Category Archives: dvd

EVIL Pays High Dollar to Hunt, Kill, and Play With their Prey! “Game in the Woods” reviewed! (Jinga Films – Danse Macabre / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Survive the “Game in the Woods!” Buy the DVD!

After her grandfather’s death, Ash travels through Texas with her brother Ted and girlfriend Sam to his isolated ranch cabin to be the first to claim his most valuable possessions before their Ash’s cousin, Bobbie Jo.  They arrive to find the cabin unlocked but about the same as it always been and go into woods for a little rest and relaxation, enjoying nature with a little alcoholic to supplement the relief of tension between the turbulent odds of Ash’s fast-and-loose ways and Sam’s more strict conservatism in regard to their relationship.  When they found a spray painted, screaming woman with a metal collar around her neck and a bear trap lodged into her ankle, they found themselves in the middle of a hunting party of masked men with melee weapons.  Ran by The Game Warden, Ash’s grandfather leased the land for a deadly game of sadistic clients hunting down non-English speaking immigrants for sport and depravity with their bodies no matter if they were alive or deceased. 

A surely bastardized version of “The Most Dangerous Game,” a novel that’s been re-imagined many times over about one man’s obsessive hunting for man, director Mike McCutchen follows up his debut violent chase thriller film “The Next Kill” with “A Game in the Woods” as his sophomore feature that eases him into the horror and exploitation subgenre.  McCutchen cowrites the script with Drew Thomas, the first feature film writing credit for the “Sex Terrorists on Wheels” cinematographer, and is based off a story by the collaboration between McCutchen and Drew Guajardo set in the boondocks of nowhere, Texas where land is aplenty and help is scarce if cried for.  The 2024 produced picture is a product of McCutchen’s Austin, TX based Fault Pictures and is produced by J.J. Weber (“The Next Kill”) with Andrew Bragdon and Kyle Seipp serving associate producers with Lonnie Seipp in the executive producer role. 

Eleanor Newman and Emily Skeen play the lesbian couple Ash and Sam and I make it a point to call out their characters’ sexuality because it feels inherently important to the story.  Newman comes to light in the sophomore Mike McCutchen feature that takes her from out of a minor role to a key lead, if not near final girl protagonist, in the unconventional fearful female but rather head-on heroine in “A Game in the Woods.”  Skeen’s more sensible Sam becomes a quasi-damsel in distress without the distressing part but tries to formulate plans on the fly to escape her demented captors.  Ash and Sam have a palpable troubled relationship like oil and water but find themselves commingling when the right sadistic additives are involved, spearheaded by the apathetic Game Warden from John P. Crowley who also finds himself in a more visible and prominent principal role.  Crowley’s Game Warden harnesses a Bill Moseley energy and sarcastic tone but not in a carbon copy way that adjusts just enough to make confident and cocky Game Warden is own.  The lesbian portion of Ash and Sam does feel engrained into the narrative, especially with two women with shortened names for Ashley and Samantha but it also implies a male identity, as if equal sex.  All the women in the story have a common them about them too, they all have tenacity and a fighting spirit from Ash and Sam’s battling Crowley and the masked hunters to the captured women who fight and kill, to even Ash’s cousin, Bobbie Jo (Grace Robbins), who joins in on the offensive fight for survival.  There are zero helpless women, which is an amazing elemental theme and characterization.  As mentioned, all the male hunters wear masks, hiding themselves behind theiran masks, and the hunted men are tied to an object, make poor decisions, and just have no fight in them.  Even Ash’s brother Ted (Jamison Pitts) doesn’t put up resistance when confront and is more of the farting, comic relief.  Aside from the Game Warden, the male presence is weak charactered by far.  The hunters and the hunted fill out with Gary Kent, Steve Wilson, Kevin Corn, Caroline Schmitt, Doug Field, Scott Kimbrough, J.J. Weber, Ray L. Perez, Kyle Seipp, Yane Carvalho, Lonnie Seipp, Morgan Faber, and Michelle Mendiola with Lloyd Kaufman (“The Toxic Avenger”) making a cameo appearance. 

Working on one’s relationship with their partner usually takes a time, some self- reflection, or maybe even a little therapy.  For Ash and Sam, they come together be means of violence, tossed into the throes of their grandfather’s ghastly involvement in man’s flawed thirst for the cruel and unusual sadism, and though there’s never a come to Jesus epiphanic moment that they can overcome anything, the blood-soaked trial by fire is proof enough.  McCutchen immerses the women, and explosive collar device and spray-painted prey, into a whole new world of hurt in Earth’s backyard.  The clandestine organization the Game Warden works for laces are slightly untied and unkempt with the full scope of their national, maybe even international, chapters of a snuff wonderland where murder is king and nearly anything goes from chopping up bodies to molesting corpses.  McCutchen brings enough gore to the table without it being over gratuitous and overkill, literally.  Exploding heads, a chainsaw eviscerated torso, body parts strewn here, there, everywhere are what to mostly expect as the game devolves with the hunters becoming the hunted as the emotional depth is quickly pushed aside for the conflict ensued rising action, leaving no time for Ash and Sam to master their relationship troubles as the spider never contemplates life when winged food is snared in it’s web. 

From Danse Macabre and Jinga Films LTD comes “A Game in the Woods” on region free, R-rated DVD.  Encoded with MPEG-2 compression onto a single layer DVD5, the film is presented in with an upscale 720p resolution and a widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio.  Basking in the warmth of a dessert brown and tan, Cinematographer Zedrick Hamblin DiMenno opts for a natural approach aesthetic that focuses heavily on the medium-close to extreme closeup shots of gory bits and pieces of tear away flesh.  There’s nothing too terribly stylistic to note with only a hint of television glow and a momentarily use of key lighting with interior scenes.  Compression encoding goes without a hitch that captures image reproduction just find for viewing pleasures, losing only some minor background details of blended foliage and objects viewed from afar.  The English audio formats include a PCM stereo 2.0 and a 5.1 Surround.  The surround sound mix will be the preferred option dependent on your audio setup as the environment layers diffuse evenly through the back and side channels, leaving dialogue and proximity action, such as the kill scenes, to translate with full-bodied effect to squeeze out every squish and squirt from the practical effects carcass.  There are ideal pitch, tone, and range with the clear and prominent dialogue without any underlining interference or hissing effect through the clear, digital recording.  English subtitles are available for selection.  Aside from the feature trailer on the main static menu, there is no other encoded bonus content.  Though the movie is engaging enough through evisceration through torture and there’s a a glimmering theme of women empowerment, if I saw this DVD on the store shelf, the cover art isn’t attractive enough to pickup with its dark imagery of a shadowy hunter drawing his bow toward something off scene.  The façade doesn’t offer a flutter of fancy and there’s no other physical features to warrant a second glance if physical media shopping.  However, give this region free film a once over and there’s a solid film underneath’s it’s dull shell. 

Last Rites: Despite the run-of-the-mill, uninspired DVD cover, check out this sadistic Jinga Films and Danse Macabre “Game in the Woods” where the hunt is solely for the thrill to kill.

Survive the “Game in the Woods!” Buy the DVD!

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!

A New Drug, A New Promised Cure, a Result of EVIL Side Effects! “Mirror Life: Modern Zombies” reviewed! (Cleopatra Entertainment / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Mirror Life” on DVD from Cleopatra Entertainment!

An experimental drug known as Dumitor has the promise to cure all known ailments but while the animal testing proved encouraging, scientists Donovan and Taylor need to prove their miracle formulation on people.  The formulation creates a mirror reversal of the right-handed nucleotides and the left-handed amino proteins in the biological DNA sequence that could contrary the effects of chronic sickness.  Halfway through the experiment trial, Dumitor appears to be working until one of the participants comes down with hallucinations stemmed by an overload of endorphins resulting in violent behavior.  A failed lockdown and execution of all infected puts the world on the precipice of a pandemic and video journalist Tracy aims to find out what happened to her cousin, one of Dumitor’s trial members, who has mysteriously disappeared.  As Tracy gets closer to the truth, the pandemic spreads, the violence spreads, and the coverup to debunk accusations and prominent names out of the media has turned to desperate aggressive measures by Dumitor’s benefactors.

Based on the actual scientific and controversial theory called Mirror Life and transposed as the basis for the 2025, American horror-thriller, “Mirror Life,” the movie, depicts the cinema sensationalized effects from the synthesized molecular theory put into practice on the human body and mind as the be-all and end all cure for persistent ailments, turning usually mild-mannered and sensible people into crazed and delusion killers being masked under a whitewashing umbrella.  Also known as “Mirror Life:  Modern Zombies,” the film is written and directed by former amateur boxer turned filmmaker Kazy Tauginas in what would be listed as his debut writing credit and directorial.  With that being said, “Mirror Life” is actually a doubled up and mirrored concept of itself in some weird kind of way as a different cut of the Brian Kazmarck written-and-directed “Terminal Legacy” from 2012 that has Tauginas as the story creator.  The plot above is essentially the same with the original shoots being spliced with the integrated documentary investigation from Jordan’s cousin Tracy and her cameraman, interwoven as a non-linear parallel extension to the original concept and re-released with a new title, with the genre hot term zombie thrown into the subtitle for good measure.  “Mirror Life” or “Terminal Legacy” part deux is a production from Crapshoot Productions, New Lease Films, Ugly Puppy Productions and Open Fire Films, produced by Aidan Kane, Louise M. Peduto, Nat Prinzi, Stanislav Puzdriak, Brian Smith, and Kazy Tauginas.

Tauginas also costars in the film as Jordan, a surviving trial participant and Tracy’s missing cousin who finds himself chin deep in Dumitor contagion and a prime target in a containment massacre of his fellow trial mates Lindsay (Tationna Bosier, “Supernaturalz:  Weird, Creepy, & Random), Rosemary (Elise Rovinsky, “Fog Warning”), and Keith (Corey Scott Rutledge) when disturbing signs of infection show.  The small sample group have a decent dynamic with Jordan and Lindsay become hot for each other, Keith donning the bad boy antagonist persona, and Rosemary bringing up the rear as the withdrawn woman as they interact with the three doctors conducting the experiments in a cautious and courteous Dr. Taylor (Cuyle Carvin, “Dolls”), a more confident formulation scientist Donovon (Bristol Pomeroy, “Devil and the Nail”), and a more charge-forth with testing and results in Dr. Campbell (“The House on Tombstone Hill) who have their own contentious dynamic when fast and loose trial and error butts heads with steady-as-she-goes testing.  The original “Terminal Legacy” shot cast has their story spliced with a documentary style investigation by Jordan’s concerned cousin Tracy, played by Courtney Cavanagh who was also in anthological spinoff short of “Terminal Legacy” subtitled “Lost Souls” which doesn’t connect with the Kazmarck feature.  Both “Terminal Legacy” and it’s subsequent, unconnected short tread into being a lesser-known version of the popular sci-fi horror series and movies of “Black Mirror,” hence the word mirror being used to attach “Mirror Life” onto the success of the Charlie Brooker written and produced creation.  The cast fills out with Lawrence Ballard, Sally Greenland, Erica Becker, Mako San, Marc Reign, and Brian O’Neill.

Two shoots from two different times mashed together to form a single narrative structure doesn’t come without any issues, also being a non-linear story that toggles time and characters also doesn’t help.  Yet, “Mirror Life” bulldozes its way to being sound with little overlap puzzlement and only sustaining portions of a la carte plot holes.  Kazmarck’s 2012 script and direction nail a successfully conceive pre-apocalyptic thriller narratively designed like a Steven Soderbergh’s “Contagion” released a year prior snuggly fit into the “Black Mirror” like mold.  Where “Mirror Life” becomes a choppy is with the present tense portion of the shot of video documentary, added in as surplus offshoot to perhaps clean up and close out “Terminal Legacy” with fleshier reel and complexity toward the coverup concept.  By using interchangeable lensed cameras and mock security CCTVs, the spliced in sections create a whole new aesthetic and feels that grasping connection to the original film.  Plus, Tracy’s connection and motivation doesn’t appease her drive to make a documentary or even explain why the compulsive, go-getting cousin is compelled to do the extra leg work for her cousin other than their quickly mentioning their blood relation; there needed to be a deeper conversation of exposition out of Tracy’s emotional vault to get the audience on her side for hounding doctors, sneaking into apartment buildings, and the, essentially, putting herself and her crew in harm’s way for Jordan.  In short, “Terminal Legacy” had the makings of a sufficient sci-fi and apocalypse thrills and chills but without actually seeing the film in its entirety, there’s no way to know if the Kazmarck production went into being development hell, shelved for budget reasons, or had a more incongruous outcome that warranted a redo.

Cleopatra Entertainment distributes “Mirror Life:  modern Zombies” onto DVD home video with a MPEG2 encoded, upscaled 720p, DVD 5.  Presented in a widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio, image quality ranges from a third person graded digital capture, a first person raw digital capture, and pseudo-CCTV filter.  For lower DVD storage and the range of perspectives, compression issues are limited to smaller banding issues albeit plenty of darker and negative space opportunities for those milky arch lines to appear.  The grading, however, has a bit of milky residue but not terribly soaked but does keep the black saturation diluted.  Textures around skin and clothing have limited emersion with a smooth or slightly splotchy limitation from the 5-gigabyte compression that has a feature plus bonus content and a soundtrack menu.  For Cleopatra Entertainment, “Mirror Life” is a rights only distributed release, meaning they do not own the music, or rather soundtrack, from the parent company Cleopatra Records.  However, the mix is still an encoded English Dolby Digital 2.0 that has some bite in decibel volume but still can’t quite compare to an uncompressed stereo with “Mirror Life’s” gun-firing, fist-throwing, and the infected guttural sounds; however, the Dolby compression factors into saving space for a decent picture and its accompanying special features.  More importantly, dialogue comes through clearly and prominent.  Bonus features include a director’s DVD commentary, outtakes, deleted scenes, a slideshow, and theatrical trailer.  Cleopatra Entertainment has been constant on packaging with a standard DVD Amaray containing stark and intriguing cover art, especially with “Mirror Life’s” Kerry Russell and Alexandria Deddario-esque Sally Greenland appearing manically and sepia toned with a pair of scissors on the DVD and disc cover.  There are no other physical supplements on the region free DVD that houses an 89-minute, unrated feature.

Last Rites: “Mirror Life” mirrors itself from 2012 with a retouched version of the original film, “Terminal Legacy,” with little-to-no differences and another name slapped on in the director’s section. The horror comes from an effective, scientific relevant story of side effects and coverups but does the Modern Zombies subtitle really, and I mean really, come into play here? It’s a stretch to say the least.

“Mirror Life” on DVD from Cleopatra Entertainment!

EVIL’s Ready to Rock! “Hard Rock Zombies” reviewed! (MVD Visual / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Hard Rock Zombies” Rocks out on DVD! Check it Out Here!

A hair metal rock band will a killer ballad Holy Moses is on the verge of making it big time.  With a scouted gig at a venue in the small-town of Grand Guignol, Jesse, Tommy, Robby and Chuck are ready to rock the house with the help from band manager Ron but Grand Guignol’s narrowminded men and women, including the sheriff and government officials, will stop at nothing to cancel the show that has their children and teenage daughters enthralled with what the parents call scandalous rock’n’roll.  In favor of canceling and to sate their unquenchable bloodlust, a strange but wealthy eccentric family of perverse killers invite the band to play at their mansion only to kill them one by-one in a horrible death.  The town is not all full of bigots and murderers as Jesse’s rockin’ romance with Cassie, a daughter of Grand Guignol, plays an incantation cassette tape that rises them from the grave to seek hang-banging revenge! 

Femme fatales.  Dwarf-sized ghouls.  Werewolves in wheelchairs.  Voyeuristic snuff photographers.  Gas-crazy Nazis!  “Hard Rock Zombies” may thematically state rock’n’roll lives forever by way of tuneful necromantic resurrection, but the 1984 comedy-horror is a complete smorgasbord of absurdity.  Helmed by the India-born and Ivy League educated Krishna Shah  “Hard Rock Zombies” is a multifaceted vaudeville act set to the rock is the devil music trope.  Also alternatively known as “Rock Zombies” or “Heavy Metal Zombies,” Shah cowrites the metal music metastasizing script alongside David Allen Ball, both of whom would collaborate once and final more with the follow year’s teen comedy “American Drive-In.”   The in and around Los Angeles shoot is a production of the Patel/Shah Film Company with Shah producing and Shashi Patel serving as executive producer along with the debut of “Candyman” and “Lord of Illusion’s”  Sigurjon Sighvatsson and Steve Golin as associate producers. 

E.J. Curse, Geno Andrews (“Dr. Alien”), Sam Mann (“Roller Blade”), and Mick McMains make up the hair metal band Holy Moses and none of them had real acting experience.  The novice lot do their best to express themselves as an 80’s metal with large and heavily teased hair to produce maximum body and volume, tight and outlandish leather and revealing clothing, and apart from the competent and skilled skateboarding, move in antiquated dance moves familiar to the era.  They may not have a single convincing acting bone in their performance but credit to their overall appearance that speaks to the film’s title.  Though the band is intended central focus, they share a copious amount of screentime and development with the family of frightening agendas and secret identities.  The story even begins with attractive blonde Elsa (Lisa Toothman, “Witchcraft III:  The Kiss of Death”) seducing two young men to their demise while a slicked dress man takes pictures from the nearby bushes alongside two playful, dressed-in-black dwarfs, one human Mickey (Phil Fondacaro, “Willow”) and one monster Buckey (Gary Friedkin, “Cool World”).  It’s like a scene straight out of a David Lynch movie.  We learn this group belongs to an eccentric grandfather patriarch (Emanuel Shipow, “Biohazard”) and his wheelchair bound wife Eva (Nadia, “Dark Romances Vol. 1”) eager to strike down their next victims with clandestinely goosestepping and small mustache fervor.  Frazzled but loyal band manager Ron (Ted Wells) and Jesse’s Grand Guignol lover girl Cassie (Jennifer Coe) are seemingly the only two sane and rational characters who favor the sweet ballads of Holy Moses rather than the sinister genocide of an experiment happy dysfunctional family.  “Hard Rock Zombies” has an abundance of supporting characters and extras to give weight toward a Shah and company’s first-time production with a select secondary cast list of Jack Bliesener (“Crime Killer”), Richard Vidan (“Scarecrows”), Vincent Albert DiStefano, Christopher Perkins, David Schroeder, Michael David Simms (“Scarecrows”), David O’Hara (“Star Worms:  Attack of the Pleasure Pods”), and Donald Moran.

“Hard Rock Zombies” was probably more fun writing and performing in than it was piecing together a coherent narrative that spins like an unruly top going in unpredictable and varied wandering ways.  The amount of subplots against the core resurrection of a metal band erode the very essence of their supernaturally charged revenge because the primary focus on their rise from dead and how that resurrection incantation came into the rockers’ possession can quickly be forgotten as the exposition and the defining titular moment can be easily missed if you blinked for 0.0002 of a second.  There’s also the aforementioned circumstantial subordinate themes of adults and/or parents unwavering, harsh rebelliousness against the adolescent swooning hard rock and of the concealed true malevolent nature of the town’s murderous hodgepodge of a family that turn out to be bloodlust Nazis with an assumed case of monstrous, experimentational evil coursing through their veins, as seen with the unexpected shape-shifting wheelchair bound grandmother who can transform into a werewolf, complete with dual switchblades, and the ghoulie-like dwarf who eventually feasts upon himself into nonexistence.  “Hard Rock Zombies” transcends viewers into a bizarro world where, initially, seemingly plausible issues around an older generation’s labeling of infernal rock’n’roll music, stirring up townhall meetings and protests they see has harmful influence of the younger generation but then the topsy-turvy and screwball antics of heinous villainy goaled with and having already done committing atrocities is a complete farce on the actual, factual, historical events of ethnic cleansing.  Shah definitely makes light with the tone-deaf analogy with great zest and jest but without a more honed in effort and concentration on just the rockers back from the dead, this absurd 80’s comedy-horror fails to address its intentions.   

If not looking to spend a ton of money on the Vinegar Syndrome’s Blu-ray “Hard Rock Zombies,” the MVD Visual DVD is an economic alternative that won’t downsize your wallet.  The MPEG2 encoded, standard definition 720p, DVD5 suits this eccentric horror-comedy just fine, retaining its campy nature in the ballpark of an unrestored scan into 2K territory but still have the working print Vinegar Syndrome used for their high-def transfer, still presented in a widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio.  What’s encoded has not been sheened into an apt color correction and buffed with a higher pixel count for better, digital vivid saturation and better, digital defined textures, but “Hard Rock Zombies” is innocuous as the scenes require less eye squinting for finer details and a perverse need for range of color in what’s more of a surface-level squall of rock-infused, nonsensical horror.  Again, a technical spec that won’t knock your socks off and does muddle the fidelity quite a bit, the English Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo has less amp, and this is where any kind of impact “Hard Rock Zombies” would have had hurts the most.  Extended Holy Moses montages and concerts, alive and dead, should be an unharnessed power of ballad rock and supernatural discords for a story driven by monsters and music, especially one that uses an Iggy Pop-like mumbling incantation to rise Jesse and his band mates from the grave.  English subtitles are available for selection.  MVD’s release is a purely a feature only substitute with no special feature and the standard DVD case has the same artwork as the Blu-ray counterparts, nicely tinged on its rad rock’n’roll and death illustrated cover art.  Another difference is the rating with MVD’s release coming in at a R-rating versus the NR Blu-ray from Vinegar Syndrome, yet this is most likely either incorrect rating or a re-cut of the film as both format features have a runtime of 97 minutes.  MVD’s DVD has region free playback. 

Last Rites: Rock’n’roll never dies! For “Hard Rock Zombies,” the phrase rings true with undead rockers seeking revenge from beyond the grave. For the DVD, there’s not enough overall elan behind the release to bang your head to in this barebones and untouched alternative that’s a good budget friendly option for the features only enthusiasts.

“Hard Rock Zombies” Rocks out on DVD! Check it Out Here!

EVIL’s the Bacon, the Pork Roll, and the Scrapple All Mixed and Slashed together! “Butcher’s Bluff” reviewed! (Breaking Glass Pictures / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Butcher’s Bluff” on DVD from Breaking Glass Pictures!

Film students Rodger, Nicole, and Derrick decide to head to the rural Texas town of Emerald Falls and make their class project documentary around the 28 missing persons over the years and the Hogman, an urban legend of an escaped killer now roaming the woods of Butcher’s Bluff.  Bringing along their friends to make it concurring party getaway at Rodger’s family vacation cabin, the trio conduct interviews with the eccentric town locals to build a story around the Hogman myth, even ascertaining the original location for the mask Hogman wore during his first kills before escaping psychiatric prison.  The more they investigate into the Hogman, the more the locals warn them to stay away from Butcher’s Bluff but in a case of curiosity killed the cat, the documentary film students and their drug-fueled, sexed-up friends find themselves being hunted with no cell service, no help within miles, and no way out of the Hogman’s kill radius. 

Co-directors William Instone and Matt Rifley helm their first collaborative feature “Butcher’s Bluff,” a 2023 small town slasher reminiscent of the renaissance slasher movement of the 1980s, packed with practical gore effects, odd backwoods characters, a campy party of vice-riddled youth, and, moist importantly – excuse me – most importantly, T&A.  Instone, whose all-in director, writer, and producer debut horror “Jon” from 2012 brings one man’s delusions into horrifying reality, cowrites his latest grim story with writer, painter, and overall liberal arts connoisseur Renfield Rasputin.  Filmed in Texas with principal locations taking place in Bastrop, New Braunfels, and San Marcos to composition a story set in the fictional town of Emerald Falls and its rural woodland of Butcher’s Bluff.  The film is a crowdfunded venture that raised an approximate $60K to cover principal shooting and post-production costs with Instone and Rifley serving as primary producers amongst an amalgamation of crowdfunded producing backers   Instone’s Thunder Mountain Films, in association with Dull Knife Productions and Spicey Ramen Productions, go hog wild with their slasher horror. 

As if he doesn’t have enough on his plate writer, directing, and producing “Butcher’s Bluff,” Instone also portrays the main antagonist Hogman, masked with a stitched together pig head complete with cockeyed tusks and garbed with a dingy mechanic jumpsuit and tan jacket.  The Hogman is a walk-and-run chaser with a duel-sided axe and rusty, broad curved knife as main melee weapons though he’ll get his bare hands dirty from time-to-time.  Instone’s not flashy with the villain and doesn’t key-light any iconic poses, stances, or stares to incite a nerve coursing fear.  Hogman’s victims are anyone and everyone who enters the Butcher’s Bluff forest, from necking lovers (Jacqueline Hays and “Mallrats’s” Jeremy London), to lost pot farm thieves (“You’re Next’s” L.C. Holt, “Scare Package’s’” Christopher Winbush, “Girls Gone Dead’s” Shawn C. Phillips), to finally, but not limited to, the Rodger’s friends and classmates on their excursion investigation and party.  Fortunately, the group displays different caricature tropes without going full-blown cliché.  Between them you have the exuding sexy yet overly bitchy duo of Sam and Tina (a cut pixie cut but broodingly built Samantha Holland and a slender yet high-end platinum blonde Kayla Anderson), Rodger’s sex-driven, dweeb cousin Bobby (Dakota Millett) who Sam and Tina torment, the polar opposite to Bobby stud with Jake (Santiago Sky) and of course the three documentarians:  Rodger (Michael Fischer), Derrick (Johnny Huang), and Nicole (Paige Steakley), each reside in their own attribute world consistently, dying the way they live, that’s very telling of their moral fiber.  In additional to Jeremy London and Shawn C. Phillips, who have worked themselves into being staples of the indie genre films, other notable names to mention for their brief but key roles are Brinke Stevens (“Nightmare Sisters”), Paul T. Taylor (“Hellraiser:  Judgement”), Bill Oberst Jr. (“3 From Hell”), and Bill Johnson (“The Texas Chainsaw Massacre II”) peppered into the rest of the supporting cast to draw in fandom.

“Butcher’s Bluff” has the necessary bone structure to be a digestible slasher, checking all the elemental boxes, and Instone and Rifley manage to technically pull off a nearly 2-hour film on a crowdfunded budget.   The problem is “Butcher’s Bluff” has a hackneyed routine about it.  Instead of creating something new and wonderfully, gory and diabolical, under a distinct flag of novelly progressive storytelling, every scene feels all too familiar, a telltale sign to horror fans that we’ve seen this kind of story before.  From Hogman’s stony silence and indiscriminate aggression bores him as a Michael Myers carbon copy, a family in cahoots with a s flesh-stitched maniac plays the tune of “Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” and there’s even a character moment of yelling What Are You Waiting For? aimlessly into the dark forest while spinning around with arms wide apart that oozes Jennifer Love Hewitt vibes.  Add in some rather uninspiring frame, shot design, and editing and “Butcher’s Bluff” very much embodies the crowdfunded costs rather than the intended crowdfunded spirit.  Now while all of this portion of the review sounds grossly negative, don’t just run for the hills to the next slasher film in line just yet as Instone and Rifley still manage to keep an engagement lock on what makes the slasher film enjoyable to behold with some decently inlaid practical gore effects, including a pleading head being sliced horizontally through from mouth to hair or a posthumous, lawn chair display of one fine girl’s nipples and eyes plucked from her body and posed on her eye-gouged out person as if giving a blood offering to the audience Gods.  There’s also the inviting gratuitous T&A from Samantha Holland, Kayla Anderson, and Jacqueline Hays that keeps the old theme motif alive within the campy slasher genre as well as keeping young boys’ dreams from becoming dry.

Breaking Glass Pictures distributes the archetypical slasher “Butcher’s Bluff” onto DVD home video.  The MPEG2 encoded, 720p upscaled standard definition, DVD9 really has a tough go with the compression capabilities as there’s quite a bit of data to encode/decode within a near full-time night shoot picture and color accompaniments that blend right into the darkness, melding out of a clean definition.  Presented in a widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio, banding and splotching render a difficult deciphering of data in inkier fields.  When colors do contrast or arise into lighter hues, there’s a pop of demarcation with its full potential held back by an ungraded layer.  Textures are extremely fluid throughout with the prominent skin scenes offering a decent, natural look but most scenes are fuzzy as if the upscale fights the downscaling for supremacy.  The English Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound offers an adequate compression for a routine slasher with mid-level range with clear and clean dialogue overtop eerie forest soundscape of breaking branches, tree knocks, and leave crunching footsteps.  The mix doesn’t convey much depth with dialogue and ambience hanging around the front channels while medium shots and some tree knocking flirt with the side channels.  A mainstay slasher should have a memorable, tense-riddles soundtrack for the chase or create omnipresence fear but “Scream, Queen!  My Nightmare on Elm Street” and “Dinner with Leatherface” composer’s Alexander Taylor’s insipid inspiration can’t be held in the memorable bank and fails to elevate the Hogman’s imposing sheer terror.  English closed captioning is available.  Special features include a proof on concept trailer for the crowdfunding campaign that stars a handful of the actors from the feature film, such as Michael Fischer and Paige Steakley, and a behind-the-scenes music video that contains behind-the-scenes footage.   The DVD presence is standard fair for Breaking Glass Pictures with a DVD Amaray and a one-sided front cover art, which subjectively pleasing in its retrograde mockup of an illustrated Hogman looming over a scared, running Steakley (supposedly) in her white tank top and high cut shorts.  There is at least one noticeable error on the back cover that spells Paige Steakley’s name incorrectly in the credits, listing her last name as Steakely.  The Not Rated release is hard encoded with region 1 and has a two-hour runtime which can appear quite long, but the pacing was not terrible and the long runtime for an indie slasher didn’t feel overly immeasurable. 

Last Rites: “Butcher’s Bluff’s” has little to offer as far as the next novel and generational slasher but scratches the genre itch with a large body count, solid kills, and campy campers looking to buy, sell, and trade their vices for being violated.

“Butcher’s Bluff” on DVD from Breaking Glass Pictures!