Category Archives: comedy

There’s No Cutting Out This EVIL! “Brain Tumor” reviewed! (MVD Visual & Whacked Movies / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Watch the Deadly Growth of the “Brain Tumor” on DVD!

World-renowned but virtually unorthodox and cursory neurosurgeon Dr. Seymour Caligari removes yet another brain tumor with relative ease from a cancerous-afflicted patient.  After the large golf ball sized tumor is discarded for oncology dissection and study in the lab, the once lifeless biological malignant specimen escapes from the medical pan and starts violently attacking people on a rouge killing spree.  Having absconded the hospital grounds, the tumor continuously stays on the hunt for its next meal, devouring the distasteful locals surrounding Dr. Caligari’s mansion home.  Caligari, his son Dash, and stepdaughter, Kitsie, who is an alcoholic and is also oddly dating her stepbrother, soon find out that the nearby, forest hiding tumor is growing into a large, tentacled, and toothy ball with bloodthirsty, feeding frenzy tendencies and it’s up to Caligari’s family to reconnect whole their interfamily relationship faults if they want to stop it before it consumes more victims. 

A practical schlock tribute to the pre-1980s monster movie, this 2024 release “Brain Tumor” embodies every bad, mutated cell that defined the ridiculously slathered B-movie creature features of yore, the ones that aired late enough to be seen by the burning the midnight oil few and were described with every exclamatory interjections and horrifying, vocabulary descriptors you could think of to put shock, terror, and fear in large, screen-to-screen filling grotesque font.  Glen Coburn, who’s directorially debuted with the “Blood Suckers from Outer Space” in 1984, wrote and directed his latest comedy-horror cheapie in nearly three decades since his last feature.  The American-made picture reteams Coburn with Bret McCormick whom both helmed a segment in the “Tabloid” horror anthology alongside the third co-segment director, Matt Devlan.  This time, the “Repligator” and “The Abomination” producer McCormick designs Coburn’s tumorous creature, much like the body-bred monster of “The abomination,” with “Tabloid” actress Kay Bay producing the film under Whacked Movies, distributed by TinyBig.

“Brain Tumor’s” schtick is part half-century ago creature feature and part absurdist humor brought upon by the cast of caricature characters beginning with Dr. Seymour Caligari in off the cuff remarks and off topic comments that no one patient wants to hear while in the middle of brain surgery, which, if I’m correct, requires you to be awake depending on the type of operation.  Behind Caligari is an actor who is usually behind the camera in Bil Arscott, cinematographer for “Christmas of the Dead” and gaffer for the Ryan Kline black market human meat selling comedy-horror short film “Meat.”  Perhaps the less sensationalist absurdist in the entire picture, Arscott is joined by Jack Mahoney and Sydney Hatton as son Dash and stepdaughter Kitsie who embody the light “Cruel Intentions” incest between siblings. Yes, I know they’re stepsiblings but there’s still a creepy factor about it.  Plus, Kitsie’s mentioned on multiple occasions about her alcoholism but that sidebar aspect her character doesn’t flourish or become problematic.  Dash tries to convince himself his father has nothing to do with the recent string of murders while Kitsie’s devil’s advocate reign of suspicion marks the doctor complicate.  In the end, none of the complexities amount to anything in a fiery fight finale of man versus malignant tumor with casualties in between from mostly interesting yet throwaway characters in biopsy researcher Phoenix Leach (Danielle Wyatt), Caligari’s medical assistant Freddy (Aspen Higgins), a bordering predo-priest Father Bud (Matt Tucker), and 2000’s indie scream queen Anjanette Clewis (“Witchcraft 13,” “Suburban Nightmare) in perhaps the only gory scene in the entire film.

At eye level, “Brain Tumor” is nothing more than a quirky horror-comedy conjured up with slim conceptualization from Coburn seeking to spend a shoestring budget.  Not a ton of substantial story inside this framework of a cantankerous killer tumor with a vaginal mouth, snakelike tentacles, and a single ocular just above the vagina dentata.  With no mutational cause for the creature’s resulted effect, the titular terrorizers mostly skulks in nearby bushes and grabs those stupid enough to leave the confines of their home to check out that weird sound.  Following a formulaic path similar to monster movies of the 1950s modernized to reflect with a jab of a politically divided climate and a liberal sense of humor, “Brain Tumor” fails to that semblance of an under-the-veil of Golden Age cinema veneer classified by those archaically rendered B-films, substituting the strived charm of making the most of it with farce and satire just like most modern movies that more-or-less mock what once was for a serious creature feature.  Without the presence of significant monster mayhem and without the presence of a personality, Coburn’s creature metastasizes into too many benign lumps that it causes a deficiency in entertainment, horror, and for it’s intended comedy. 

“Brain Tumor” arrives onto DVD home video from rising physical media distributor MVDVisual in distributive collaboration with Whacked Movies.  The MPEG2 encoded DVD5 is upscaled to 1080p from the standard 720p resolution.  Picture quality doesn’t hold many qualms through an ungraded and brightly lit digital compression.  There’s an artificial quality to the rudimentary visual effects that emits a plastic and hard-edged surface without a smoother blend into the frames.  Color density is quite sharp against the off-and-on emerging details when green screen tactics are not being utilized or the scene is not overexposed with natural lighting.  Audio specifications are not listed on the back cover, but my player has identified the English language mix encoding as an uncompressed stereo 2.0.  Digital audio retains a crisp and clean reproduction albeit the feedback crackling during higher pitched screaming.  Dialogue renders clean, free of obstruction, and with prominence over the other encoded tracks and despite it’s microbudget, an onboard mic doesn’t seem to be used here based off the clarity and depth of sound.  There are no subtitles available with this feature as well as no bonus content in this barebone, feature-only release.  The unsigned illustrated front cover art is neat though, an above average Ghana-like design that’s more accurate to the film’s storyline.  Aside from the sexy front cover, that’s about the sum of “Brain Tumor’s” physical allure with no insert accompaniments and a disc art pressed with partisan screengrab of the monster. The 76-minute feature comes unrated and is region free. 

Last Rites:  While I applaud the use of a stationary, yet tangible, bio-organic mutated creature instead of a visual effects atrocity, “Brain Tumor” is terminally fated to be a miss amongst fans both old and new with too little monster, too little gore, and too little sense to save itself from itself. 

Watch the Deadly Growth of the “Brain Tumor” on DVD!

This EVIL Has Brains! “Head of the Family” reviewed! (Full Moon Features / Remastered DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Get Ahead in Life with “Head of the Family” on DVD!

The Stackpooles are a little strange and are usually the talk of the small town of Nob Hollows when the zombified trio of siblings pick up the groceries at Lance’s Stop and Shop general store and diner.  Yet, the Stackpoole’s are not Lance’s problem, not yet anyway, when Howard, a no-good shakedown thug, forces his might into Lance’s business as a silent partner.  Little does Howard know that Lance has an ongoing affair with his wife, Loretta, and they devise a plan to get rid of Howard using the newly discovered dirt on the Stackpoole family’s bizarre kidnappings to take care of Howard once and for all.  Lance figures he’s found his meal ticket after blackmailing Mryon, the fourth, and unseen, sibling who’s the mastermind and head of the family – literally a giant head – using telepathy and mind control to against his brothers and sister to do his bidding, but Myron is no fool to be taken advantage of so easily. 

Who just is this Robert Talbot?  The director of “Head of the Family,” who hides behind a black mask and speaks through a voice modulator, is none other than Full Moon’s secret identity for Charles Band under a pseudonym persona to exact a different kind of picture outside the context he’s expected to continue as well as an empire built on the image of horror.  “Head of the Family” may not be tiny dolls inflicting an affliction based on their evil ways or the resurrection of the formerly dead and abnormal to, once again, inflect damage upon their creators, and possibly, the world we know it.  Instead, “Head of the Family” slips out of Full Moon’s comfort zone and into another, different kind of shadowy namkeen to small plate audiences’ bizarre fascination with the weird and fantastical.   Also, to exhibit T&A more than like the usual in the Full Moon repertoire.  The less horror, more zany cult 1995 feature structures around the titular big headed villain, a band of his freakshow kin, and a constantly copulating couple that’s penned by Neal Marshall Stevens (“Thir13en Ghosts”), also under a pseudonym of Benjamin Carr, based off a “Talbot” story, and produced by, also “Talbot,” and “Hideous!” and “Witchouse” producer, Kirk Edward Hansen.

I couldn’t tell you if J.W. Perra is big-headed or not in real life, but the actor is certainly quite cranial as the family-telepathic, wheelchair bound Myron Stackpoole.  The literal pun of the title plays in tune with Full Moon’s madcap maniacal ties while having Perra’s large head shine, or rather sweat gland glisten, under a miniature lame body.  Myron’s enfeebled corporeal flesh drives his hunger to join the ranks of normal people as he kidnaps and surgically operates on the minds of unsuspected townsfolk to incorporate a portion of his higher intellect into a stronger body.  Myron uses his stupefied siblings’ talents, bestowed upon them through a paternal quadruplet birthing, with Wheeler (James Jones, “Dark Honeymoon”) given superhuman bugeye sight and hearing, Otis (Bob Schott, “Gymkata”) given the twice the strength of a normal man, and Georgina (adult actress Alexandria Quinn, “Taboo VIII”) given, you guessed it, the hot and voluptuous body to attract men like moth to a flame.  Speaking of hot bodies, former adult actress and “Femalien” star Jacqueline Lovell, aka porn handle Sara St. James, is absolutely supple as Loretta, a twangy blonde girlfriend to the scheming Lance, played with Cajun confidence by Blake Adams (“Lurking Fear”), and every chance Lance and Loretta get, they’re steaming the scene with erotically charged expo and exposition.  I’m fairly certain Lovell has more lines topless than she does with her clothes fully on.  In the supporting cast inventory, Vicki Lynn (“Fugitive Rage”) and Gordon Jennison Noice (“Virtuosity’) make up the remaining. 

I’ll admit I fell into that hole of expecting “Head of the Family” to play out just like any conventional Full Moon feature, comprised of pint-sized and mischievous devils to a carnivalesque tune of irregular horror.  To my surprise but not to my dismay, Band’s incognito oddity has the bones of a blackmailing thriller spiced with eccentric and caricature types and gratuitous sex at every turned corner.  “Head of the Family” progresses through interacting conversation to outline exploitation arrangements and to be informed of dangers of crossing a big headed brainiac, interjected with the occasional display of drooling operated rejects, Otis and Wheeler’s utilizing their inborn side effects, and, I keep coming around to this motif and hopefully not in a pervy way, the female toplessness that bares bountiful.  The depth perception effect to enlarge J.W. Perra’s head as Myron is executed pretty well with Adolfo Bartoli’s camera work that reflects the actors facing generally at the correct angle, as if they’re eye-to-eye with the Myron, and the edits do the effect justice as well, spliced precisely to account for dimensional space, the effects are reminiscent of Randy Cook’s illusionary work on “The Gate” films using dimensional animation and scale between live actors in the same frame but some distance apart.  If you excuse the upcoming intended pun, Band’s film is more of a talking head production than one of grotesque action, a realization you won’t be aware of until well stretched into the runtime and because of this that’s the reason there’s likely a ton of Jacqueline Lovell nudity.  Okay, okay, I’ll stop blabbering on about the nudity!   

“Head of the Family” arrives onto newly remastered DVD from Full Moon Features.  The MPEG2, upscaled 720p, DVD5, presented in a widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio, doesn’t have any detail regarding the remastering on the latest re-release but I suspect it’s the identical image or a slightly touched up 35mm negative used for the original Full Moon release from 1999 scanned in 2K.  15 years later, a reimagined “Head of the Family” retains the softer, radiant picture quality with a highly extensive color palette through the aura glow and a natural, yet reduced, grain.  The negative does have a flaw in what looks to be cell damage a little halfway through the runtime with a brief, dark cut line making itself known, if you blink, you’ll miss it.  This sort of obvious damage does lean more toward an identical transfer being used for the 2024 release with just a 2k scan without restorative elements.  Remastered restoration likely went hot and heavy into the audio elements.  The English language LPCM is available in two channel formats, a dual-channeled 2.0 and a surround sound 5.1 mix.  Robust with added nuances, “Head of the Family’s” soundtrack breathes new aural acuities that not only clean any distortions, if there was any, but also sharpens the tracks like a knife on a wet stone, cutting and clean.  Dialogue is clear and assertive through what is mostly a talking head span.  English close caption subtitles are available.  Much of the special features are reused from the 2016 Blu-ray release, including an audio commentary track from Actor J.W. Perra (Myron), promo behind-the-scenes video of the long anticipated “Bride of Head,” which has been stagnant for years, the original trailer, and other Full Moon Features’ trailers.  The DVD release is an exact mirror image of the physical Blu-ray release from 8 years prior with a disc press image of Myron’s closeup through a murky filter and no inserts included.  The region free release has an 82-minute runtime and is rated R without specifying the content but there is language, nudity, strong sexuality, and violence. 

Last Rites: “Head of the Family” bucks the lucrative trend of miniature killer imps for the Full Moon empire but keeps moderately in line with eccentric characters, unabashed skin, and a Richard Band jaunty soundtrack, accentuated even more in a brand-new remastered DVD version of the film that was helmed by Charlie Band himself in anonymity.

Get Ahead in Life with “Head of the Family” on DVD!

Yeoh, Rothrock Beat the EVIL to a Pulp! “Yes, Madam!” reviewed! (88 Films / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Yes, Madam!” on Blu-ray from 88 Films!

Hong Kong’s Inspector Ng and Scotland Yard’s Inspector Carrie Morris reluctantly join forces to solve the murder of an undercover British national on the verge of exposing a fraudulent real estate contract helmed by crooked businessman Mr. Tin.  When a small piece of key case evidence, a microfilm, winds up in the bumbling hands of three low-level thieves after coincidently robbing the undercover British agent’s hotel room, they find themselves at a crossroads; do they give up the kill-for microfilm to the police in the name of self-preservation or ransom it against Mr. Tin’s syndicate for a big payday?  The elusive Mr. Tin becomes enemy number one in Ng and Morris’s crosshairs despite his circumventing the law.  Not deterred by the failed arrest, the tough as nails inspectors track down the microfilm thieves to make their case and take down by force one of Hong Kong’s most powerful criminal organizations.  

An accelerating knockaround action-comedy from Corey Yuen (“Ninja in the Dragon’s Den,” “The Transporter”), “Yes, Madam!” is a fight-heavy, female-driven super cop emprise with martial arts daggers drawn and slicked in a vigorously lubed burlesque dark comedy.  The 1985 Hong Kong production, penned by Barry Wong (“Hard Boiled”) and James Clouse, as his sole credit, teams an unlikely and highly skilled, international partnership between a twosome of type A personalities who not only initially combat each other and then the unscrupulous bad guys and their mischievous plans but also against the historically prejudiced gender role reversals outside the borders of the story.  Action-packed choreography mixed with slapstick comedy, “Yes, Madam!” is entertainingly fun to watch and hard-hitting, produced by stuntman Sammo Hung (“Long Arm of the Law”) and film’s costar John Sham (“Royal Warriors”) and along with Sammo Hung, executive producer Sir Dickson Poon develops “Yes, Madam!” under their cofounded martial arts and action feature producing D&B Films.

If you’re ever looking for a celebrity roots film, a launching pad feature of success, “Yes, Madam!” has that inner circle, star-studded power and deliverance that not only showcases the beginnings of two presently well-known action and martial art film women but also joins the East with the West in a singular chop-socky fracas.  Oscar winner Michelle Yeoh (“Crouching Tiger, Hidden Dragon,” “Everything Everywhere All at Once”), credited as Michelle Khan, and black belt martial arts competitor and World Champion Cynthia Rothrock (“China O’Brien,” “Tiger Claws”) explode to the thousandth degree on screen as apex inspectors forced to work together to take down crime boss Mr. Tin (James Tien, “Fist of Fury”).  They’re fast, they’re ferocious, they’re incredibly talented in what could be considered their debut principal performances, especially Rothrock in her first feature film in which she doesn’t speak an ounce of either of the native Hong Kong’s Cantonese or Mandarin dialects.  Yeoh and Rothrock are top dog heroines in a yard full of marginal, blundering thieves caught in the middle of a grander operation.  Under incognito with pain reliever aliases are actor-producer John Sham (“Winners & Sinners”) as Strepsil, Hoi Mang (“Zu:  Warriors from the Magic Mountain”) as Aspirin, and Hark Tsui (“Working Class”) as Panadol and though they act like, and sort of resemble, the Three Stooges, the three thieves and counterfeiters embody a mutual brotherhood with background history and a all-for-one, one-for-all attitude as their minor caper turns into a full collapse of their con game.  Characters and performances are all over the board between the various groupings in the melee but does weirdly gel together in an artificial way toward a poignant culmination collision of what’s just and unjust that destroys, and unites, friendships and bonds.  “Yes, Madam” rounds out the cast with Melvin Wong, Wai Shum, Eddie Maher, Michael Harry, and Dick Wei (“Five Deadly Venoms”) and Fat Chung (“To Hell with the Devil”) as Mr. Tin’s nonpareil sub-bosses. 

Barreling along from the very beginning of an armored car hijacking turned into a bloody shootout to the grand finale that pageants the marvelous, born-for-this skill of Michelle Yeoh and Cynthia Rothrock as they plow down foes with acrobatic fists and kicks galore, “Yes, Madam” doesn’t dwindle as a debut disappointment but rather is a tour de force of destruction, drollery, and delictum prevention.  Outlandish at times, of course, with a story slightly straying off course here and there but that feverishly, cyclonic filmmaking condenses to being nothing new or novel for the reputably fast-paced, churn-them-out style of Hong Kong cinema and palpable fighting is taken to a whole new level of ouch and woah.  Multiple takes from various angles equates to the stunts being depressed continuously onto the repeat button, solidifying prolific editor Peter Cheung (“Ready to Rumble,” “Mr. Vampire”) as one of the best in the business, globally, to manage the multiple strands of film and make a coherent and entertaining yarn out of the celluloid chaos.  The crux of the kerfuffle isn’t delineated well enough to justify and muster this kind of police force and exaggerated villainy but the theme majority inside the broadly cartoonish veneer is mostly about respecting the girl boss and grasping friendship that has been taken for granted, dipped in a furiously candy-coated rouse of visually exciting stimulation. 

88 Films adds “Yes, Madam!” into their U.S. distribution cache with a new, well-curated Blu-ray release.  The AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition, BD50 presented 2K scanned and restored feature has the original aspect ratio of 1.85:1 in the Hong Kong cut. Beautifully diffused and vibrant color, there’s no hue deficiency under this well-lit production, restored to nicely detail skin tones and textures in every aspect of the lighting. No issues with compression during the rapid-fired sequence cells, such as aliasing or ghosting, and black levels are solid albeit there’s not a ton, if any, negative space to experience as even the night shots are illuminated in a “moon” diffusion. Delineation reflects a deepened background contrasted against foreground objects, creating ideal space between objects in what is mostly a close quartered, hand-to-hand combat with only a handful of medium, medium-long shots to make the scenes more realistic than choreographed on a wider frame. Two audio options encoded are the original Cantonese DTS-HD 2.0 mono and an English DTS-HD 5.1, both use ADR dialogue which incurs only minor negative separation and synch between actor and script. Cantonese track fairs slightly better with the native tongue but much like the story’s brisk pace, vocals are also quick as a whip and often times outpace the lips. What’s interesting about “Yes, Madam!’ is the score which is credited to Romeo Díaz (“A Chinese Ghost Story”) but samples much of John Carpenter’s “Halloween” in tense moments. “Halloween” comes through so prominently that it shadows and hurts Díaz’s own work, if any of it exists. Ambience tracks work with the grain with some of the fighting emphasized for chop-socky effect. English subtitles synch fine and have scribed errorfree. Product special features an audio commentary by Frank Djeng on the Hong Kong cut, a new interview with star Cynthia Rothrock, Rothrock and Djeng also provide select scene commentary, a new interview with Mang Hoi who played Aspirin, archive interview with Michelle Yeoh, an archive Battling Babes featurette, and with the Hong Kong trailer rounding things out. New action-packed compositional artwork from graphic designer Sean Langmore graces the primary cover art with original artwork on the reverse side. The disc art is pressed to promenade the two female actresses and there is nothing across the way in the insert clips. The region A playback release has a runtime of 93 minutes and is listed as not rated.

Last Rites: There’s nothing more to say other than “Yes, Madam!” A top-notch, assertive action film starring two worldclass women in the fighting subgenre who stir in the cool and the kickass with silky, smooth ease.

“Yes, Madam!” on Blu-ray from 88 Films!

Awesome Boy and Bludgeon Man Fight EVIL at “Slaughter Beach” reviewed! (SRS Cinema / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

July 4th Is Here! Time to hit “Slaughter Beach” on DVD!

Ralph and Barry are best buds.  They’re best buds freeloading off Barry’s father’s shore house during the height of Slaughter Beach’s Summer season.  When Barry’s father becomes annoyed by his adult son and friend’s loafing, his ultimatum to them is to get a job or get out, but the touristy destination of Slaughter Beach has nearly become all but a ghost town as businesses and tourism shut down or come to a slow crawl after a string of mysterious disappearances along the beaches and boardwalk.  Barry’s idea to become vigilante crime fighters, under the hero names of Awesome Boy and Bludgeon Man of the duo’s moniker The FenderBenders and hoping to resurrect the once booming vacationing hotspot back to its full former glory, reels in a boatload of trouble when a salty, horseshoe crab fisherman behind the disappearances casts his deadly fishhook line toward the wannabe crime fighters to make chum out of them and anyone else who crosses his path. 

“Slaughter Beach” is the buddy horror-comedy and slasher set on the American Eastern shorelines of not the actual Slaughter Beach of Sussex County Delaware but actually shot 25 miles north in the more populated Rehoboth beach.  The 2022 released, Daniel C. Davis written-and-director feature is “The Scarecrow’s Curse” and “X Knight Escape from Warp Hell” actor’s third film in a decade span.  The Delaware-born, Wilmington University graduate continues his grow his independent filmmaking career in his home state and the surrounding metropolitan, tri-state area.  His latest directorial lands him on the Eastern beaches of Delaware with filming done mostly at night during the tourism offseason, allowing more wiggle room for shooting, less hassle from onlookers, and a better chance at snagging shooting locations that would be, perhaps, heavily trafficked during peak months.  “Slaughter Beach” runs under Davis and Brett Taylor’s production company, Clockout Films, and is produced by the two filmmakers alongside Jim Cannatelli (“Yester-Years”).

“Slaughter Beach” is amazingly well dialogued in the comedy context for a low-budget, independent feature and without the principal leads, the hapless and hero-lite buddies, of Jon McKoy, who I still recall his similar performance in “Easter Sunday,” and Ethan Han, in his debut feature film role, “Slaughter Beach” would have flop hard like a fish out of water, gasping for a watery breath.  Between McKoy and Han, Ralph and Barry’s antics are contrived out of dunce energy with good intentions that slow churns infectious wit to character likeability.  Their crude innocence faces impossible trials when against a foe that tests their trying not-very-hard heroic vigilantism on the shore’s boardwalk.  Jim Cannatelli, yes, producer Jim Cannatelli, dons the Sou’Wester hat and chest waders for the crazed Fish Man Sam’s crusade on hooking Lilith, the mythical and monstrous horseshoe crab, with his special human bait from wielding a weaponized line and lure and fishhook to gut and chum his victims.  In an appearance very similar to The Fisherman in “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” Cannatelli’s twist hits the old seadog stereotype complete with nautical vernacular and is a fine comic book antagonist to the campy, counterpart sideshow that is Ralph and Barry.  However, the standoff between good versus evil is held to the very end with Fish Man Sam angling boardwalk and beach patrons to their deaths, that’s closer to shooting fish in a barrel with support bit parts performances from mostly Davis casting regulars, such as Amy Lynn Patton, Michelle Qenzel, Keith Crosby, Shawn Shillingford, Heather Street, Kiyneeanay Dykes, and Ethan Han’s actual father, Oscar Aguilar, playing Barry’s dad.

There’s no shortage of zaniness, slapstick, or waggishness in Davis’s “Slaughter Beach.”  Same goes with the horror façade that’s well framed around the comedic core.  “Slaughter Beach’s” terror won’t be a trepidant of tension or knock off your tacklebox with fright, but Davis shows obvious signs of paying attention to the what-works in horror motifs with the crafting of looming angles, danger-building and coherent editing and score, and a villain that might be a caricaturable and an exaggeration vocally but appears damn right creepy in the background as the obscured and shadowing lurking fisherman.  A gory practical effects décor by Trauma Queen FX special makeup and effects artist, Isabelle Isel, elevates the feature’s victim pool to an anticipation level amongst the audience to see what Fish Man Sam has in store next for his ice chest full of horrors.  While visually alarming and usually frightening in nature, the villainous veneer and gore-soaked effects are not excluded from the comedy tone with the fishing themed gallows humor that’s about as ridiculously funny as it sounds.  What isn’t as fleshed out as hoped was Fish Man Sam’s obsessive and radical pursuit of bagging the giant horseshoe crab he’s bestowed as Lilith.  Its an important motivation factor that drives the deranged angler left to swim upstream and doesn’t elaborate and relay Ralph and Barry’s foe sympathetically as a man on a mission.

The Clockout Films production has been picked up by the longstanding zero-budget genre label, SRS Cinema, for the at home DVD release.  “Slaughter Beach” is MPEG-2 encoded onto a single-layer DVD5 with a 720p resolution and is ungraded.  With nearly zip on the hue saturation and stick with a lower resolution, “Slaughter Beach” is able to compress adequately, suppressing any major artefact issues to lesser posterization, and keeping a soft, yet relatively clean image that doesn’t focus on stylistic highlights but rather draws all the attention onto the buddy heroes and the gore.  Lighting is retained by the array of brightly lit Boardwalk bulbs, some specialized muted-colored uplighting for a slightly retro feel, and natural lighting, reducing much of the beachy backdrop to a black void that centers the characters without much depth to delineate within the widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio.  The English LPCM 2.0 stereo track musters enough strength from the blemish-free boom recording.  No crackling, hissing, or any other kind of distortions on the dialogue or LFE layers, suggesting that care was put into the audio, and it rightfully shows a coherent and competent mix with alternative-punk-ska tracks from The Jasons, Station, and Skatune Network.  Dialogue clear, clean, and prominent.  There are no optional subtitles available.  Special features include a feature length commentary with a roundtable, ride along discussions with director Daniel C. Davis, stars Ethan Han and Jon McKoy, producer and principal Jim Cannatelli, and director of photography Brett Taylor.  Also included is a raw footage gag reel and SRS trailers, one of which is for “Slaughter Beach.”  The extremely detailed and aesthetically illustrated cover art gives the physical DVD a lucrative eyeful but the release do not credit the artist, nor do I see a signature hidden inside the tonal shades. The region free SRS DVD has a runtime of 80 minutes and is not rated.

Last Rites: “Slaughter Beach” is more than a head in the sand thriller; the Daniel C. Davis horror-comedy paces to deliver timely laughs as well as casting flesh-ripping, barbed lures that easily hooks us for more giggles and gore.

July 4th Is Here! Time to hit “Slaughter Beach” on DVD!

If the Tenants Keep on Dying, Better Get Out of that EVIL High-Rise! “The Case of the Bloody Iris” reviewed! (Celluloid Dreams / 2-Disc Blu-ray and 4K UHD Set)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Own Your 4K and Blu-ray copy of “The Case of the Bloody Iris” today!

A pair of beautiful women are heinously murdered in a respectable high-rise apartment building.  As the case remains unsolved, a real estate architect, Andrea Antinon, is looking for models to market his new property, happening upon models Jennifer Langsburgy and Marilyn Ricci during his photographer friend’s photoshoot, and entices them by offering a sublet of the now vacant apartment in the building where one of the girls was murdered.  Jennifer, who finds herself slowly falling for the Andrea, is stalked by her polyamorous sect past and the group’s leader, her ex-husband, Adam who refuses to let her go and while he proves himself dangerous, attempting to kill Andrea after one of his dates with Jennifer, Adam is found dead in her new apartment.  The suspect pool grows as police are continuing to be baffled by an elusive killer remaining at large and set their sights on Andrea with his brief connections in two of the three victims.  Evidence against Andrea swells as those around Jennifer wind up dead and she’s next on the kill list. 

“The Case of the Bloody Iris,” the Iris represented as the delicately beautiful flower that symbolized the bound between Jennifer and her deranged, sex cult ex-husband Adam, is the 1972 giallo thriller from the prolific spaghetti western, Italian director Giuliano Carnimeo (from the previous “Sartana” series and would later helm “The Exterminators of the Year 3000″) and prolific giallo screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi (“Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key,” “Torso,”) shot in the city of Genoa doubling as Milan.  Full of eccentric suspects, taboo desires, and handsome principals, “The Cast of the Bloody Iris” is a very attractive, violent, and superbly shot whodunit.  Under the original native title of “Perché quelle strane gocce di sangue sul corpo di Jennifer?” aka “What Are Those Strange Drops of Blood on the Body of Jennifer?” Galassia Films serves as the production company with Luciano Martino (“The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh”) having produced the giallo. 

The story floats back-and-forth between a pair of co-headlining stars, one of them being the retrospective cult and sex icon actress Edwige Fenech in one of her earlier performances, and who has starred in “Strip Nude for Your Killer” and “The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh.  Co-star George Hamilton also stars in that latter giallo, reteaming the handsome-faced “The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail” actor born in Uruguay, and whose birth name is Jorge Hill Acosta y Lara, with Fenech in their respective roles of model Jennifer and architect Andrea intertwined into what is a romantic tale of love at first sight that becomes mangled by a crazed killer on a murder spree and they’re at the heart of the matter.  If revisiting Giuliano Carnimeo, comedies and watching some of his interviews, you can see why he folds in subtle comedic elements that doesn’t allow “The Case of the Bloody Iris,” or a good chunk of his credits, to be a totally engaged, heart-racing murder mystery; those comedic elements come in the form of bumbling police, a too dead-set on commissioner (Giampiero Albertini, “Commandos”) and his more ungainly assistant (Franco Agostini, “The Sex Machine”), who are always one step behind and in the wrong direction.  The juxtaposition may be too evident yet it’s also welcoming, breaking up the forbidding business with a little levity, and creates a backend sense of assurance knowing police, just like today, can be human and clueless on serious natured instances.  The suspect pool and other salient supporting principals include Paola Quattrini as Jennifer’s roommate Marilyn (no doubt based loosely on Marilyn Monroe), Ben Carra as Jennifer’s sex cultist ex-husband, Jorge Rigaud as the professional violinist neighbor, Annabella Incontrera as the professor’s lesbian daughter, Oreste Lionello as a sleazy photographer, Carla Brait as a nightclub’s dominating femme, and Maria Tedeschi as the unfriendly neighbor.

Even though giallos did not appeal to him nor did they really become a staple of his oeuvre, director Giuliano Carmineo had a different perspective than most and that closely aligns with masterclass filmmakers like Dario Argento.  Carmineo and cinematographer, who’ve collaborated previously on a pair of Sartana westerns, had purpose in their odd and first person camera shots and movements, such as laying the camera down and sideways as characters perform routine events before being attacked or looking up and doing a 360-degree turn as if scanning a stairway, that coincided with the usual first person perspective of the conventionally masked and gloved killer wielding a deadly blade.  The technique engages the viewer, as in a sort of tell that something is about to happen or is amiss in a scene to create breath holding, heightened anxiety, but the multi-faceted narrative itself doesn’t need assistant in keeping viewers glued to the edge of their seats with the eclectic mix of sultry and taboo eroticism, lampooning the authority figures, designed seamless red herrings, unique characters, a variety in murder, and an elaborate, mysterious complexity that’s downright deviant. 

If you’re a distributor looking to shoot your shot on your first release, new boutique physical media label, Celluloid Dreams, hit the bullseye with a 2-disc 4K UHD and Standard Blu-ray release of “The Cast of the Bloody Iris” on a HVEC encoded, 2160p resolution, 100 gigabyte 4K UHD and on an AVC encoded, 1080p, 50 gigabyte Blu-ray, scanned and restored brand new in 4K on a pin-registered Arriscan from the film’s original 2-perf Techniscope camera negative, and presented in the original widescreen aspect ratio of 2.35:1.  Coloring grading and restoration is noted on the interior insert being entirely completed by Celluloid Dreams Studios to remove all the celluloid and age imperfections and stimulate a vivid, vibrant picture quality and, by the giallo-Gods, this has to be one of the more flawless image presentations I’ve seen on 4K and Blu-ray in a very long time, or ever!  Meticulous precision techniques reveal a straight from-farm-to-table quality, organic for its era with a balanced, natural grain and color saturation.   Details have delineated trim and higher contrast leveling where appropriate for darker scenes, such as an unilluminated bedroom or a basement boiler room, that retains the rich inkiness of the negative space.  No signs of compression issues in the negative spaces as well and no signs of unnecessary enhancing.  Two, lossless audio options are available for selection:  an Italian 1.0 DTS-HD and an English 1.0 DTS-HD.  Both remastered tracks from the optical sound negative provided full fidelity through the single channel.  Concise and crisp dialogue renders through in full, robust effect with ample detail in the ambience and depth to create a dynamic space.  No hissing, crackling, or popping in the ADR dialogue or ambient tracks and swanky tuned by Bruno Nicolai’s multi-instrumental base, drum, sintir-like guitar, and more score.  English subtitles are available on the Italian track.  With the larger capacity on the UHD, both formats are able to handle the included three featurettes with star George Hilton, principal actress Paola Quattrini, and director and writer, Guliano Carnimeo and Ernesto Gastaldi in Italian language.  Also included is a new commentary track from film critic and Celluloid Dreams co-founder Guido Henkel, an outtake reel that extend out certain scenes, photo gallery, the original Italian Opening Credits that beginning of the feature, and Italian and English theatrical trailers. Inside a dual-sided cardboard slipcover with both the feature’s baptized titles and illustrated cover art representation of Edwige Fenech, the black 4K UHD Amaray case possesses a second and more fleshy-erotic illustration of Fenech. The same art and arrangement are on the reverse side but with the Italian title. Each disc is housed on either side of the interior snapped firmly on a press-lock on with a release acknowledgements and an advert for their next physical feature, “La Tarantola Dal Ventre Nero” aka “Black Belly of the Tarantula.” The region A playback release has a runtime of 94 and is not rated.

Last Rites: Showing such diligence in the restoration efforts, Celluloid Dreams is the new kid on the block, the promising young boutique label with the Midas touch, with a killer first presentation in “The Case of the Bloody Iris.” We can’t wait to see more!

Own Your 4K and Blu-ray copy of “The Case of the Bloody Iris” today!