rensuke, biography The Comically Twisted Mind of Oshikiri Rensuke with narrator voiceover going into the writer’s family history and “Misu Misō” genesis, the trailer, and talent files on Anna Yamada, Eisuke Naito, Hiroya Shimizu, Miako Tadano, and Rinka Otani.  These features house behind a static menu, that only has a play option alongside the extras, with a neat art illustration of a murderously ominous Naruka Nozaki.  The cover art hints at the film’s stark contrast aesthetics with a Naruka Nozaki wrapped her red coat and jetblack hair sprawled out on the white snow.  The Amaray does not come with a reversible cover nor any tangible extras inside.  DVD has region A only playback and has a runtime of 114 minutes. 

Last Rites: “Liverleaf” is a surprising, better-than-no budget teen revenge thriller that deals with obsession, depression, and a consternation that Haruka’s tragic journey through the pits of a lowly high school hierarchy will only get worse before it gets better.

“LIverleaf” Pushes Through the Bleak to Shine. On DVD Now!

There’s No EVIL Magic Cure for the Inevitable. “Bag of Lies” reviewed! (Dread / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

See What’s in the Bag! “Bag of Lies” on Blu-ray!

When everything seems to be going Matt and Claire’s way with a strong marital bond, a beautiful house, and rising careers, life throws them a nasty curveball – Claire is hit with inoperable, terminal cancer. Laid up in bed, her weak immune system and fleeting strength are spent on retching up the remains of the chemotherapy treatments she suddenly quits. Matt, under a considerable amount of pressure in losing his wife, has tried everything from conventional medical treatment to the snake oil practices of holistic cults. Desperate for a cure, Matt turns to a man and his bag. Not just any bag, but a bag given the right ritual and stated purpose will produce all that Mark desires and, in this case, the return of his wife’s good health. The man warns that rules must be followed and when Matt can’t uphold his end of the agreement, what he wishes for will still come true in a way most unpleasant.

“Bag of Lies” is the 2024 released supernatural thriller to boldly state that no matter whatever miracle cure is trialed or desperate attempted, one can’t stop the juggernaut of grim inevitability, and if somehow, someway one beats the momentous odds, nothing will ever be the same again or, perhaps, it will be worse.  Debuting his first feature, David Andrew James is the mastermind behind the screen treatment of the story, directing and writing the shooting script based off a story by Nick Laughlin, known for his art and props on “Wrong Turn” remake and “Bones and All,” and “Clever Girl” creator Joe Zappa that tackles one of the more painfully enduring occurrences of impending loss, the slow and excruciating rot of cancer that selfishly takes everything and all anyone, especially loved ones, can do is sit and watch the wasting away from internal consumption of being.  “Bag of Lies” is another Dread Presents and Traverse Terror collaboration, produced by Dread and Epic Picture’s Patrick Ewald and Matt Cleckner alongside Spencer Frazen, Joe Hui, Victoria McDevitt, Jake Heineke, and director David Andrew James.

One of the problems “Bag of Lies” has lies with the married couple Matt and Claire Quimby, played respectively by Patrick Taft and Brandi Botkin (“Bystanders,” “Wicked Ones”).  The problem is not chemistry as the affectionate teasing and relationship frustrations are the hallmarks done right to reflect any kind of amorous partnership on screen and the fact that Taft and Botkin have previously collaborated also makes establishing an already established couple a lot easier but the latter has been under different roles and conditions with Taft producing projects, such as “Wicked Ones,” and both also having roles in the same television series entitled “Wildfire” but overlapping only once in their own three episodes span.  The problem falls upon how their characters got to be where they are now and that creates an injustice to that particular unpleasant side of the story because the audience never experiences the good times the Quimby’s once had before cancer strikes at Claire, not even in a remote sense, and that ultimately fails them because its hard to fall long and hard if not privy to the height of their good fortune.  The lack of backstory extends to the supporting cast with Matt’s awfully empathetic cousin Harold (John Wells, “The Possessed”) who hangs around, brings over a 6-pack, and occasion reworks their basement to surprise Claire with an in-house music studio, more so the former two, and the mysterious man Al (Terry Tacontins) who offers or is sought out or is just happened upon, it’s unclear, the even more mysterious bag option to Matt with a vague understanding of instructions or the cost of what he’s about to unleash or sacrifice or both.  These supporting characters lack of reason for being a cog in the bigger machine seems happenstance rather than necessary to the progression or the problem in what evolves into more of a three-way triangle between Matt, Claire, and an unusual young woman sneaking into their house and property and has a quirky laugh and a dark circle on her palm, played by Madison Pullins (“Baby Oopsie: The Series”).  Aja Nicole and a Kayla Theis round out the cast as Matt’s doctor friend Gwen and local bartender Lilly who has loved one ailment issues that parallel to Matt.

The title “Bag of Lies” is a spin on the idiom a pack of lies, defined as a grouping of false statements or information led to deceit.  “Bag of Lies” plays and preys upon that deception of an all-in-one, quick-and-easy remedy aimed to be a cure-all when, in reality, the thing to solve all your problems is nothing but snake oil that builds hope out of desperation, that sees confidence stemmed from false promise, and instills blindness to the consequences it delivers.  David Andrew James favors suspending in disbelief more than what’s comfortable as Matt experiences haunting visions of ominous means to an end yet doesn’t seem too bothered to really dig into the background and so the story flounders in the second act with Matt just experience weird and frightening sights and sounds without even an attempt to explain, until near the end.  Frankly, if I kept seeing a quirky, quizzical madwoman constantly around and inside my house, the cops would be on speed dial.  Instead, Matt lets himself be silage for the taking, cut off from the rest of reality for the most part without ever going to the authorities, without ever confiding in his friends, nor without ever digesting his experiences and talking about it with his wife, who is usually part of the strange visional equation.  That isolation plays into the burdening effect of trying to beat the odds by doing it yourself and not asking for help, which is definitely being depicted here in Matt’s own surreal nightmare, but the lackadaisical effort and having one peculiar instance roll over him after another breaks down the story’s credibility.  Much like the cancerous rot that’s eating his wife from in the inside out, Matt’s own rot origins from being stagnant and it’s that do-nothing that bears the consequences of terrifying transfigurations in not only his sweet Claire but also in himself. 

“Invasion of the Body Snatchers” interlocked with desperation and a melancholic longing is how the “Bag of Lies” shapes fictional hope around a wrenched inevitability, similar to what the French author Guy de Maupassant once said,, “ the only certainty is death.”  Dread and Epic Pictures brings home an unrated, AVC encoded, 1080p high definition, BD25. Presented in a widescreen 2.40:1 aspect ratio.  Brandt Hackney’s shadowy cinematographer has a fairly nature presence in natural daylight sequences but utilizes a quite a bit of low-level, low-frequency lighting to create a soft incandescence and low-contrast shadows spreads.  Much of the same textures and colors are shown over and over and without that breadth of diversity, comparing scene-by-scene details are more than slim but what’s apparent is subordinate to the atmospheric lighting, or lack thereof, to create moody, broody dark house settings with little light to expose detail and color.  Even in bar sequences, the dimness doesn’t allow detail.  The English audio offerings are a Dolby Digital 5.1 and a Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo. What’s uniquely about the “Bag of Lies” audio facet is the distinct distortional soundtrack by James Paul Bailey who, in his own words, could never recreate or repeat the score again because of the randomized tones and feedback produces by temperamental distortion boxes, overlayed and modulated to produce a one-of-a-kind soundtrack to parallel the rotting horror “Bag of Lies” corkscrews into. Dialogue does the job with a clean and clear rendering by an indifferently satisfying sort of humdrum performances unfazed by the surrounding sideshow of black bag magic and the curious curiosity that’s emerging vocally from within its capacity. There’s decent localized range within Quimby house with conversating interactions with a door or a vent in between, using post-production to fill in hurling diatribes from the basement below toward Matt in Claire’s voice. English and Spanish subtitles are optionally available. Special features include a brief behind-the-scenes featurette with cast interviews voicing their deconstructing opinions about the story. Though not listed on the back cover, there is a longer, more in-depth featurette around James Paul Bailey’s distortion oeuvre for the film that’s quite comprehensive, plus the film’s trailer and other Dread Presents film trailers. Physical features are just like all the other bare minimum Dread-Epic Pictures release with a standard Blu-ray Amaray and no inserts. The cover illustration has clunky written all over it with a photoshop job of what looks like a giant dirty taco, but it’s the titular bag, with a dirty disfigured hand reaching up and out. The release has a region A playback and has a runtime of 96 minutes.

Last Rites: Neither great nor is it terrible, “Bag of Lies” skips a few key steps toward being a promising indie horror and though the theme is poignant, fantastical, and infused with a jarring soundtrack, the ironic inevitability is there is no cure for what can’t be fixed.

See What’s in the Bag! “Bag of Lies” on Blu-ray!

A Memory Fuels EVIL’s Sexualized Resurrection. “Scream of the Blind Dead” reviewed! (Full Moon Features / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Scream of the Blind Dead” Now on DVD!

Arriving by train to the deserted, medieval ruins of a once great 14th century town, a woman wanders aimlessly through the dilapidated structures left standing and eventually finding a peaceful resting spot on a church pew before the Holy Trinity.  Alone with her amorous thoughts for another woman, her very presence stirs the awakening a blind undead corpse out from the slumbering, Earthly tomb, the resting place of a once righteous Templar knight of a prestigious order once assigned to protect Christian values with sword and shield but disbanded and accused of occult heresy.  Being chased from dark corner to dark corner inside the ruins’ isolated, labyrinth wall, the woman narrowly escapes the relentless knight’s bloodlust blade.  She is not only frightened by the razor-sharp sword of the ghostly, ghastly figure, a dirtily shrouded, mummified corpse, but what evokes within her, her own dark, secretive past of love, murder, and vengeance, will haunt her to death.  

Director Chris Alexander has settled himself in the realm of the homage.  The Canadian filmmaker is well-known for his tribute films toward specific directors and trope styles within the creepshow genre that allow him to express his own artistic take on a classic.  “Scream of the Blind Dead” is Alexander’s latest to follow suit based off the original concept and characters by Amando de Ossorio and the Spanish director’s Blind Dead series, beginning with “Tombs of the Blind Dead” in 1972 which is the featured inspiration of Alexander’s short remake film.  The 2021 homage is penned by the “Girl with a Straight Razor” director but is also progresses forward without dialogue in what is like a music video for Ossorio’s original film, slimmed down to the principal character and one blind undead knight for much of the story.   Alexander created Delirium Films, a Full Moon sublabel to release his own productions under, conjoining the once Fangoria editor to the hip of Charles Band, as coproducer, to stretch the imagination of terror even further.  Kevin Cormier and Cheryl Singleton also coproduce the short.

You won’t see a herd of horses or a horde of blind, rotting knights on horseback in the “Scream of the Blind Dead” nor will you there be a collective degree of humans fighting for against the dead for their very lives.  Instead, two women and one knight consist of the entire cast, pared down to the two chief female characters Betty and Virginia, though they’re not explicitly named in the story, but the gist of designation is there.  Betty is played by Ali Chappell, a mainstay regular in many of Chris Alexander directorial repertoire, having roles in “Necropolis:  Legion,” “Girl with a Straight Razor,” and “It Knows Your Alone” while also being quite the scream queen in other horror projects from the 2019 anthological “The Final Ride” to last year’s “Malediction” which she debuted as a director as well.  As Betty, the short-lived role sets the dark synth soundtrack-driven tone lengthened by use of slow-motion and additional edits to build suspense and does harp back to the premise and spirt of Ossorio’s brand of Spanish horror.  Not as seasoned as Chappell in credits, the casting of Virginia goes to Stephanie Delorme, a brunette in contrast to Chappell’s blonder shade, who finds herself being chased, melodramatically I might add, by an undead knight.  Delorme’s frightful face and lumbering getaway cadence have the hallmarks of a good final victim being pursued on common horror of past, present, and future but her direction to stop and stare, almost waiting in frozen terror, is reminiscent of yore when the act of escape is negated by the sheer shock.  These are the moments audiences yell at the screen, pleading for movement, to do something other than just stand there and gape at the monster before them.  Chasing Virginia is no ordinary templar knight but a female templar knight, played by all-things-horror enthusiast, musician, and another of Alexander’s on-screen regulars Thea Faulds, under her showbiz name of Thea Munster.  Munster dons two parts connected by death as Virginia’s lover in flashback and the ghoulish knight chasing Virginia. 

“Scream of the Blind Dead” has haunting connotations of past guilt or along the lines of the soul-touching past catching up to one’s beleaguered conscious, hence why Virginia wanders the countryside in search for answers, stopping or resting along the way into a state of pain or melancholy of a memory, and comes upon a church, perhaps unintentionally to confess her darkest sins or find solace in forgiveness.  However, it wouldn’t be a horror show without some fort of graveside penance from an unearthing corpse, slowly sauntering to seek eviscerating Virginia’s regret from her exposed, beach chic-cladded abdomen.  Right before being engrossed in the standard chase fair, scenes of Virginia self-groping from fantasizing the physical touch her female lover add a layer of sensuality yet to have context other than a strong passion within Virginia, whether it’s in her heart or loins is indeterminable, but shortly after singlehandedly pleasuring herself, a female knight, with pursed mummified lips, resurrects from inside the church where Virginia rests and the slow-motion macabre begins, moving about different backdrops within the ruins and field exteriors that are basked in neon gelled key lighting that creates a smokey psychedelic, or hallucinogenic, fever dream atmosphere, a nightmare experience only fabricated in deep-seeded guilt-trips.

“Scream of the Blind Dead” short salute to Amando de Ossorio and the “Blind Dead” series is honorable enough to keep the always nitpicking fanbase from picketing. Full Moon Features distributes the MPEG2 encoded DVD5 presented in 720p resolution and a widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio. Picture quality through a lower resolution and a patchwork of sizzling vibrant neon lights scores across a refined image with fuzzy details and indiscernible outlines. On the color scale, there’s plenty of range through the assortment of abrasive key lighting that illuminates the rustic, rundown church and surrounding area of mostly greens and browns. Sound selection offers a lossy English Dolby Digital 5.1 and Stereo 2.0 that absolutely has a soundtrack that trades the tings of a fortepiano for a theremin but still digs into the familiar tones of Antón García Abril’s ominous industrial-synth score that lingers eerily with resonating vocals. Very few moments do in-frame sounds from the actresses come over, entirely all screams in what was mostly done in post with a clear separation from action. Because of the music video approach with no dialogue, the lossy format is nulled by what’s really a psychosexual visual experience. English closed captioning is available. Special features a feature-length director’s commentary with Chris Alexander, two music videos including Thea Munster with her thermin solo entitled Werewolfry and the other track Burial Ground from her band Night Chill, the official trailer, and the Delirium Films’ trailers. Full Moon’s No. 355 title comes in a standard DVD Amary with a mixed illustration and live photo cover art that befits the body of work. There are no slipcovers, inserts, or other tangible materials set next to the disc pressed with the same knight silhouette but with a buzzing blue outline. At feature length, “Scream of the Blind Dead” would have been too long with Alexander’s stylistic outlet but at a crisp 40 minutes has a greater success rate for a not rated, region free releases that mostly lambent lights and ethereally evil sans actor dialogue.

Last Rites: “Scream of the Blind Dead” is not blind to the Ossorio source material and captures the core center of the Spanish director’s picture of history crusades on the ignoble never dies while Chris Alexander twists into it a fever dream of sexual fervor, slenderized for a post-impressionist style.

“Scream of the Blind Dead” Now on DVD!

The Blind Leading the EVIL. “Oddity” reviewed! (Acorn Media International / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Oddity’s” Blu-ray from Acorn Media International is Here!

Dani Timmins spends many nights renovating her and her husband’s new country home.  While her psychiatrist husband Ted works long nights most nights at the mental hospital, Dani spends her time in solitude and isolation to fixup their future home.  When a strange man knocks on her door and warns someone is inside her house, Dani must make the difficult decision to either trust the stranger into her home or dismiss his warnings as subterfuge to get inside.  The next day Dani is dead, brutally murdered.  A year later, Ted and his new girlfriend reside in the country home and Darcy, Dani’s twin sister with retrocognition abilities, arrives at the country home with supernatural suspicion toward the couple, bringing with her a trunk containing a family heirloom of a life-size wooden mannikin.  Threatening to expose him, Darcy appetite for blind justice is stronger than Ted’s need to convince her otherwise when the plot against her sister thickens beyond the plane of the corporeal world.  

“Oddity” is the 2024 release supernatural haunt and golem thriller from “Caveat” writer-director Damian Mc Carthy.  The sophomore feature from the Ireland born filmmaker is a mishmash of culture inspired heavily on the Jewish folklore of the inanimate, human formed material being commanded to animate a task, such as being bewitched for wicked transgressions and this commingles with twin superstitious beliefs of extrasensory connection, and, I’m going to stop your train of thought right there, just because this is an Irish production with an Irish actress playing twins doesn’t make this a movie about the derogatory Irish twins concept.  Filmed in the County Cork, Ireland, “Oddity” is produced by “Come to Daddy” producers Evan Horan, Katie Holly, Laura Tunstall, and Mette-Marie Kongsvad with Lisa Kelly as co-producer and Keeper Pictures and Shudder serving as co-productions presenting as a Shudder Exclusive film.

Carolyn Bracken (“You Are Not My Mother”) dons the double role of twin sisters Dani Timmins, murdered housewife to doctor Ted Timmins, and Darcy Odello, a blind psychic who owns an oddity emporium called Odello Oddity, as partly in the title.  When we think of twins in films, we think identical down to the very last mannerism and hair fiber, but for Dani and Darcy, they’re similarities are in blood and face structure alone.  The differences are stark with Dani sporting dark, long hair whereas Darcy’s is nearly white and cut pixie short., Dani’s health is more intact whereas Darcy’s afflicted with blind caused by a brain tumor, and the aforementioned results in Darcy’s gift whereas Dani lacks in that department.  Lastly, Darcy exudes more confidence for a blind woman who’s able to read the room without her known unnatural ability, possessing a separate superhuman knowledge left without the power of sight.  While Bracken only plays Dani for a short period of time a lot can be said between the two women who are portrayed perfectly contrasted; yet a connection between forms an invisible bond through Darcy’s practice of learned witchcraft that involves the wooden manikin.  Opposite Bracken is Gwilym Lee as Ted Timmins, a man unable to escape the haunting of his deceased wife and start again with new girlfriend Yana (Caroline Menton).  Lee’s an absolute pragmatic when it comes to being psychiatrist Ted Timmins in a good display of when a rational doctor plays a rational plan on how to do something irrational and while Timmins and Bracken share not a ton of screentime together within either of Bracken’s dual roles, the thick tension formed between their characters is palpable wrought.  Yet, the real award-winning performance should be handed to Ivan de Wergifosse, the unsung face and movements of the wooden man.  Menacingly still like a large Pinocchio doll ready to come to life at any second, Wergifosse’s golem movements erratically alter the tone of drama-thriller to creature-thriller, coupled with an intense sound design that will resonate in nightmares.  “Oddity’s” principal cast fills out with Steve Wall (“Dune:  Part Two”) as an unscrupulous orderly and Tadgh Murphy (“Boy Eats Girl”), who really does have an artificial eye, as the red flagging mental patient.

A confluence of componential folklores doesn’t stale “Oddity’s” unique brand of Mc Carthy storytelling.  Shrouded deep in shadows, an underlining sense of intense dread, and colorful in diverse characters, the film truly represents the meaning of the title despite its adopted resources and, to be honest, that’s how most stories survive nowadays when the familiar is rebranded with fresh frights dwindling every second.  Sometimes, being too novel can have the reverse consequences of being too odd for most general fans.  “Oddity” provides balance with a slow burn buildup by chopping out exactly what happens to Dani, creating a cliffhanger right at the beginning to get the investigative wheels turning.  Where I do believe Mc Carthy suffers to retain a truth uncovered is in the story’s predictability.  We already know who the bad guy and we’re just waiting to see how he did it.  That takes a good chunk of suspenseful whodunit away from the narrative when it’s practically spelled out for you.  The mysteriousness around witchcraft and the supernatural twin sibling bond, coupled and accentuated with the manmade blunt force apathy, carries the weight, and can overshadow what’s missing and purposefully omitted to keep a sense of the unknown palpable. 

Acorn Media International presents “Oddity” on an AVC encoded, 1080p high resolution, BD50. Mc Carthy and director of photography Colm Hogan’s first collaboration together in a horror feature that results in the graveness of blanketing shadows and an aged, speckled, and muted color scheme solemnity. Graded in undertones of green, blues, and yellows, “Oddity” contrasts nicely and frighteningly against an object, like the brown wood of the mannequin, is in juxtaposition of the norm.  Detailing is superb around said golem with tree notices and grooves despite looking like a man in a suit in certain angles.  There’s also finesse detailing around skin textures, costuming, such as Darcy’s intricate green and white outfit, and other concepts implemented into the story’s narrative, such as Tadhg Murphy’s false eye that’s been accentuated with a bright iris or the leathery strap around another patient’s ravenous mouth.  The British and Brogue English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 courses through the individually marked rear, side, and front channels for full surround effect of the mannequin’s wailings and joint creeks, relying more on the discordant higher pitches than minor chord LFE to scare wits.  Oppositely, an earnest and tense stillness is achieved when all sound ceases to exist without the faint hint of interference and or other noticeable popping, humming, or generated soft noise.  English subtitles are available under the static menu selection.  Special features include a behind-the-scenes with cast and crew, a storyboard to screen vignette of one’s scene’s storyboard conceptual illustration compared to the final scene’s cut, and the the making of the wooden mannequin told through an image gallery.  The standard release comes in a thicker than normal North American Amaray Blu-ray case with Darcy and the wooded mannequin in spiritual positioning cloaked partly in darkness, similar to the shadow work in the film.  Inside does not contain any inserts or other physical accompaniments but there is a more detailed facial depiction of the mannequin’s face on the disc pressing.  Hardcoded for region B PAL playback, Acorn Media’s Blu-ray clocks in at 98 minutes and is UK certified 15 with no certification qualifications but the story has violence, strong language, and intense situations.

Last Rites: “Oddity” may not feel like nothing new but it’s nothing new done well in its reenvisioning of folklore and the standard horror tropes to give this Damian Mc Carthy’s filmmaking career an open door and a blank check to scare us with something far more novel and next level in the Irishman’s films yet to come.

“Oddity’s” Blu-ray from Acorn Media International is Here!

Blind, Witchy, EVIL! “Beezel” reviewed! (Epic Pictures / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Beeze” is the Witchiest Blu-ray of 2024! Get it here!

May, 1966 – a young boy is murdered, eaten, in his Northeast home.  Nearly six decades later and a series of disappearances and strange deaths in between, a young couple inherent the property that the locals have feared haunted, cursed, and possibly even inhabited by a witch.  As the house-inheriting husband is eager to sell the house to get rid of the reminder of his mother’s abandoning betrayal, the wife is equally eager to keep the house, settle in, and start a family.  The house possesses a presence captured by the corner of the eye, the hairs on the back of the necks, and the overall sense of dread that lies heavy in the pit of the stomach as the more the couple stay in the house, the more the Beezel, a blind evil witch lurking and hiding in the basement, influences their dreams and reality.  Beezel also wants a child and will take what it desires and kill anyone standing the way. 

What the horror genre needs nowadays is a ferocious witch film and I’m not talking the spellcasting, broom-riding, cauldron-congregating kind of witches with black pointed hats, large warty noses, and catty familiars.  I’m talking about hardcore old and ugly broads with an extreme hunger for not just children but for all of humanity, capped off with, perhaps, a good, solid cackle that’ll redefine the iconic figure from the traditional sense to a reverse revolutionized hag rooted in folklore but scorned by life itself.  A few filmmakers have tackled the idea and filmmaker Aaron Fradkin has taken a stab at it with “Beezel,” a 2024 Northeast-shot, visceral supernatural witch tale that was originally a short film expanded into a full-length feature film based on the short’s positive feedback.  The “Val” director cowrites with wife and fellow “Val” actor-writer, Victoria Fradkin under their cofounded independent film production company Social House Films. 

Because “Beezel” was first a short film, to flesh out a full length, the Fradkins smartly built around the short story an episodic series around it that spans decades.  Different actors are casted to reflect different periods, circumstances, and develop a variety of reactions to keep with and keep going a timeline of change, connected all by one single element, the carnivorous blind witch lurking in the basement shadows.  1966 starts off with more of child’s perspective who opens a secret bathroom hatch to the basement to see his pleading-for-food mother before his arm is snatched and he’s rip-to-shreds off camera.  The vicious and quick opener doesn’t leave open the door of development and we don’t get a real sense of anything or anyone until LeJon Woods (“The Hangman”) meets Bob Gallagher (“I Don’t Want to Drink Your Blood Anymore”) about 20 years later outside the home as the documentarian and homeowner, Apollo and Harold Weems.  Having seen now three films his this year, LeJon Woods feels very much like a one-note actor playing the same person throughout those roles.  Gallagher dips into a more sinister cover as the seemingly Mr. Rogers or Ned Flanders neighbor that drops breadcrumb clues of his dark secret and its one scary in-character conversation he has with Apollo.  From there, we jump another 20 years into the early 2000s with what was initially the original short film of an at-home nurse named Naomi (Caroline Quigley) replacing another nurse who disappeared in the Weems house.  This leads into the third act really sets up nicely Harold Weems second wife, Deloris (Kimberly Salditt Poulin), who’s on her deathbed in hospice care and solidifies the tone with a girth of suspense that leads into what would be the final moments left unseen of young couple Lucas and Nova (French actor Nicolas Robin and the director’s wife Victoria Fradkin).  Lucas, who inherited the neighborhood blighted house from his mother Delores, is eager to remove all denotations of his mother from memory, the free-spirited and more forward Nova wants to settle, have children, and start living her life.  Their bond sours overtime with the witch influence invading the subconscious and conscious body for her own ravenous gain in a blood-spilled buffet of knives, guts, and videotape.  The film rounds out with Elise Manning, Leo Wildhagen, and Aaron Fradkin dons the makeup and prosthetics to play the blind witch Beezel.

Fradkin’s able to capture desolate mood with limited production sets.  Most of all the “Beezel” story is set inside Fradkin’s childhood home in Massachusetts and with real, cold, New England snow that latter half of the story takes place.  Every tight and cobwebbed crawl space, every radiator-induced floorboard creak, and every outdated, antiquated, and obsolete feature of his parent’s home gave every ounce of spooky energy to “Beezel,” which, ironically enough, is what Beezel actually inflicts upon the current residents of the house.  Editing and the practical witch effects build the tension and suspense without giving too much away of Beezel’s hideous figure, cherishing Beezel for timely appearances rather than relying on its overuse which often leads to exposing too many rubbery and prosthetic flaws.  The episodic nature also keeps the story from being stale by jumping years, if not decades, that shepherd new characters and new scenarios into the fold as the story evolves through the difference lens of technology, in a half-ominous and half-found footage perspective with the latter being shot in super 8, VHS, and digital handheld camcorder and the original short breaking up the pattern with a microcassette tape deck.  “Beezel” perfects the blend of live-action and found footage without feeling forced and unnecessary with a truly frightening approach to the witch trope that’s worth devouring whole. 

The Social House Films brings the meanest witch this side of 2024 and Dread, the subsidiary label of Epic Pictures Group, who also pushes their own boundaries with “Beezel’s” visceral path, as well as sport some uncommon nudity in one of their films, has the Blu-ray for you! The AVC encoded, 1080p resolution, single-layer BD25 manages to scare through the lower end of capacity format with really no issues with compression. No banding, no blocking, nor any other noticeably ostentatious artefacts to speak about as the rendered image, despite its softer detailer markers, pulls off a passable and potent portentous story through a digital, anamorphic 1.78:1 aspect ratio lens, often switching between media parallels of POV Super 8mm, VHS, and DVX camcorder that vary in levels of detail and grain. Dread Central presents two English audio options, both lossy: a Dolby Digital 5.1 and a Dolby Stereo 2.0. Surrounding, multi-level house atmospherics, various media equipment, in-and-out of the dream subconscious, and, of course, the blend witch herself, create an unfaltering, ample, and competent sound design although the format doesn’t reproduce true fidelity. Back and side channels flourish with frightful house creaks and other environmental elements while basking in the silence for a solid jump scare or building palpable tension. English subtitles, as well as Spanish subtitles, are available for selection. Special features include an in-depth look at the making of the film, Aaron Fradkin’s short films “Doctor Death” and “The Sleep Watcher,” and other Dread Central distributed film trailers. I had aforementioned Beezel not being shown too much in the film but her rather grotesque, bloodied-mouthed face captured in still image, glammed up and embellished for public consumption, graces Epic Pictures’ one-sided, front cover image, warmly soaked in a reddish-orange glow. The disc is pressed with a Scolopendra, or Giant Centipede, coiled over the title. No other tangible items come with the release. The not rated release has a runtime of 82 minutes and is region free for all!

Last Rites: As we close out 2024 with an evil old hag, “Beezel” is one hell of a movie to close out on. Soul-tattering story that spans decades, “Beezel’s” the witch with an incredible insatiability and her hunger will have you recoil in fear of being the main course.

“Beeze” is the Witchiest Blu-ray of 2024! Get it here!