Category Archives: Evil Reviews

Reviews are important to read because what if you want to pick up an off-the-wall film and have no idea what to expect? Well, I just might have it in the review vault….

Hail Down EVIL for a Ride! “Taxi Hunter” reviewed! (88 Films / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Taxi Hunter” Now Available on Blu-ray!

A moderately successful and mild-mannered insurance salesman is soon to be a new father.  As he and his wife baby prep with shopping around town for supplies, a few run ins with crabbily rude and scamming cab drivers make it known that the cab drivers flood the market with lawlessness.  When his wife unexpectedly goes into labor and his personal car out of service, he has no choice but to hail a cab but when the cabbie refuses the fare due excess vaginal bleed, the cabbie quickly shuts the passenger door and speeds off during the torrential rain stop, not realizing snagging the woman night gown and dragging her down the street a few yards, killing her and the unborn child, and speeding off in attempt to save his own skin.  Spiraling down into a deep depression and pushed beyond his moral limit, he justifies killing the taxi drivers for their abhorrent behavior that makes him a hero of the common people while also making him be public enemy number one with the taxi union and the police. 

History has proven, at least since the pre-2000s, that taxi drivers have had a long notorious stigma of being rude, uncouth, and greedy, especially in big metropolitan areas where traffic jams on a daily basis and the amount of fares determine your livelihood wage can eventually and insidiously get under a driver’s skin and turn the once service-needed necessity into a crabby-cabbie, a side-effect symptom of the profession one could assume.  Hong Kong’s 1993, Cat III shocker “Taxi Hunter” releases that pent up anger most of us have experienced under the clicking of the fare meter when Joe cab takes the long way around town.  Written by Wing-Kin Lau (“The Untold Story III”) and Kai-Chung Mak (“Twist”), “Taxi Hunter” marks the second collaboration effect of the same year as “The Untold Story” and “The Untold Story’s” co-director Herman Yau.  “Black Blood’s” Hung-Wah “Tony” Leung and “Tiger Cage” franchise’s Stephen Shin produce under Galaxy Films Limited and distributed theatrically by Media Film Asia.

Not only do the writers and director Herman Yau reteam to develop another controversial Category III picture but “The Untold Story’s” star Anthony Wong steps foot into another unraveled monster of a man with Kin, an amicable insurance salesman good at his job and eager to be the best father as possible quickly spins into melancholy and murder after the death of his pregnant wife at the hands of an unprofessionally hasty taxi driver.  Unlike the quietly stewing and maniacally murderous pork bun shop owner, Wong’s villainous runs takes backseat to his anti-hero performance, a punisher of taxi scum.  As Kin, Wong can be the delicately wonderful husband and the brazen barbaric with an easy slippery slope transition in between as he works to perfect Kin’s killing craft.  Unbeknownst to him, tracking him down is Kin’s own police detective brother Yu and his fun-loving goofy partner Goh, but unbeknownst to the detectives is the taxi serial killer is Kin.  “Iron Monkey” star Rongguant Yu offers up tough cop like it’s his job, mixing a humble blend martial arts and entrenched investigator into his character while also being blind to his brother’s moonlighting massacres.  Goh, on the other hand, played Man-Tat Ng (“Shaolin Soccer,” “Tiger Cage”) is supposed to provide the levity, the comic relief, the humor, but the cartoony way Goh is portrayed, in garb and in gab, reduces him to be nothing more than a Western Poser of the East with NBA and other Western branded gear from head to toe.  Goh feels very much like an attempt to jab fun at what Hong Kong might have perceived as American culture:  tasteless, worthless, and clueless.  Goh seemingly only exists to be a link between Kin and his brother when Kin hops into Goh’s undercover operation of pretending to be a taxi driver to which Kin takes his numbskull manner as cantankerous cabbie.  “Taxi Hunter” chauffeurs in the rest of the core supporting cast with Athena Chu (“Super Lady Cop”) and Hoi-Shan Lai (“Dr. Lamb”).

However still managing to provoke potency in parental guidance, to me, “Taxi Hunter” is perhaps the least intense Category III film I’ve experienced to date, but don’t let that keep you from taking a ride in Herman Yau’s rancorous retribution vehicle that has scores of variable car action scenes and a sordid glaze of street-level grime amongst the taxi industry.  “Taxi Hunter” engages us to think about the minor point As to point Bs in our lives that can easily subvert the well-oiled machine that is our existence.  Kin has a promising career, money (a motif we’ll revisit later), and a baby on the way and aside from the money, bizarrely enough, it all comes crashing down in the moment of a car door slamming shut. Those micro-fissions separating our good moments with nastiness slog us into another mindset, a killer’s mindset, when we’re wading at the very bottom of the losing everything depression. Lau and Mak don’t immediately set Kin’s path shortly after the turning point event, which also had a good chunk of setup. Posthumous need to kill cabbies didn’t occur directly after the tragedy as the script allowed time for Kin to try and stomach digesting tremendous loss, even giving away much of his money, as aforementioned, for services gone unrendered such as with the prostitute he didn’t end up sleeping with or being overcharged a child’s trading card just to make a crying child, a future version of his own child now deceased, happy when his parents would not purchase it. “Taxi Hunter” has more than just a singular character-driven story with plenty of suspense from Kin’s evolving practice of killing taxi drivers to the plethora of practical car action. “Taxi Hunter” is metered madness that shies away disgusting you with overt violence or seducing you with graphic sex of other Cat III film in its purer requital black comedy only Herman Yau and Anthony Wong could chauffeur in.

Presented in full high-definition 1080p from the original 35mm stock, “Taxi Hunter” has been flagged down for a new Blu-ray release from 88 Films, shown in anamorphic widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio. The transferred print keeps the natural grain of the 35mm film but swells the pixelations to ramp up details and textures tenfold without appearing touched up or improperly enhanced. 88 Films’ coloring grading leans slighting into the metallic blue steel, offering a gritty detective thriller with the overcast effect. The print also shows hardly any age or damage that results in a clean redress of a pristine print. Only one audio option is available for selection, a Cantonese LPCM 2.0 mono. Curious to why there isn’t a Mandarin option leads to speculation that Cantonese sole use was due to the dialect being more widespread in Hong Kong to keep a product of Hong Kong, typically with CAT III products where mainland China censorship would have picked “Taxi Hunter” to pieces. Though in original language, ADR is still used in post and while dialogue is cleaning in the forefront of the rest of the audio tracks, there’s not a ton of depth being too at the forefront, especially with Goh’s goofball gab. However, the action-laden and quarrelsome dynamics provide a plentiful range of sounds from screeching of tires, to the car crashes through windowfronts, to the multiple gunshots that make this sound design rich and energetic. English subtitles are offered and though glibly bland and concise, a lot of repetitive words and phrases, such as a wide use of bro, the subtitles are error-free and paced well. This special edition release includes a new audio commentary with Hong Kong film expert Frank Djeng, a new interview with producer Tony Leung Hunting for Words, a new interview with actor Anthony Wong Falling Down in Hong Kong, a new interview with action director James Ha How to Murder Your Taxi Driver?, still gallery, and trailer. Physical features available, if you’re quick enough, include a limited-edition cardboard slipcover with Sean Longmore’s compositional illustrated art and a folded poster insert of the same art. Also available inside the green Blu-ray case is reversible cover art with the initial same design as the slipcover or, my personal favorite, the original Hong Kong poster art that I proudly display on the shelf. Disc art is pressed with a slight variant of Longmore’s art and the not rated disc’s format comes region A and B playback with the film clocking in at evenly paced 90 minutes. Classic 1990’s fare without charging us an arm and a leg in wasted time, “Taxi Hunter” is solid CAT III with more vindictive and veridical visceral moments that change gears often and punches the gas into accelerating this terminal taxi tormentor.

“Taxi Hunter” Now Available on Blu-ray!

Punk Rock EVIL For All the “Wrong Reasons” reviewed! (MVD Visual / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Wrong Reasons” is this Year’s Punk Rock Film!  

Australian punk rocker Kat Oden has fame in her home country and is steadily trending in the U.S. but when a masked man kidnaps while she lays unconsciously high in a drugged-out stupor, she wakes up being chained to a bed far away from where she was abducted.  Her mild-mannered kidnapper’s intentions revolve around getting Kat clean of narcotic impurities while the media circus explores wild theories, interviews her self-centered parents, reveals ugly secrets of her American rocker boyfriend, and follows the browbeaten investigation of an actor-turned-detective handling the Kat Oden case.  When the detective goes rogue, burned out by constant belittlement from his chief and being blamed for the inadequacies of his clownish subordinate officers, he makes a deal with an eager news reporter to give them the exclusive solving of the case for his own news show.  As he inches closer to finding Kat, the kidnapper and Kat dynamic undergoes significant strides to understand one another’s wayward reasons. 

The one major difference between major studio productions and the micro independent features shooting during peak COVID weeks, months, or years was the indies made use of the time whereas the bigger budgeted and the hundreds of cast and crew employed were virtually on furlough, hiatus, or just plain scrapped future movie ideas altogether.  Independent films had structural concept advantages, such as a smaller cast and crew to lessen the changes of infection, locations were typically limited so travel was not necessary, and indies sometimes would shoot guerilla style anyway to capture the scenes required for the story.  Writer-director Josh Roush, who lived and breathed producing Kevin Smith documentaries for the “Clerks” and “Dogma” director’s more contemporary credits, decided to pivot into the fictional route and just as soon as his dark comedy script for “Wrong Reasons” was about to start principal photography fruition, the world shut down in a pandemic lockdown.  However, a global emergency didn’t hinder Roush’s ambition and scaled down his crew and cast on set to get the job done. Executively produced by Landon Thorne, Kim Leadford, and Kevin Smith doing his version of Cameo appearances as well as David Shapiro contributing the other half of the funds, “Wrong Reasons” is a production of Rousch’s AntiCurrent Media, with Liv Roush and Matthew Rowbottom producing, and Shaprio’s Semkhor Studios.

In the role of Kat Oden, a real life Australian making her full-length feature film debut, is none other than director Josh Roush’s wife, Liv Roush.  Co-producing the numerous Kevin Smith making-of featurettes and other independent productions, including her husband’s music videos, Liv Roush has always been a face behind the camera and now she’s stepping Infront of the camera, mainstage as the center of a kidnapping ordeal being a promising up-and-coming punk rocker who has lost her way by sinking into drugs and an objectifying relationship with an egotistical American rocker.  While Roush can obviously handle her own being chained to bed in fishnet stockings and dip into a range of rage, fear, hurt, and acceptance, “Wrong Reasons” splits the story with another centric character in Detective Dobson.  Kevin Smith film regular Ralph Garman has a grip on the competent yet pent up case detective Charles Dobson but the detective goes through a series of case mishaps to scheming his own rogue operation that pulls away from the Kate Oden kidnaping ordeal perpetrated by James Winandi, an ambiguously misunderstood role by James Parks (“Red State,” “The Hateful Eight”), son of the legendary actor Michael Parks (“Nightmare Beach,” “From Dusk Till Dawn 3”).  The connection made between Winandi and Oden faces challenges in fully fleshing out what Winandi is trying to accomplish in by removing the lyrically strong and influential rocker toward a path of permanency for other listeners to experience the epiphany that befell Winandi.  It’s a motivation that couldn’t be grasped fully because we’re more invested in this parallel plot of Dobson’s working of an advantageous angle for himself that the message or the theme becomes lost in the superficiality for one’s own sake.  The cast rounds out with perfectly suitable supporting cast including Teresa Ruiz, Daniel Roebuck (“Final Destination,” “31”), David Koechner (“Cheap Thrills,” “Snakes on a Plane”), Matt Passmore (“Jigsaw,” “Come Back to Me”), John Enick (“Project Eve”), Harley Quinn Smith (“Once Upon A Time in Hollywood”), Kym Wilson (“Deadly Cheer”), true to form punk rocker Donita Sparks of L7, Darren Hayes of duo band Savage Garden, as well as a relatively quiet genre icon Vernon Wells (“Commando”) as Kat Oden’s dad and Kevin Smith as the a news cameraman in cargo shorts.

The divided narrative limps unbalanced between the two parallel storylines soon to collide in eventual finality.  We don’t really receive much wisdom, clarity, or even any kind of progressive dynamic between Oden and Winandi who quickly and quirkily come to a sensible understanding with Winandi’s masked kidnapping and Oden being chained to the bed. There’s also piped in televised news reporters covering the kidnapping case or verbally attacking the president or something enthusiastically bias and gospel from the news channels in what becomes a motif of media circus frenzy, corresponding also with the live news coverage that vultures around the Oden case. What Roush is attempting to convey through the unlikely kidnapper and kidnappee pairing doesn’t strum the right chords and flutters in place to where we’re not exactly sure how Kat Oden’s music affects her kidnapper given little-to-no backstory on him and not foreseeing a future outcome of his act in what is almost an akin to winging the situation.  Instead, we’re more engrossed into Detective Dobson’s downtrodden investigation.  A seemingly capable detective with good instincts, negotiating with suspects, and even has a new woman in his bed every night, the luck he has with his professional counterparts, subordinates, and report-to doesn’t necessarily reflect his personality.  When Dobson starts scheming to finally be the one top, the audiences’ attention shifts from the fluttering wrong reason to kidnap your idol to the wrong reason for turning into a self-serving public servant.

“Wrong Reasons” has all the right A/V and bonus content moves on MVDVisual’s Blu-ray release.  The AVC encoded, high-definition 1080p package is presented in a widescreen 2.85:1 aspect ratio.  Cinematography by Josh Roush and Matthew Rowbottom ensure the look Roush wants to obtain for his first feature length fiction, a clean less-is-more, truth-in-practicality visual that often echoes Kevin Smith’s earlier body of work on the indie scale.  The Blu-ray’s BD50 storage capacity handles compression well to thwart any artefact popups and the limited variety of color range, aka a more natural grading, doesn’t pressure the digitally shot film to crumble under the compression.  Details are sharp and textural in what is a solid visual presentation.  The English DTS-HD 5.1 surround sound is equally comparable with a dialogue first clarity.  There’s slight continuous feedback on the underlay, perhaps equipment interference picked up by the mic as it becomes a constant throughout.  Range is also limited to what is essentially a talk head picture with bits of action here and there with “Wrong Reasons” driven by the performances rather than by action.  “Wrong Reasons” is made for and presented by punk rockers with a film that’s very much dedicated to the music genre.  The soundtrack highlights a faction of the punk rock with bands such as Tim Armstrong, L7, The Wipers, Channel 3, The Unseen, Black Flag, and Bi-Product having tracks on the production.  Optional English subtitles are available.  Special features include an lengthy but informative Kevin Smith introduction in his very animated and enthusiastic Kevin Smith style, an audio commentary with director Josh Roush, producer Kevin Smith as well as another a second audio commentary with the director alongside co-producer Matthew Rowbottom, composer Cam Mosvaian, and wife/star Liv Roush, a Q&A session with the Roushes, Kevin Smith, Ralph Garman, and James Parks, deleted scenes and outtakes, Josh Roush’s short film “Idiot Cops,” and the original theatrical trailer.  The exclusive MVD release comes with a cardboard O-slip of a generically staged, or promo-esque, Liv Roush ankle-chained to a chair with a masked man standing next to her in non-menacing positions.  Inside is a reversible front cover of the same image, but I prefer the reverse side of the black and red illustrated silhouettes of the same character inside the clear Blu-ray snapper as it invokes more intrigue and suspense.  The disc art misleads with a horror composite of Kate Oden screaming, looking afraid, and the kidnappers mask hard lit to look more dramatic.  There are no insert materials.  The not rated film has a runtime of 97 minutes and has region free playback.  Josh Roush’s debut dark comedy has transference troubles, perhaps I’m not too punk enough to fully absorb how the music should move me, but we see acting veterans and greenhorns mix it up fitly for this COVID era picture.  

“Wrong Reasons” is this Year’s Punk Rock Film!  

Staying in the Closet Can Lead to an EVIL Series of Events! “The Latent Image” reviewed! (Cinephobia Releasing / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Out today on DVD “The Latent Image” from Cinesphobia Releasing!

An aspiring novelist isolates himself in a secluded cabin to write his work-on-progress thriller without distractions, especially avoiding he contentious ones with his longtime boyfriend. Working through the night hours on the precipice of a storm, a mystery man drifts into the cabin, injured and claiming car trouble. After letting him stay the night on the couch and knowing he should ask the drifter to leave, the man’s rough allure instills deep desiring dark fantasies to bubble up to the surface that result in keeping his lingering presence around while also the experience doubles as subject inspiration for his novel. Yet, there’s something off about his unexpected and unusual visitor that lends to curiosity into what’s being hidden or being unsaid. The drifter’s trunk becomes an object of obsession that turns into wild speculation. Fear and fantasy collide into an explosive and destructive cat-and-mouse game of downlow and deadly secrets.

Based on the 2019 short film of the same title, writer-director Alexander McGregor Birrell (“Braincell,” “Sleepaway Slasher”), alongside co-writer and star Joshua Tonks, return to “The Latent Image” for a 2022 full script treatment to flesh out a fleshy grass isn’t always greener on the other side homoerotic thriller.  “The Latent Image” is Birrell’s third feature length film of essentially is Joshua Tonks inaugural writing and producing credit into the United Kingdom production that clashes tantalizing and dangerous one-time temptations with the safety and security of routine and longevity woven out of being inside a complicated gay relationship that stings with old systematic-induced worries and consequences.  Latent Image defines as an exposed picture or film not yet developed and Birrell and Tonks use that to purposely shield viewers from the utmost truth until the petrifying picture is clear.  Latent Image LLC in association with the queer community storytelling serving June Gloom Productions are the picture’s production handlers with the latter company’s Brandon Kirby and Michael Varrati as executive producers and Tonks and Birrell co-producing their debut feature collaboration.

Being Joshua Tonks’s grandstand into his first feature production and as the lead character, the British-born, Vancouver film school-trained actor reprises his short film part with only two significant differences:  one being a principal name change from Robert to Ben and the other in providing Ben with more substantial backstory in the form of reveries or creative abstractions of a linear trickster narrative.  Ben’s old school, a reflection seen through his love for old photography without a display screen, his typewriting of the novel, and filming on celluloid film stock with a Super 8 camera.  This affinity for the antiquated matches his sexual stigmas, a flaw that shepherds in more harm than good.  Tonks readily handles Ben’s technological quirks as well as deepen his character’s philandering fantasy life with sexual daydream and night terror trances of being pursued, abused, and enjoying it.  Tonks works off the more indelicate stranger-danger of fellow Vancouver film school graduate Jay Clift.  Long hair, leather jacket, rugged approach, Clift in the role simply known as The Man portrays patience as weapon to wield to win over the quasi confidence and trust of the lonely and relationship confused novelist with an active imagination, a deadly combination to be caught with your pants down.  Clift becomes the character interloper in Ben’s life in more ways than one, some more subtle than others, and equivocally provides baited lure to either seduce the novelists or setup him for a fate far worse.  To complicate matters, Ben’s boyfriend, who he has a current agitated relationship with and viewers will initially think is safe and cozy back at their abode, will eventually enter the picture with newcomer William Tippery in the role to complete the all-male, three-man cast.

“The Latent Image” plotline doesn’t justify Birrell’s picture as anything else but another stranger showing up at cabin in the woods thriller.  However, beyond the shallows of the film’s surface level tension are deeper waters surrounding Ben’s parting of pathways.  The novelist not only struggles to conjure up a decent spinetingling narrative, but he also struggles personally with an uncertainty of where he fits into his relationship with at-home boyfriend Jamie and with this new, dark fella wandering into the cabin in rake portance.  From the beginning, Birrell and Tonks often visits Ben’s unconscious chimera but also often feels very real in its merge of reality and fantasy of what Ben’s sometimes wishes would happen, but don’t expect this thriller to be a based in psychosis.  “The Latent Image” is not a mental health movie of one man’s isolation snaps his baseline reality.  That would have overdone, overcooked, and overserved with stale bread and flat soda.  What “The Latent Image” taps into is not the age-old tale of a drifter’s in doubt motivations but rather a fear of being found out or fear of oneself when they themselves are unsure of who they are as a person and that can be a scary thought to let the imagination run wild. 

“The Latent Image” lands a debut distribution deal with the Philadelphia based Cinephobia Releasing.  The single layer DVD, arriving on retail shelves September 12th, is a compressed MPEG presented in anamorphic widescreen 2.39:1 aspect ratio.  Between the use of anamorphic lens, split lens, Super 8 reverse stock, and a ton of mood lighting, “The Latent Image” really pops cinematically with a variety of visuals and looks that can induce a breadth of emotions.  For a DVD presentation in an age where Hi-Def continues to the upward climb, the Cinephobia Releasing has tremendous sharpness and detail inside and out of the fuzzy warmth and often the vividly brilliant, focused lighting that induce back and front shadowing, decoding at average of 8 to 9 Mbps that eliminates any prospect of compression complications.  The English audio options include a Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound and a Dolby Digital 2.0.  The 5.1 trumps the 2.0 In offering much environmental elements of rustled foliage and depth of character actions.  Dialogue conveys strongly, securing its spot Infront of the other tracks where depth allows.  English optional closed caption subtitles are available in the setup menu.  Special features include an audio commentary with director Alexander McGregor Birrell and stars Joshua Tonks and William Tippery going over their mindset of the characters, background, and visual and stylistic choices in an enlightening discourse, the 2019 short film “The Latent Image,” the audio commentary for the short featuring just Birrell, and other Cinephobia Releasing trailers.  The 83-minute film is released not rated and has region 1 layback, untested for other regions.  Well executed indie suspenser with a subtext clout to one’s essential nature and a smartly planned story has exposed “The Latent Image” as impressively top-notch and worth seeing. 

Out today on DVD “The Latent Image” from Cinesphobia Releasing!

When Trying to be Good, EVIL Will Always Pull You Back In! “Streets of Darkness” reviewed! (SRS Cinema / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Just Look at this “Streets of Darkness” Cover!  It’s a Must Own!  

After avenging the death of his friend and sister, Danny completed his prison stint and was released back into his Miami neighborhood to restart his life.  Looking to stay clean of violence, Danny doesn’t want to connect himself to any crime organization but when a cruel Cuban drug lord assaults his mother due to his father’s past transgressions, Danny’s seek for solitude drives him into the embracing arms of the Italian mafia who also has a grudge against their rival drug trader.  One hit leads to another and Danny finds himself back in the criminal world rising quickly to become one of the mafia’s profitable enforcers.  Danny has everything he’s ever wanted – money, respect, and the woman of his dreams – but when a pre-affiliation sexual tussle with one of the crime boss’s young vixens come to light, a division between the family turns the tide on Danny’s uncertain future when a target is placed on his back.

If you’re looking for that Miami Vice feel of a movie with hot locations, hot bods, and hot criminal action, look no further with “Streets of Darkness” having been rightly resurrected from video obscurity, lost to Father Time since the mid-1990s.  The 1995 crime thriller comes from director James Ingrassia who hasn’t cinematically published a movie since his double billed features of 1988 – a surfing themed sex comedy entitled “Hot Splash” and an island survival slasher in “Kiss of the Serpent.”  “Streets of Darkness,” paying titular tribute to and cashing in on perhaps the popular stage fighting game “Streets of Rage,” is also a direct sequel to “Just a Chance” of 1992, a semi-biographical story of Danny’s descent into the depths of criminal syndicates told anecdotally while in his incarceration  Both stories are the pen presentation of Creative Productions’ Vincent LaRusso, the creative wordsmith, producer, and star of both films trying to capitalize on the market’s desire for toned bodies and gang dramas with treachery and murder. 

Vincent LaRusso isn’t just the leading man of his own film, he’s also a workout enthusiast that helped his own cause in creating a chiseled mafioso who’s smooth with women and even smoother laying down criminal keystones to the way he runs operations.  Yet, LaRusso’s character Danny can often talk-the-talk but can’t seemingly walk-the-walk with his own principles as he quickly turns against his own rules of operations by joining the mafia with dollar signs in his eyes after repeating himself, at least three times, noting how he doesn’t want to be attached to anyone or anything.  Repeating himself also becomes a running motif, or maybe a running joke, as much of LaRusso’s script recycles a ton of aforementioned material.  You can even make “Streets of Darkness” a drinking game on how many times Danny, or any character in general, says, “you understand me?”  If you do make it a drinking game, the possibility of being drunk half-hour in is very possible.  You’ve been forewarned.  Commingle the script spiraling with LaRusso’s one note performance and what churns out only scratches the surface of potential in what could have been a lucrative gem of indie filmmaking.   Instead, what’s achieved is a lifeless centric character in the midst of decent supporting players, such as Armand Cassis as the ruthless Cuban Hector, Jerry Babij as a cuckold crime boss, and Christine Jackobi as the cuckolding and scorned Diabolique.  Speaking in regard to the latter’s veneer that LaRusso aims for, “Streets of Darkness” offers that sexy, supermodel, Andy Sidaris-type of female principals, including a Hawaiian Tropic contestant.  Monique Lis and Jennifer Cole (a Miss Hawaiian Tropic), along with Christine Jackobi, fit that busty and beautiful bill that solidifies that beach body and vice viscera.  “Streets of Darkness” fill out with Joseph Cappello, Peter Gaines, Stanley Miller, Frank Palanza, Gennaro Russilo, Louisette Geiss, Lou Rebino, Angelo Maldonado, and Patrick Berry.

LaRusso’s “Just a Chance” was a made for CTN, the Christian Television Network, to deliver a religious message of strength of endurance and overcoming the cause-and-effect in turning toward a life of violence and crime.  For the sequel, LaRusso wanted to embark on a more entertaining product for the public with edgier content, hence the naked women and graphic violence which most of the Christian community won’t understand, shy away, and definitely wouldn’t fund a financial base.  With a budget doubling “Just a Chance,” LaRusso is able to obtain through private funding a higher production value with areal cigarette boat footage in and around Miami and its waters, decent lighting in a broad and focal sense, camera movement work, variety of locations though many look like hotel rooms, and achieving the overall Miami mise-en-scene cinematography.  For a 90’s indie production, “Streets of Darkness” reaches that particular look of tropical turmoil and drug scene, the perfect beachy bodies, and the complex story of one man’s reluctant return to the savage, dark streets but the picture doesn’t take the elements to the next level beyond other Miami-based gang/cartel movies like “Scarface” or “Cocaine Cowboys” where there’s a continuous blanket of thick aired intensity and explosivity of big shootouts.  “Streets of Darkness” is more expositional and story driven, likely due to budget reasons, to integrate gangster Danny’s plight into our own understanding of this character’s vow to do the right thing but ultimately destines him in the opposite direction.  The editing starts off funky with a clunky fast forward scene that comes around later to then slowly but eventually, level out to a chin high in too deep path of no return from life of crime.

Due to some shady dealings with a corrupt distributor, the Beta SP master was lost but Ron Bonk and SRS Cinema was able to obtain the VHS master tapes for an Apple Hi-Def ProRes digital remastering of “Streets of Darkness” onto DVD.  What results is a beautifully slick and clean appearance of Vincent LaRusso’s vision, especially for a standard definition 480p, sourced almost impeccably from one of the best possible VHS format options, the Beta SP.  Though virtually wear free with no signs of VHS degradation issues, details are generally and expectedly soft presented in the letterbox 1.33:1 full frame but not overwhelming glossy smooth to the point of splotchy or granularly patchy.  Remastered coloring, along with the innate lighting, sell “Streets of Darkness’s” semigloss South Beach brushstroke and achieving LaRusso’s production value desire tenfold.  Audio options only include an English Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo mix has been augmented with additional score and soundtrack by Tim Ritter (“Truth or Dare?,” “Killing Spree”) and Toshiyuki Hiraoka (“Clownado,” “Cannibal Claus”).  From the commentary track, a few of original soundtracks had expired copyrights and so additional music was needed to rescore the film but, honestly, the additional pieces delved too much into Tim Ritter’s gore-and-shock territory with heavy low-frequency tones that rattle the eardrums and don’t necessarily scream Miami’s synth-beat rock or Latin flair.  I would have been interested to hear the original music and compare to the newly supplemented release.  However, dialogue protrudes into the forefront with lesser force than normal but still clean, clear, and prominent other than the heavy duty, reverberating bass notes.  There’s slight static feedback throughout but doesn’t hinder the audio senses.  The Brutal special features include a second film, the Vincent LaRusso’s “Just A Chance” along with video commentaries and interviews with both films featuring video discourse between LaRusso, Tim Ritter, and filmmaker Larry Joe Treadway and Ritter and LaRusso only on the audio commentaries.  The bonus content ends with theatrical trailers of both films.  While not chockablock with physical fixings, the SRS release has one of the more amazing cover arts sourced from the original poster elements of a shirtless and ripped Vincent LaRusso in between two model women for the front cover.  Immediately eye-fetching and intriguing, the image is accentuated by SRS’s mock retro designed DVD casing with a round ACTION and BE KIND REWIND stickers and an image bordering encompassment to make the appearance of a VHS cover.  Disc pressed art is the same image but cropped to focus on the three individuals on the front cover.  The not rated film has a runtime of 102 minutes and is region free.  “Streets of Darkness” is a win-win for SRS Cinema and Vincent LaRusso in its newly remastered form that revives the Miami mania even if it’s only for one more heat and beach encore.

Just Look at this “Streets of Darkness” Cover!  It’s a Must Own!  

No EVIL Gets Left Behind! “P.O.W. The Escape” reviewed! (Ronin Flix / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“P.O.W. The Escape” on Blu-ray at Amazon.com!

Colonel James Cooper’s moto is no one gets left behind.  The seasoned P.O.W. extraction officer volunteers for a politically spearheaded suicide mission to save Vietcong American captives before a cease fire treaty ends the war, effectively turning the P.O.W.’s into M.I.A. and possibly never heard from again.  As the U.S. Airborne Colonel expected, the mission of rescue results in a complete fiasco of resources and being empty handed of prisoners as the enemy suspected an imminent attack.  Cooper becomes a P.O.W. alongside the men who set to rescue but that doesn’t deter the determined officer to plan his escape, but before detailing out a route out, the camp’s warden Captain Vinh has alternative plans for his prized captive in all of North Vietnam.  Vietcong headquarters wants to retrieve the Colonel in two days for public execution but Capt. Ving seeks a better life outside his country and accumulates the K.I.A. and P.O.W.s valuables plus in addition to stealing gold bars form his country in order to relocate him and his family to the U.S. but on his terms with a perilous journey across enemy lines with all the P.O.W.s in order for no one to get left behind.

The Carradine name is one of the most recognizable names in Hollywood with David Carradine the most famous, behind his father John Carradine, with his highly successful television series from the mid-70s, “Kung Fu.”  A part of “Kung Fu’s” success was due in part of the decade itself where kung fu films were a peak popular with rising star Bruce Lee.  A decade later and still in the shadow of that breakout series with a made-for-television movie, Carradine breaks into another rising type of films that trades in hip-throws and round house kicks for M1 assault rifles, Huey helicopters, and the jungles of the Vietnam war.  And coincidently enough, Vietnam actioners were made popular by another martial artist with “Missing in Action” starring Chuck Norris.  Carradine’s venture into the America’s shame frame being exploited for personal gain is P.O.W. The Escape, a rip-roaring and explosive do-or-die war caper from first time director Gideon Amir and penned, and re-penned, by Jeremy Lipp (“The Hitchhiker” TV series), James Bruner (“Invasion USA”), and “Deadly Sins” co-writers Malcolm Barbour and John Langley.  Also known as “Attack Force ‘Nam” and “Behind Enemy Lines,” the Philippines doubling Vietnam production is produced by Yoram Globus and Menahem Golan as a Globus-Golan Production.

The Late Carradine epitomizes stone-faced patriotism as the exfiltration expert Colonel Cooper.  Showing hardly any emotion except for a handful of scenes that call for it, or else Cooper would be a full-scale unempathetic sociopath, Carradine gives his best harden American warrior as well as an indestructible combat commando where a barrage of bullets whizz around him, explosions don’t impede his health, and an army of Vietcong are no match for the Colonel’s American flag draped, M60 machine strapped fighting spirt in an uphill battle of certain death.  Its farcically funny to behold but that was the traditional one-man-army paradigm back then and, to an extent, still is even today to give audiences as gung-ho and impossibly invincible hero.  Cooper leads a bunch of weary P.O.W. troopers on the brink of becoming lost in wartime politics and only three out of the bunch are highlighted throughout the misadventure toward safety with those roles’ boots on the ground by Steve James (“McBain”), as the order-following Sgt. Johnston, Phillip Brock (“American Ninja”) as wise-cracking know-it-all, good soldier Adams, and Charles Grant (“Witchcraft”) as the maverick Sparks who initially goes against Cooper’s plan.  Sparks is likely the most interesting and complex character with an internal conflict having set into his own path of escape dedicated on selfishness and greed only to feel the tremendous weight of guilt and burden of his fellow soldier while on the bed of a half-naked, North Vietnamese prostitute.  The last major principal is actually a Captain, that is Captain Vinh, played by one of the most recognizable faces in Japanese cinema history, Mako, of Arnold Schwarzenegger “Conan” fame as the Akiro the Wizard.  Understanding Vinh’s motivation hardly musters conclusively on why he wishes to defect his country and why he needed Colonel Cooper to accomplish it.  Perhaps Vinh’s undergoing hate for his own country was lost in the editing room as the film is noted to have gone through multiple re-writes, edits, and additional post-production shoots.  “P.O.W. the Escape” fills out the cast with Daniel Demorest, Tony Pierce, Steve Freedman, James Acheson, Ken Metcalfe, Ken Glover, Rudy Daniels, and Irma Alegre.

For Gideon Amir’s first picture, this Vietnam vehicle is an action-packed romp.  Never letting up on the accelerating peddle, especially with Cooper’s blank determination to get all the men out of the arm struggle before a treaty wraps up the conflict and leaves his charge in casted away in the arms of the enemy, what Amir accomplishes at the behest of his influential producers wonders how this high-value production ever made it past post without being a completely incomprehensible mess.  There lies choppy moments of editing that puts into question it’s original concept even if one isn’t aware of the film’s narrative conflictions.  What ensues is not a traditional rally and escape from a torturous, inhuman enemy camp that one can’t abscond from so easily; instead, the narrative becomes an escapade of itinerant provides various difficult scenarios that split up the group, sees internal turmoil, and propels desperation to get to the friendly Huey’s with their very lives, but doesn’t see Cooper come under threatening fire as he spurts off short rifles rounds and takes out a handful of Vietcong at once with one scene reminiscent on a particular World War II hero charging up hill and taking out a whole German squadron alone with a machine gun.  Audie Murphy, If remembering accurately, but instead of sustaining any projectile wounds, Cooper thrusts forward unscathed while those G.I.s he’s trying to recover and rescue perish in an inescapable firefight.  Carradine’s stoicism throughout the life profit and loss campaign doesn’t match Cooper’s liberation maxim that forces “P.O.W. the Escape” into an impassive, often times comical, attitude with the story’s central character.

Director Gideon Amir and David Carradine tempt their hand at the Vietnam vamoose now on a Hi-Def Blu-ray forged by Ronin Flix through way of Scorpion Releasing’s 2019 HD transfer of the previous MGM print.  The widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio presented feature fails to capture impeccable clarity of acme perfection with approx. half the frames wilted away with artefact de-escalation of details. Half the scenes look great with a semi-serious saturation of color, a few of facial and foliage details come out, and textures have tactile range at times, but the film’s glass is only half full within a darker dilution of speckled splotches. The English DTS-HD 2.0 master audio mix relays a fair enough dialogue consignment with comprehensible clarity and is utterly clean but lacks punchiness with a flat as a David Carradine’s poker-face facade. With a robust range of gunfire, explosions, and modes of transportation, especially going through the mucky and miry jungles of war-torn Vietnam, the film definitely needed a stronger suit of sound but was ultimately discharged without dullness. English subtitles are available. Special features include three on-camera interviews with Director Gideon Amir, screenwriter James Bruner, and stunt man Steve Lambert discussing their particular involvement in pre-and-principal shoots, some of the process woes, and how exotic the opportunity was to work internationally and with David Carrine. The film’s original trailer rounding out the special features block. Physically, the Ronin Flix release comes in a standard Blu-ray snapper with an action-packed and commandoed David Carradine blasting off his rifle like in a Ghana-esque illustrated movie poster. Inside, the lack of insert and reversible cover art leads our eyes straight to the disc art that’s the same as the cover, cropped down to fit in the circumference. Rated PG, that is rated 1986 PG with strong war violence, strong language, and nudity, the release is region A locked in playback and has a runtime of 86 minutes. A campy commando campaign capitalizing on the success of the Vietnam prison camp subgenre, “P.O.W. the Escape” could be much worse for wear as a solid action flick fierce in delivery yet fickle in substance.


“P.O.W. The Escape” on Blu-ray at Amazon.com!