Category Archives: cult

Another Ballsy Tom Martino Low-Budget Comedy-Horror That’ll EVILLY Knock the Political Correctness Right Out of Your Body. “Fisted!” reviewed! (Wild Eye Releasing / DVD: Raw and Extreme)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Fisted!” is Guaranteed At Least One Laugh! Now on DVD!

Camp Counselor El Mo runs a camp of merciless sexual abuse and is driving his plaything campers to one their what’s sure to be an exploitational hike through nature but when the van suddenly explodes from underneath and a tire rod penetrates El Mo through the rectum and kills him, the seemingly resigned El Mo campers find their long-awaited plan for revenge has been circumstantially and unfortunately thwarted by chance.  Determined not to be deterred for vengeance, the campers hike El Mo’s corpse to an isolated clearing where they will cook, eat, and excrete his remains but before they can do so, in the woods is the once urban legend turned real-life serial killer wearing a human flesh-masked, named The Jerklin’ Boy.  With an angry fist that can explode someone in a single punch and a knack for ripping off their scrotum and attaching them to his mask, The Jerklin’ Boy is an unstoppable demonic evil force hellbent on destroying all in his path.  There are even giant flesh-eating ants running rampant.  With nowhere to turn, the campers are at the expertise mercy of a demon hunter disguised as a camper amongst them who was once tracking El Mo and has now changed course for The Jerklin’ Boy. 

If a fan of Tom Martino’s outrageous and politically incorrect, 2012 science-fictional horror-comedy schlocker, “Race Wars:  The Remake,” you might also want to check out another Martino indie feature filmed around the same time, a pseudo-SOV release that’s a horror-comedy with a punch!  “Fisted!” is the Martino written-and-directed independent production produced shortly after “Race Wars: The Remake: and just like “Race Wars: The Remake,” it aimed to offend all without an apologetic backpaddling for its lack of decorum.  Flagrant homosexuality stereotypes, raunchy cock-and-ball grotesqueness, off-color race tropes and gags, and much, much more lineup scene-after-scene in Martin’s indelicate and indecent return to the indie market.  Once again, Martino produces his own film, as I’m sure no other company wants to touch it with a 100-foot pole, under his horror bust and mask-making company DWN Productions, which he shamelessly plugs in the middle of the story for good comedic measure. 

Pulling form his pool of acting talent and making their returning are the Martino entourage actors Jamelle Kent and Howard Calvert.  The “Race Wars:  The Remake” lead actors find themselves out from the alien fast food and zombie-inducing drug trade business and into being assaulted and hurt campers DL and Dick looking to eat-revenge their abusive counselor.  Joining them and also trading in his “Race Wars:  The Remake” supporting character badge for a principal character badge is Kerryn Ledet as Schindler, the mastermind behind the rape-revenge plan.  Ledet does the job but doesn’t hold a candle to Kent and Calvert’s dynamic duo in “Race Wars” with their a little extra something expressions compared to Kerryn’s over-the-top and crooked eyelevel facial stances.  Joe Garcia plays a seriously unsettling and verbally aggressive molester in El Mo with other campers alongside Calvert, Kent, and Ledet in comedian Joking Jolly Rogers as the stachy Tiny, Liz McCarty as the lesbian Butch, Sam Rivas as the wheelchair bound Kurt, and Martino as sleepy Charlie.  Martino doesn’t sleep the entire picture as he takes on the main antagonist role of The Jerklin’ Boy, who supposedly has dynamite running through his veins and gives him a punch that can knock your socks off and more!  Danny McCarty, husband to Liz McCarty, is not only the co-editor of the film but dons the emo-gothic sheath of The Lords Palm Slayer, a demon hunter on an on-going fight to destroy evil.  The Black Kreecha, aka Kreech Kreecha, makes his ode to the “Creature from the Black Lagoon” return from “Race Wars” to “Fisted!” with the simply named Steve, (voiced by Tynell Addison) as the beer drinking, slightly incestuous big brother to Kerryn’s Schindler.  “Fisted!” rounds out with a few other colorful characters with Flamey the Bear (Tynell Addison), the pussywillow scientist (Joe Grisaffi), the drug-addicted blood pisser (Kevin Choate), the Groucho Marx bench perv Rodrigo Pena, and a profanity-loaded prologue and epilogue by legendary Clarence Reid in his iconic rapper identity Blowfly. 

“Fisted!” is pansexually raunchy at its core and tapes into the same genre fan-living practical effects vein to the likes of Jeff Bookwalter’s “The Dead Next Door” minus the cut-and-paste visual effects that make Martino’s film all the more special in the eyes of the eccentric and underground indie film-loving beholder.  Off the wall and off-color, “Fisted” doesn’t hold back the unglorified gags and is not trying to win any morality and ethical awards or honors anytime soon.  The narrative is also divergent of any conventional narrative by be-bopping between the rape-revenge of the creepy molester El Mo, the scrotum snatching and wearing serial killer Jerklin’ Boy with an inexplicable powerful fist, the unexplained origin of large flesh-eating ants, and a demon hunting sect crusader who strays off the path of good.  There’s a lot going on and a lot of vulgarity and a lot of fun happening here under the umbrella of ultra-low budget, underground cinema.  “Fisted!” will not win the majority over and its niche comedy and contribution to science fiction horror doesn’t distill new and improved results into the genre but if you can relax from the high-strung conservative values and be open to a shoddy veneer and house made special effects ran through a VHS filter, “Fisted!” is a psychotic ass-punch of ridiculous fun with absurd practical and visual effects.

Coming in as the 92nd title for Wild Eye Releasing Raw & Extreme label, “Fisted!” is one insane grotesque death after another and this death punch of a film lands onto a new DVD with a MPEG2 compression encoding and an upscaled 720p albeit you wouldn’t be able to tell since there’s a heavy VHS filter that creates the impression of interlacing lines, tracking lines, and macroblocking as if watching a low rung SOV.  The single layer DVD5 has a negligible effect since, again, the VHS filter puts the picture quality through the wringer but that’s Maritno’s intended veneer at a 90’s inspired grindhouse picture with the hot new tech of the era.  My only complaint is the censored tracking lines overtop the plot critical moment where the lesbian action is not definitely simulated!  A riveting scene that certainly made my brow sweat, profusely.  The English language Stereo 2.0 suffers significant from poorly placed equipment and user error that often fights the natural elements, aka wind, and can also sound a bit boxy.  With the gusts on the creek of an alligator-infested Missouri shore, ambience noise drowns out select dialogue scenes of exposition and performative utterances.   There’s not much in the way of a memorable or killer soundtrack but the sound design to match the every aspect of the special effects lands with comedic flair, when there is actually audio synched with the action as occasionally it’s missed due to the 5-year post production change of hands.  Bonus features include a Wild Eye produced commentary featuring director Tom Martino and actor Joe Garcia and the feature trailer plus other Wild Eye Releasing films.  The DVD comes in a clear Amaray with uncredited, illustrative cover artwork of all its psychotronic insanity.  The reverse side depicts a blown-up image of an outrageous death moment.  The region free Wild Eye Releasing has a perfectly paced runtime of 71-minutes and is, of course, unrated.

Last Rites: Wild Eye Releasing continues to live up to their moniker with another wild, uncouth, and not rated story that barely has any narrative flesh hanging from the bone. “Fisted!” truly fights the conventional cinema power and doesn’t pretend to pull any punches as it takes on race, sexuality, and perversion without shame or any moral high ground.

“Fisted!” is Guaranteed At Least One Laugh! Now on DVD!

There’s Growth in the Darkest of EVIL Pacts. “Vulcanizadora” reviewed! (Oscilloscope Laboratories / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Catch “Vulcanizadora” on Blu-ray from Oscilloscope Laboratories!

Friends Derek and Marty trek through the Michigan forest to get away from their life’s problems, stopping occasionally to dig up previously stowed away porn magazines, camp around a fire and in tents out in the open air, enjoy swimming in the fresh waters of nearby lake, and videotape themselves setting off small fireworks.  As Derek enjoys life’s little moments out in the wild with his best friend, Marty’s intentions are more focused on their unspoken pact, the whole reason for their journey through isolated wilderness.  The closer they walked toward to their journey’s terminus, Marty’s determination to finish what they started becomes more rabid whereas Derek has second thoughts with fear projecting out of his nervous habits.  When one of them doesn’t return home, tremendous guilt submerses the other into self-liability as he tries to make right and to make amends for what happened between the two friends alone in the wilderness.

Vulcanizadora.  A Spanish dictionary word for tire shop or also the heat-treating process of crude rubber to improve durability.  It’s also the title of Michigan native Joel Potrykus’s written-and-directed, 2024 dark comedy drama that relates, in a way, to both English definitions of the word.  Potrykus began his directing career in comedy back in 2012 with “Ape,” a black comedy about a struggling comedian-turned-pyromaniac, and from there the residing Grand Rapids filmmaker has hovered in the bleak and comedic mingle continuing with the ill-fitted paranoia of “Buzzard,” fortune obsessed mysteries of “The Alchemist Cookbook,” and “Relaxer” that takes audiences, or at least those who lived through the experience, back to the Y2K apocalypse scare for one man’s quest to conquer the Pac-Man videogame.  “Vulcanizadora” is a produced by Hannah Dweck and Theodore Schaefer of Dweck Productions, Matt Grady of Factory 25, and Ashley and Joel Potrykus under Sob Noise Productions. 

Joel Potrykus co-stars in his own feature story alongside Potrykus film regular Joshua Burge in their first collaboration since 2018’s “Relaxer,” marking their fourth project together.  Potrykus plays the incessantly hyperactive Derek, a babbling, balding, and large goatee rocking fun seeker eager to show Marty a good time on their walk through the woods despite the grim preconceived end game.  Marty’s a direct opposite of Derek with solemn character and intensive tinkerer putting up with Derek’s nervous ways but also impatiently awaiting their determined fate.  Potrykus constructs a fascinating and fantastic preluding invisible wall with the intention of blocking both Derek and Marty’s past and chiseling out piece-by-piece under casually cryptic conversation, we can begin to learn what motivates their pact with hints of property destructive transgressions and life disaffirming unhappiness.  There’s never clearcut cause upfront or even into the second act and that naturally leaves the last act to unravel the unfortunate circumstances around what makes Joel and Marty tick, and their friendship acutely grows stronger with compassion and genuine regard despite the other’s permanent absence.  The story primarily and innately focuses on the buddy duo, that appears under the guise of the arbitrary mundane with one-sided indulgence in Derek’s childlike Incessancy and quiet Marty’s tongue-biting abiding of his friend’s then unknown stall tactics, but the narrative opens up and expands upon “Vulcanizadora’s” world as one of them reinstates themselves back into their personal misery, a smalltown society of unscrupulous lawyers, browbeating and demented fathers, challenging ex-wives, and intimidating authoritative figures casted with Bill Vincent, Sherryl Despress, Scott Ayotte, Dennis Grants, G. Foster II, Jaz Edwards, Melissa Blanchard, and introducing Solo Potrykus. 

A slow burn of melancholy, “Vulcanizadora” is masked depression at its worst with voiceless victims that work out an ill-fated end on their own.  “Vulcanizadora” is also about friendship despite the seemingly lopsided larking and crestfallen relationship between Derek and Marty, who often feel more like diamagnetism than having a connection while on their passage through the woods.  Potrykus’s story, and subsequent exhibition of the tale, depicts an all but true tragedy of feeling the impact of loss, especially in the context of underappreciated and compassionate feelings for someone else.  While the other friend is around, complacency is the devil’s active ingredient in dividing our human connection as the thought is both being alive together or dead together would be constant, and even more so when that connection is with a person who might be the best person in the world to them but just can’t see underneath the film of one’s own miscontent.  When not around, being separated makes the heart grow founder and the reality of loss sets in.  Potrykus highlights those forlorn facets in the third act surrounded by nothing of life’s hardships and unusual bombardments, which to be fair was brought upon by past transgressions of invincibility, which involve a process similar to vulcanizing, hence the title, and the knowledge that it’ll all over soon.  Yet, there’s also a sort of vulcanizing of the friendship elasticity and durability even in post-“breakup” of the friendship to create an everlasting peace with all the bad that’s happened.

Oscilloscope Laboratories, an indie label curating the filmic curiosities, releases “Vulcanizadora” to Blu-ray home video with an AVC encoded, 1080p Hi-Def resolution, BD25, presented curiously in an European widescreen 1.66:1aspect ratio, a standard proportion display you usually would primarily see in 1960s-1980s Europe with a slightly boxed and bordered matte.  A satisfiable picture for a character-driven slow burn aimed to build and destruct to build again a relationship between two friends during a time of individualized darkness is not a picture of perfection where certain areas inside the forest are out of focus and indistinct, such as the blending of orange and brown leaves on the ground in very long shots while capturing the principals traversing through.  Likely more of an issue with the cinematography than in compression because Potrykus uses 16mm to evoke a richer texture, “Vulcanizadora” is not a high-powered, action-packed thriller or sensational visual drama to be affected by it’s off-and-on focus.  Details are generally better around close-to-medium shot textures, skin tones appear organically accurate, and there’s decent depth of field inside a naturally limited color range.  There are some good close ups that do deviate, such as in a gorier graphic shot that impales more intrusive grain into the cell, in what is perhaps a limitation of 16mm zoomed in.  There are often indiscernible blips in the film stock because of its newer production but the grain, when not extended, is organic with an enriching natural aesthetic.  The English DTS-HD 5.1 surround sound is more than enough to cover all audio aspects from a precisely clear and clean dialogue to a Sasa Slogar’s sound design of comping operatic harmonies of soprano Maria Callas with the rough heavy metal soundscape of the Brazillian band Sepultura.  Dialogue retains in the forefront even in long shots when characters are at far points in the scene denoting an omission of depth in what is mostly a medium-to-close shot narrative.  English subtitles are optionally available.  Joel Potrykus, Joshua Burge, and cinematographer Adam J. Minnick provide an audio commentary track parallel to the feature with a making-of “Vulcanizadora,” deleted scenes, the theatrical trailer, and Potrykus’s short film, “Pets” to fill out the special features.  Oscilloscope Laboratories release comes in a clear Viva case with an unsettling yet telling death and video image in its cyborg-esque edge cover art and a reverse cover honed-in on a still image of the two protagonists.  Disc comes company typical pressed with the company logo large and in charge at the center and film title hovering over top.  The not rated release has a runtime of 85 minutes and is suitable for all region playback.

Last Rites: Few will relish in Potrykus’s “Vulcanizadora’s” slow-and-steady tragedy of deep depression and the crawling out of the fiasco unfolded, self-dug hole to find some sliver of peace and comfort in doing one right thing for a friend.

Catch “Vulcanizadora” on Blu-ray from Oscilloscope Laboratories!

EVIL’s Brew Just Needs a Severed Head! “The House of Witchcraft” reviewed! (Cauldron Films / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“The House of Witchcraft,” a part of The Houses oof Doom series, Now on Blu-ray!

Luca Palmer has experienced the same reoccurring nightmare for months of him finding shelter from being chased inside a large countryside house with an ugly hag boiling his severed head in a large cauldron.  The dreams have required him to find professional help in a psychiatric ward but without any real mental or physical health concerns, he’s released to his incompatible, witchcraft practicing wife Martha who sets up a country house getaway in a last ditch effort to save their dwindling marriage.  When they pull up to the house, Luca immediately recognizes it from his nightmares.  From then on Luca believe he’s seeing the malicious old woman from his dreams around on the estate grounds and urges his psychiatrist, who is also his late brother’s wife, to visit him to assess his state of mind, but the visions keep coming and those around him keep dying a horrible death with his wife being the key suspect of witchcraft related deaths.

“La casa del sortilegio,” aka “The House of Witchcraft” is a made-for-television, witch-centric movie for the four-film series The Houses of Doom concept created under the companies of Dania Films and Reteitalia’s producing team Massimo Manasse and Marco Grillo Spina.  The 1989 witchy-slasher hybrid and the third film of the series is helmed by another notable Italian schlock and shock director, Umberto Lenzi (“Seven Blood-Stained Orchids,” Cannibal Ferox”), as well as Lenzi writing the script from the story of The Houses of Doom envisaging duo Gianfranco Clerici and Daniele Stroppa.  “The House of Witchcraft” speaks the very essence of what to expect in a traditional sense regarding witches while really stepping up with Italian nastiness inside the slasher principles, filmed in the heart of Italy in the popular Chianti wine municipality of Rufina where the landscape is lined with vineyards, churches, and castles.

Luca Palmer is committed to his mental health by committing himself to his sister-in-law’s psychiatric hospital after months of nightmares involving a witch and his severed head as the main ingredient for her boiling stew.  Perhaps, because of his rocky relationship with wife Martha, played by French actress Sonia Petrovna (“Flashing Lights”), Luca just needed a break from her witchcraft obsession and loveless aloofness to clear his head.  Either way, the American-born and ‘Naked Rage” actor Andy J. Forest is one of Umberto Lenzi’s go-to action stars, of such Lenzi’s war films “Bridge to Hell” and “The Kiss of the Cobra”, whose taken off the film battlefield and positioned as the confounded centerpiece of a cackling witch tale, completing his task as a the tall, handsome, and flawed hero of a man haunted and driven by unpleasant night terrors of the long face, broad features of the fittingly named Maria Cumani Qausimodo as the dolled-down witch.  Quasimodo is no stranger to the filth and frights of Italian schlock with roles in “Behind Convent Walls,” “Five Women for the Killer,” and even the notoriously porn augmented “Caligula” and her physical traits, long stare of blue eyes, and pandering of character’s wickedness transform her into an ideal archetype of the original folk-acholic Brewmeisters.  Characters for the slaughter tin this supernatural slasher and to be intertwined into the suspect and innocent pool are played by Paul Muller (“Lady Frankenstein”), as the sixth sense blind homeowner Andrew Mason, Marina Giulia Cavalli (“Alien from the Deep”) as Andrew’s visiting niece Sharon, Susanna Martinkova (“Fracchia Vs. Dracula”) as the psychiatrist sister-in-law Dr. Elsa Palmer, and Maria Stella Musy as the doctor’s daughter Debra tagging along with her mother to visit the barely mentally managing Luca. 

Umberto Lenzi’s rollercoaster career has seen its fair share of misses overtop what are today considered trashy, cult triumphs that lure fans to seek out his even lesser known, poorly critiqued titles more often than required for any more than the casual horror moviegoer. However, “The House of Witchcraft” is not one of those latter, threadbare produced pictures as Lenzi instills more aesthetic style and cinematic substance of searing phantasmic enthrall and danger with an unwavering villainess vile down to her very rotten teeth and scraggly, gray hair.  Offing houseguests left and right is the witch’s supernatural birthright but why exactly Luca Palmer, a stressed out journalist, to be the target of precognitive events is more opaque than it is clairvoyantly evident but we get some great malevolent manipulation and sleight of hand with black cat familiars, bulgy maggot-infested corpses, unusual indoor freezing precipitation, severed heads, and a face transfiguration that’s pretty damn good that has no right to be in a Lenzi film, mostly in part to special f/x and makeup artist Giuseppe Ferranti (“Anthropophagus,” “Nightmare City’), his favorable, collaborative relationship with Lenzi, and the fact he’s locked into the 4-part film series The Houses of Doom provides him creative freedom, flexibility, and fluctuation in diversity.  “The House of Witchcraft” is not the one-all, be-all witch story but does scratch that warty itch in the foulest of cloak-wearing evils without flying a broomstick! 

The second of four Blu-rays for The Houses of Doom lineup produced by Cauldron Films, “The House of Witchcraft” is an AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition, BD50 with a transfer scanned into 2K, uncut and restored, from the original film negative.  Very similar to Lucio Fulci’s “The House of Clocks,” Cauldron Films scan is quite impeccable.  A pristine picture with no wear or tear and age deterioration, “The House of Witchcraft” is deep and rich with immense coloring timing efforts, defining an authentic look without overcorrecting to a fault.  There’s no perfunctory enhancing or extreme variability with contrasting, retaining a smooth, consistent picture quality throughout its European aspect 1.66:1 presentation.  Even in the more stylistic lighting work that creates clear tone of how the indoor snow should feel cold or the lightning strikes and wind brings a chill of ominous doom, there’s plenty of delineation to provide space and demarcations of depth between objects.  There are two DTS-HD 2.0 mono mixes with an ADR Italian and an ADR English dialogue.  Synchronously smooth, a noticeable dialogue separation between audio and video is not easily perceptible, which is kudos to the post work on the post-crew efforts, and Cauldron’s mixes have clarity without a fault in the compression means.  The two channel funneling of the mono output separates the dialogue and ambience/score.  Backing of the boiling cauldron stew or the knife swipes that severe heads and stab fleshy trunks, leaving impacting thuds and thwacks, are good examples of the conveyed foley audio that leaves a lasting impression through component construction in the audio design.  There are optional English subtitles on both language tracks.  Special features include Cauldron Films’ produced interviews with FX artist Elio Terribili Artisan of Mayhem, cinematographer Nino Celeste The House of Professionals, and a commentary track with Eugenio Erolani, Nathaniel Thompson, and Troy Howarth.  Also like “The House of Clocks” release, Matthew Therrien and Eric Lee compose a composition of illustrative graphic artistry of film’s decomposing and maniacally laughing madness and logo design for The Houses of Doom series on the front cover inside the clear Scanavo case.  Reverse cover has a still image of the black cat and the disc is pressed with the same front cover artwork but cropped to focus primarily of the witch with title and company logos at the bottom half.  The region free release has a runtime of 89 minutes.

Last Rites: Umberto Lenzi’s “The House of Witchcraft” casts a spell over the hex canon, beguiling it with mystery, enchanting it with surrealism, and bewitching it with blood. Cauldron Films’ Blu-ray is topnotch for an obscure made-for-TV Lenzi production.

“The House of Witchcraft,” a part of The Houses oof Doom series, Now on Blu-ray!

With Fame Comes Absurd EVIL Exploitation. “A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness” reviewed! (Radiance Films / Limited-Edition Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Limited Edition Blu-ray of “A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness” Now Available!

To compete against a rival fashion magazine who found profound success after hiring a famous gymnast as their spokesmodel, an ambitious fashion company sees potential in amateur golfer Reiko Sakuraba with her beauty, grace, and a decent enough golf game.  The only problem is Reiko has not won a championship.  The fashion company representative and Reiko’s sport’s columnist writer/manager/boyfriend Miyake strike a deal to get intensely train and mentally exhaust Reiko to be the best by the next tournament.  When Reiko outperforms the tournament’s veteran players, she instantly becomes a fashion icon and celebrity that leads to her own show for the magazine, photoshoots, and a large house in the middle of the suburbs.  Miyake’s aloof behavior continues even after Reiko’s success and while he drives her back home, he hits-and-runs a woman form the neighborhood who blackmails and guilts Reiko into letting her into the rich and famous lifestyle.  Reiko’s mental health slowly declines as pressures mounts.

“A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness” is a tale of how the sudden rise of fame and fortune can quickly lead to world of hurt through inexperience, obsession, misguided love, abuse, and the day-to-day tasks that can even burden even the most common person.  The story also represents a dichotomy between fame and the mundane.  The 1977 Japanese surreal drama is helmed by Seijun Suzuki, a filmmaker once blacklisted by the head of Nikkatsu Studios after his film for the company, “Branded to Kill,” was deemed terrible by Nikkatsu execs, and rode the filmic bench for nearly a decade until his theatrical release of the Shochiku Ltd. Released production that allowed him the freedom for artistic expression.  Also concisely known as “A Tale of Sorrow,” the Suzuki picture is written by Atsushi Yamatoya based off manga by Ikki Kajiware and produced by Yoshiki Nomura, Kenzo Asada, and Tokuya Shimada.  

Yoko Shiraki steps into the tragic golf-cleated shoes of golfer-turned-spokesmodel Reiko Sakuraba who finds herself unknowingly being exploited as object of marketable objectification.  What’s interesting about Sakuraba is she’s totally alone amongst other adults in a real cutthroat and cruel way through her trajectory of success.  In the fashion world, the magazine representative behind the concept (Masumi Okada, “The Living Skeleton”) only wants her for her beauty and success, her boyfriend Miyake (Yoshio Harada, “Lady Snowblood 2:  Love Song of Vengeance”), and even an once starstruck housewife, Kayo Senba (Kyôko Enami, “Killer Whale”) who was struck by Miyake’s car and resents Reiko’s, blackmailing her way into the superstar golfer’s life by forcing her hand to relinquish all from her worldly possessions to her mind, body, and soul.  Shiraki gifts Sakuraba the fault of inability to say no with her innocence and naivety ravaged and exploited beyond the point of no return and beyond repair but Sakuraba clings to dear life, perhaps even sanity, because of tone person that too only reacts negatively around her but since their blood reaction is thicker in the watery connections manipulating her, Sakuraba’s hand is forced to do much all of the golfing and modeling hell for her adolescent younger brother Jun (Tetsu Mizuno), a smart yet reclusive boy with off screen aggression getting into fights with school bullies stemmed likely by his sister’s constant absence.  Sakuraba’s not only a slave to external obsessions of success, image, and greed but also a slave to internal obsessions with Mikyake who deprives her of the most basic primal needs for financial gain and for manipulative control.  Kôji Wada, Shûji Sano, Noboru Nakaya, sao Tamagawa, Tokie Hidari, and Jô Shishido co-star.

“A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness” is Seijun Suzuki’s tour de force return to feature films.  A linear narrative speckled with surrealistic doses creates an unsettling and bizarre atmosphere of strongarm manipulation on the unassertive character of Reiko Sakuraba.  Her raw talent is mined and minced without much consent and pushed past mental exhaustion and collapse in what is an all too true theme surrounding the early television era of celebrity branding with esteemed figures being puppets for large scale companies in order to sell their promoted products.  Money, image, and success steer the helm without any due remorse to the elegant centerpiece of the room, driving Suzuki’s social commentary to extreme levels of misappropriation of a human person with feelings and ambitions of their own.  Instead, Reiko’s meekness is measured by Suzuki’s fabricated milieu of mistreatment represented partly in a behavioralism of semi-surrealism – Miyake’s stoic aloofness, Senba’s brazen hijack of Reiko’s fame and wealth, and even Jun’s withdraw and reclusion are all good archetype of strange conducts illegitimizing Reiko as person.  She’s dehumanized so much so she stops whatever little rationality she had to begin with and becomes a vessel of command that allowed those around to walk all over her.  Suzuki’s suburban reach toward fame theme is satirical for “A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness’s” thin blanketing of dark comedy and the filmmaker often accentuates the moments with elongated sequences, randomized bits of eccentricity, and highly stylized contrasts of sex and violence as well as commercially sensationalized imagery versus Stepford wives’ expectations.

A bleak absurdist dream, “A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness” becomes rightly a part of the Radiance obscure, high level lineup with a new, limited-edition high-definition transfer Blu-ray release.  The AVC encoded, 1080p, BD50 receives the high definition transfer from the Shochiku Corporation, who currently distributes a fair amount of Anime and since “A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness” is adapted from a Ikki Kajiware’s Manga, the film fits right in, and is presented in by Radiance in the original aspect ratio of a widescreen 2.35:1.  Radiance’s image quality surpasses expectations as visually bold in a wide variety of contrasting colors, especially in primaries of yellow and reds juxtaposed against achromatic shades of brilliant whites and deep blacks.  The original print is beyond pristine with virtually no dust, dirt, scratches, or any kind of visual impediments in what appears to be a well-preserved 35mm reel.  Skin tones appear naturally organic and textures pop in their specific fabrics inside an overlay of natural stock grain for that bare-faced aesthetic of clear based film strip.  The Japanese uncompressed mono PCM audio, again, surpasses expectations with a diverse mix through a single output that creates excellent note individualism rather than an indistinct amalgam.  The omitted compression codec provides the original audio framework comfortably upholding against the test of time without a flurry of issues in the single layer.  Hissing, popping, crackling and other types of interference are kept either suppressed or to a bare minimal in another pristinely kept transfer.  ADR dialogue clearly affixes to the images with synchronous efforts being no worse compared to other films of the era out of Japan.  The newly improved English subtitles render without error, are compositionally more-or-less within syntax range of translation, and pace nicely throughout.  Special features include a new audio commentary by film historian and author Samm Deighan, a new interview with assistant editor Kunihiko Ukai, and the film’s trailer.  The clear Amaray case contains Sam Smith commissioned artwork on an obi-strip included reversible sleeve – primary cover composition is of a live still of exhausted Reiko Sakuraba lying next to a bunker with a spirally title font and the reverse cover is more NSFW with a partially nude Reiko with boyfriend Miyake portrayed in soft, dreamy glow.  The white and red disc is pressed with eye-pleasing contrast and the inserted 31-page color booklet provides cast and crew credits, essay “Sorrow, Sadness, and the Sweet Smell of Excess” by Radiance regular contributor Jasper Sharp, an archive essay “The Realisation of a Seijun Sizuki Film” by Atsushi Yamatoya, and the Blu-ray acknowledgements. “A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness” Radiance Blu-ray has a runtime of 93 minutes, is unrated, and since Radiance is a UK boutique label, collectors and film aficionados will get the best of both worlds with a region A and B playback.

Last Rites: Seijun Suzuki’s return to theatrical feature films with “A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness” is a remarkable comeback for the ages and the decade interruption didn’t even cause a missed step for his artistic expression of exploitation and consumerism control ruining young, raw talent which is a clear-cut archetype of sorrow and sadness.

Limited Edition Blu-ray of “A Tale of Sorrow and Sadness” Now Available!

EVIL Nazis, Mad Lumberjacks, and Insatiable Nymphomaniacs! “Up!” reviewed! (Severin Films / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

It Won’t Be Hard to Get it “Up!” on Blu-ray!

Perverted Nazi, Adolf Schwartz, is murdered in his castle’s hot tub after a masochistic romp with his paid sadists, including male Dom named Paul.  Paul helps run a small restaurant-bar owned by his wife, Alice, and the two have a good thing going about town in working together and making love day-in, day-out.  When busty new neighbor Margo Winchester moves to their quiet, quaint town, she’s immediately raped by the locate hoodlum and kills him defending herself.  Officer Homer Johnson witnesses the entire ordeal and amends his report to reflect the hoodlum was not killed by Margo but rather fell off a cliff in order for him and Margo be constant bedfellows, but when Margo begins to work for Paul and Alice, a quadruple love-triangle ensues and there’s still the matter of who killed Adolf Schwartz in a small wooded community filled up to the brim with massive sexual appetites and ulterior hijinks. 

“Up!” is Russ Meyer’s 1976 released, oversexed gambol bringing with it an explicit nature a polyamorous, sex-for-all, character cast of players riding overtop a threadbare plot of that resembles something along the lines of murder mystery.  Is this Russ Meyer’s attempt the Italian giallo?  Offscreen killer, gloved hands, multiple suspects, most certainly a very vivid fleshy aesthetic, and a big brass jazz orchestra to back it up musically, “Up!” carries most, if not all, of the trademark building blocks that makeup popular thrilling subgenre but tailored in only a pageantry of perversion only Russ Meyer’s knows how to do it from his own imagination and story collaborated with Anthony-James Ryan (“Vixen!”) and the late, esteemed critic Robert Ebert.  Once under the working title of “Over, Under and Up!.” Meyer’s produces his production under his company RM Films International with associate producing credits attributed to long term collaborators Fred Owens and Uschi Digard.

Like most of Meyer’s auteur films, “Up!” is a quirky plotted story with quirky plowing characters converging into idiosyncratic copulating chaos surrounding a singular problem.  The cast of charactes are just as eccentric and eccentrically written as the inside of Meyer’s rapid storytelling and no-nonsense nudist eye.  Multiple principal leads create a confounding multi-string focus with an esemble character contingent that receive their own backstories, their own emphasized subplot tangents, and they crisscross paths with each other through an array of coitus montages that’s it would be no surprise if this small woodland community all had raging case of singularized strain of syphilis.  “Up!” opens with the masochist perversions of a Hitler variant in Adolf Schwartz (Edward Schaaf, “The Flesh Merchant”) in the throes of being self-purposefully exploited by bosomy gimp The Headperson (“Candy Samples, “Beneath the Valley of Ultra-Vixens”), the ball-bustin’ Ethopian Chef (Elaine Collins, “Fantasm Comes Again”), the Asian persuasion Limehouse (Su Ling, “Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks”), and whip-master and male dom Paul (Robert McClaine, “A Very Natural Thing”).  Paul’s the only character to continue through the story narrated nakedly through our breaking the third wall maestro, The Greek Chorus, played lively and in a state of fully and forever buff by former Russ Meyer wife and adult film star Kitten Navidad in her first principal acting role.  Paul along with Alice (Janet Wood, “Fangs!”) have a more stable presence in the story and same goes for who would likely be “Up’s!” lead character Margo Winchester (Raven de la Croix, “The Lost Empire”) and one of more prominent male lead characters, officer Homer Johnson (Monty Bane, “Sleepwalkers”) in a fervorous fit of philandering and fuc…I mean sexing…between the four while running the town full of loggers and locals on Alice’s grand opening of her second restaurant jamboree.  There are other side characters too that come and go, have more stage presence than others, but are always circled back to in flashback and in the Greek Chorus’s audience-directed commentating of suspicion and events, such the lesbian truck driver Gwendolyn (“Linda Sue Ragsdale), rapist Leonard Box (Larry Dean), the smoking peace pipe that is the stark naked Pocahontas (Foxy Lae), and Bob Schott (“Gymkata”) as the large grunting logger Rafe.

If what’s been described hasn’t been clear, perhaps to my horrendous descriptive writing no doubt, “Up!” has a political correctness that goes right into the garbage in scene one with a thrust-hard jab right at Adolf Hitler’s sexuality in the most hardcore and kinky perversity and, from there, plenty of other sexual objectifications against men and women, Native Indian American stereotyping, teetering racial commentary, and an overall nonchalant air quality on intimate encounters in Meyer’s inclination for spoof, satire, and sex.  Meyer shows no shame, remorse, or even letting his lead foot off the break toward the highly energetic debauchery between character carnality and his rapid-fire editing style that, as like throughout his career, has been seamlessly well put together to keep continuity integrity and make sense of the whole damn bedlam of frenzied bedding, violence, and fornicating flashbacks, but it must be noted that Meyer’s giallo with gusto storyline is severely stretched thin.  Unlike the “Beneath the Valley of the Ultra-Vixens” that was released a couple of years later, the same harnessed liveliness charged through both films is not as focused in “Up’s!” common core narrative primarily because of the continuously dwelled upon flashbacks of reintroducing characters repeatedly to build suspicion upon those possibly “Clue”-like designed list of suspects.  Campy and a jovial orgy, peppered with some tension and bloodshed excellent junctures, “Up!” is above and beyond a good time sexploitation drivellers will treasure. 

The latest release from Severin’s Russ Meyer’s Bosomania collection is “Up!” now on a 1080p high-definition, AVC encoded, BD50 Blu-ray presented in a widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio.  Scanned and restored in 4K from the original 35mm camera negative, “Up!” visually tickles the right spots with a vibrant and naturally granulated presentation, balanced in its color diffusion, and accurately represented and reproduced skin and texture tones to enhance the period’s cinematic appearance.  As far as pristine prints, the 35mm stock has held the test of time in its preservation without any major damage or plight hiccups aside from the more protuberant dust, dirt, and smaller scratches.  Contrast levels are a minor sore point in rendered night scenes that reduce delineation for more the nighttime effect but doesn’t hurt the overall value and restoration efforts.  The English LPCM mono track lacks the vitality as any fidelity true reproduction through a surround mix may offer as “Up!” is a fast-paced, ripping-and-roaring, chorus of sights and sounds meticulously constructed by the auteur himself but the mono honestly enthusiastic and we’re still able to distinct each note and ruckus through Meyer’s rapid-fire A/V design compositions, captured precising and without interference or intrusion through post Foley and dubbing work.  Same goes with ADR that’s always seemingly 2 or 3 layers above the rest of the soundtrack as Meyer’s script is flamboyantly dialogue heavy with Kitten Navidad’s narration of events and plenty of vocal deluge for flirtatious affairs by way of innuendo and blunt channels.  English closed captioning is available on this release.  The special features are not as plenty on “Up!” as they are on other Bosomania releases with an audio commentary by film historian Elizabeth Purchell, who was also on the previous Russ Meyer collection titles, an archived interview No Fair Tale….This! from The Russ Meyer Trust with star Raven De La Croix, and a radio spot for the feature.  Displayed like the rest with a primary red and black board surrounding white padding, “Up!” is down with the deep cleavage of Raven De La Croix on its one-sided cover art.  Inside the black Blu-ray Amaray, the disc is pressed with the same image but with greater resolution detail of Margo Winchester’s best assets in an open cut dress.  The region free release has a runtime of 80 minutes and is unrated.

Last Rites: A romp tour-de-force, “Up!” and the rest of the Russ Meyer’s Bosomania collection is Severin Films’ most bust-filled merry-go-rounds that’s one-part Benny Hill, one-part Fanny Hill, and all parts an sexploitation extravaganza.

It Won’t Be Hard to Get it “Up!” on Blu-ray!