Milton was a mild mannered, bright young man with a promising future in chemistry until he was busted for conducting a meth kitchen on campus grounds and ordered to attend a drug rehabilitation center. With a little over four months left on his sentenced term, a fast-talking, drug-selling beauty Skylar walks into his life and offers a get-rich-quick scheme to Milton that involves partnering up with her and her psychotic boyfriend Russell. The challenge is to cook up a large amount of Meth within 24 hour window for an all around bad guy named Archer. Before lovestruck Milton can make choice in the matter, he’s dragged into the precarious undertaking located at an isolated cabin in the woods where the trio’s fate takes a turn toward an endless course plotted for blood, death, and various treachery.
Finally, a B-movie horror with a novelty story that continuously inflicts old school thrills, gratuitous violence, and black comedy. A sheer guessing game for the character outcomes from the beginning to the rolling of the end credits, which, in this loop-upon-loop story, covers possibly every single last fate that could be bestowed upon them. “Blood Punch” stands as this generations’ even darker version of “Groundhog Day.”
The cast and crew deliver on both sides of the spectrum. The lead actors are all native New Zealanders, who have previously worked on prior projects together, embodying vibrantly into their roles with precision and passion. Milo Cawthorne as Milton has a persona similar, in physicality and in acting, to Jesse Eisenberg; a slender built and facetious individual whose smarts can and will obtain devious potential in order to come out on top. I prefer Cawthorne over Esienberg because Milo is well less pompous. Milton’s chemistry with Skylar is of a stellar black and white origin. Skylar portrayed by “The Lord of the Rings: The Two Towers” child star Olivia Tennet embarks on the daunting task of being chain-smoking wench whose had to grow up quick from, at least, the age of 12. To round out the dynamic cast and to add a contrast character to Milo is the muscular and handsome Ari Boyland as the loquacious and psychotic Russell; Boyland’s frighteningly impulsive and insane, making him a great adversary to the logical Milton.
The person who wrote these characters and the person who directed these characters would assumably be well versed in the horror or dark comedy frame work. The overall intrinsic mayhem of “Blood Punch” is synonymous to a genre experienced writer and director. However, “Blood Punch” is oddly unique and not just on bonded paper but also for whom the director and writer are and their attributed credits. Director Madellaine Paxson and writer Eddie Guzalian are experienced, long time writers of children television series and films. Yes, at the helm is a crew that wrote and directed a bloody, foul-mouthed, carnage-soaked film also worked on projects like “Kim Possible,” “Power Rangers R.P.M.,” and “Lilo & Stitch: The Series.” “Blood Punch” is their first horror film together and completely knocked it out of the park; perhaps, due in part to their creative imagination when the majority of theirr work is animation where basically anything goes – just ask Wild E. Coyote. Paxson has such an eye for the littlest details that almost every scene, which were well edited together, stood on their own without any support or exposition. The ongoing debate about time and time warps will be an agonizing one, but Paxon and Guzalian wrap our characters’ timelines in a detailed manner, which nearly through me for a loop – no pun intended.
Even if being a film released from 2013, “Blood Punch” lands near the top at being one of my favorite movies released this year on DVD courtesy of Midnight Releasing. The 16:9 Widescreen presentation is near amazing with a flawless, colorful picture, comparing well against a Hi-Def release. The stereo 5.0 mix works well with the soundtrack and ambiance tracks, but can overcome the dialogue track only by a little. Extras include deleted scenes, outtakes, and test footage. “Blood Punch” is 107 minutes of pure, unadulterated roller-coaster thrills where there’s no waiting in line to jump right back on.
Category Archives: Chilly Thrilly
Layers of Fear. First impression review
Since this game is still in early access and not yet finished, I will wait til it is a finished product then do a full review.
Layers of Fear is a first person horror game that came out in early access on Steam. You play as a insane artist who walks through his own mind to discover what happened in his life.
After playing what is available in the game, all I can say is that this game has some GREAT potential. Layers of Fear has to be one of the most unique horror games I have played in a long time and I will go into detail on why I loved it.
Gameplay: The game is set in a first person perspective . There are no enemies and no combat, you simply walk through the area and move on, kind of like a haunted house attraction. I will say the gameplay is heavily inspired by P.T. So if you’re familiar with P.T. then this won’t feel all too different.
Graphics: The game’s visual are just flat out amazing. There is just so much detail in the environment, so much that it got me to looking and admiring the surroundings before moving on. The game runs on the Unity engine, which surprised me because I thought this game ran on the Unreal engine. This game is by far the best looking horror game I have seen on Unity and should be a great example on how to use Unity to make a game.
Atmosphere: This game has so much tension and that is how it should be. Every hallway I walked, every corner I turned I was very cautious and ready for what was coming. The game can even make you paranoid, which is good since this game is meant to be psychological horror. I just always felt like something was watching me.
Performance: Since this game is in early access, there are some performance issues. The game has a very choppy framerate. One area you will be at 40fps then the next area it will drop at 12fps. Even with the framerate drops, it is still very much playable so If you meet the system requirements then you shouldn’t have a problem. Just make sure to be patient until they optimize the game a bit more.
So there is my first impression of Layers of Fear. I highly recommend the game to any survival horror fan and I can’t wait to see what the developers do next.
Layers of Fear is on Steam for $9.99.
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Evil Times Out. “Reminiscence: The Beginning” review!
What if there were multiple universes and only one time line? Then, what if time breaks down? Being aware of, in theory, the coming lapse of time, Miska uses her talents in physics to calculate the days of when exactly the rare event will occur; she brings along her boyfriend Akçay and together they experience, not an immaculate and breathtaking event, but a horrifying phenomena that intertwines parallel universes and opens the door to our world to mind manipulative beings known as The Others or Shadows. When Miska misjudges the occurrence date, the lovers find themselves trapped in a vicious loop, unable to tell the difference between what’s reality and what’s a realistically terrifying nightmare.
“Reminiscence: The Beginning” is the screenplay written by musical artist and Blue Arc Studios founder Akçay Karaazmak, who also directs film and stars as, you guessed it, the male lead named Akçay. The concept of time breaking down and releasing horrifying entities is intriguing to captivate audiences, like a moth to a bright night light, toward noticing the estimated $500,000 budgeted independent feature that has an exotic filming location on the crystal clear water beaches of Çeşme, Turkey. Alternate realities have an unique appeal since the lot of such films haven’t been saturated by previously exploration and their ventures, unlike the recycled storyline of the zombie genre, can always be varied because time is tangible; we see the parallel time lines within the established stories of popular sci-fi franchises such as “Star Trek” and “Terminator”. Karaazmak’s film, his first ever venture into the movie biz, has similarities to other works such as Stephen King’s film adapted novel “The Mist” or in “Silent Hill,” the video game adapted into film where two universes collide and ferocious monsters seep into the human world, blending time and worlds into one existence. Can we expect the same type of viscera innards from Karaazmak that resulted very favorably for the other recent genre-related films?
The answer to this time bending film is: don’t waste your time. Here’s why…
On a pitch black night, with no street lights, Akçay and Miska barrel down an isolated road; their seemingly anxious and intense conversation annoyingly underwhelms, nearly beneath the wave lengths of the human ear. Miska, in the passenger seat, examines through numerous pages of physic notes and while Akçay drives erratically fast through the thickness of night, she’s communicating something to him but the dialogue track is, frankly, inaudible. The fault lies at the feet of a couple of major issues: shoddy post-production audio work as the soundtrack severely steps up to become an unintentional focus point above the dialogue tracks and actors Akçay Karaazmak and Michaela Rexova mumbling horribly through the bland dialogue due to their heavily broken English and immature acting status. Our ears inevitably have a chance to relax once the two finally reach the Çeşme beach after a near accident.
The beach scenes turn out to have just as much post-productions issues as the superficial opening. The editing work will require an heavy dosage of Dramamine pills to suspend any nauseating effects from the tirelessly and pointlessly shot and edited scenes. Karaazmak’s film feels unsure on how to convey each scene appropriately, cutting and splicing two and three second scenes together. Karaazmak’s editing process resembles something close to tossing contents of a mixed bag of options and seeing what sticks to sort of fit. Also, If I’m going camping in the natural elements of a beach, dressing the occasion might heighten Akçay’s and Miska’s characters’ authenticity; instead, the lovers, cladded in dance club clothing, doesn’t speak highly of our hero and heroine as black hole researchers seriously. Michaela Rexova, starring in her only credited film according to IMDB.com, has the beauty, but her dull persona and monotonous speech makes her instantly unlikeable to which her beauty can’t rekindle and if I would have heard the word “baby” one more time between them under that low breath of either one of them, my brain would have created it’s own timeless black hole and void itself into non-existence as if some kind of mindless suicide.
However, there are moments, brief moments, during the film’s latter that peak through the unwatchable, indigestible blitzkrieg that is “Reminiscence: The Beginning.” Surprisingly, the scenes I’m referencing satisfy some kind sexual aesthetic while managing to remain a lasting and haunting impression. In one of Akçay’s nightmarish visions, a blonde lays facedown and prone across the hall of a vacant and dark structure. She suddenly awakes, stands with only one ripped above knee stocking on, and backs against the wall, sensually moving up and down, caressing her thigh and a knife with her bloody hands, and dripping blood on the ground from the only piece of clothing covering her chest – a male’s white button down shirt stained at the abdomen. With the knife she holds in her hand, she suddenly thrusts it into her crotch and begins to masturbate. Karaazmak manages to create a visually interesting scene in a creepily sexy or psychosexual fashion and there are other just above mediocre short scenes that glimmer, but these scenes would value more as short films rather than as a whole.
Once again, Karaazmak, has his hands in another department and this time it’s with the waffling special effects. You have to give the musician credit for multi-tasking, but when one person helms many departments, the tasks become overbearing, causing multiple areas foundering as if cables from a suspension bridge are snapping one by one to the point that the bridge begins to wobble. That’s how I feel the effects played out by wobbling, but the effects are par for the limited-budgetary course as being not terribly horrific on a modest budget, but nothing stellar beyond fantastic that would be worth bragging about to promote enthusiastic interest in the film. Karaazmak majorly implements CGI to spookily distort the faces of the other-dimensional shadow people, especially when the leads meet their dopplegangers; a comparison draws from when Ash meets Evil Ash in the 1992 horror-comedy “Army of Darkness” after having buckshot spread blasted point blank into Evil Ash’s face. “I’m bad Akcay and you’re good Akcay,” if only.
Blue Arc Studios and SGL Entertainment, a well-established cult and horror distribution company, along with MVD distribution release “Reminiscence: The Beginning” on a region 1 DVD, presented in a widescreen format. Be prepared for 107 minutes of one of the few sci-fi, alternate reality, horror concoction genre film projects to come out of Turkey, but also be warned of director Karaazmak’s migraine inducing editing technique and a dialogue drowning soundtrack that might condemn the viewing ability. Will Karaazmak take “The Beginning” to the sequel level? Time is, hopefully, on our side.
Movie Magic Evil Waters Down Real Evil. “House on the Hill” review!
Based on the true story of serial killers Leonard Lake and Charlie Ng, director Jeffery Frentzen (Black Dahlia) chronicles the speculated portions of Lake’s and Ng’s homicidal and psychopathic murders. Their murderous spree involved kidnapping young women, enslaving them, and eventually murdering them while also targeting their own relatives and friends, and even seizing the opportunities to abduct whole families. After Lake served in the Marine Corps, he met Charlie Ng and by the 1980s, the two men had constructed an isolated house where innocent people were brought to be tortured, ransomed, and eventually their demise at the hands of their materialistic and deviant captors.
“House on the Hill” is the Jeffery Frentzen directed and co-written with Nicole Marie Polec film that semi-documents the tragic events of Leonard Lake’s and Charlie Ng’s serial killing spree of the 1980s and incorporates actual footage of Leonard Lake speaking about his disturbing views on the world such as enslaving women and being prepared for the inevitable world apocalypse. Most of Frentzen’s movie is embellished as, like the majority of serial killer documentaries, most of what is unknown of Lake will never see the light of truth of what really happened on his ranch. The legend behind Lake and Ng states that there could have been as few as 11 murders or as high as 25; Frentzen attempts to showcase the latter by adding many fictional victims into his film to be representatives to those unknown victims who were never discovered or whose bones were severely untraceable.
However, some of the facts that are true, that we do know about Lake, didn’t quite make the cut because of Frentzen’s x, y, or z reasons. In the film, Lake’s wife is named Cat played by Rachel Devlin (Zombie Nation), but in reality Lake’s wife name was Claralyn Balazs aka “Cricket.” If Lake’s wife name is clear, why go with “Cat?” Also, Lake had constructed a bunker in the backyard of his ranch, but “House on the Hill” has a separate, well-locked shed in the backyard. Simultaneously, Frentzen’s movie has consistent filming errors that even the untrained eye can catch. Continuity glitches that are obvious (Naidra Dawn Thomson’s bra strap is in various positions between takes on a particular scene) and obvious props that are in more need of a convincing sell from the actors and to be well edited to not give the impression of false intentions. Lastly, the overly generic title doesn’t specifically speak much upon Leonard Lake and his accomplice Charlie Ng. “House on the Hill” title has no curb appeal and no real bite to entice viewership.
What I did find pleasurable about “House on the Hill” was the leads’ acting. Canadian actor Stephen A.F. Day and first feature film actor Sam Leung do an above mediocre performance of Leonard Lake and Charlie Ng. They manage to show and sell having no empathy when committing terrible acts, managing the ability to embody the evil within a killer on screen. Barring Frentzen’s epileptic editing and use of tints, lenses, and over exposers, I still was able to see the good in Day’s and Leung’s performances without the editing hoopla that attempted to make the events more dramatic, shocking, and traumatizing.
I’m a little disappointed in the distribution of this film. Not only does the jejune title leave a bleak taste, but the DVD cover doesn’t quite represent what is being sold here. On the cover, there is a dirt pathway leading up to a two story, mansion-like structure sitting on top of a hill and seemingly decayed and abandoned. On the DVD backside, a meathook pops right out at you along with a female victim strung up by her arms, screaming toward to the sky. Meathook does not make a credited or on screen appearance nor does the house in the film look like the mansion on the DVD cover. What is even more disappointing, and what I have to comes to term with every now and then, is the heavily edited cut in which “House on the Hill” was released. The DVD cover states, “Warning Explicit Content,” and does show some intense moments containing blood and torture with implied rape. ‘Some’ being the key word because I’ve seen more explicit content on the local evening news. This might be due in part of the post-production censorship which most noticeably focuses on covering up any and all nude scenes. Olivia Parrish’s topless scene was crudely censored by being blurred out and awkwardly cropped to show a low-resolution image, a forced zoom in, of her neck up as she’s being molested. The same cropping censorship goes against Laura Hofritcher’s topless scene as well during her torturous scene.
The North 40 Production film and MVD and ITN distribution DVD release doesn’t score to well for this reviewer. I’m able to look past the editing techniques, post-production effects, and unbalanced audio, but being a writer and a firm patron of freedom of speech, the censorship of the nudity and potentially the bloodletting has my blood boiling. However, even though Leonard Lake and Charlie Ng may have not been extensively covered on the silver screen or on entertainment television, I am glad Frentzen told partial of the notorious story and was able to tell his rendition of the unknown accounts.
PuniTy: P.T. lives on!
Hell yes! P.T. still lives… well sorta. An awesome fan has remade the P.T. hallway on the Unity engine and it looks fantastic. The demo was developed from scratch simply going off Youtube videos and I must say this is just so fucking awesome.
Everything in the demo stays true to how the original P.T. was. From movement and sound to the environment and even Lisa herself!
The demo is free to all so please, if you didn’t get to play P.T. go play it now!
Link: http://www.the-outline.com/portfolio/punity-pt-hallway-recreation/
It’s amazing that this person took the time to make this . It keeps P.T. alive in some way forever and gives everyone who don’t have a PS4 to go and try it. What I love most is that dumb fuck Konami can’t do shit about it since the author makes no profit from it, and Konami will have no legal ground to take it away. So I will say what i said a million times before and I’ll say it again. FUCK YOU KONAMI!
