Category Archives: Death

An Old Woman Coughs Up Blood and Smells of Death. That’s When EVIL is Afoot! “Death Ride” reviewed! (International Media Network / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Death Ride” Available on DVD!

Nick’s about to board an overnight bus in Thailand with other passengers travelling toward the city.  As all passengers take their seats, luggage stowed, and the driver starting the engine, one last ticketed passenger boards, a quiet elderly woman who reeks of fermented fish and has a continuous cough.  What should have been a pleasant ride to the city has turned into an unbearable stench that’s seated right next to Nick.  When the woman dies after a severe coughing fit, neither passenger or bus staff know what to do when the body suddenly disappears, and the believed idea of ghost enters most of everybody’s assumptions.  With the small still strongly permeating inside the cabin, the driver agrees to stop at the next rest area and call for a replacement bus, but the dark road has seemingly no end and a strange curse of the old woman snatches the passengers one-by-one, providing a bus terminus of death.

“Death Ride,” aka “VIP Death Seat,” is the 2024 released commercial transportation ghost story hailing from Thailand.  One half of the “Black Magic Mask” directors, Pasit Panitijaroonroj, splinters off to helm the horror, credited in the title cards as Phasit Panitijaroonroj.  Known by various other interpreted titles, such as “Seat 204,” “The Seat,” and as “Rot Tour Wee Ai Phee” in native Thai, the feature is also written for cinematic screen by Panitijaroonroj with the conceptual story conceived by Wiroj Chotichiawong combines the already tense mass transit journey with a supernatural grim fated outcome that pits people not only against a malevolent and eerie force and terror but also seizes each other in a plight of fear of the unknown.  The production studio behind “Death Ride” is Arriya Film, who produced “Black Magic Mask,” “The Attic,” and “Check-in Shock,” and is distributed internationally by Antenna Entertainment. 

The “Death Ride” story has an ensemble cast setup that bounces between westerner Nick, a group of young people, an older narcissist, the pair of bus staffers, and briefly minor support characters who stand out but without expressed intent, such as the mother and son combo, Nick, who’s travelling solo on unmentioned grounds, has more attention as he wanders the bus stations, becomes the primary disgusted toward the old woman, and has an unaccompanied third act all to himself.  Nick is played by American Nathan Bartling, Youtuber of My Mate Nate, a bilingual prankster who actually was in Thailand authorities’ legal crosshairs for teaching Thai children how to flatten coins on a railway and he was threatened with railway obstruction and damage.  Bartling has since been promoting the Thailand in a positive light despite his expatriate infamy.  He goes on to star in the film as the ignorant and blamed party for the cursed bus ride.  Bartling is joined by Pawornwan Verapuchong, Nichapat Chaiaek (“Bangkok Dangerous”), Prasert Weangwichit, Innyada Yurot, and Jariya Rachomas as the group of youngsters on their way to the city and become intwined in the same mesas Nick but Nick ultimately becomes singled out for being a westerner, to stir up offensive requests to change seats, and because he’s an easy target as a lone travler whereas the group of young people travel in a pack.  Another social media personality-prankster in homegrown Jaturong Papho has a smaller but concentrated role as the trip’s first bus driver who must excuse himself from duty when the local cuisine bottoms out in the stomach.  Papho provides a lot, if not all, the comedy that’s been stitched into “Death Ride’s” loose haunting narrative with fart jokes, overreactions, and funny expressions.  The cast fills out with Pichet Iamchaona, Watsana Phunphone, Suchao Pongwilai, and Namgneun Boonnak as the sickly old woman. 

Panitijaroonroj pulls together an ensemble that audiences will have a difficulty relating to, will struggling favoring for in either demise or survival, and just plainly like as characters in general.  There’s nothing characteristically interesting about the ill-fated lot who come to the story without context to their lives or the reason why their on this bus trip the city anyway.  Nick’s is a solivagant who shares not one single tidbit of information about anything substantial to anyone.  In fact, Nick is brutally quiet for much of the duration.  The only time the principal character speaks is to question strange occurrences or be in complaint of the smelly old woman next to him.  The entire cast is written to complain, mostly about the decaying fish smell emanating from who the follow passengers constantly refer to as granny, and this leaves little room to get to know the players of the malevolent spirit misadventure who are trapped with it on a 22-ton bus careening into oblivion. There desperately needs to be some subtext conversations that reach deeper into their lives that sway their motivations or speak to their typology.  Instead, all there is is screaming, bickering, blame throwing, and just being a body just to be fringe fodder for the spirit.  The spirit itself lacks an understanding as the elderly woman is escorted to the bus stop by a boy, assumingly her grandson or nephew, but he wanders off the story at some point before disembarking. At least with the spirit, there can be assumptions made about it, such as a representation of death with the fermented fish smell and the bleeding from the facial orifices, and that suggest this bus fare could cost them everything.  “Death Ride” is also loosely similar to that of Jean-Baptiste Andrea and Fabrice Canepa’s better evolving and character steeping 2003 holiday-thriller, “Dead End,” but “Death Ride’s” ending steers wildly into a ghostly eldritch to resultingly shock viewers with its foreseeable twist ending.

Our first review coverage of an International Media Network distributed DVD begins with “Death Ride” with a DVD5 encoded with NTSC MPEG2 compression and presented in 720p and a widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio.  The first impressions are not off to a great start with a heavily aliasing with the lower bitrate that hangs around 3-5Mbps, creating an unnatural blur during active motion and reducing the detailed textures.  The story is entirely set at night that inherently produces the appropriately laid out negative spaces, casted shadows from key lighting, and a distinct higher contrast levels and while the negative spaces show some banding, there definitely some data loss with the image breaking down during the decoding.  Color saturation is left muted for a darker grading to set a bleaker tone and an eerie atmosphere.  The Thai PCM 2.0 Stereo track offers a front and center mix that retrieves and decodes dialogue in a precise and prominent reproduction with a range extended to the hum of the bus engine, the haunting echoes of a malevolent spirit, and perhaps the most asinine element, the hyperbolic hits passengers take against each other and from the angry spirit.  The ill-fitting score, uncredited, is what free stock music dreams are made of with an aggressive and overreaching tone harrowing score that was applied to every single situation the characters came to face.  Forced English subtitles appear error free and move along well enough with the quick Thai Siamese language.  IMN’s release is barebones with only a chapter selection in the static menu.  Also not impressive is the tangible DVD presence that doesn’t indicate even who the distributor is and luckily the IMN title card is presented precursing the feature.  What’s also missing is any kind of cast and crew credits from the back in what is rather also a bareboned informational and image design.  There is no MPAA rating listed but the assumption is unrated, if no rating is given.  The region free disc has a feature duration of 85 minutes.

Last Ride: “Death Ride” is a long, arduous trip to sit through. Lacking depth in story and in character, refunding the bus ticket is perhaps a better deal.

“Death Ride” Available on DVD!

This Serial Killer is the Mother of all EVILs. “Ed Kemper” reviewed! (Dread / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Ed Kemper” on Blu-ray Home Video

Edmund Kemper at the age of 15 tortured animals and killed his grandparents just to see what it was like.  For five years, Kemper was held at and subsequently released from a psychiatric ward where he was deemed not harmful to society.  His acrimonious relationship with his mother as a child did not stop Kemper from living with her as an adult man after his release and her abusive, alcoholic ways continued on him as well.  After some time, Kemper’s aggressive sexual urges sought out hitchhiking women and in the months between 1972 and 1973, Kemper had abducted multiple school age women and either strangled, stabbed, or shot them in isolated areas of arid California.  From there, Kemper satisfied his depravities with dismembering their bodies and committing necrophiliac acts with the sawed-off parts.  Before turning himself in to authorities, Kemper’s killing spree culminates back to his very existence with the death of his abusive mother and he does not spare her from receiving the same kind of posthumous dismemberment and sexual acts he done upon the young women before her.

American Edmund Kemper is the titular subject of the latest film from director Chad Ferrin, horror director known for pushing eyelids open for atrocity-laden films, such as “Someone’s Knocking at the Door,” “Pig Killer,” and “Scalper.”  Ferrin also cowrites the biographical horror drama with Stephen Johnston, a serial serial-killer screenwriter who has painted with font some of America’s most notorious serial murderers from Ed Gein to Ted Bundy, to Kenneth Bianchi from “The Hillside Strangler.”  The tall, dark complexioned, round glasses framed, and pitched mustached Kemper is the next subject for Johnston and the first serial killer biodoc from Ferrin that takes him from fiction to nonfiction while still retaining his admiration for graphic content, produced under Ferrin’s production company of Crappy World Films in association with Dance On Productions and Laurelwood Pictures.

In the role of Kemper is Brandon Kirk who is a by all comparisons a beefier Ed Helms and Kirk has worked with Ferrin on numerous projects since their first collab in 2021’s “Night Caller,” marking “Ed Kemper” as their sixth film together in Ferrin’s rapid release method.  Initially, Kirk seemed to not fit the role that started off with Kemper suitcase in hand being escorted out of the psych hospital and back into society.  His presence felt shallow, unimportant, and a punching bag for his mom’s barrage of boozy hate with little kickback from Kemper’s large and formidable frame and his deadly past which was only half a decade ago.  Kirk has the tall stature and framework to resemble Kemper in that department but didn’t quite fit the bill instill a confident killer that can chill to anyone to the bone with a simple smirk.   By the end, Kirk proves our conceptions incorrect by becoming a delusionally composed killer that no longer needed a smirk to make blood curdle but rather just look into the camera with his plain eyewear frames and mile stare when casually conversing atrocity as if noting the weather.  It’s plain to see how Kemper came to be with a mother like Clarnell Strandberg and her incessant physical and verbal abuse through and beyond Kemper’s youth; Susan Priver, who has also worked with Ferrin and Kirk since “Night Caller,” nails worst mother of the year being in Strandberg’s constant drunken tirade.  Kirk and Priver’s mother-son dynamic has no and is not depicted to have such traditional warmth or merit and, instead, is a one-sided browbeating at Kemper’s expense is fueled by necessity, and perhaps a little bit of masochism on Kemper’s part because if it really got under the skin of either one of them, I’m sure living on the street would have been better.  Repeat scene principals are laid with only a few with Brinke Stevens (“Nightmare Sisters,” “Slave Girls from Beyond Infinity”) in the role of Clarnell’s closeted lover Sally Hallett, adding a bit more complexion to Clarnell’s life choices and fueled bitterness after failed heterosexual marriages, and Joe Castro (“Blood Feast 2:  All U Can Eat”), special effects makeup artist on the film, also down the traditional black horn, red-caped devil that influences young Kemper’s abused mental state.  The co-ed of the Co-Ed Killer include roles filled in by Erin Luo (“Feral Female”), Patty Hayes, Isabelle Morgan, Autumn Rose Ruch, Gloria Therese, and Katie Silverman (“The Exorcists”).  Familiar faces of Lew Temple (“The Devil’s Rejects”), Robert Miano (“Chained Heat”), and Cassandra Gave (“Conan:  The Barbarian”) pop in supporting parts. 

If you’ve seen the deeply studio underappreciated and fan-favorite “Mindhunter” Netflix television series that was prematurely and devastatingly cancelled, Cameron Britton’s performance may have already seared a first impression of Kemper.  The David Fincher crime drama was dark, bleak, and interesting in what makes serial killers tick as the series investigators sat down with Kemper and utilized him as a source of knowledge, much like novelist Thomas Harris had done with his Hannibal Lector character to track down the Red Dragon killer.  Britton’s large stature and soft-spoken delivery made for a terrifying persona when Kemper goes bluntly, coldly, and without expression into detail of his own exploits and methodology with women and corpses.  Side-by-side, Britton and Kirk are starkly different portrayals and those familiar with “Mindhunter,” like me, may already have an impressed idea of Ed Kemper, but Kirk manages to reign in that initial impression and engrave his own version of the murderer into the solidified stone.  In contrasting stylistic and storytelling choices, Ferrin’s film also strays away from reality quite a bit with the Devil inside Kemper’s mind as a child, his frequent disconnection with time, and delusions with seeing things, like John Wayne knocking on his driver side window and giving him sage advice.  There’s more cinematic universe with “Ed Kemper” the feature film than reality-gripping realism to tell his tale without sensationalism, but the story does get down and dirty in Kemper’s Co-Ed killing days.  Initially, the feature felt watered down and wouldn’t go into the darkest of territories inside Kemper’s skeleton closet and deranged mindset but Ferrin, true to form, gets weird with Kemper and his sexualized obsession with dismembered corpses, unafraid to flash gore and nudity that couldn’t go untold with this type of nonfictional narrative, and to be honest, being the nudity shy Dread Presented film, I was shocked with their green light of certain scenes. 

Dread and Epic Pictures Group present true crime horror-drama “Ed Kemper” on Blu-ray that’s AV encoded with 1080p resolution on a BD25.  Presented in a widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio, Jeff Billings cinematographer handles the 70’s aesthetic of an arid brown California scenery melded perfectly with 70’s period specific avocado green, mustard yellow, and a singed orange while also tackling the black-and-white representing Kemper’s childhood past.  No compression issues to note, blacks are solid, the colors saturate and diffuse nicely throughout, and details are on the softer side but stick the detailed landing unequivocally in the color scenes with the black-and-white harnessing what it can through lack of color.  The English language audio track is compressed with a Dolby Digital 5.1 and Dolby Digital 2.0.  The sole compressed options hangs back the full potential of disorienting muscle, such as with Joe Castro’s basement dwelling devil who’s aimed to be an intense, delusional provocateur of Kemper’s evildoings and also Kemper himself when he goes into full-throttle turmoil within himself, when he can’t take his mother abuse or when he’s grinning ear-to-ear with killing, hacking up, and necrophiliac-loving co-ed victims.  Dialogue comes through clear and clean with optional English and Spanish subtitles available under the title menu.  What’s additional interesting about the “Ed Kemper” score is it’s orchestrated by Richard Band, brother of Charles Band, and is a stray away from his conventional carnivalesque tone into a more traditionally dark that swells tension when needed and coddles the more abusive scenes to picture Kemper as the victim of abuse.  Special features contain an audio commentary track with director Chad Ferrin, co-ed victim audition tapes, deleted scenes, a Kemper 70’s Psycho featurette documentary that’s a raw look behind-the-scenes and get a real sense of Chad Ferrin’s all-in, guts and all, directing style, a Lost Ending providing an alternate finale to the sensationalized Kemper tale for this release, “The Devil’s Slide” music video, the official theatrical trailer, and trailers for other Dread Presents films.  The traditional Blu-ray case has a mustard yellow covert art of Kemper’s face close up but does not appear to be Kirk’s Kemper mug.  The cover art is one sided and there are no other physical trimmings with a disc printed with Kirk’s Kemper mug split down the middle expressing two different faces and incorporated into a personnel file like design.  Not rated with a runtime of 92 minutes, “Ed Kemper” is encoded with a region free playback compatibility. 

Last Rites: To put all of his immoral and depraved transgressions into just over 90 minutes is simply skimming the odious surface but the Chad Ferrin and Dread / Epic Picture Group collaboration condense the irreverence and the ickiness of “Ed Kemper” onto a platform that reminds us all there is true pure evil in this world.

“Ed Kemper” on Blu-ray Home Video

Creating the Perfect EVIL Race Takes Needless Amounts of Surgery and a Good Pair of Balls! “S.S. Experiment Love Camp” reviewed! (88 Films / 4K UHD and Standard Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“S.S. Experiment Love Camp” 4K and Blu-ray is Ripe for the Taking!

Nazi officer Colonel von Kleiben heads a concentration camp where he experiments of young Jewish and Russian female prisoners.  His experiments bore through the encampment lot with unconventional reproductive system surgery for the good of and in the name of purifying the Aryan race, experimentations that also including nonconsensual sexual activities between the women captives and the top physical specimens of the Nazi ranks.  Kleiben’s masked, real intentions are to practice for his own sake in a testicle transplant after a Russian woman castrates him during his attempted raping of her during conflict.  Woman after woman is sacrificed for the surgeon’s rigorous rehearsal by having their uteruses removed and replaced by another and when they expire on the table, their corpses are discarded into the camp’s incinerating ovens.  One Nazi solider is earmarked to be Kleiben’s hope to be whole again and uses the soldier’s affections toward a female prisoner to gain power and control in coercing him blindly into the experiment. 

If pleasure seeking banned films from certain sovereign states, then perhaps “S.S. Experiment Love Camp” should be on your short list.  The 1976 Nazisploitation film from Italy depicts a semblance of torture simulations used from Hitler’s Reich and lays the groundwork for total absurdity with a plot coursed with nonsense motivation at the disadvantage of a minority group under the threat of torture and death.  Also known as “Captive Women II:  Orgies of the Damned,” as more of a sequel in the collective Naziploitation subgenre popular in the 70’s, or most widely known as simply “S.S. Experiment,” the film is from the “Django the Bastard” and “Kill Django… Kill First” director Sergio Garrone, who co-wrote the script alongside “The Weapon, the Hour, & the Motive” co-screenwriter Vinicio Marinuci.  The Società Europea Films Internazionali Cinematografica produced the video nasty venture and expressed no regret the depictions of Nazi terror with the continuation of the subgenre by producing “S.S. Camp 5:  Women’s Hell” as well as other rape-inclined exploitation, such as “Mandinga” between master and plantation slaves and the caged women narrative of “Barbed Wire Dolls.”  

Sifting through the atrocious Nazi experiments, the unabashed sum of nudity, and the ridiculously selfish plot of one Colonel’s lengths to restore his manhood, “S.S. Experiment Love Camp” has a handful of mainstay principals key to the premise’s perpetuation encircled around Colonel Kleiben’s clandestine reasons to willingly and uncompassionately order a new type of surgical procedure on innocent civilian women prisoners.  Played by the square jawed, blonde haired Italian Giorgio Cerioni, who after “S.S. Experiment Love Camp” went on a string of playing a woman abusing Nazi in nazisploitation films between ’76 and ’77 with “Deported Women of the SS Special Section,” “SS Camp:  Women’s Hell,”  “The Red Nights of the Gestapo,” Kleiben’s a stoic, behind-the-scenes force and Cerioni dons the decadence evil well behind German medals and sense of false soldier duty as he works both the known to Kleinben Jewish world class surgeon Dr. Steiner (Attilio Dottesio, “The Sinful Nuns of Saint Valentine”) pretending to be German and Kleiben’s targeted German solider Helmet (Mircha Carven, “Death Will Have Your Eyes”) sought for his textbook testicles.  Dottesio’s Dr. Steiner is a conflicted man brought to do surgery on his fellow Jews that will result in their certain death and while he knows this, and it weighs on his conscious, the stuck doctor keeps himself from being exposed from other than the Colonel who knows and exploits his little secret for advantage; Dottesio wears a burden upon the surgeon’s face but doesn’t do enough to provide the body language of resistance in being doctor death against his will.  Yet, Carven wholly depicts an outlier amongst the typical German national who rather read books than shoot the sexual gab of his countrymen, which is in itself a nice slice of visual irony with the Nazi being known for burning literature.  Carven keeps Helmut relatively quiet, reserved, and a watcher from afar, noticing blonde prisoner Mirelle as the two fall for each other at the moment of locking eyes.  Carven and Paolo Corazzi (“SS Camp:  Women’s Hell”) sizzle with chemistry that’s left pieced too far apart and with not enough relationship context toward their insta-love connection.  There are other peripheral dialogue characters that keep the story spicy in their debauchery with Serafino Profumo (“Escape from Hell”) who had that perfect thin mustache and bald and stout look that makes him a formidable slimeball as the Nazi Seargent, Patrizia Melega (“SS Camp:  Women’s Hell”) as Dr. Steiner’s sadistic lesbian colleague Dr. Renke, and a handful of German soldiers to be the plug to the female prisoner outlet, such as with Matilda Dall’Agilio, Agnes Kalpagos, and Almina De Sanzio.  One of the more details to gripe about the cast is that they’re all Italian bronze that dilutes the allusion of the nationalities their portraying. 

“S.S. Experiment Love Camp” comes with a smidgen of notoriety having been banned in select western European countries over its depiction of violence, especially at the hands of Nazis, and its controversial poster of a naked woman crucified upside.  To this day,  Garrone’s film is still shocking and abhorrent with the aforesaid but also the emotion confliction etched into characters like Dr. Steiner or Helmut who must make a choice, weighing the balance of self-preservation over the salvation and safety of others, and that’s what really drives this nazisploitation to have tremendous impact in an absurdist plot of colonel cajones.  Garrone favors a more realistic approach to the tortures and horrors of a Nazi concentration camp by including close reenactments to their torture methods and Garrone also lingers ever so uncomfortably on the complete discard of corpses into the oven without any dialogue, expression on any faces, and even adds a surrealist glance into the oven of the bodies moving, in an artful dance way, when the flames are ignited.  There’s also the given, often gratuitous nudity that accompanies most nazisploitation films and while nudity usually arouses, stimulation stalls under the barbarism that’s present in the air, the context of which the sex acts are being conducted for, and the outcome of ghastly blood and sinew that follows to the end of the mortal coil.  There’s sensuality between lovers and transactions between prostitution and paying customers but even those innocuous instances rapid degrade into unnerving anticipation. 

88 Films’ new 2-disc, dual format 4K UHD Blu-ray and Standard Blu-ray set is a marvel of physical media engineering.  The 4K UHD is HVEC encoded and presented in Dolby Vision HDR10, 2160p ultra high-definition, and stored on a BD100 while the Standard Blu-ray is AVC encoded with a 1080p resolution on a BD50, both brand new 4K remastered transfers stem from the original negatives and displayed in a widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio.  Between the two formats, there’s identical visuals to the naked eye but the 4K UHD does provide a slightly sharper image that has more an immersive pop when comparing the two formats side-by-side.  Colors are rich with a complete hue saturation that isn’t present in previous, more muted DVD or other Blu-ray editions.  Darker scenes have an intention rough quality about them as well as the concrete and unpigmented concentration camp as intended by director Sergio Carrone to put forth as much realism as possible.  No identifiable issues with compression as the picture quality looks clean through-and-through with blacks retaining an inky bide, grading remains consistent and stable, and the minutiae of fabric and skin color doesn’t contest with any ambiguity as Nazi uniforms distill a gray cotton-wool blend, you can also touch the little fuzzies on their garb, and the stubble and sweat greatly show the length of detail on strained and tense faces during torture or combat scenes.  The formats both have the same audio mixes:  an ADR English 2.0 LPCM and an ADR Italian 2.0 LPCM.  The uncompressed audio brings an unfiltered and considerate quality to the front channels with clean and clear dialogue under a diminutive amount of interference and an ambience track that puts its best foot forward, or rather the front, with distinct, sundry range of electronic voltage, machine gun fire, and the surgical slippery stickiness of organs being handled.  The new translated English subtitles are paced well and have no grammatical or misspelling issues.  Special features include a feature tandem audio commentary with Italian film experts Eugenio Ercolani and Nanni Cobretti.  Plus, Italian audio only interviews subtitled in English, including an interview with the late director Sergio Garrone Sadistically Yours, Sergio G., an interview with music historian Pierpaolo de Sanctis SSadist Sound, an interview with editor Eugenio Alabiso The Alibiso Dynasty (a back cover misspelling error perhaps?), an interview with cinematographer Maurizio Centini Framing Exploitation.  The special features conclude with the Italian title credits for the opening and closing of the film and the original Italian trailer.  88 Films and Joel Robison bring a newly illustrated, censored and uncensored cover art with the censored version on the rigid dual-sided slipcover that’s crazily detailed in all its tempestuous glory with the backside depicting the original poster art of a reverse crucified naked woman, both images are impressed with a pop-pulp coloring and chrome effect. The uncensored version lies within the plastic slip of the black 4K Amaray with a reverse side depicting also the original cover in its more traditional coloring of the horrendous and country-banning portrayal.  Inserted on the left interior is an uncensored illustrative cover, of the original poster art, atop of a 11-page English essay from Tim Murray entitled “Nazisploitation, Punks, and The Nasties…”  The Not rated, 95-minute film is region free for global player use. 

Last Rites: If nazisploitation or Eurosleaze just isn’t what tickles your movie mania, any cinephile can appreciate the pristine transfer, the raw and uncompressed audio, and its physical accoutrements that rise “S.S. Experiment Love Camp” into a must-have release.

“S.S. Experiment Love Camp” 4K and Blu-ray is Ripe for the Taking!

This Casting Couch Has Something Far More EVIL Planned Than Some Sleazy Fetish Videos! “Maskhead” reviewed! (Unearthed Films /Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Maskhead” on Blu-ray from Unearthed Films!

Syl and Maddie are lesbian lovers and producers of adult fetish films.  Always seeking new talent and models, they continuously invite potential performers to their casting couch for a little background interview and test the waters of their willingness to be humiliated or dominating on camera.  When the camera rolls, the plot is about as normal as any fetish produced adult feature can be to get a viewer’s rocks off but when the imposing, metal face gear-wearing Maskhead enters frame, the change of perversion goes from sexualized fetishes to snuff material as Maskhead torments, tortures, and kills the models as Syl and Maddie enthusiastically continue to capture it all on camera with great relish in their pain and suffering.  At the bidding of the sociopathic lesbians, their associate named Cowboy purveys potential performers with his southern charm and witty storytelling as well as supplying them with jet fuel-infused weed.  With shoots lined up, Syl and Maddie are extremely tickled for the soon-to-be tortured talent ahead of them. 

After his stint of SOV sickness and violence with the August Underground trilogy, writer-director Fred Vogel continues his expedition through videotape exploitation with a codirector effort in the 2009 extreme horror “Maskhead.”  Written-and-codirected with Scott Swan, who has since transitioned into a transgendered woman Rebecca Swan, the “Extremity” and “Big Junior” filmmaker Swan folds into Vogel’s guerilla-esque scripted joy for the juggler through a nihilistic lens.  “Maskhead” is hot-rodding sadism at its nastiest in the underground world of ultra-violent and extreme horror, produced by Vogel under his Toe Tag Pictures alongside wife and costar Shelby Lyn Vogel and once frequent collaborator and special effects guru Jerami Cruise whose gruesome squibs and bloody prosthetics of August Underground’s “Mordum” and “Penance” opened the door for specialty costuming for Hollywood blockbusters, especially in the MCU with “Avengers:  Infinity War,” “Captain Marvel” and “Black Panther.”  “Maskhead” might not be a morally just superhero but can be definitely feared as superhuman with his nail protruding through a plank strap-on! 

Maskhead is essentially the executioner you don’t want to meet on an isolated porn set, caught vulnerable in your unmentionables.  The titular character is played voicelessly Michael Witherel having just come off the set of Vogel’s “Murder Collection Volume 1” released the same year.  Wrapped in bloody bandages around his upper torso, chest and head, encased with a strapped metal mask with spikes around the mouth area, Maskhead is virtually a ghost without background, without a wound explanation, and we don’t know what makes the grunting brute tick to do the cruelties he does in the unexplained relationship with Syl and Maddie who rely on Maskhead to splatter their stars into full potential.  Syl and Maddie have a little more breadth:  they’re lovers, fetish smut producers, and total sociopaths.  The women speak romantically about their auditioners coupled with immense torture-kill innuendo as a preponderance of their relationship foreplay.  Shelby Lyn Vogel and Danielle Kings have certifiable chemistry between them as lovers and portray crisp killers of apathetic character as they lap up laughter, love, and the loose morals in the face of someone’s life in their hands or behind their camera.  Shelby Lyn Vogel has worked around Vogel’s catalogue for the most of his career with roles in “The Redsin Tower” and “The Final Interview” while Danielle Inks (“My Uncle John is a Zombie!”) inaugurates herself into extreme film, and film altogether in her debut, without missing beat being the dress-wearing famine next to Vogel’s more butch lesbian.  While Vogel and Inks make an interesting pair of murderers, the more fascinating character Daniel V. Klien’s Cowboy, a charming supplier of casting couch talent with the gift of gab and the occasional backdoor fisting.  Klein (“Murder Collection V.1,” “The Final Interview”) adds to Cowboy’s mysteriousness debonair with a great twang, bearish mustache, and slightly portly figure in cowboy boats, black vest, and tight underpants when getting his kink on.  Cowboy’s persuasive manner and false promises build the character who’s to meet Syl and Maddie’s wishes.  Now, whether the couple plays Cowboy or not is not elucidated, one thing is clear the character does the Cowboy way when it comes to fetish desires and traversal wandering.  “Maskhead” is fairly carte blanche in casting their onscreen kill list with actors John Ross, Chris Krzysik, Mary Shore, Nicole Divley, David P. Croushore, Janelle Marie Szczypinski, Donna MacDonald, Lacey Fleming, and Damien A. Maruscak breaking more than a leg in their character acts. 

Suitable for those with bloodlust eyes, “Maskhead” meets niche criteria as an extreme gore and shock feature that’s all exploitational style and no narrative substance.  This type of film is very much similar to Fred Vogel’s “August Underground” series of randomized bits and pieces of not only the poor unfortunate’s filleted flesh and exposed bones but also with the disconnected scenes compiled together to meet at most the full-length feature runtime requirements.  The bare plotline to “Maskhead” are lesbian lovers Syl and Maddie signing unsuspecting actors to their doom for the sake of their snuff movies, that’s the extent and stoppage point of “Maskhead” to move forward with any sort of three act narrative. The rest intends to shock with one-sided, visceral violence that is the epitome of torture porn with bound people being merciless put in the wrath of “Maskhead” and other extreme moments of provocativeness, including Syl and Maddie’s footsy foreplay under a public restaurant table or Cowboy’s elbow deep fisting of a local gay bar tweaker.  While ultra violence and deviancy doesn’t go without merit, everyone knows I enjoy a good uncensored bloodsplatter and sexpot debauchery scene, the film is just a continuous string of nothing but that can be utterly monotonous, especially in the length of 89-minutes as it is with “Maskhead.” 

“Maskhead” is a course in sexual deviancy, a killer perversion that’ll speak to few but be repugnant by many.  You can test your ethic caliber by owning a copy of “Maskhead” on the new Unearthed Films’ Blu-ray.  The AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition, BD50 is packed with extras and presents the feature in the original aspect ratio 1.77:1 widescreen.  Vogel and Swan use polar quality to convey their narrative with a downgraded resolution, around a true 480p, with Syl’s perspective, capturing every gruesome event on her camcorder, much the same as found footage, while the rest of the film is shot in a higher, digital resolution with a third person perspective.  There’s certainly no singular picture quality approach as even third picture rollercoasters with an inconsistent, and slightly unstable, look under low-lit scenes, such as with the Syl and Maddie restaurant scene, and this unfavored condition is not a compression issue but rather a result of equipment and poor lighting, hence gore-and-shock’s conventional bantam budget.  Depth is not really a thing with the quality and a maximization of extreme closeups to get all the uncomfortableness of personal bubble space and grisly slaughter into the frame.  Color grading is also pretty much nonexistent with a raw and natural flat aesthetic palette, adding to the strived realism aspect extreme horror usually attempts to achieve.  The only audio option available is an uncompressed English PCM 2.0 that services these types of films well enough as dialogue comes over cleanly and relatively clear when on-board and commercial on-board mics are placed appropriately.  No hissing, crackling, or popping to note.  If screaming bloody hell is a high-frequency vocal modulation that gets you off than, of course, there’s plenty from the “Maskhead” track to go around.  Again, not much depth or range because of the near proximity of most of the scenes.  English subtitles are optionally available.  Much like Unearth Films’  “August Underground”  release, “Maskhead” comes packed with plenty of new and a few returning special features.  There are two new feature length commentary tracks with 1) directors Fred Vogel and Scott Swan and 2) with Vogel again with wife Shelby Lyn Vogel, special effects artist Jerami Cruise, and Ultra Violent Magazine’s Art Ettinger.  A third 2009 commentary precedes and seeks to replace the first new commentary with Vogel and Swan.  An exclusive Unearthed Films introduction by Toe Tag’s Fred Vogel provides a little gratitude from Vogel about the new release.  Swan also has his own feature cut of the film which may be more favorable for those looking for a story as the codirector’s cut seeks to build more context through editing and pacing toward the story rather than Vogel’s emphasis on the torture/gore.  Interviews with Vogel Frankenstein’s Maskhead, the titular character himself Behind the Mask, and the Cowboy Below the Brim offers that slither of realism and behind-the-scenes bibelots that makes “Maskhead” tick.  There’s also a plethora of new featurettes of raw behind-the-scenes footage:  the first test footage for “Maskhead,” the creation of the titular character, an extended death scene of Food Girl (Janelle Marie Szczypinsk), as well as on set with Food Girl, fun with special effects at Toe Tag Studios, moments from the recording room to flesh out those sound details, such as Cowboy’s whistling and some growling, grunting, and groaning techniques, I Will Break Your Fucking Arm takes you behind the scenes of the arm rack’s special effects and setup, the infamous rape scene with a 2×4 is more raw footage of preparation with a little more skin time from both Mary Shore and Michael Witherel, The Room ganders the old hotel room where Cowboy gets fisty, the character elements – mask, gauze, and 2×4 – that make Maskhead Maskhead, and an extended photo gallery.  Archive extras round out the massive list with the Jerami Cruise commentated short “Dildo:  The Creation of Maskhead,” a blooper reel, Cowboy’s Whistling Clinic to be the best professional whistler as you can be, and the trailer.  Physical elements of Unearthed Films’ latest has a cardboard O-slip featuring green graded image composition of the primary cast of characters.  The same image is displayed on the one-sided cover art of the conventional Blu-ray Amaray case.  I’m curious about one thing though, did Unearthed Films get permission from Rebecca Swan to use her then biological male name Scott Swan for credit?  I assume so with the rational of that was who created the film back in 2009.  The region A locked release and is not listed as not rated but is not rated. 

Last Rites: Most will consider “Maskhead” senseless depiction of pseudo-torture but I’m glad Unearthed Films and Fred Vogel were able to supply and add supplemental raw footage on this upgraded release. Hours upon hours of reel that shows careful preparation and setup and the dedicated cast and crew examining every shot and listening to cast suggestions that humanizes the film a little more on a relatable level and demonize it less as just junk food for gorehounds.

“Maskhead” on Blu-ray from Unearthed Films!

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!