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….

Protect Yourself from EVIL Because “Tonight She Comes!” reviewed! (Jinga Films – Danse Macabre – MVDVisual / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Tonight She Comes” is Now Available on DVD! Purchase Here!

Two women looking to spend quality debauchery time with their friend at her family’s rural cabin arrive find their friend is nowhere to be seen or heard from but they do discover a lost mailman asleep on the cabin porch on his first day.   As the trio yuck it up with plenty of booze and flirtation around the campfire, locked out of the cabin with still no sign of their girlfriend, the day turns to night and they’re eager to get into each other’s pants for an alcohol fueled fling.  Unfortunately for them, their lost friend just showed up naked out from the adjacent lake.  What usually would be an invitation for an extended good time, the naked friend is stained head to toe in blood and determined to kill anyone in her path.  In their escape, they run into a backwoods family of black magic occultists trying to fix their titanic satanic mistake before everyone dies.

If a campy, gory, backwaters horror engulfed in occult get your filmic scary movie juices flowing, then “Tonight She Comes” should be at the top of your must-watch list.  The 2016, American-made feature from writer-director Matt Stuertz takes the cabin-in-the-woods trope to the extreme to the likes of a farcical feat many have tried but only a few achieve.  “Tonight She Comes” is Stuertz’s sophomore picture behind the cleverly titled found footage horror “RWD,” or “<<RWD,” as in the rewind symbol you’d typically see on VHS players, and has since his bloodthirst for horror with the practical effects-driven and supernatural terrorizing of a young woman in this year’s “Human” and is currently in production with a gory vampire flick, “Wake Not the Dead.”  Gory is Stuertz niche tinged with a repulsive tone that’s not just splatter nor intestinal evisceration.  Cinematographer Chris Benson and sound designer Jamison Sweet, of the St. Louis-based production company Lamplight Films, and Twenty Eighteen Seventy-Six’s Stuertz produce the film.

What’s neat about the progressing script, acutely angling 90 degrees to keep the story fresh and unsuspecting, is the principal leads constantly change hands.   By conventional standards, the young, good looking, white male mail with a pleasant disposition in James (Nathan Eswine) places audiences on that path with a post title opening of the inexperienced, first-day-on-the-job James doing his route diligently despite difficulties locating an address.  Also, in comparison to his dimwitted and degenerate best friend Pete (Adam Hartley, “The Slender Man”), James is a pedestalled prince.  As the day turns to night, James begins to show cracks in his gallantry and the baton is roughly passed to the rough around the edges but tough as they come Ashley (Larissa White, “Charlatan”).  In another dynamic duo curiosity, her best friend in Lyndsey (Cameisha Cotton) drunkenly sluts her way to the end of the whiskey bottle and toward the inside of James’ pants, demarcating the horror tropes between the two pairings by sticking up and out the perverted goofball and the alcoholic promiscuous while keeping in protagonist good graces and staid James and Ashely up until the baton is passed along again inside the trio of an occult practicing backwoods family who messed up a reincarnation spell and inadvertently resurrected a powerful, murderous demon.  Between the family-first Pa, Frances (Frankie Ray, “Bad Haircut”), the near silent big brother, Philip (Brock Russell) and the rational sister, Felicity (Jenna McDonald), the protagonist shift lands in the lap of the younger sister who takes charge in a show of no nonsense command and force that deserves respect for a role that’s usually diluted or wasted in isolated cabin horror.  Each actor performs exactly on Stuertz given script with the cast rounding out with former model Dal Nicole in her full birthday suit for most of her screentime as the Kristy inhabited demon plodding to kill in a nonstop wrath.  

Most audiences and critics will pan “Tonight She Comes” as nonsensical drivel touting a gauntlet of gore and a fixed nudity to carry it into a favorable edge with fans.  All I have to say about Matt Stuertz script and vision is it breaks the conventional stereotypes into shattered shards and uses those shards as gouging, bloodletting weapons.  On it’s face, “Tonight She Comes” appears to be another run-of-the-mill cabin-in-the-woods horror with throwaway characters and many vague plot points that don’t have an encircling reference.  Stuertz purposefully throws cation to the wind and makes the movie he wants to see, a no-holds barred blood fest geared to obliterate the tropes and only provide slivers of important information, just enough to pass the bar to the next round of ironfisted thrashings.  The story never allows the sediment to settle between the character action and dialogue debauchery, the eclectic and interesting POV shots, the diabolical practical effects, the sparingly used but effective visual effects, the continuously guess where this story is heading and, of course, the unabashed eye candy that is Dal Nicole fully nude in full time.  The other thing that can bog down viewers, and rightfully so, is the time check title cards that are supposed to tick down to the moment the demon emerges into the fold, turning the events of youth fun into a grind of survival. Randomized and spelled out, literally, the interjected times don’t seemingly match the span of time passed on screen.  What should take a few minutes between scenes, the title card states hours had passed; I’m not positive if this is part of Stuertz’s trope lampooning or not but this portion excels as more distracting from its theme-bombing track.

Another great and gory to the extreme release from the collaborating collective of Danse Macabre, Jinga Films, and MVDVisual.  “Tonight She Comes” comes to a new DVD release that’s MPEG2 encoded, 720p standard resolution, on a DVD5 and presented in a widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio.  Not peak image quality by any means of available formats out today, solidifying this DVD release a roll back to a lesser picture quality, but digital capturing goes without saying that DVD can still be a formidable format in regard to picture quality.  Likely, you will not see too much different between standard and high-definition but there are subtle areas of contrast, such as the black areas does contain faint banding and the details don’t inlay a zing of crispness like they should.  A film that starts off with a title card reading, THIS FILM SHOULD BE PLAYED LOUD… AS HELL, the DVD does the statement and Stuertz’s film justice with an uncompressed English 5.1 surround sound mix that highlights on and hits upon the important sound effects, screams, and building discordance, tumbling minor tone, and spiny synth-rock and 80’s horror-inspired score of Wojciech Golczewski (“We Are Still Here”).  Dialogue lands with prominence amongst the clatter and chaos layers that gives a real sense and elevation to the dialect of Jenna MacDonald’s tough backwoods occultist.  Not much in the way of depth as mostly everything is taken to the extreme volume, actions far and near, but range is aplenty by spanning the innocent swashing of alcohol in a bottle to the splatter of brains on the wall, from the crackling of fire to the gnarly rip of flesh being torn apart, and the robust force of bullets being fired to the deluge of menstrual blood filling a cup.  Yes, it’s one of those movies!  English subtitles are available for selection.  Special features include a Matt Stuertz commentary track, deleted scenes, a behind-the-scenes and raw footage look with cast and crew interviews with some still in character wardrobe, the Stuertz’s short film “Slashers,” and the teaser and theatrical trailer.  The DVD packing is about as generic as they come with the naked silhouette of the titular villainess standing in front of not the cabin the film in not the forest this movie takes place.  The arrangement is reminiscent of an “Evil Dead” knockoff.  The tall DVD Amaray case has nothing more to note in terms of physical prowess.  Aforementioned, this DVD is a rollback release in a few ways, and one is, unfortunately, the rating with a Rated R cut with a runtime of 84 minutes whereas previous releases were not rated clocking in at 90 minutes.  However, as far as I can tell, the Jinga Films, Danse Macabre, and MVDVisual does offer region free playback unlike early editions locked in at region 1.

Last Rites: If looking for something not too serious, checks all the gory and gross boxes, has decent practical and visual effects, and bares skin, “Tonight She Comes” is a fierce, ferocious, and fight-to-the-death option worth the viewing calories!

“Tonight She Comes” is Now Available on DVD! Purchase Here!

EVIL’s Path to being a Psychopath. “The Beast to Die” reviewed! (Radiance Films / Limited Edition Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“The Beast to Die” on Limited Edition Blu-ray from Radiance Films!

Former war journalist, Kunihiko Date, stabs a veteran police investigator to death.  He then uses the detective’s revolver and guns down three, after hours casino employees in cold blood and steals the day’s earnings.  Date’s seemingly random acts of violence and theft from a respected war journalist and photographer are not just random acts but part of a methodical plan for an upcoming heist of a bank in Tokyo’s Nihonbashi district.  Casing the bank’s security, personnel, and layout, Date’s perfect plan has one hitch; Because of the bank’s size and bustling busines, he’ll need a little help.  By chance, he comes across Tetsuo Sanada at an annual school alumni dinner with his closest friends who have a violent run-in with Sanada as their antagonistic waiter.  Seeing the same potential disregard for life and disdain for existence conventions, Date approaches Sanada and mentors him under a nihilistic wing.  Now with a plan and an accomplice, Date’s violent holdup can move forward but to what end is the length of his sociopathic carnage. 

“The Beast to Die,” aka “野獣死すべし, Yajū shisubeshi,” is the intense and violent noir-thriller from Japan, directed by “Dead Angle’s” Tôru Murakawa and a script by Shoichi Maruyama (“The Triple Cross”).  The 1980 released feature would be Murakawa and Maruyama’s second feature length production together behind 1979’s “The Execution Game,” the second film of a trilogy known as “the Japanese Game Trilogy is a visceral yakuza tale of a kidnapped hitman unable to escape the criminal underworld. “The Beast to Die” is a step away from the Japanese gangster film; instead, focuses on the interpretation of war trauma, the cynical views of precious life, and has subtle presences of U.S. big brothering, asexual themes, and coarse, unforgiving violence at the highest level of sophisticated society.  Adapted from the Haruhiko Ôyabu novel of the same name, the written origin mirrors the vehemency of visual art with the film produced by Haruki Kadokawa (“Virus”) and “The Resurrection of the Golden Wolf’s” Mitsuru Kurosawa and Tatsurô Shigaki under the Toei Company and Kadokawa Haruki Jimusho.

Undoubtedly one of the best sociopathic performances of our lifetime, “Horror of the Wolf” and the Japanese Game trilogy’s Yûsaku Matsuda is a cool, awkward, and, if not, plotting cucumber amongst the masses of jovial and hustling Tokyo denizens.  There’s a serenity about Matsuda’s Kunihiko Date that’s unparalleled, represented by blank stares, a patient demeanor, and precise movements that come in stark contrast in the film opener where Date takes down four people in one night in a show of murderous inexperienced bravado.  Even in the thick of combative survivalism, there’s only objective goal in his sweat infused brow and focused eyes while others gesture and make an invitational show of his attack or of their pleas for mercy.  Date becoming lost in classical music is a formidable way of grounding himself, not only from the high of excitement and thrills of killing, but also a way to retain sanity in the notes, an aspect he quickly unravels from when not exposed to classic music for an extended period.   Oppositely, Tetsu Sanada is full of pent-up anger as if he’s constantly hitting his head on the wall aiming to break free of the surroundings that confine his wild tiger attitude, yet Takashi Kaga (“Isle of the Evil Spirits”) maintains a personal struggle lock on the full emergence of Sanada as Kunihiko’s equal.  This dichotomy between the anger and tranquility of two sociopaths is immensely palpable that leads to a purposeful instability in a number of areas – hesitation and certainly, the sweat-inducing fear and the cooled fearless, and, eventually, the relationship’s ultimate internal destruction.  Thrown into the Kunihiko and Sanada tango is a potential love interest in the puppy-eyed Asami Kobayashi (“Sixteen Years Old:  Nymphets’ Room”) and her shared classical music and tenderness connection with Kunihiko and a happenstance Detective, played with casual approach by Toshie Negishi (“The Rapacious Jailbreaker”), being in Kunihiko’s consciously aloof presence as a pressuring force that suspects something between something off with Kunihiko and the murder of his detective colleague. 

“The Beast to Die” explores various themes around the indirect damage of post-war trauma and living and feeling like an outsider of the what’s consider the normal societal collective, but there’s another avenue to look down when consider Murakawa’s villainous protagonists.  Kunikhiko Date may have been scarred by war, but his mind always had an inkling for bloodthirst, sated through the images of a photographic lens that captured the horrors of global conflict from military losses to the collateral damage.  Upon his return to Japan, Date had lost the exciting sensation of death that has exceled his rationality beyond being Godlike, able to take life without conscious due reproach.   Sanada, in a way, is similar in his radical viewpoints but Date finds him more talk than action, held behind the line he has yet to cross unlike Date’s journalistic meatgrinder and his self-drive to kill the detective and casino workers.  As far as vices go, neither men have an appetite for sex:  Kunikhiko  watches a sex worker masturbate with little interest and his connect with Reiko doesn’t go beyond the gazes into each other’s eyes and Sanada’s fortunate relationship with his girlfriend provides him with well-off opportunity in money, business, and romance but because she dapples in rendezvous with a U.S. sailor, Sanada finds himself engrossed with spite.  Both men become essentially sexually impotent with seeing red, in anger and in blood, replacing that primal need or ravenous appetite.  The last scene between the two men becomes a crucial turning point in their cruel comradery as the forceful sex act with an unconscious woman sends the other unravelling their partnership for good.  “The Beast to Die” is a cynically cold narrative without regard for human life in the traumatizing belief one can surpass the omnipotent Gods by ending the existence of others.

A compelling dark thriller relatable to contemporary trauma feeding mentally warped violence, “The Beast to Die” arrives onto a limited-edition Blu-ray from Radiance Films.  The UK label produces a Kadakawa Coprporation-created digital 4K restoration transfer from the original and pristine 35mm print.  AVC encoded onto a BD50 and presented with 1080p high-definition resolution in a 1.85:1 widescreen aspect ratio, this Stateside edition is the picture of health with a rich palate that’s stark with contrast.  Skin tones and textures, as well as fabrics, emerge into perspicuousness without missing or dropping a beat.  Negative spaces and shadows enshroud appropriate with the keyed lit dim levels.  The grain is pleasant, stable, and natural and there are no real issues with the print itself, withstanding the test of time.  The uncompressed Japanese PCM 2.0 Stere track offers a reasonably ample sound design and fidelity with post-production dialogue, foley, and ambience recordings that creates some mismatch and distancing space between the action and atmosphere audio and the character diegetic dialogue.  There are no rough patches to mention within the audio recordings, producing more than fine discernible quality to the technical threshold.  Japanese to English translator Hayley Scanlon provides newly translated English subtitles that are spotless in the Blu-ray’s world premiere with English subtitles.  Limited to 3000 units, Radiance offers exclusive special features, including new interviews with director Toru Murakawa, screenwriter Shoichi Maruyama, and a film critique and analysis from novelist and screenwriter Jordan Harper.  The newly commissioned artwork by TimeTomorrow revamps with a new look and layout on the classic, original poster art as the primary Amaray front cover with a reversible side housing an alternate rendition.  There are new and archival essays and archival in the limited edition booklet with 27-pages of color stills, a Tom Mes Yusaku Matsude:  Lost Rebel essay from 2004 showcasing the art and films of the lead actor, a new Tatsuo Masuto essay Shadow of the Beast, cast and crew acknowledgements, and transfer notes and Blu-ray release acknowledgements.  Encoded with a region A/B lock, Radiance Films release has a runtime of 119 minutes and is not rated.

Last Rites: Radiance Films’s limited edition run of “The Beast to Die” is immaculate in every aspect – filmically, technically, packaging – and is an important piece of Japanese culture and cinematic criterion.

“The Beast to Die” on Limited Edition Blu-ray from Radiance Films!

EVIL Wants the Industry Hot and Desired Jana Bates to be in His Movie! “The Last Horror Film” reviewed! (Troma / Tromatic Special Edition Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“The Last Horror Film” is Now Available on Blu-ray to Obsess Over!

Obsessed with horror scream queen Jana Bates, New York City cabby Vinny Durand heads to France’s Cannes Film Festival to cast her in his own horror movie, “The Love of Dracula.”  Halted at every entry point of the private, star-studded events that include Jana Bates and being intercepted and rejected by Bates’s producer ex-husband, a rival producer, current boyfriend-manager, her agent, and a director, all of whom are in an intergroup conflict concerning the starlet, Jana, nothing will deter Durand from his perfect star.  When Jana walks in on the decapitated corpse of her ex-husband, a series of murders and missing persons involving her close friends and colleagues ensues in the days after and in all the while, Durand tries every attempt to meet the actress, stalking her with a video camera to film the perfect leading lady in his secret horror movie, invasively stepping into her life in the same instance the murders began to occur. 

A deranged NYC taxi driver flying to Europe for an aggressive meet, greet, and casting of a totally unaware horror actress to be in his own B-picture is the plotline everyone could, should, enjoy!  What’s not the love?  “The Last Horror Film” takes us from the grimy streets of the Big Apple to the exquisite sights and sounds of the seashore Cannes along the scenic French Riviera.  Helmed by London-born David Winters (“Thrashin’”) and penned by Winters, Tom Klassen, and Judd Hamilton (“Maniac”), “The Last Horror Film,” also known as “Fanatic,” is one of the best obsessed fan thrillers out there, such as containing the same context of the Clint Eastwood picture “Play Misty for Me,” but is lesser known to mainstream audiences because it features genre icons Joe Spinell and Caroline Munroe and has been primarily distributed under the unconventional indie picture and filmmaking risk taker, Troma Films, who at times isn’t everyone’s cup of tea distributor.  David Winters’s Winters Hollywood Entertainment and Shere Productions with Judd Hamilton and David Winters producing the 1982 American feature. 

Fans of Joe Spinell (“Maniac,” “Rocky,”) already know this but those who haven’t experienced the New York City-born and bred actor, “The Last Horror Film” role of Vinny Durand is one of his best.  Spinell obviously suits psychosis well, but Vinny Durand takes it down a different path and, believe me or not, Spinell finesse with the character is beyond magnificent in all his mannerisms, expressions, and intonations, in addition to his egg-shaped physical, slick greasy hair, and thin black mustache, that make Vinny Durand a likeable and infatuated with obsessed crazy.  “The Last Horror Film” is the third costar collaboration with female lead, and genre icon in her own right, Caroline Munroe behind “Starcrash” and “Maniac.”  The “Dracula A.D. 1972” and “Captain Kronos:  Vampire Hunter” Munroe essentially plays herself in the role of Jana Bates but with a role that comes with more glamour and prestige as horror actresses rarely received such recognition in the major industry circuits.  Munroe equals Spinell in performance but in her own right as more of normie actress with accolades living it up at Cannes and eventually landing in the final girl trope, exceled into terror within the radius of her killer.  Being embroiled in a different kind of love triangle, one that includes her silver fox husband ex-husband Bret Bates (Glenn Jacobson, “Wild Gypsies”), current boyfriend Alan Cunningham (Judd Hamilton, “Starcrash”), and rival producer Marty Bernstein (Devin Goldenberg, “Savage Weekend”).  As the potential body count rises, so does the continued cast list with David Winters himself in a reflected cameo role as a horror director named Stanley Kline, Susanne Benton (“That Cold Day in the Park”) playing an orthographic variant of her namesake in Susan Archer, and Sean Casey as a rockstar lending his castle to Alan and Jana for retreating safety.  The cast rounds out with Spinell’s mother, Flilomena Spagnuolo, playing Durand’s mother in a convincingly nagging and comedic way that makes me it’s not terrible too far from the truth of their off-screen relationship. 

For a Spinell, Munroe, and David Winters production, “The Last Horror Film” is surprisingly vaulting with ambition for an unpermitted guerilla shot feature through the streets of Cannes.  Large parapet roof signs, gothic castles, the ritzy and beachy French Riviera, a score of happenstance and scripted extras,  and lots of topless women on the beach shots, Winters musters moneyed shots to coincide the well-dressed interiors of Durand’s apartment and hotel room and a slew of exteriors to play into the stalking fold.  Couple these manifested scenes of grandeur with the shocking moments of precision and effective gore and Spinell’s theatrically pleasing, creepy behavior performance and you got yourself a halfway decent meta slasher full of red herrings and a high body count, circling and overlapping itself within Duran’s directorial vision, the fake films within the critic panel and festival screenings and, as well as, the gotcha moment ending that gives one pause to think if what was just witnessed was actually the story, but while you’re scratching your head, perhaps feeling like a cinematic dummy of storytelling comprehension, there’s no doubt that David Winters successfully produced one hell of a horror picture starring Joe Spinell.

The new Tromatic Special Edition of “The Last Horror Film” is seemingly a repeat in some ways to the Blu-ray release from a decade earlier down to the exact cover art without the Tromatic Special Edition banner.  The AVC encoded, 1080p resolution and 1.78:1 widescreen aspect ratio, is compressed onto a BD50, an uptick in format storage from the 2015 to warrant it a Tromatic Special Edition.  However, image refinement is not in this re-release’s repertoire with a mirrored result of a lightly anemic look that still fails to color pop the feature in its eclectic set designs.  Darker scenes are in and out based of contrast, losing definition, and are inclined to be grainer negatively in the negative spaces.  In the brilliance of light, details can rooted out, especially in skin textures as Spinell’s pot marked face is exhibited in great detail amongst the other casts’ individual facial features.  Winter’s diverse and organized framing, plus with a little editing garnish, elevates whatever kitschy content there might have been into a grade-A B-picture; yet that doesn’t go without saying that there weren’t any editing flaws in the print that was subsequently transposed to the Troma transfer as horizontal cut lines and breaks in recurrent cells kink the chain ever so slightly.  The release also features the same English Dolby Digital 2.0 mix, a fidelity lackluster that doesn’t reflect the power the action medley and the score, the latter from composers Jesse Frederick, the vocalist of the “Full House” theme, and musical instrument compliment, Jeff Koz.  Dialogue renders above the layers but is on the softer side of volume, diluting the more intense moments of chase and murder without that impact punchiness.  Troma, like in my instances, flaunt a noteworthy tidbit in their releases, if there is one to flaunt, and in “The Last Horror Film’s” case, Depeche Mode’s track Photographic is the quoted feature music, says in big white and yellow font on the front cover.  What primarily separates the 2015 and the 2025 releases are the special features.  Archived commentary with Joe Spinell’s assistant and associate producer Luke Walter commentary moderated by Evan Husney from 2009, “The Return of Dolphin Man” short film by director John Patrick Brennan, a segment entitled “Kabukiman’s Cocktail Party,” the feature scrapped “Maniac II:  Mister Robbie’s” promotional trailer, the theatrical trailer, and a Lloyd Kaufman intro that dresses him in drag in the streets of an uninterested NYC are included on the special edition that features additional supplements with two more, 2023 produced, re-used commentaries from 1) Caroline Munro moderated by FrightFest’s Alan Jones and 2) again with Luke Walter by moderated by Severin Films’ David Gregory for the label’s own 2023 release.  Also from the Severin vault is the Like a Father Figure:  Sal Sirchia Remembers Joe Spinell interview with Sirchia’s memories and phoned tape recordings of Spinel’s voice messages, My Last horror Film Ever audio interview with producer Judd Hamilton, and “The Last Horror Film” location revisit featurette from New York City to Cannes, plus additional trailers under the title “Fanatic” (2) and the main title (1).  There are additional Troma materials with trailers from “Return to Nuke ‘Em High Vol. 1” and “Vol. 2,” The Toxic Avenger,” “Class of Nuke ‘Em High,” and “#Shakespeare Shitstorm.”  Aforementioned, the physical properties of the release nearly identical aside from the special edition banner across the top and the additional bonus content.  The 2015 Troma release is region locked A but a decade later Troma realized region free is the smarter move with the single 87-minute cut defining the release that comes not rated.

Last Rites: Take “Maniac” out of the equation, “The Last Horror Film” is Joe Spinell’s finest performance not taken lightly and though the story’s lurching flashes the check engine light, David Winters is able to still cruise along in his fanatic slasher.

“The Last Horror Film” is Now Available on Blu-ray to Obsess Over!

Dark Force Rides into the Sunset with EVIL Flannel, Stirrups, and a Brothel Full of Stolen Women! “Ride a Wild Stud” reviewed! (Dark Force Entertainment / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

About as Obscure as They Come! “Ride a Wild Stud” on Blu-ray!

During the Civil War, the Wild West lives up to the name between advantaging exploiting gangs of bandidos running rampant alongside the Southwest terrain and the hard-pressed law outmanned and outgunned to never be able to gain apprehending ground.  One determined law man, Lieutenant Mike McDermott, has a plan to infiltrate William Quantrill’s plundering murders, thieves, and sex traffickers and take them down from the inside-out by portraying to be a likeminded criminal escaping the law.  Successfully penetrating Quantrill’s ranks, McDermott takes young Marsha under his watch; Marsha has become enslaved in Quantrill’s house of pleasure brothel, supervised by his right-hand man Bill Doolin after Doolin mercilessly guns down her father and rape and murders her older sister in a home invasion of their simple life assets.  When another of McDermott’s steady female informants is shot dead by Doolin, the lawman becomes judge, jury, and executioner on a gang of no-good Western raiders and sexual profiteers. 

A western exploitation epitomizing B-movie babes, brawls, and bad guys, “Ride a Wild Stud” surmounts as sleazy cowpoke overtop classic, 1960s Western vibes of machoism, duty, and exciting gunfights.  Profound Western film filmmaker Oliver Drake during the Golden Age of cinema (“Bordering Buckaroos,” “Deadline”) quietly transitioned from run-of-the-mill westerns to a handful of grindhouse and exploitation B-movies by the 1960s under the pseudonym of Revilo Ekard, Drake’s name spelled backwards, who produced under that credit this 1969 adult-oriented oater as well as the even saucier and scandalous “Angelica:  The Young Vixen” where the titular young woman seeks older man comforts.  “Ride a Wild Stud” is penned by the assumed husband and wife due of Rachel and William Edwards of the sex-schlocker “Dracula (The Dirty Old Man)” released the same year.  The writing pair also served as producers of the film under the production of Vega International. 

Director: Oliver Drake

“Ride a Wild Stud” is an interesting oddity of it’s time.  Usually in exploitation pictures, the lead male actor has his get busy share with the ladies but for Hale Williams, as the gang-infiltrating Lt. McDermott, there’s no hanky-panky with the actress lot.  Williams, whose role is his only listed credit, plays a respectable and honorable law-abiding man without any inkling of perversion of sensuality in his most defining John Wayne respect.  Instead, romping in the haystack is no stranger to the transgressing Quantrill gang in quite a handsy show of rough, unwanted affection with those characters unwilling to go along with the brothel or are being raided invaded elsewhere.  Frenchy Le Boyd does a lot of fondling and groping as second in command Bill Doolin along with an assortment of bandido backdrop actors really getting into the sleazy deviant role.  This sets a clear hardline of contrast between good versus evil, respect versus the disrespectable, to never blend the characters even when McDermott becomes the sheep in wolves clothing.  Josie Kirk plays as one of those unfortunate pilfered women in Marsha and is, in a way, the leading or mainstay characters Doolin’ drools over and McDermott fights for but it’s the blonde C.C. Chase as house of pleasure vet Irene who has is deeper into the dredges and is has complexities as McDermott’s informant rather than just a chest-bearing pretty face being taken advantage of and succumbing to Doolin’s woos when it fits her need.  The rest of the cast rounds out with a bunch of no-names, yet get protracted screen time for coldhearted perversities, with William Fosterwick, Burke Reynolds (“The Mummy and the Curse of the Jackals”), Helga Hanshue, Cliff Alexander, Chuck Alford (“Corpse Grinders 2”), Richard Smedley (“The Suckers”), Bill Johnson, Tex Gates, S.T. Alexander Sr. and Bob Goldfarb. 

“Ride a Wild Stud” has all the hallmarks of a typical exploitation picture with a double entendre title, unprovoked and gratuitous violence, and plenty of feminine skin.  Yet, the story leaves much to be desired.  The lawman infiltrating the criminal organization, becoming one of their own to take down from the inside out, tale is no Martin Scorsese’s “The Departed.”  In fact, the story is rather lazy akin to low-rent porn or softcore titles with a story garnish.  Focally, “Ride a Wild Stud” harnesses the men-take-want-men want mentality with rarely any Western damsel enjoying herself in the arms of musky flannel and gun-belt thrust grizzled by a scruffy 5 o’clock shadow and for the story, there’s too little progression to compel with empathy or be at the edge of your seat with intense anticipation for the in the lions’ den hero and heroines and the gunfights are grotesquely tame after the initial film opener of a multi-horseback chase gunfight.  The whole good versus bad cowboy roundup is stiffer than normal of its era heading into the time of the famed and profound spaghetti western.  The exploitation action has some noteworthy clout with busty, slender women being manhandled like a hogtying a pig at a rodeo and the ample scuffle between Doolin and McDermott might be bordering repetitive but scratches the itch of a good ole fashion fist fight, but by the telltale strum of a rhythmic and recurring guitar riff, that is when the salacious sex ensues and without that change or evolution in the score, that plays every a few minutes with another intertwinement of two bodies, not even the charge of gratuitous nudity can re-spark “Ride a Wild Stud’s” Western-exploitation mojo back on the snakebitten and dysentery-riddled Oregon trail. 

An Adult Adventure awaits in this womanizing Westerner released by Dark Force Entertainment for the first time in high-definition.  The film was originally shot in 16mm, but Dark Force Entertainment unearths the rare blown up 35mm reel for their Hi-Def transfer that produced decent picture quality from the AVC encoded, 1080p resolution, BD25.  Preserved to the extent where the 16mm could be on the fence of being native 35mm if it wasn’t for the degrading emulsion layer and the lower contrast with exterior lighting that creates washed out blacks.  There are the typical speckle blips and faint vertical scratching in the one-off scene that seems low-carb for a stock that’s vulnerable to exposure, storage, and handling elements.  Dark Force Entertainment Blu-ray back cover lists the film being displayed in an anamorphic widescreen but with a 1.33:1 aspect ratio.  This is likely a misprint as the film is definitely presented in a full frame format with no sign of a compressed image.  Color grading falls flat but is touched up enough to see some semblance of the spectrum and that’s always pleasant with an ISO 100-200 stock that doesn’t absorb contrast very well.  The English PCM mono track simply does the job handling the pale dialogue, ambient, and soundtrack layers.  Dialogue receives recognition amongst the limited array, but the post-provided scores is right behind it, breathing down the dialogue’s neck, with the incessantly low toned rhythm guitar that denotes upcoming deviant sexual encounters.  It literally sticks with you even when the credits roll and long after.  Moments in the dialogue do experience some faint crackling and muffled interference but, as well as some intermittent pops, but nothing to warrant overly critical marks.  There are no subtitles available.  Dark Force’s release is a feature only.  Physical artwork includes an illustrated action rendition that’s grindhouse include and sleazy just a smidgen inside the traditional Blu-ray Amaray.  The disc is pressed with three of the actresses in plain-looking clothes looking smug and curious from their line of sight, though we don’t really know what they’re looking at.  The region free release has a sexually coincidental runtime of 69-minutes and is rated R.

Last Rites: “Ride a Wild Stud” is the perverse cowboy caper you’ve never seen, but will watching it enrich your life? No. Will it salivate your taste for sleazy exploitation? Absolutely. Giddy-up!

About as Obscure as They Come! “Ride a Wild Stud” on Blu-ray!

Never Trust an EVIL Trucker with a Drug and Prostitute Addiction! “The Bunny Game” reviewed! (Jinga Films, Danse Macabre, MVDVisual / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“The Bunny Game” is Not for a Weak Stomach! Now on DVD!

Bunny, a prostitute on the streets of Los Angeles, subjects herself to the lowest of clientele lists looking to exploit her services with their own abusive fetishisms.  Just to get by to her next meal.   Bunny is constantly in coked out state when tricking becomes nearly unbearable.  Manhandled, abused, and unconsciously raped, there seems to be no end, and she must persevere to survive the streets, beautifying and feeding herself physical and mental nourishment to keep up strength.   When she encounter’s a trucker named Hog, Bunny’s just looking to endure another insufferable John, but Hog has other plans for Bunny, kidnapping her, driving somewhere isolated, and chaining her up deep within his trailer, and tormenting and torturing her to a different kind of no end Bunny has never experienced.  Hog’s derangement is fueled by his extreme drug use in what is not his first rodeo with working in whores for his own personal enjoyment and the girls’ own personal Hell. 

Banned in the UK, “The Bunny Game” is an extreme torture porn horror based off the real events that happened to principal star Rodleen Getsic with being abducted.  There’s not much publicly known on her own horrible experience, but the “The Bunny Game” is a baseline shockumentary written in collaboration between Getsic and filmmaker Adam Rehmeier with in the director’s chair of his debut feature film.  Rehmeier, director and cinematographer of numerous music videos and shorts, conjures up a story and a completed film with singer-actress Getsic without ever materializing an official script.  Instead, improvising and extemporizing fluff up Rehmeier’s storyboarding bullet points of where people and places should be in the narrative construct, hence why much of the story goes without dialogue, replaced with frenetic visuals and montages of recalcitrant convention.  Rehmeier co-produced the film under his company Death Mountain Productions alongside Rodleen Getsic.

For having been abducted herself and for the film to be an overemphasis of it, Getsic steps into the main role’s fishnet stockings to be the used and abused sex worker, known only in the credits as Bunny, and the role is no walk in the park or for the faint of heart.  Bunny is a self-inflicted punishing performance and mostly what you see on screen being inflicted upon Bunny is genuinely be done to Getsic which includes branding of the caduceus symbol on her back, as well as the same symbol seared into the flesh of Getsic’s friend, Drettie Page, who was game to receive much of the same for-the-story, for-the-film punishment as another victim of Hog in, supposedly, flashback sequences.  Hog is played by Jeff F. Renfro, a regular in the industry for his transportation services owning a big rig and tractor-trailer, but as the formidable serial killer Hog, Renfro brings and matches the intensity of “The Bunny Game’s” near free for all improvisation and experimentation provocation.  Getsic’s willingness to go the extra mile, from being branded, lighting scored by knife play, having her head shaved, is equally matched by Renfro’s being the recipient of being spit in the face, handling the fondling and the other physical exploitation of Getsic and Page, and being a total wild eyed, masked and shirtless, top of his lungs maniac with a mindset that’s cruel and oppressive with another human being’s life in his hands.  Dynamically, it’s a cat playing with a mouse, a deplorable show of chauvinism, and a callously cruel picture of control with the players in full control and full acceptance of their characters.  Gregg Gilmore, Loki, Curtis Reynolds, and Norwood Fisher cast a supporting line to trawl the Rehmeier, and what Rodleen Getstic refers to, monsterpiece. 

Rehmeier and Getsic have both been recorded stating every action on screen, aside from the excess drug and alcohol use, is 100% real.  Now, “The Bunny Game” immediately slaps viewers in the face with Bunny on her kneeds giving extended, adult industry-enthusiastic, fellatio to some unknown man only shown from his clothed backside at mid-section down to the top of the knee.  While not as sloppy as one might think despite Getsic’s vigorous efforts, the opening oral provides that provocative, eye-opening, banned-in-the-UK scene that now has snuck insidiously in the recesses of our minds and, in conjunction with the previous Rehmeier and Getsic authentic claims that never really specifying sex as one of them, audiences will wonder if what they’re subjected to is in fact a real act of oral sex.  To digress briefly, what’s the deal with movies with Bunny in the title (“The Bunny Game,” “Brown Bunny”) and oral sex?  From there, if you’re not disgusted by the voyeurism and chauvinism of sex work and misogyny, you’re digging Rehmeier’s film and hooked with curiosity tied to Bunny’s unfortunate fate, but what ensues embodies the essence of a crazed industrial music video of minor, discordance chords that produce harsh sounds and tones to envelope the choppy and cutting editing that shatters linear time, as well as the struggling soul, especially in montages of maniacal torture and onset introspective  between the punishment giver and taker in the Hog and Bunny intersection that will instill a catalytic crossroad for one of them.   There’s plenty of empathy to be had for Bunny, or maybe even sympathy if one has gone through similar abduction, torture, or has had a previous life on the streets, but the coarse nature of Hog’s slow and measured wrath can certainly be felt in the 1 hour and 16-minute runtime as revisiting Bunny for another dash of screaming, laughing, and misuse of her body and being at the hands of Hog is often on a wash, rinse, and repeat cycle of cynicism, an unavoidable problematic staleness often associated with films that do not have a shooting script, or any script for that matter.  Ideas tend to run dry and the then cornered concept is to bedazzle with nonstop bedlam but the fresh frenzy of exploitation is often fleeting and expires a lot quicker than the film’s runtime does.

A tale of street tragedy and what should be an always constant reminder that deranged killers are here, there, and everywhere, “The Bunny Game” scores high in extreme exploitation within its experimental execution.  Jinga Films, Danse Macabre, and MVDVisual bring the corrosively cuddly film back onto DVD after the original Autonomy Pictures release has been out of print for a while.  The single layer DVD5’s codec is of MPEG-2 compression and presented in 720p resolution in a widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio.  The achromatic black and white image stacks additional bleakness to the already soulless content with a low field of contrast creating borderless shadows but the use of handheld key lighting, aka flashlight, does create a miniscule delineation at times when under a blank of black.  Blacks succeed in being solid for the most part with only a couple instances of minor banding which is pretty good DVD compression, likely a result of the zero color to encode and decode.  The English LPCM Stereo is not a girthy mix of dialogue, soundtrack, and ambience.  Now, all three elements exist, but since “The Bunny Game” has zero script, there’s not much in the way of conversating and what’s there is prominent enough amongst the layers of industrial jarring dissonance that, at times, beats in sync with the visceral montages.  Inside the mic recording scope, ambience comes and goes based off the intensity of the scene and score but there are quieter moments to reflect on the improper handling of Bunny with Hog and the other indiscriminately disgusting Johns her life as a prostitute absorbs.  Special features include an archival Caretaking the Monster behind-the-scenes interviews with cast and crew, including actors Rodleen Getsic, Jeff Renfro, Greg Gilmore, and director Adam Rehmeier, discussin the original concept that was more aligned with Getsic’s personal abduction accounts but then evolved into something more horrifying that lead to the casting of Renfro, their isolated locations, and the realism inflicted upon Getsic as well as the teaser and theatrical trailer.  The DVD packaging is much the same as previous editions with a video aesthetic resembling black and white contrast but unlike previous releases, the cover art shows off its graphically artistic masked bunny in shackle design that speaks to the content.  The Jinga, Danse Macabre Danse, and MVD release lists this as a rated R release whereas the previous version was unrated; however, both releases have a 76-minute runtime.  A quick review suggests this “R” cut is actually the same as previous versions.  The DVD also has region free playback.

Last Rites: This game is not for the faint of heart. “The Bunny Game” tests willpower to stay through to the end, through the torture, rape, and the real violence in a one-sided acrid affair. If you can survive the brutality, this game is for you.

“The Bunny Game” is Not for a Weak Stomach! Now on DVD!