Category Archives: comedy

Two Cops. Two Girls. One EVIL Crime Boss! “Rosa” reviewed! (88 Films / Limited Edition Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Grab the Limited Edition Blu-ray of “Rosa” from 88 Films!

Little Monster and Lui Gung didn’t get along to begin with when Little Monster’s accident put Kung’s sister in the hospital for minor injuries but when the two rookie cops get on the bad side of their direct supervisor, Inspector Tin, they have no choice but to work together under his pleasure to see them suffer.  The two cops are assigned to the case of Li Wei-Feng, a smalltime crook who tries to black male mob boss Wong with incriminating photographs of a deal gone deadly.  They stay on top of and befriend Wei-Feng’s ex-girlfriend Rosa in hopes he’ll show up but the cops find themselves going on more double dates between Kung wooing the model Rosa and Little Monster courting Kung’s sister than actually doing any detective leg work.  Before they know it, they’re assisting Rosa out of her gambling debts with medium level bosses and on hot coals with Boss Wong’s formidable henchmen who will stop at nothing and will kill anyone in their way from obtaining the smoking gun film roll. 

“Rosa” is the 1986, Tung Cho “Joe” Cheung directed buddy cop comedy-action film from Hong Kong,  Cheung has delivered a string of action comedies prior, such as with the a torn Kung Fu novice must jealous mend the rift between his two masters before a war ensues in “The Incredible Kung-Fu Master” in 1978 and the story of a veteran police officer who must work both sides of the law to manage his wife’s gambling addiction is paired with a rookie cop to take down transgresses in “Shadow Ninja,” release in 1980.  “Rosa” is another notch of comedic effort in Cheung’s belt but on a bigger scale with well-known actors, a large cast, incredible stunts, and fast martial arts choreography in a script penned by the “Chungking Express” director Wong Kar-Wai and “Hard Boiled” and “Mr. Vampire” writer Barry Wong.  Wong and Anthony Chow (“The Cat”) produce the film under the Golden Harvest Company and Bo Ho Film Company flags.

“Rosa” uses an ensemble cast more for comedic purposes rather than to instill dramatic action, beginning chief principal Biao Yuen, who we’ve recently reviewed in another new phenomenal physical 88 Films Blu-ray release in “Saga of the Phoenix” and has had roles in “Game of Death,” “Encounter of a Spooky Kind,” and “Picture of a Nymph,” as the endearingly named Little Monster, a go-lucky rookie cop with skilled martial arts moves.  Charming and confidence, Yuen plays the most sensible of protagonists without absorbing a lot of humiliation unlike his costar Lowell Lo who finds himself in a more subordinate role of Lui Gung underneath Little Monster’s suavity by having more overreactions, slapstick, and chasing with his tongue out a lost cause – that being Rosa.  “Inferno Thunderbolt’s” Hsiao-Fen Lu plays that titular role, a gambler addict and model with loan shark debt with ties to a small-time crook that incidentally involve her in a deadlier high-stakes blackmail with a power crime boss, but her importance is depreciated by Yuen and Lo’s buddying comedy and not the driving focus of the plot.  In all, the progression is a group effort rather than encamping around a centralized person.  With that being said, Kara Ying Hung Wai (“The Ghost Story”) often feels like an afterthought, a proverbial fourth wheel, as Gung’s sister Lui Lui whos’ gifted lines and a presence here and there but is mainly only Little Monster’s love interest in corporeal presence only.  Rounding out the good guys is the hapless Inspector Tin (Paul Chun, “To Hell With the Devil”), an arrogant supervisor who doesn’t want to get his hands dirty with police work and recruits Little Monster and Kung as punching bags for wrong him in their individualized opening, mishap run-ins with the inspector, another comedy outlet absorbing Rosa’s unintended entrenched Mob connection.  The Mob and other baddies fill out the cast with Billy Sau Yat Ching, James Tien, Charlie Cho, Fat Chung, Chen Chuan, and Dick Wei. 

As far as “Rosa’s” action is concerned, it is topnotch quality between the wide-variety of stunts, the pinpoint choreography, and the excellently executed martial art fights that disproportionately leaves the narrative as a quintessential chop-socky police story.  I say disproportionately because the action is overly consumed by the comedy that, in itself, has struggles.  The humor physicality lands with precision with big hits taken in accidental error or are made within the context of choreographed fight scenes mostly stemmed by Lowell Lo and Paul Chun as they bumble their way through situations, but the dialogued jokes and other vocal gags are terribly corny that unfortunately dilute the overall mirth-murky pool that it becomes too often cringeworthy to swim in.  The light-hearted and sexualized humor is blended with an endless wooing and an outdo rivalry between the forced partnership that evolves into a fond friendship between Little Monster and Lui Gung, who is often referred to as Big Brother.  Lowell Lo embodies a larger slapstick piece of the pie with his distinguishable friendly face and doughy-eyed demeanor, contrasted against the athletic slender of Biao Yuen who outshines him on the conventional society determined good looks scale with an unassuming martial arts skillset to match.  All the serious and grim nature comes out of the Hong Kong’s criminal element with deadly assassins that use piano wire and large caliber handgun to lacerate jugulars and explode cars full of betrayed crooks.  The third act finale finally puts the pieces together and creates a harmonious brawl that blends action and comedy evenly, even integrating Lui Lui into the fold with an out of the blue ability to hold her own and fight just as fast and furious as Little Monster.  

Another Golden Harvest distributed production garners attention once again on 88 Films, in association with Fortune Star Films, with a definitive Blu-ray set from the UK boutique label making their presence known here in the North American market.  The AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition transfer, onto a BD50 has remarkable presentational quality with a pristine print transferred onto a 2K scan from its original 35mm negative.  The immersive quality shows no sign of destabilizing the matrix, leaving audiences with the immense scope of a cleaner, natural image full of depth and range of saturated and diffused color.  Skin tones appear organic and nitty-gritty with the stubble, sweat, beauty marks, and the subtle contrasts of tones.   88 Films’ flexes their restoration efforts that extends the color palate to suitable measure and each scene, through its superb editing by chop-socky veteran Peter Cheung, segues into the next without missing a color resolution beat.  The film is also presented in original 1.85:1 widescreen aspect ratio.  There are two ADR mono tracks, Cantonese and English.  Cantonese is preferred with the better mouth-to-sound synchronization, but both deliver a really good decoded mono mix despite the singular direction of all the audio but with post-production sound, that can be manipulated to exact timing with the exact sound to create a better disbursed audio design.  There some crackling and hissing in the dialogue but very low-level interference that doesn’t hinder the prominence and really affect the clarity.  The newly translated UK English subtitles are available from Ken Zhang and synch fine with a steady pace and come without typos.  Encoded special features have a new audio commentary by Hong Kong Cinema experts Frank Djeng and F.J. DeSanto, a second new commentary from another Hong Kong Cinema expert David west, an interview with director Tung Cho “Joe” Cheung and assistant director Benz Kong, alternate English opening and closing credit titles, an image gallery, and the original trailer.  The limited-edition set comes with a rigid slipbox sheathed by an O-Ring slipcover with new artwork by Sean Longmore that plays into Rosa’s bosomy running ga. Inside the slipbox is a 40-page color booklet with stills and a pair of essays from Fraser Elliott and Paul Bramhell, a collectible postcard, and the clear Amaray case with the same primary Langmore art on the sleeve that can be reversed for the original Hong Kong poster art.  The booklet and slipbox have more original art as well that speaks the action and slapstick.  The not rated, region A and B encoded release has a runtime of 97 minutes.

Last Rites: Fun, exciting, and moderately droll, “Rosa” might hit-and-miss on the comedy, but what definitely hits is the martial arts action defined in a harmony of perfect scrappy chorography.

Grab the Limited Edition Blu-ray of “Rosa” from 88 Films!

EVIL’s Blonde, Beautiful, and Without Genitalia! “Darbie’s Scream House” reviewed! (Wild Eye Releasing / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Uh Oh Darbie! “Let’s Go Buy “Darbie Scream House” on DVD!

In Doll Town, Darbie is the most popular doll around.  Blonde, beautiful, and busty, Darbie lives a perfect plastic existence.  When her boyfriend Ben wants to plan a surprise birthday bash for Darbie, Tripper, Darbie’s helpful yet gossipy little sister, interprets Ben’s interactions with Darbie’s friends – Danger Darbie, Ditzy Darbie, and Rodeo Darbie – as infidelity despite no evidence of sexual activity, as well no doll in Doll Town having genitalia, and reports back to Darbie with the unpleasant news.   With her perfect world seemingly crumbling down, Darbie pledges to rid Doll Town of her now ex-best friends by taking a big knife to them in vengeful spite, turning her dream life into a spiral nightmare based off a simple misunderstanding and an obsession with contentment, that drives her insane and no one from her friends to boyfriend Ben, to even her sister Tripper, are safe from her accessorial wrath.  

Former, or current depending on how you look at it, alternative adult content creator turned this next generations cult film scream queen, Jessa Flux (“Murdercise,” “Onlyfangs”) co-writes and co-produces her latest venture “Darbie’s Scream House,” a comedy-horror lampooning of Mattel’s Barbie universe.  Flux’s independent film talents hop aboard a legendary name of the same market in Donald Farmer.  The “Cannibal Hookers,” “An Erotic Vampire in Paris,” and “Hi-8 (Horror Independent 8)” filmmaker co-writes and produces with Flux while helming at the seat of the director’s chair.  Together, Flux and Farmer materialize a plastic doll world full of jealousy, rage, scandalmongering, debauchery, and homicidal tendencies.  Crowdfunded through Indiegogo, the campy horror parody.  The 2026 film is a production of Stratosphere Entertainment. 

Not only collaboratively writing and producing the feature, but Jessa Flux also stars as the titular character Darbie, the buxom queen of Doll Town with an amiable personality up to a point.  That point is when boyfriend Ben comes under the scrutiny of Darbie’s nosy, troublemaking sister, Tripper.  Claude D. Miles has collaborated with Farmer and Flux on a few other projects, such as Donald Farmer’s “Debbie Does Demons” and “Scream Queens Weenie Roast,” and between Flux and Miles, their rapport doesn’t seem forced as it’s flexed to work as comedic love interests in a parody setting.  Ana Xaden, another indie alternative horror actress, also has worked with Farmer, Flux and Miles on “Scream Queens Weenie Roast” from the year prior, turning the trio into a regular entourage for the “Cannibal Hookers” director.  Xaden also busts out along with Flux as the two become elementary with their dialogue, by that I mean their conversations, whether written in the script like this or just the style of acting incurred by spontaneity upon filming, has an artificiality to it with monotonic delivery and exposition.  Funny thing is, you only really see this flat conjecture between Darbie and Tripper, and maybe even a little bit from Ditzy Darbie (Ashleigh Amberlynn, “Night of the Dead Sorority Babes”) but that’s more expected because of her dunce character.  Ben conversing with Beach Blanket Ben (Joe Casterline, “Shark Exorcist 2”  Unholy Waters”), or any other minor male character, has more natural back-and-forth without any fabricated flavoring, and it’s curious to think that maybe “Darbie Dream House” has a layered depth to that nuisance that speaks to the fake talk and gossip associated generally around women and men letting it, generally again, hang all out.  The cast rounds out with Mel Heflin (“Scarlet Rain”) as aggressive lesbian Rodeo Darbie, Fallon Maressa (“Bloodrunners:  Vampire Wine”) as Dream Date Darbie, and Kasper Meltedhair (“Hooker with a Hacksaw”) as a Doll Town reporter with Kimberly Lynn Cole (“Bloodthirst”) listed in the credits but her scenes cut and placed in the special features’ deleted scene. 

This is not one of those This Is Not Barbie:  An XXX Parody type of film but “Darbie Scream House” very much cold have been with it’s dolled up and naked-positive female cast, male characters with bad wigs and depraved names like Sleazy Steve, and a premise around creeping sexual promiscuity.  However, blood axe-wielding aggression, reared by jealousy, fill in the gaps to level up a cheap stag production to a barebones indie horror that doesn’t take itself very seriously in this meta-existences for the chief characters who are playable dolls of a young, imaginative young girl but who are also moving autonomous with their movements and affairs that are not sanctioned by Barbie or Mattel for that matter.  “Darbie” is a different kind of female empowering doll but in the same breath lacks the informed judgement of a jump-to-conclusions partner, insecure and obsessive over people and ideals.  “Darbie Scream House” caters to that what if scenario if Barbie didn’t have mental positivity and broke into sociopathic tendencies?  The core of the story is there but does heavily rely on the gratuitousness of Jessa Flux, Ana Xaden, and Ashleigh Amberlynn to carry it over the finish line, yet the shoddy effects, poor acting, and mishandling of the meta perspective sink this Donald Farmer production like cemented pink platform and rhinestone shoes. 

This is a no playtime, you can be anything Barbie movie with a house in Malibu and driving a pink convertible.  This is “Darbie’s Scream House,” a bizarro, alternative universe mined form the same vein as the classic children’s characters, such as Winnie the Pooh, Mickey Mouse, and The Grinch, turned into monstrous villains of your nightmares.  “Darbie’s Scream House” is right up Wild Eye Releasing’s alley with plenty of against-the-grain filmmaking, attitude, and shlocky satire, now available on a DVD home video that’s an MPEG2 encoded DVD5 with 720p resolution.  Even if you’re player + television combo can upscale the quality, the image quality is limited to the commercial grade equipment with passable delineation and detail that offers immersive detail but gets the job done. Lots of the details are washed away also but the use of blue or pink saturating gels that flood tense moments of Darbie’s life on the downspin and much of the exteriors are ungraded, using natural the deflection of natural light to the best of their ability.  The English PCM Stereo 2.0 carries an unbalanced depth that’s inconsistent on keeping characters dialogue level within the shot.  Those closer to the camera often have strength priority with the second person only a step or two back sounding as if they’re a good ten yards away in the closeup-to-medium marked shots.  The recording mic also can’t sustain sounds beyond its limitations, such as screaming that breaks the reproduction into bits of static and distortion at high peaks.  Special features contain a blooper reel, a deleted scene, and feature and other Wild Eye Releasing trailers with the physical package sporting an embellished, AI generated cover, which I aways appreciate the fluffing-up of an indie film.  In this instance, the art doesn’t stray from the truth per se but aggrandizes the finer details quite a bit; however, the nice touch here is the Barbie font used for the title.   The reverse sleeve image inside the clear Amaray isn’t afraid to be gory with a severed head from the story that has been lightly touched up for effect.  The not rated DVD is region free for all players and has a runtime of 75 minutes, enough to satisfyingly slay. 

Last Rites: Jessa Flux’s “Darbie’s Scream House” skewers Barbie into an unperfect, deranged universe of emotional unstable killer toy dolls but leaves much on the table of possibility and has a hard time gluing together an airtight campy story that’s too reliant on the kink than the gore.

Uh Oh Darbie! “Let’s Go Buy “Darbie Scream House” on DVD!

Add This EVIL SOV to Your Halloween Watch List! “V/H/S/Halloween” reviewed! (Acorn Media International / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Spend Halloween With What Scares You on Blu-ray!

A new soda from the Octagon company is about to hit commercial retail shelves but before it does, voluntary testing is recorded for posterity with test subjects examined as they drink Diet Phantasma, a spirt-infused carbonate drink surely to die for.  In between the mopping up of test subjects, four more tales of terror penetrate the safety of the soul.  Two high school seniors go out trick-r-treating for one last mischievous hurrah only to find themselves trapped inside with Mommy, a matriarchal creature from the afterlife that kidnaps bad children on Halloween and makes them her own kids.  A night of revelry trespass onto the mansion grounds of a past gone necromancer who communicated with the dead and when the partygoers pickup the calls from the dead, a tremendous terror can’t go unanswered nor unseen.  Another group of adult trick-r-treater comes upon an unattended bowl full of obscure chocolates only to find themselves suck into the bowl itself and inside a desolate factory where the candymaker toys with his new fun size ingredients.  A media service aims to protect children with their videography services, especially from an unidentified abductor who mutilates and kills kids, but the service may be doing much more harm than good collecting children’s information as they walk through the store.  Lastly, a waning father-and-son bond over their makeshift Halloween maze turns into a nightmare when a record incantation brings to life each of the maze’s horrifying scenarios from ghosts to zombies, to child-eating witches.

For over a decade, the horror anthology series “V/H/S” has been terrifying audiences with short, original tales that break the scale of reality and enter a new dimension of horror that illuminated the careers of modern horror directors Ti West (“X”), Adam Wingard (“Godzilla vs Kong”), and David Bruckner (“Hellraiser” ’22), to name a select few.  The concept created by Bloody Disgusting’s founder Brad Miska in 2012 has one more installment with a new focus, Halloween.  All Hallow’s Eve already has a spooky air about it with a bit of treat to counteract its trick but in the 2025’s “V/H/S/Halloween,” there’s more sinister means than there are chocolates and sweets for new blood enters the series with filmmakers Bryan M. Ferguson writing-and-director “Diet Phantasma,” Anna Zlokovic writing-and-directing “Coochie Coochie Coo,” Paco Plaza directing and co-writing “Ut Supra Six Infra” with Alberto Marini, Casper Kelly writing-and-directing “Fun Size,” Alex Ross Perry writing-and-director “Kidprint,” and R.H. Norman helming a cowritten script of House Haunt” with Micheline Pitt-Norman.  Miska returns as producer alongside Michael Schreiber (“V/H/S/94,” “V/H/S/99”), Steven Schneider (“V/H/S/Beyond), Roy Lee (“V/H/S/Beyond),, James Harris (“V/H/S/85”), Josh Goldbloom (“V/H/S/94,” “V/H/S/99”), and Derek Dauchy (“Late Night with the Devil”) making his producing debut into the franchise.  “V/H/S/Halloween” is a coproduction of Shudder Films, Cinepocalypse Productions, Imagenation Abu Dhabi, and Spooky Pictures. 

In true “V/H/S” fashion, the anthological shorts include a cast few would be familiar with, fresh faces for the grinder as each short touches Halloween night in a different, diabolical way than what we’re use to seeing.  The wraparound story “Diet Phantasma” opens with the Octagon corporate COO Blaine Rothschild being escorted into the manufacturing and testing plant devising the experiment.  David Haydn takes charge of his COO character that flashes a false grin but conveys an authenticity directive while doing it that leads a number of testers to their carbonated demise, from a cast comprised of UK and American actors.  In “Coochie Coochie Coo,” mother knows best as minor hooligan high school friends Lacie (“Samantha Cochran) and Kaliegh (Natalia Montgomery Fernandez) embark on their last night of mischief before moving away to college and stumble upon a light-pulsating house where they discover milk-induced deform adults acting like babies and their six-breasted mother has more milk to give!  Cochran and Fernandez are in the shoes of characters you wouldn’t root for as they’re more rulebreakers than young women with healthy goals and desires as they smoke weed, steal candy from children, and overall take life for granted and the two actresses do criminal-type behavior with justice, pun intended.   Underneath Mommy’s unnatural milkers, talk stature, and evil grin, all underneath a white nightgown and bonnet, is Elena Musser’s phenomenally creepypasta take on fictional lore for the short.  The Spanish-language “ Ut Supra Sic Infra” opens with a back and forth between an interrogation of sole survivor Enric and his eye-removed, bone-crushed friends strewn about a medium’s sacred chamber where Enric, detectives, and his lawyer return to unearth what went down that night.  Spaniard Teo Planell runs polar opposite with his centralized character Enric who begins in fear and ends in wicked confidence as the re-enactment of events turns into a repeat of that fateful night.   One of the more unfavorable performance stories is “Fun Size,” a quirky, corporate consuming double entendre that teleports four friends into a human meat manufacturer that turns their smallest body parts into chocolate covered goodies.  Lawson Greyson (“Herman”), Jenna Hogan (“Surviving the Sleepover”), Riley Nottingham (“The Demoness”), and Jake Ellsworth’s (“Party of Darkness”) performances hit the nail of artificiality and not-so-fun sized corniness.  The cringe acting coupled with stilted dialogue will have audiences root for the antagonist, a candy-headed, crown-wearing, suit-sporting supernatural entity named Fun Size provided with his best “Terrifier” like playfully menacing movements by Michael J. Sielaff with “V/H/S/Halloween” not being his first rodeo with the series having played Pale Face & Babysitter in the “Stork” segment of “V/H/S/Beyond.”  “Kidprint” perhaps has the most disturbing and realistic tale of a child abductor and murderer with a storyline set in the late 80s-early 90s.  Stephen Gurewitz (“The Scary of Sixty-First”) plays Tim Kaplan, owner of Kaplan’s video services where parents can record VHS tapes containing their children’s appearance and information in case they go missing for XYZ reason, and the do-gooder shop owner becomes intertwined with the real killer, someone close to him, who has access to all the tapes and all the information needed to indulge his sociopathic whims, a role “Hostile’s” Carl Garrison was born to play.  Last short shows through home video the decaying stability of a son’s bond with his father over a shared interest in what is a natural progression of coming of age with the now teen boy who’s tired of being bullied by his peers for his dad’s obsession over a Halloween haunt maze he builds every year.  Jeff Harms and Noah Diamond are father-son Keith and Zack in the throes of phasing out their once beloved bond because of teenage angst and peer pressures.  That tension and rebinding of affection is interrupted by the sudden personification of their inanimate horror show that goes straight for the throat in a show of supernatural and classically-creaturfied blood shedding within a homemade maze, leaving teenage angst to be wiped up with a mop. 

Like most “V/H/S” installments, each entry has hits, and each has misses, and this first of its kind holiday-themed ‘V/H/S” anthology produces the same effect.  Spanning across decades from the 80’s to the 2000’s with a series no longer cornered by a particular era, each SOV production produces an original tale all of which grab a handful of disturbing and unsettling content, most with a gore edge.  “Coochie Coochie Coo” and “Fun Size” are two good examples with each carrying opposite elements that make horror horrifying.  Though both shorts are my personally my least favorite of the six, “Fun Size” offers that grossly disturbing factor that invades a person’s private parts for candy making satisfaction but the while the story is short and sweet, there’s nothing shuddering about it where as “Coochie Coochie Coo” trades the vulgar gore for another unsettling factor, pure creepiness that feels like one of those cheap survival horror PC games but can jump scare the hell out of you.  “Ut Supra Six Infra,” “Kidprint,” and “House Haunt” seize a more traditional inlaid suspense with a properly encased twist moment, quickly downgrading a tense by calm story evolution to spiral out of control with madness of monsters, maniacs, and mayhem violently gnashing what’s left of a good around the campfire spooky tale.  “Diet Phantasma” is also a neat premise with an evil spirit infused soda under a corporation eager for obedience and mind control, a metaphor for soda companies running the world as we see such situations in other countries where Coca-Cola is the leading provider of clean purchasable water.  Ferguson also treats fans with an homage to Tommy Lee Wallace’s “Halloween III” by riding a similar plot but with trick-or-treat masks that kill children to resurrect Gaelic, or Samhain, sacrifices.  The COO is also seen reading a Fangoria magazine with hee John Carpenter penned off-shoot sequel on the front cover, suggesting further the idolizing connection.

Acorn Media International distributes the Shudder production onto an AVC encoded, 1080p high-def resolution, BD50.  Like it’s predecessors, the imitated and authentic SOV shoots go through periods of interlaced distortions and static snow that simulate the signal interference, tape artefacts, and low quality, low-graded detail and saturation with some shorts elbowing their way into the cleaner digital camcorder era.  No issues with the true compression of the Blu-ray format; audiences will be pleased to see they will get exactly what the filmmakers’ intended, a harried shaky cam first person view that has it’s monsters looking right back at you under a veil of vagueness and to be a hostage to the purposed angles that translate immense fear just out of frame, presented in a widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio rather than the organic 4:3 framing for the stories from the 80s to mid-90s with videotape.  The English and Spanish language DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio has no issue delivering a vigorous and balanced mixed layers of sound depth based on design short that may contain areas of static, a weaker strength, and certainly a lot of screaming that reaches the mics physical limits to capture and reproduce the sound.  Dialogue is clear and prominent but, like I said, lots of screaming and wailing when events turn southward that it doesn’t matter often what is being said when it all just comes out of as chaotic cacophony.  I will say that “V/H/S/Halloween” is one of the better sound designed productions with more attention to the individual layering.  English subtitles are optionally available as well as French.  Special features include a director’s commentary for each short, a behind-the-scenes featurette for “Diet Phantasma” and “Coochie Coochie Coo” that’s is a swing between mostly raw footage during in between shots and some during shots with commentary here and there, a deleted scene from “Kidprint,” “Diet Phantasma” uninterrupted without the cut-to other shorts, “Diet Phantasma” faux commercial, and a gallery for the Ferguson short.  The physical appearances have the traditional “V/H/S” themed skull front and center on its one-sided sleeve art, sheathed inside the plastic of a Blu-ray Amaray.  There are no other tangible accompaniments.  The UK certified 18 film is region B locked and has a runtime of approx. 115 minutes. 

Last Rites: “V/H/S/Halloween” has original spooky tales centered around the holiday but as a collection, this anthology is a mixed bag of often great knee-buckling terror with considerable absurd tailspin that tries too hard to be scary out of the most unalloyed.

Spend Halloween With What Scares You on Blu-ray!

Alien EVIL Will Suck Your Blood and Tear You From Limb-to-Limb! “Vampire Zombies…From Space!” reviewed! (Cleopatra Entertainment / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Vampire Zombies…From Space” Invades Physica Media! Check it Out Here!

One night in the small U.S. town of Marlow, a flying saucer beams down a bloodthirsty invader and obliterates to smithereens the wife of Tobacco farmer Roy MacDowell’s wife and their two daughters.  Labeled crazy and perceived a wife murderer, Roy and his daughters must contend with the suspicious townsfolk years later until strange occurrences of UFO sightings, unkillable humanoids, and a string of grisly half-eaten corpses pop-up all-around Marlow.  New to the force Officer Wallace suspects an alien encounter from his own similar experience in the big city but the local leadership are hard pressed to believe what’s really happening under their noses, or rather above their heads as an alien race of vampires are planning to take over Earth, beginning with the town of Marlow now they have been inoculated from the ill-effects of the crucifix.   The only side effect is it turns any human bit into a mindless vampire zombie.  With Marlow in jeopardy with an all-out invasion, Wallace and those with previous encounters with the otherworldly invaders lead the town to defend itself from a vampire attack and domination. 

A tributing throwback to the 1950’s science fictional B-movies, “Vampire Zombies…From Space!” is the 2024 Michael Stasko (“Iodine”) directed and cowritten, black-and-white shot picture that recalls McCarthyism fears of a communism invasion in the United States in complete metaphor fashion by replacing the Soviets with vampires not of this world.  However, the film is not a pure-bred homage to the antiquated subgenre of miniatures and elaborate sets as it applies satire and farce comedy, excessive foul language not used during that period of time, and gore…lots of vampire, zombie, man-made gore. Co-written alongside with comedic duo Jakob Skrzypa and Alex Forman (“Luke’s House of Spooks”), “Vampire Zombies…From Space!” is a whole new breed birthed from a historical outréness meant to strike fear and awareness through a science fiction medium.  The Canadian production is from Stasko’s The Dot Film Company, produced by the director, both writers, and fellow “Iodine” filmmaker Ted Bezaire, and representatively sold worldwide by Michael Kraetzer and Nicholas Onetti’s company, Black Mandala (“Francesca,” “Abrakadabra”).

The story essentially follows three groups of characters.  Beginning with the human side of things, new to town Officer Wallace, played by Rashaun Baldeo, finds himself assigned to Marlow after witnessing what he claims are aliens who killed his partner, and he’s subordinate to the resident Chief Ed Clarke with an enacting alcoholic cynicism by Andrew Bee (“A Taste of Blood.” ).  The veteran actor Bee is lopsidedly more comfortable in his role than newcomer Baldeo is rather stiff around the officer’s gills, especially for a backstory consisting of personal death and aliens at the forefront of it but Baldeo and Bee compliment each other enough to pull off good cop and rough around the edges cop.  The next set of Earthlings come from Jessica Antovski (“The Dread”) as the single MacDowell left alive after Mary’s family falls victims to the initial landings of a vampire invasion and she’s joined Oliver Georgiou as a 50’s greaser Wayne who also faced firsthand an extraterrestrial tragedy with the loss of his brother but knows the method of how to kill them.  Antovski and Georgio represent the opposite end of the spectrum – the girl from the family who’s a town joke and the hip, cool kid with friends – but fall for each other in time of crisis, even more so when Wayne’s hand-in-hand instruction with Mary to put into real-time, stake-perforating practice that has an ecstasy emulation effect provided when there’s sexual intercourse.  The last grouping is amongst the vampiric villains and who being the best example of a vampire other than Count Dracula.  Played in a classic, Bela Lugosi-style by Craig Closter (“The Eternal Present”), Dracula’s on the verge of being out of the vampire empire, with a council by an Elvira-like Vampira, A Francis Ford Coppola Dracula-esque version with the large white rotunda for hair, and a classic Nosferatu with a round misshapen head, elongated and pointy ears, and two large fangs front and center, who are not pleased at Dracula’s handling of the Earth appropriation tactics.  With the help of his crucifix-nullifying vaccine creating son, Dylan, Dracula has a chance to change his fate, at least for now.  Robert Kemeny’s first acting role perfectly suits the nerdy and angsty teen vampire, one who very much wishes to be left alone and bemoans his pushy and workaholic father Dracula until his dad’s life is on the line.  Closter’s a passable Dracula for this story’s comedic purpose, but perhaps not as terrifying as others in the same cloak and white makeup shoes prior to his performance.  There are a pair of genre cameos that come up with Troma founder Lloyd Kaufman (“The Toxic Avenger”) as the public masturbator and the original Barbara from George Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead” Judith O’Dea as Vampira, plus the cast completes with Simon Reynolds (“The Gate II: The Trespassers”), Erik Helle, Mark Lefebvre (“The Eternal Present”), David Liebe Hart, and Martin Quellette.

“Vampire Zombies…From Space!” black-and-white homage to the mid-20th century science fiction film works on multiple levels.  As a science fiction film, practical miniatures are used for the droning flying saucers complete with visual effect laser blasts and its collective beehive space station where Dracula formulates and spearheads all his diabolical plans and convenes with council on holographic communication in a “Star Wars” fashion.  As a horror, a quintessential classic Dracula and general collective of timeless vampire pale face and fangs on every bloodsucker co-armed by the George Romero claw and disembowel flesh and organ eating zombie make for a gory good time.  As a comedy, dark humor gags of ostentatious gore and death using practical effects, social commentary satire surrounding tobacco and ambiguous double-entendres of pedo-politicians, over-the-top era specific dialect and expressions, and, of course, Lloyd Kaufman jerking around on the Marlow laws as the menacing public masturbator.  Stasko shows an understanding of the 1950s B-picture and aggrandizes the hell out of it by folding its absurd premise into the antiquated, monochrome aesthetic that removes the monotony often times those picture can produce and replaces it with more modern but subtle approaches that don’t dull contemporary genre fans.  The third act sprawls the chaos with vampire helmed attack saucers, zombies ripping the shreds out of Marlow’s residents, individualized and isolated scuffles between principals provide microbreak beats in between the major carnage, and ends with an all classic good-guy turnaround when all is thought lost.  Stasko lays all the cards out with “Vampire Zombies…From Space!” by never introducing mystery into the mix.  With all the work done in frame, audiences can literally sit back and just watch an old timey bloodbath of vampire and zombie invasion pandemonium. 

Cleopatra Entertainment, the filmic subsidiary to music label Cleopatra Record, reigns down terror from the skies with “Vampire Zombies… From Space!” on Blu-ray home video . The AVC encoded, 1080p high-def resolution, BD25 is presented entirely in black-and-white but while the black-and-white is a nice touch for honoring science fictions from half a century ago, the feature is not presented in a 1.33:1 full screen that was the common aspect ratio of the time.  Instead, the film has a widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio, which is not going to make or break the overall aesthetic but it’s a thoughtful touch that’s forgotten.  Without the dynamic range of color, the lower capacity disc provides sufficient compression with no signs of artefacts.  Even with the green screen elements, which there are many, doesn’t show signs of variability when the action is high, fast, and full of components.  Details are beholden the monochromatic scale but looks quite elaborate in every inch of the frame from the shooting sets, real and fabricated, to the period outfits.  Audio consists of a compressed English Dolby Digital 5.1 and a Stereo 2.0.  The 5.1 mix seizes the cacophonic cluster when the vampires and vampire zombies invade Marlow where land and air attack emanate a wide range of sounds from military gunfire to UFO laser blasts, plus all the melee skirmishes and squish gore, worked in and around the clean and forefront dialogue track.  Ian McGregor Smith’s score harks back to the harrowing brass and percussion of big band compositions with a few more unconventional minor key instruments specific to the science fiction and horror elements.  English subtitles are optionally available. Special features include an audio commentary from director Michael Stasko and producers Jakob Skrzypa and Alex Forman, a 16-minute cast and crew interviews that goes behind the scenes into principal production moments (not listed as a special feature on back cover), a Judith O’Dea online video-conference interview about her experience working on the film (not listed on the back cover), a Lloyd Kaufman video conference interview about his experience (not listed on the back cover), five deleted scenes, a 90-second clip of the film’s premier at the Windsor International Film Festival held at Chrysler Theater, a still slide show, and the official trailer with promotional clips.  There’s also trailers for other Cleopatra Entertainment presented films.  The Blu-ray comes in standard Amaray with one-sided cover art, a character composition arranged in a flying V with Dracula largely in the middle and designed in a classic approach font and format.  The not rated film has a runtime of 98 minutes and is encoded for all regions.

Last Rites: Fans of “Zombies from the Stratosphere,” “War of the Worlds,” and “Planet of the Vampires,” will get a kick out of “Zombie Vampires…From Space” in all its blend of horror and science fiction glory of golden era B-pictures.

“Vampire Zombies…From Space” Invades Physica Media! Check it Out Here!

EVIL Will Run You Over and Scrape You Off the Road Just to Kill You Again! “A Very Flattened Christmas” reviewed! (SRS Cinema / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Merry Christmas, You Filthy Reindeers! “A Very Flattened Christmas” Blu-ray on Amazon.com!

A roadkill collection company mourns the sudden death of one of their former employees who was murdered in a seemingly drug deal gone bad. Max, also a former roadkill company employee, returns to town to pay his respects to his close friend and colleague but the funeral is everything but cordial and of decorum when Rick, another former roadkill company employee turned famous yet narcissistic filmmaker on the verge of releasing another installment of his popular Dick Puncher series, makes trouble not only at J’s funeral but also at the company’s Christmas party. Max’s friend, conspiracy theorist Dan, becomes lead suspect in J’s death, and detectives Bradley and Francine search for clues and interview those involved with the deceased. Soon, they and all other employees become intwined in all the roadkill company drama for all the wrong reasons when a killer dressed in a menacing reindeer outfit has set out to slay all employees, past and present, this Christmas.

Based on the Shane Wallace created six-episode comedy web series “Flattened,” premised with precursory characters Max, Dan, and J involved in roadkill company hijinks and drugs, Wallace’s feature length, Christmas holiday-themed, and company slasher film serves as a direct follow up to the web series filmed in and near Wichita, Kansas and released between 2016 and 2017. Titled “A Very Flattened Christmas,” the 2024 story continues the trio’s story, picking up years later after all the interned employees have moved on with their lives from scooping up animal carcasses from off the local highways and backroads and started different career pathways, such as becoming a highly famed filmmaker, and but their newfangled lives become jeopardize by an evil reindeer taking them out one-by-one. Different Day Pictures returns to produce the venture backed by crowdfunding through GoFundMe with film’s star Key Tawn Toothman serving as producer.

The returning web series cast carry little over from the series into the feature film other than selective series moments displayed in a snow globe during the credits, which doesn’t explain much if, like in myself, you’ve never seen, or even heard of, the web series, and the multiple mentioned fact that characters once worked at the roadkill company.  That’s about as much backstory you’ll get to catch up into a whole new venture for Max and gang that are no longer in the dirty business of carcass removal but are in the business of being preyed upon by a reindeer masked killer, a complete 180 degree turn of events from the comedic web series.  This particular Christmasy, slasher sequel follows Max (Key Tawn Toothman) having returned to town to attend his friend J’s (Naythan Smith) funeral.  Max’s grounded for social facets with level-headed awareness and a good sense of judgement making him well liked amongst current employees of the company but that also makes him an easy target for former employees turned narcissist filmmaker Rick (Jesse Bailey) and conspiracy theorist Dan (Trevor Vincent Farney) who clings on him with his paranoia drivel.  Between the two, Rick receives substantial backstory material with news story and commercial hype for his upcoming Dick Puncher film but receive little context to Dan’s rants and ravings that are more like an annoying friend’s unconscious conversational narcissism.  Max is balanced out by allies within the company like receptionist Jerry-Ann (Beckie Jenek) and mobile carcass scraper Lorribell (Paul Makar), both of him have to work on Christmas, begrudgingly, but all are fair game for Red Eyes (Lucas Farney) with a mangy Reindeer mask in a mall Santa suit killing off Max’s friends and enemies alike and while Max and his love interest Maddie (Kaemie McCanless) along with detectives Bradley (Mark D. Anderson) and Francine (Shanna Berry) work to uncover the truth, led on red herring, and fight for their own survival, the body count continues to collect those staple to the “Flattened” series, turning every character fair game to be trampled by the Reindeer masked killer.  Mark Mannette, John Doornbos, Noah Farney, Blaine Frazier, Nora Graham, and Dean Kavivya costar.

The Christmas season may be over and Santa has packed it in for another 364 days, but no Christmas horror movie, especially released during the season, should be left unturned over and “A Very Flattened Christmas” receives a platform as we continue to celebrate the 12-days of Christmas with a series-based slasher that concludes the “Flattened” troupe’s run by killing off its beloved characters.  “A Very Flattened Christmas” continues the campiness with a dry humor, dark comedy affair that plays like a family get together that has gone down the drain with rekindled friends and enemies swirled into a nutmeg batter of one maniacally, reindeer-and-Santa Claus-garbed killer’s cake mix.  The feature tiptoes ever so gradually away from the roadkill company despite keeping the series’ Flattened in the title as the chaos spills out into other portions of town without the whiff of decaying animal corpses; instead, the corpses of Max’s acquaintances are the ones who are being flattened, literally.  The masked killer has strong threat appeal and wields an array of offings in favor of the story as Wallace uses death gags and some practical effects to shoulder the horror weight but there’s also a fair amount of visual blood spurt’s that speak to its budget limitations and crowdfunded castrations.  The killer twist is palpable enough though leans into overt tells some but the one thing this themed slasher really needed, as much as it also needed more series context in the jump from a television show to a feature film, is to up the Christmas tinsel with seasonal carnage to turn the merriness on its head by decapitating it.

Keep the holiday spirit going with “A Very Flattened Christmas” on an SRS Cinema Blu-ray. The AVC encoded, 1080p resolution, 25 gigabyte BD-R offers a solid image quality under the technical low bar circumstances. Details are sharply outlined, distinct, and without fuzzy aliasing, splotchy spots, or other associated compression issues. There’s some banding along the darker shades but nothing too big to gripe about. The details are hit or miss depending on the scene difficulty and substandard lighting but the achievement of corporal tactiles on an SRS Cinema Blu-ray is a little triumph for the release and that is what is accomplished here. The full-blown animation portion is top-notch work for something of a skit gag that lands with confidence. The English language LPCM 2.0 has little authority behind it’s acoustical dynamics and projecting strength, but the dialogue is overall clear and present, ample and adequate by all means of the sound design without underscoring the horrific highlights of a holiday horror film, such as the hits and action of the evil reindeer’s sojourn slaughter through the Max’s rolodex of friends. Daron Kelp and Dave Baker’s eclectic soundtrack of rattling synth keyboard and haunting sustained chords peppered with full length vocal tracks. There are no subtitles available. Special features include a director and producer commentary track parallel to the feature, an alternate scene, deleted scenes, the film’s trailer, an animated trailer, “Flattened” series pilot episode, and other SRS Cinema trailers. The Amaray Blu-ray is about as physically scanty as they come with only an illustrated cover art of the Santa-cladded reindeer (looks like a rat to me) overtop and about to take hold a snowy covered town in its bloodied shovel grasp. SRS Cinema has always been able to produce neat art for their releases to bedazzle slightly the rudimentary in-hand. The not rated release has a runtime of 92 minutes and is region free unlocked.

Last Rites: Santa has packed it in for the year but in horror, Christmas can come at any time of year. “A Very Flattened Christmas” is a welcomed addition to the holiday clash subgenre with a formidable villain, decent kill decimating, and great soundtrack but be forewarned of its spotty at best storyline, some bad CGI bloodletting, and humorlessly dry jokes.

Merry Christmas, You Filthy Reindeers! “A Very Flattened Christmas” Blu-ray on Amazon.com!