Category Archives: foreign film

When There is EVIL in the Seoul! “Gangnam Zombie” reviewed! (Well Go USA Entertainment / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Well Go USA’s “Gangnam Zombie” on Blu-ray Hi-Def!

In the Gangnam district of Seoul, South Korea, former backup to the national taekwondo team Hyeon-seok works underpaid and unhappily for a smalltime viral video streaming company.  His colleague and crush, Min-jeong, is a content editor constantly being hit on by the knavish company owner.  Unhappy at their jobs, the two miserably plug away while avoiding the elephants in the room until an infected, flesh-eating man walks into their office rental building, biting and infected the surrounding professionals that turn the place of business into a place of horror and survival.  With the doors chained shut and no way to call for help, Hyeon-seok, Min-jeong, their small band of coworkers, and the building’s landlady react antagonistically against the quickly devolving situation that seeks to sink its teeth into them.  The upstanding Hyeon-seok does the only thing he knows how, to fight his way out while protecting Min-jeong from a mass army of blood-stained teeth.

In the wake of the popular successful running and rampaging outbreak spread of zombie-madness in “Train to Busan,” the 2016 all-aboard the zombie train thriller not only blazed the rails with a hyper-intense, body-over-body, dog-eat-dog infected film confined to the cramped aisles of linked train cars but it also set the tone for years to come with imitators to rake in the cash of the outbreak breakout success.  Though the concept is nothing new, South Korea has adopted the fast-running infected flesh-eater and shaped it with mass affect with newer entries being submitted every year since the release of “Train to Busan.”  “Rodeukil” director Soon Sung Lee has helmed one of those new entries with “Gangnam Zombie,” a far more contained zombie burst confined to a mall-like office building set in the heart of the Gangnam district, hence the title.  “Gangnam Zombie” is a self-produced production of Soon Sung Lee in association with JNC Media Group and Joy N Cinema with co-producer Choe Gwang-rae.

The aphorism less is more can be applied to many things and many situations, often generally true, much like overthinking a simple problem.  For the cast buildup of Soon Sung Lee’s “Gangnam Zombie,” the saying torpedoes any kind of chance connecting with the chaos-engrossed characters.  Opening to Cho Kyoung-hoon and his partner’s breaking and entering of a shipping container full of boxes of I-don’t-know-what, objectively were lost to the here and why this crime becomes not only ground zero for the epidemic, Cho Kyoung-hoon’s Wang-I is attacked by a container-hitching infected cat of all things, but also the motivation for their transgressions of thievery.  I honestly could not tell you what was being hijacked from the container boxes; to me, the contents appeared to be COVID-19 test kits which would make sense since “Gangnam Zombie” forces the paralleling global epidemic done our visual esophagus with a cat instead of a bat.  After dispatching his partner with a bite to the neck, in what is a very vampiric method I might add, Wang-I wanders his dazed self into the city of Seoul, especially the Gangnam district, where he steals red meat from a grocer and stumbles with a self-image conflict into Hyeon-seok and Min-jeong’s office building.  Indiscriminately unhappy with their jobs with a mild sense of attraction between them, the characters are played by Ji Il-ju and Park Ji-yeon who can’t really get into the tumultuously thrown together chemistry needed to make their emotionally pulling tug work with viewers.  The supposed coupling actors’ scenes feel one-sided with Park Ji-yeon in a defensively scared and uncertain shoes but very much guarded against Ji Il-ju who can wear his heart on his sleeve as he roundhouses zombie extras left and right.  Cho Kyoung-hoon feels more enthused in his black-eyed, rabid-smile zombie mode while still able to grasp his humanity with close-quarters hand-to-hand, an enthusiasm not really shared by the others when faced with ground zero apocalypse that doesn’t quiver under one-liners and vapid, vacuous vernacular and vigor.  Min Choi, Tu-in Tak, and Yi-joo Jung round out the cast.

“Gangnam Zombie” falls into the cheap-thrills trap of comparing itself the deadly strain of COVID-19 not because of the cat and bat reference above but because the opening title sequence hammers in a quick recap of the epidemic era in massive overload of visuals with the occasional infected person flashing into frame.  Though not mentioned once of COVID into the dialogue, a tumbling of slowly progressing confusion settles itself inside the narrative of what director Soon Sung Lee is trying to convey comparing COVID to chaotic cannibalism.  The exploit is egregiously akin to Full Moon’s capitalizing indecorous “Corona Zombies.”  The two not only share germs but also share essentially the same title and are both more comedic and lighter, shadowing over and taking away any intensity it intended in this more comedy-horror than horror-comedy.  Zombie carnage is laid waste to bad continuity editing as we see some of the same zombies looking down one hallway and then in the next scene and in a different hallway there is the same infected head, zombies inexplicably rolling on the floor into frame, zombies sneaking up behind people only to hesitate an attack with more of an intent to scare them when the chased turns around, and the infected are not brainlessly dulled and have the ability, or at least only one of them has the ability, to fight back with blocks and other defensive and offensive moves.  “Gangnam Zombie” milks the stouter predecessors with a haphazardly duck taped lesser vessel to slog forward what other South Korean filmmakers have previously perpetuated so well in the subgenre.

On Blu-ray now from Well Go USA Entertainment is “Gangnam Zombie” with an AVC encoded, 1080 hi-def, BD25, presented in a listed widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio that works well in the compressed environment of the office building. Exterior scenes of the city, overall general landscape, suggest a wider aspect ratio, perhaps a 2.35:1 to capture more the of the urban landscape. Speaking of the office building, the well-lit environment provides less complexities on the digital image with the same gray, steel, and translucent facing in most of the scenes. Varying saturations of red diverse the blood shading around the body and face with darker tints often looking like motor oil to match the midnight irises. Details in the digital age rarely see a loss of face with natural skin tones, to the minute details of reflective surfaces, and a properly sterile office space. The only audio track built into the release is a Korean DTS-HD 5.1 master audio that’s balanced appropriately with forefront dialogue and a backseat generic soundtrack mix of heavy metal and crescendo builds. The zombie grunts, groans, and roars tear into the channels, nicely through the backend channels, but with cacophonous irritation at times. There’s decent secondary sound design with the baseball bat being hit across infected faces and the floor, despite revealing its rubbery bounce, and Ji Il-joo kick and punch melodies. Sometimes a hit-or-miss with bonus features on the international releases, this particular Well Go USA release comes bare bones with no special features on the software. The hardware, aka physical features, is also not terribly spectacular with a standard Blu-ray casing with a sketch and paint cover that’s slightly misleading where our protagonist will be when the outbreak breaks. Unlatching the case reveals an advert insert for three Well Go USA distributed films, likely rotational with different features, with a unique fascination disc press art of rope tied radio with outstand hands and fingers appearing to grab the bottom of it. It’s a Blu-ray opening enigma viewers will have watch the feature to understand. Clocking in at 82 minutes, “Gangnam Zombie” is region A locked and is not rated. The bite marks of “Gangnam Zombie” are a familiar pang and now nearly a decade after a formidable Korean zombie subgenre began, we’ve become too desensitized for hackneyed carbon copies.

Well Go USA’s “Gangnam Zombie” on Blu-ray Hi-Def!

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!

Death Penalized EVIL Returns to Wreak Havoc on Young Women. “The Stay Awake” reviewed! (Cheezy Movies / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Can You Keep Your Eyes Open at “The Stay Awake?”  On DVD now!

America, 1969. William John Brown brutally slays and sexually assaults 11 women. Before a judge, the serial killer is sentenced to death by gas chamber where his last words proclaim him as the Angel of Darkness sent Earthbound to ravage women. Nearly 20-years later in 1988, the St. Mary’s School for Girls in Europe is holding a stay awake event where a handful of students and one chaperone stay up the entire night as a fundraiser for their school. Dark and nearly vacant, the school basks in an eerie haven for the murderous William John Brown’s returning spirit seeking new souls of the softer sex. Determined to protect the girls at all costs, chaperone Trish Walton will not stop protecting the frightened girls until the entity is destroyed but when the ethereal malevolent spirit takes shape of a monstrous rodent with outstretching attack tentacles and psychokinetic glowing eyes, chances of survival are bleak.

Malevolent forces crossing oceans to death grip the innocent are films that are few and far in between as most transatlantic terror usually stays put, regionalized and localized to keep an authentic aural blend of superstition and history. Director John Bernard attempts to go against the grain with a small crowd of filmmakers who either overcame the parochial provenance and succeeded tenfold or became lost in foreign land narrative and failed miserably.  Bernard and, assumed brother, Johan Bernard co-write “The Stay Awake,” a South African mixed lot of horror elements brewed together into a supernatural schlocker that’s one-half dark and stormy night, gloomy Church Gothicism and one-half final girl survival slasher but equal parts outlandishly overexerted ghost thriller stretching across multiple continents.  “The Stay Awake” is a product of Heyns Film & Television Productions, produced by Thys Heyns of South African action-thriller flicks, as well as produced by Paul Raleigh, the producer of the “From Dusk Till Dawn” and the notable Millennium Films cofounder Avi Lerner, of “American Ninja” and “The Expendables” franchises, in one of his earliest credits from 1988.

Though the story begins in America and mostly takes place in Europe, the cast is comprised of mostly South Africans trying to pass their accents for British English that is more like a rotating centrifuge of South African sub-accents.  Shirley Jane Harris (“The Most Dangerous Woman Alive”) spearheads the cast of principals with an extremely proclaiming protagonist, delivering lines with flatfeet and flat inflection that makes her one of the more forgettable final girls.  Her foe compares just as bland with a grunting, bodiless entity floating through corridors and hiding behind indoor plants (why would an imperceptible spirit need to hide behind anything at all?) before manifesting into what looks like a giant, big-eyed, and built on steroids rodent that then shows the William John Brown (Lindsay Reardon, “The Masque of the Red Death”) in side profile speaking in omnipresent and menacingly through the beast to taunt his prey.  The script allows just enough the group of young, private school girls to standout cliquishly, contain an ounce of contempt for each other, and underpin some form of individualism to make them retain some interest in their wellbeing.  However, most of the buildup that’s created to antagonize or unify between their personalities ultimately fizzle out into resembling something along the lines of kowtowing sheep or lemmings in more ways than one.  “The Stay Awake” caffeinates with a sizeable cast including Tanay Gordon (“Hellgate”), Jayne Hutton, Michelle Carey, Maxine John (“Howling IV: The Original Nightmare”), Hellie Oeschger, Joanna Rowlands (“Armageddon: The Final Challenge”) as the damsels, Bart Fouche (“Monster Hunter”), Clinton Ephron, Warren Du Preez, and Pierre Jacobs as the imposing boys, and Ken Marshall (“Return of the Family Man”) as the school’s night caretaker.

John and Johan Bernard’s logline for “The Stay Awake” likely looked appealing on paper but a full story treatment begs to differ with an inscrutable concept from start-to-finish.  “The Stay Awake” wades in generalities, oversimplifying locations and periods such as “America, 1969” and “Europe, 1988.”  The setup meat in between the disjointed times periods sets up a standard yet effective backstory for the killer, William John Brown, with a Judge’s voiceover of all his brutal transgressions, flashbacks of his victims at the death scene, and a slow walk down the corridor to the gas chamber that clearly denote him as the villain but then accentuates his supernatural supervillainy with a demonic voice screaming his return before the gas engulfs him.  However, why move from America to Europe and why in the span of 19 years does an unexplained possessed version of William John Brown return and select a group of religious school girls while his previous victims look to be a pact of randoms from off the street?  From the start, “The Stay Awake” has little to stay our fictional plausibility.  Couple the perplexation with dry performances, a possibly Hell originated monstrous, burning eyes rat creature, and the gratuitous horror nudity rug being pulled from under our feet as the schoolgirls tease with a shower scene only to be shown showering with towels wrapped around them and what has looked to be a promising possession of perpetual pandemonium  has quickly turned into a deflated disappointment with the only really good thing to come out of the film is the stationary man in a creature suit rat monster built like a bodybuilder.

“The Stay Awake” arrives onto DVD distributed by Cheezy Movies in a direct rip of the standard definitional 480i VHS transfer with a letterbox 1.33:1 aspect ratio.  Don’t expect a detailed transfer in a jittery and smoothed over standard definition that’s covered in a harsh blue tinted lens, but the condition of the interlaced video is surprisingly close to being damage free in a well-cared for print.  However, delph and range is difficult to determine due to the obvious lack of delineation but mostly because of the blue tint, poorly lit scenes, and contrast levels that make this presentation nearly pitch-black unwatchable in corridors, classrooms, and in the room of the like, but darkness is seriously enhanced and meshed together by Bernard stylistic choices of backlighting characters or using soft light to center the focus to offer a darkened horror picture. An English Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo serves as the only audio option which differentiates the soundtrack from the rest of the tracks.  Dialogue mostly separates itself to the top of the audio dogpile but is also well imbedded into the other track fighting to be heard that renders the dialogue dull and flat behind a wall of constant and diffused feedback static.  There’s also hissing at the tail end of sentences and faint crackling throughout.  Subtitles are not available.  The only extras on the static menu are back-to-back, quasi-grindhouse style trailers for two Cheezy Movies distributed titles of the blaxploitation “The Man from Harlem” and a “Dirty-Dozen”-esque “Commandoes.”  The physical aspects include a standard black DVD snapper with a rather enticing original title being sandwich with the demon’s glowing eyes on top and four schoolgirls ready to fight at the bottom.  The disk art is the same image except the four schoolgirls are cropped out and an unfortunate placement on the “The” from the title finds it punched out by the disc center/disc lock to just reveal “Stay Awake.”  The rated-R DVD has a region free playback and a runtime of 85 minutes.  “The Stay Awake” has all the indications of a cheap imitation on an established horror formula and this particular physical release doesn’t help the feature’s cause with an extremely dark and nebulous image to match its narrative.

Can You Keep Your Eyes Open at “The Stay Awake?”  On DVD now!

https://vimeo.com/814964711

Feminism Fights EVIL The Only Way Possible in “Broken Mirrors” reviewed! (Cult Epics / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

The Best Depiction of the Unpleasant Side of Brothels.  “Broken Mirrors” on Blu-ray.

An Amsterdam brothel Happy House Club clings to the good girls that remain employed to pleasure the reprobate and insensitive johns that visit.  Dora, a virtual working girl lifer, brings in new blood, Diane, a young mother desperate in need of financial support because of her drug addicted husband.  Night after night, customers select through the ever-growing service list the club’s owner deems profitable while the women and the matron manager naively cope with a profession that’s quick, easy cash.  They create a process, a standard of procedure so to speak, that tries to make the work that much less degrading but with each client, a little piece of their humanity is chipped away.  Simultaneously, a methodical serial killer abducts the women he previously surveillances from off the street, chains them to a bed in a remote room, takes snapshots of them in confinement, and slowly starves them to death, which could last months.  The two stories are intertwined and connected by a gender dominance disease in which a slow resistance begins to build to an explosive head.

The unofficial sobriquet of the Queen of Feminism Marleen Gorris had made a name for herself as a staunch supporter of feminism and lesbianism with her controversial and provocative films.  Her acclaimed 1982 debut written-and-directed “A Question of Silence” show oppressed gender solidarity and mutiny against a systematically enslaved masculine society.  Continuing her crusade against the patriarchal grain, Gorris followed up “A Question of Silence” with another powerfully messaged, social commentary film that, again, places women emotions and safety under the unyielding thumb of men two years later with “Broken Mirrors.”  Natively known in the Netherlands as “Gebroken Spiegels,” the film marks the return of select cast from her inaugural feature, marshalling in a new narrative in the neo-feminism cinema under the returning production company Sigma Film Productions with producer Matthijs van Heijningen (“A Woman Like Eve,” “The Cool Lakes of Death.”).

As mentioned, a pair of actresses have carried over from “A Question of Silence” to maintain a principal performance in “Broken Mirrors,” beginning with Henriëtte Tol who played the outwitting secretary in Gorri’s debut returns as a woman working in Amsterdam’s red-light district as a seasoned employee of the Happy House Club.  Tol ups the ferocity levels of her previous performance while still maintaining a gradually steady sex appeal.  Another returning actress who nearly didn’t have any dialogue in her previous role as a mother without a voice is Edda Barends now in a character that can’t stop screaming for her life as the latest abductee chained to a cruddy bed in a cruddy room with a coming-and-going, polaroid-enthused sociopath. In Barends starkly different rage against the man machine archetype, the actress finds herself discomposed in the face man she can’t understand but eventually recognizes his nasty need and withdraws it.  Both women excel beyond the unsavory current conditions and transfer the power that’s been dangling over their heads into themselves.  Newcomer Diane, played by Lineke Rijxman, becomes the key to initiate the unraveling of power of a man-owned brothel that subjugates women not as mere employees of a man-owned business but as nothing more than moneymaking ass-shakers and back-layers.  Rijxman puts in the work of having her character be resilient at work and at home as she juggles a wide variety of disgusting clients to please their whims while coming home to deal with a junkie husband’s mess.  As the story progresses and the women fall deeper under life’s heel, Dora and Diane spark what begins as a mutual friendship that slips gradually into sexual tension, giving them more assurances when they need it the most as the brothel parties become bigger and more intense.  The parallel story runs along the same oppressive path but in unconventional, unlawful, and inhuman way with the kidnap and starvation torture of a young mother.  Eddie Brugman is also a returning “A Question of Silence” actor who now finds himself in the shoes of Jean-Pierre, a mild-manner husband and by all rights societally normal seemingly man who visits the brothel for a quickie, easy money as Francine (Marijke Veugelers) would proclaim, but his dark hobby is to snatch unsuspecting women for his own perverse pleasure of watching and hearing them plea for their lives.  By the end of both stories, connected by Jean-Pierre and who finds himself at the end of the disappointing stick for his kicks, crafts more than one way to not give in and to stand up against male malarkey and nastiness.  The cast rounds out with Carla Hardy, Coby Stunnenberg, Anke van ‘t Hof, Elja Pelgrom, Hedda Oledzky, Arline Renfurm, Johan Leysen, Wim Wama, and Elsje de Wiljn.

Not only is “Broken Mirrors” another contentious and provocative incendiary story that wedges apart men and women, with the latter being victimized and justified in their actions, but Marleen Gorris also directs one hell of a boiling point intertwining between parallelisms that almost have no link to each other until the reveal.  Gorris doesn’t necessarily employ red herrings to keep audiences guessing but rather keep the killer obscure, as all that we are exposed to see is from behind the man, who doesn’t speak much either and if he does speak, his responses are to the point with as little descriptors and adjectives as possible.  Not only is the editing between simultaneous stories organic but also the other editing techniques that materialize the characters’ emotional decaying befit the mostly linear structure, such as with the student party montage at the brothel that does a roundtable of individualized scenarios between the women and their slimeball clients in an emotionally painful grin-and-bear it series that culminates to which one character best describes the ordeal as feeling like a human lavatory.  The feeling is very much mutual with viewers as well, like a used wet nap to scrub off a soul staining filth covering head to toe, as Gorris represents a thematic exactitude of fiercely dividing feminism that would define her career. A clear understanding of how brothels operate is greatly depicted with that flimsy layer of excitement and efficiency to mask the ugliness underneath.

“Broken Mirrors” arrives on a Blu-ray home video from Cult Epics and, once again, resurrects and restores a pièce de résistance of Netherland celluloid. The new 4K high-definition transfer from the original 35mm negative is presented in European widescreen 1.66:1 aspect ratio on an AVC encoded, 1080p, BD50. 35mm print looks none worse the wear over the course of father time with a mint print. Restored color graded has freshened up the natural print palette of the brothel story while the kidnapper’s tale sustains a grayscale to bisect the narrative and the delineation for both presents a palatable depth. The aplenty natural grain doesn’t swarm and takeover the higher pixelations to award us with a satisfying vintage image that now enriched without any smoothing enhancements nor any compression issues to note. The Danish language release comes with two audio tracks: A DTS-HD MA 2.0 Mono and a LPCM 2.0 Mono. “Broken Mirrors” fair well from both dual channel formats with the DTS-HD aggrandizing the Lodewijk de Boer razor synth score with intent that in itself is a character. Comparatively elsewhere, the two outputs offer little differences and sate with forefront dialogue, balanced in front an equally balanced ambient track. Optional error-free English subtitles are available with haste text to keep up with the fast-paced Dutch. Special features include an audio commentary by Leiden University film scholar Peter Verstraten, an archived 1984 interview with U.S. sex worker and activist Margo St. James with Cinema 3 host Adriaan van Dis, a promotional still gallery, and trailers. The Cult Epics Blu-ray comes in a clear, traditional snapper sporting the film’s most iconic and titular moment, displayed also on the disc art, while the reverse side of the cover depicts a still image of Carla Hardy. The region free Blu runs at a not rated 110 minutes. A good double bill against “A Question of Silence,” “Broken Mirrors” makes for a morosely on the trot sister feature in more ways than one to further a Marleen Gorris artfully aired agenda.

The Best Depiction of the Unpleasant Side of Brothels.  “Broken Mirrors” on Blu-ray.

House Music is EVIL’s Jam! “Rave” reviewed! (Scream Team Releasing / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Get High and Get Pumped for “Rave” on Blu-ray.

Free flowing Mimmi and her timid pal Lina are invited to an underground night club for one more illegal rave party before the building is vacated for unlawful occupation.  As the two dance the night away, Lina becomes steadily ill and as she tries for the bathroom, she begins to bleed from her skin.  Other rave goers begin to feel the same effects, spewing blood, dripping skin, and a melting away existence while the strobe lights unceasingly flicker and the deep house music pulsates into a fixed one-note bass.  Mimmi and another friend escape the party before even the first signs of the illness, hiding away to do a line cocaine, but when they’re followed by those turned into slow walking bags of oozing flesh, no longer resembling something human, her friend is brutal killed and she barely eludes the ill-fated ravers, becoming trapped inside by those liquifying creatures and a pair of masked individuals seemingly unaffected by what’s occurring around them.

Often times there comes a film that sneaks under the radar and may warrant a second watch for it to sink under the skin or into the recesses the brain’s grey matter.  For writer-director Nils Alatalo, his Swedish melt horror “Rave” is the epitome of context.  The 2020 released independent production, known as “Svartklubb” in the Swedish language, is Alatalo’s debut feature that catapults the filmmaker into the same melt movie categories held in reverence by fans of “Body Melt” or “Street Trash” while kissing the outer edges of vintage and cult iconic eurotrash from the 80’s.  “Rave” will be our consecutive watch, analyze, and review into body horror, following the more gore-gorging merge of man and machine of Davide Pesca’s “Re-Flesh” released last year.  “Rave” proclaims a more stylized and abstruse approach compared to Pesca’s grossly unconcealed transgressions of the body.  Haveri Film is the production company behind “Rave.”

“Rave” asynchronously follows two central characters beginning with the rave-reserved and dry-hesitant Lina before a switcheroo into dipping into the carefree, go-with-the-flow, drug-positive Mimmi.  Played correspondingly by Tuva Jagell (“Girls Lost”) and Isabelle Grill (“Midsommar”), the main principals are a dichotomizing pair of personalities mutually connected to each other by friendship and though Alatalo ultimately decides not to fully explore the intimacies of a cherished bond in post-climax, there’s certainly a relatability audiences will be able to understand amongst their own friendship terms, such as seemingly tired of the meekness or revel in being the dominating friend, as being fostered with empowerment, or on the opposite side of the spectrum, needing a friend to take charge, provide reassures, and be a beacon of exuberance.   However, all the letting go on inhibitions come at a cost, a deadly one at that, and when they essentially are the peak of being identical for perhaps the first time in their lives together, the closeness of Lina and Mimmi become mortally unraveled by what could be described as pure, unadulterated Hell.  What also unravels is their friendship in the midst of drugs coursing through their bloodstream and their minds have shutoff with the trance rhythm of the house music, both aspects of which put up walls to deflect the danger from within and around them, making them clueless to the clues.  Jagell and Grill’s performances have more physical importance than whatever come be extracted from their slim dialogue written for the characters and the two young actresses convert themselves into the roles of psychedelic terror. “Rave’s” partygoers round out with Victor Iván, Sophie Lücke, Ebba Gangoura, Sebastian Norén, Christer Wahlberg, and Celina Braute.

“Rave” is a flash of brilliance tightly confined and bottlenecked to not be bigger than needed by squeezing to contain its claustrophobic purgatory that’s wrapped like a nightmare on molly.  “Rave” is also not a straightforward line of coke, glow sticks, and fleshy fluid fiends within what is an ambiguous narrative that requires an open mind to its reverence for elder Euro horror.  That’s what I suspect Alatalo was shooting for here, an immense adoration and respect for European horror peppered with inspirations from American filmmakers as well.  Soft brilliance of Dario Armento lighting, silhouette eeriness of Lamberto Bava cinematography, and the slow bloodletting of Lucio Fulci’s gore represent the best qualities of same continental yore while including a John Carpenter story-ingrained synth score and paying homage to American melt horror filmmakers, such as J. Michael Muro, Gregory Lamberson, and Philip Brophy to name a few, with his own rendition of what it means to have skin slink and blood secrete from inside the body out.  While the first viewing doesn’t quite stimulate immediately the senses with its slow burn dread, ambiguous cause and effect, and dialogue adverse script, “Rave” glues itself to the psyche and lingers in that cranial netherworld that nags and gnaws at the subconscious and does it enough that a second viewing becomes necessary.  Instantly, piecing together the puzzle through a second visual overlay can jumpstart the engines on what exactly we’re witnessing – Alatalo’s patience with the structure, meticulous details in the scene, and admiration for the genre.  “Rave” is also an indie picture on a budget but considering the composition of the final product, “Rave” strongly accomplishes a persistent uneasiness without exposition that parallels subtle strikes of sharp, startling dread only seen by a handful of filmmakers.    

A whole new version of neon dead arrives onto a special edition Blu-ray of Nils Alatalo’s “Rave” from Scream Team Releasing.  The AVC encoded, 1080p high definition, BD25 presents the film in a widescreen 1:78:1 aspect ratio, scaled down from the original aspect ratio of Univision 2.00:1 causing some minor compressed looking scenes.  Not to be deterred, the range of scene setups under the cinematography trio of Jakob Ivar Ekvall, Amelia Finngåård, and Gustav Råström offer an eclectic mix often in the humblest of fashions, such as using just a camera flashlight in a windowless room or the red and blue neon lighting through fog machine.  Silhouettes delineate nicely on screen with the use of backlighting and camera angles.  Framing is a hit or miss coupled with energetic editing, but the overall atmosphere is agreeably chafed with tension.  Minor banding and some aliasing creep out as artifact side effects of a dark-laden story with some of the quicker moments evading the slimy-secretors through the building trying to keep up through the decoding of data.  The compression issues are not terribly invasive during viewing, but they are annoying consistent and notifiable.  The Swedish uncompressed LPCM 5.1 surround mix has lossless binding and sounds really good environmentally albeit many of the tracks are done in post, such as some of the exterior dialogues, which sound natural but softer in the scene, and the itemized milieu ambience.  The Joakim Martinsson and Christer Wahlberg house music and soundtrack are the real victors here integrated into “Rave’s” overall sound design of having the discordant industrial rhythms and irregularities become an antagonistic competitor breathing through the back and side channels, reminiscent of how intrinsic Giuliano Sorgini’s score heightened the intensity of the impending zombie attack.  English subtitles are optionally available.  Bonus features include an English commentary by director Nils Alatalo providing insight on nearly every shot, a soundtrack featurette alternating between Joakim Martinsson and Christer Wahlberg discussing and sample their individualized tracks, a making of montage with soundtrack only, and the film’s trailer.  The physical characteristics of the release contain a beautifully macabre composite in neon coloring and lace slipped into a standard Blu-ray snapper with latch.  Front cover is reversible with a more disheveled and strung-out Isabelle Grill looking blankly upward, which has a variation of her facial posture on the factory-distributed cover.  Disc art contains one of the gloppy ghouls bathed in red with a black background.  “Rave” release comes region free, not rated, and has a runtime of a brisk 72 minutes.  A slow burn melt movie capturing the essence of “Rave” to the grave.

Get High and Get Pumped for “Rave” on Blu-ray.