Category Archives: gore

EVIL, Over a Decade in the Making! “Profane Exhibit” reviewed! (Unearthed Films / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“The Profane Exhibit” is Finally Here! Come And Get It!

Forged, smelted, and baked from the fiery grounds of hell, 10 stories of bleak and utter horror crimson the soul with blood and pale it with terror.  Ten directors, ten stories, ten obscure unfathomable depictions tell of a draconian religious sister matron with a despotic rule over a child orphanage, a daughter held prisoner by her parents in her own home basement, a cult willing to sacrifice newborns for the sake of their demonic tribute, the Third Reich submitting to extreme measures to keep their ranks pure, a reenactment of a father and son’s unnatural skin-to-skin bonding, a nightclub’s underground bloodletting witchery, and more unnervingly bizarre ballads.  These tales of torment tatter the life force piece-by-piece until there’s nothing left to exhibit, nothing left of one’s humanity, nothing left of being human.  A cruel anthology awaits just beyond the play button, ready to shock, appeal, and maybe even stimulate the perverse, primal nature in us all.   

An anthology a decade in the making or, to be more specific, a decade plus one year in the making in the long awaited “The Profane Exhibit.”  The 10-short film anthology is the brainchild of Amanda Manuel that began principal production in 2013 and finally saw completion and release in 2024 after a slow slog of shoots, edits, and post-production this-and-thats to finally crossover the finish line.  Varying from micro shorts and to average length short films, the anthology employed 10 different in degree genre directors from all over the world to make the mark in what would become a manic syndrome of monsters, mayhem, and molestation.  Yes, we’re talking about some really gross things, some terrifying things, and some other abnormal, abstract, and abysmal things that could be happening right now in your nightmares, or under your nose.  Anthony DiBlasi (“Malum”), Yoshihiro Nishimura (“Tokyo Gore Police”), Uwe Boll (“Bloodrayne”), Marian Dora (“Cannibal”), Ryan Nicholson (“Gutterballs”), Ruggero Deodato (“Cannibal Holocaust”), Michael Todd Schneider (“August Underground’s Mordum”), Nacho Vigalondo (“Timecrimes”), Sergio Stivaletti (“The Wax Mask,”) and Jeremy Kasten (“Attic Expeditions”) helm shorts they’ve either written themselves or by contributing screenwriters Carol Baldacci Carli (“The Evil Inside”) and Paolo Zelati (“Twilight of the Dead,”).  Harbinger Pictures and Unearthed Films, who also premiered it’s at-home release, co-produced the anthology.

Much like the diversity of directors, the cast is also an assortment of aggregated talent that stretches the global gamut.  Popular and classic horror figures like Caroline Williams (“The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2”) and Clint Howard (“Ice Scream Man”) play the normal couple next door conversating about politics, date night, and work while all the while they’ve locked their daughter away from the world and use her as daddy’s little sex slave in Uwe Boll’s “Basement,” depicting the normal and safe is actually abnormal and danger right in the middle of suburbia.  Others such as the underrated scream queens Monique Parent (“The Witches of Breastwick”) as a fully naked and willing “Goodwife” to her sadistic husband, Mel Heflin (“Queen Dracula Sucks Again”) donning a pig mask, naked by the way, in a rave club along with Tina Krause (“Bloodletting”), Elhi Shiina (“Audition”) and Maki Mizui (“Mutant Girl Squad”) finding happiness amongst death, and notable global genre actors Thomas Goersch (“Voyage to Agatis”) as the German father crippled by his son’s retardation, Dan Ellis (“Gutterballs”) as the hardworking husband who has everything but it all means nihilistically nothing, and Art Ettinger, the editor name and face of Ultra Violent Magazine doing his part with a bit patron part in the nightclub.  Mostly all listed have previously worked with their short film directors previously that denotes a sense of ease and expectation from their performances but that still makes their acts nonetheless shocking.  “The Profane Exhibit” also sees a few newer faces in the conglomerated cast with Christine Ahanotu, Tayler Robinson, Tara Cardinal, Mario Dominick, Witallj Kühne, Valentina Lainati, Josep Seguí Pujol, Dídac Alcaraz, and Stephanie Bertoni showing us what they can dish out disgustingly. 

Was the 11-year wait worth it?  Over the last months years, “The Profane Exhibit” received substantial hype when Unearthed Films announced its home video release, pelting social media with here it comes, get ready for it posts, tweets, and emails and for fans who’ve been following the decade long progress, director Amanda Manuel’s “The Profane Exhibit” does not disappoint as the content storyline harks back to the lump-in-your-throat, gulp-swallowing roots of general discomfort from an Unearthed Films release.  While it may not “Slaughter Vomit Dolls” level gross of upheaved bile and whatever was ingested moments before shooting, the filmmakers go deeper into the viscerally ignorant, ugly truths.  We’re not talking monsters or supernatural entities tearing Hell a new rectum, but “The Profane Exhibit” delineates the sordid nature of the human condition in an egregiously behavioral way that some of these ideas are not so farfetched.  A select few of the filmmakers incorporate surrealism into their shorts, such as with Yoshihiro Nishimura’s aberrant Mary Poppins, known as Hell Chef, replaces a spoon full of sugar with a bowl full of cooked human when turning a frown upside down of a young girl who just killed a man who she suspected tried to rape her.  The Geisha-garbed Hell Chef flies through the air holding up her Wagasa, Japanese umbrella, when her job is done.  Most others are grounded by realism with sadism being the primary culprit – “Basement,” “Goodwife,” and, to an extent, “Sins of the Father” and “Mors of Tabula.”  And then, there are shorts like the late, and great, Ruggaro Deodato’s “The Good Kid’s” that feels hackneyed and unimpressive coming up short amongst the others and makes one think if his name alone awarded the short a spot in Manuel’s lineup. 

In all, “The Profane Exhibit” delicately caters to the indelicate and is a visual instrument of visceral imagery curated for pure shock value. Unearthed Films’ Blu-ray release has finally arrived and is now in our bone-exposed and gory fingertips. The AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition, BD50 allows for dual-layer capacity for not only to squeeze in the 108-minutes’ worth of micro shorts, but allow for extended extras, deserving to fans who’ve waited years for this production to see the light of day.  Like any other anthology, a mishmash of styles but up against each other with the assemblage of different stroke directors and cinematographers but there seems to be no issues with compression, such as banding, blocking, aliasing, or any abundance of blurry noise, in the flexing widescreens aspect ratios of 2.35:1 and 1.78:1.  A good example of Unearthed Films’ codec processing is Deodato’s bridge scene; while I don’t care for the short all that much, the long shots of the bridge are nicely detailed in the nighttime, lit only be the bridge’s powered light poles, creating a downcast of warm yellow along a solid shadow-spotty bridge.  You can see and realize the stoned texture without even using your imagination on how it should look and that tell me there’s not a ton of lossy codec at work here.  An English, Spanish, Italian, and German mix of uncompress PCM 2.0 audio serves as the common output to be as collective and unified as possible.  No issues with hampered dialogue with a clear and focused track.  There dual channel quality is robust and vibrant, living up to Yoshihiro Nishimura’s surreal energy and a commanding Japanese tone while still finding voice prominence in other shorts, if dialogue exist.  Depth is fleeting without the use of a surround mix with an anthology that’s centered around the human condition rather than atmospherics, but I do believe Jeremy Kasten’s Amuse Bouche would have greatly benefited from the distinct gnashing, squirting, and smacking sound elements of a pig being processed to consumption in his wraparound.  English and Spanish subtitles are optionally available. Years of bonus content has been produced and collected for this special release which includes an audio commentary Director Michael Todd Schneider, Producer Amanda Manuel and Ultra Violent Magazine’s Art Ettinger, a world premiere interview with creator Amanda Manuel and short director Michael Todd Schneider at the Buffalo Dreams Fantastic Film Festival, a world premiere Q&A, a 15-minute mini documentary Ten Years Later with “Mors in Tabula” director Marian Dora, an extended short entitled “Awaken Manna” with introduction and discourse, PopHorror’s Tiffany Blem Zoom interviews select directors with Michael Todd Schneider, Uwe Boll, Jeremy Kasten, and showrunner Amanda Manuel, image gallery, and trailer. The 2024 release has a runtime of 110 minutes, is not rated, and is region free.

Last Rites: Worth it. That’s the bottom line for this long-awaited film imbuing with bottom-feeders. Unearthed Films returns to roots with rancidity and fans will find their bloodlust satisfied.

“The Profane Exhibit” is Finally Here! Come And Get It!

Sacrifice and Intestines Make Great EVIL Slashers! “Ikenie Man” and “Harawata Man” reviewed! (Wild Eye Releasing / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Ikenie Man” Available on DVD Home Video!

“Ikenie Man”

Four university friends involved in a movie making club trek deep into the remote, phone service-snuffing forest eager to make their esteemed stamp on the slasher genre, or rather just the director does, as frustrations build between them, exploding furiously into an inability to find cohesive creativity, and their lead actress quits and walks off location in a fit of distaste for horror and their Prima donna director.  Idea and idea between the rest of crew of how to recoup their film from being a total failure and loss has been rejected by the nitpicking auteur looking for that novel concept to make him famous until he and the crew stumble upon a group of eight campers who all conveniently fit into conventional tropes of horror characters.  A plan quickly arranges to use their masked and knife-wielding movie villain to scare the unsuspecting campers with guerilla filmmaking tactics but there’s more to these seemingly innocent young campers than what meets the eye. 

A meta horror self-aware to all the necessary components that make a great horror movie becomes upended in a topsy-turvy tumbling machine of all the aligning mechanisms you thought you knew about a horror story.  Yu Nakamoto (“Phone of the Dead,” “Teacher! It’s a Slit-mouthed Woman!”) writes and directs the meta, self-deprecating, indie Japanese horror-comedy “Ikenie Man.”  Ikenie, translated literally to the word Sacrifice, is used to describe the in-story director’s deranged masked killer the direct himself portrays and finds himself at the sharp end of a knife, barbed wired baseball, razor edges of a chainsaw, and etc.  The 2019 released film is an open-faced hotdog of an absurd horror comedy, slathered with gory ketchup, and self-produced by the then 28-year-old, Hiroshima-born Yu Nakamoto as his sophomore short feature length film under his indie credited production company of Nakamoto Films. 

Also, Follow Up With “Harawata Man” on DVD Home Video!

“Harawata Man”

One year after the terrifying ordeal in the woods, the university movie club has evolved with the departure of the director and lead actress after graduation.  The two remaining members are joined by newcomers with an actor, actress, sound engineer, and camera operator to work on another masked slasher, titled “Harawata Man.”  When directed to meet up and shoot inside an abandoned manufacturing plant, the crew praises the location’s creepy atmospherics, but they run into another film crew shooting simultaneously on a project of their own.  Mistaken as the hired assistant crew members, they jump at the opportunity to work on a bigger-scale film until an actress is brought into the scene, sat in the middle of the room, and is bludgeoned to her actual death by the story’s plastic apron killer.  The opportunity of a lifetime just became a snuff film nightmare they can’t escape.

“Harawata Man” sequentially follows on the heels of “Ikenie Man” by taking place one year after the events of the first film and moving the setting from one genre-staple setting of the thick woods to the next best location of an abandoned factory.  Released the same year as “Ikenie Man,” one could deduce that both “Ikenie Man” and “Harawata Man” were shot essentially back-to-back with some down time in between productions and that might explain the mark of no return of some principal characters that didn’t, or couldn’t, appropriately fit into the new story, which would align with the absence of the titular “Ikenie Man.”  Harawata translates to the ever-delicate word Intestines describes the story’s small indie film crew’s killer who rips out the victim’s guts.  “Harawata Man” is a less meta than its predecessor film by relying more on its comedic context as another Yu Nakamoto Film production. 

_______

So, because I do not know the Japanese alphabetical language of hiragana, katakana, and kanj and there’s limited information on IMDB.com, as well as other referential sources, the cross reference of cast to characters is not obviously clear.  Instead, going through the character carousal to understand motivations and journeys has become a forced prudence.  “Ikenie Man’s” setup is an expositional setup from the indie filmmaking foursome to run through what us genre aficionados already know:  character tropes, emblematic motifs, and traditional character arcs, such as the rise of the final girl.  “Scream” had highlighted and called out the trade ingredients of recipe elements to make Grandma’s stew that much more appetizing to a new, inexperienced market of up-and-coming fans.  The franchise’s sequels to follow leaned into the rules of subsequential follow ups with each tweaking just a little to make them worthwhile.  Nakamoto flips the script for more campy devices into an un-genre-like routine that sees the virgin killed right away, the nerd is secretly a jock under his four eyes wear, and the only masked “killer” in the story turns out to be the unwilling hero.  “Harawata Man” takes a step back toward more familiar plot grounds of an independent film crew winding up into unfortunate chanceful circumstances and having to defend themselves against sociopathic snuff filmmakers.  However, it’s the way the misfortunate film crew becomes fortunately favored is how they use slasher rudiments to defends themselves that dips the toes of this sequel into the meta pool, taking on the role of maniacs and omnipresent killers who slice and dice with authority and the snuff filmmakers run, yell, and scream for their live becoming the hapless kill fodder.  Yûta Chatani, Maki Hamada (“Tokyo Gore Police”), Tomoaki Saitô (“Phone of the Dead”), Yasunari Ujiie, Yûko Gotô, Marie Kai, Tanabe Nanami, Tsugumi Sakurai, Sumre Ueno (“Ghost Squad”), Yû Yasuda (“Rise of the Machine Girls’), and Shigeo Ôsako (“Grotesque”) are the cast listed.

As far as Japanese gore films go, Nakamoto films are lite when looking at the niche genre as a whole, paling in comparison to such films as “Toyko Gore Police” or “Audition,” but that doesn’t stop “Ikenie Man” or “Harawata Man” from decapitation, severing, eviscerating, and perforating at will with fountainous blood splatter, one of the better absurd keynotes seen in gory J-horror that goes back to Japan’s samurai films of yore.  Gore certainly dangles the carrot of catching these films on either the preferrable home video or, dare I say it, Tubi, but Nakamoto refuses to make it the focal backbone of his films; instead, the story’s meta comedy goes hard with assurances toward every genuine horror fan out there will recognize Nakamoto’s admiration for the genre.  “Ikenie Man” and “Harawata Man” not only spoof horror but also adapt into a new breed of that line of thinking that reminiscent of how “Tucker & Dale vs. Evil” brought upon role reversals through character perception.  Plot paths switch to an unrecognizable gear, much like the films’ official synopses try to mislead with a generic framework, but these new directions still sate that blood thirst to keep interest, tone the black humor to be less wincingly slapdash, and keep the pacing fair, drive practical-effects with intent, and the intense horror-comedy upright in a saturated genre market.

Now available from Wild Eye Releasing is “Ikenie Man” and “Harawata Man” on DVD, encoded on a MPEG-2 compression DVD-5 with upscaled 1080p resolution. Curious enough, the opening company credits list both films as part of the Raw & Extreme sublabel but the physical cases list no such notation in what appears to be a regular Wild Eye Releasing title. Presented in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio, the uncredited same camera and unlisted cinematography process by Yu Nakamoto is used for each production with “Ikenie Man” using gel filters to get a nice wide variety of primary glow splashed along character faces during night and light fog sequences. “Harawata Man” forgoes a colorful visual tone for more key lighting in a darker, basement dwelling. Picture quality and detail from the digital capturing translates fine from original print to reproduction with adequate compression of a short feature film with virtually no extras encoded. A LPCM uncompress Stereo 2.0 lines both audio tracks with fair fidelity in a clean and prominent pitch-accented Japanese language, balanced between two very contrasting scores of an energetic synth and “Halloween”-esque piano tracks of “Ikenie Man” compared to the generic stock of hurried, lower keyed tones that pale against Nakamoto’s first score. Depth is good and the range of sounds, such as the ripping of the chainsaw or the thwacking of kicks and punches, have a mixed realism that plays into the comedy side of the horror-comedy. Between hectic moments, you can recognize the unfiltered growling of a generator in the background in “Ikenie Man” to be able to shoot in the woods, a little indie film audio easter egg to discern. English subtitles are forced on both Japanese tracks and while the pacing is good and there are no misspellings, you can tell the translator is not a native English speaker as the written grammar is more literal and unnatural. Only trailers grace both films’ bonus features, but each individual physical set comes with new original compositional poster art front covers from Japanese artist Kit Nishino, staying the tried-and-true course of Wild Eye Releasing’s outrageous physical media facades, as well as the reversible sleeve contains the original Japanese poster art. Both discs are pressed with their respective primary cover arts and there are no inserts included. The Wild Eye Releases are region free, not rated, and have brief, under 60-minute runtimes of 52-minues for “Ikenie Man” and 46-minutes for “Harawata Man.”

Last Rites: Yu Nakamoto’s small but mighty meta slashers make a good double bill, an on its head combo of a run amok head decapitations for the sake of playing the reverse card to mix things up on a respectable homage, comedy, and horror scale that gives Wild Eye Releasing’s “Ikenie Man” and “Harawata Man” more than just the self-referential mediocrity treatment.

“Ikenie Man” Available on DVD Home Video!

Also, Follow Up With “Harawata Man” on DVD Home Video!

EVIL Backwoods Cannibals Are Back for Seconds! “Butchers Book Two: Raghorn” reviewed! (Breaking Glass Pictures / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Ready to Eat? “Butchers Book Two: Raghorn” Available Here on DVD!

The abduction of a wealthy family’s daughter drives the four kidnappers onto the backroads of rural America toward their way to riches.  However, things turn south as their vehicle strikes a large raghorn, instantly dissolving their escape route and their previously teetering plan.  A festering betrayal and greed divide the group that leads them into the cannibalistic hands of the sadistic, backwoods inhabitant Clyde and his monstrous freak of a brother Crusher.  Always looking for a good piece of meat and with a brutal penchant for playing with his food, Clyde takes them hostage at gunpoint, ties them up, and has fun torturing and tenderizing his foraged prize before chopping them up to pieces on a bloody stump for stew makings.  Yet, the abducted woman refuses to be the victim and let terrible, awful atrocities happen to her, and not even let it happen to her kidnappers, by escaping her confines and managing to get ahold of a double barrel shotgun.  A standoff ensues but nothing gets in between Clyde and his food. 

“Butchers Book Two:  Raghorn” is director Adrian Langley’s 2024 standalone sequel to his lowkey breakout 2020 hit, the indie backwoods cannibal-survivor picture, “Butchers”.  The sequel doesn’t stray too far from the precursory film’s primary premise with a family of degenerate provincials with a taste for human flesh whisking away stranded travelers in some kind deranged version of roadside assistance.  Langley directs and writes the script for the film based off a story conceived by Langley and Kolin Casagrande, who previously collaborated with Langley as a producer on his 2010 crime thriller directed feature entitled “Donkey.”  More than a decade later, Casagrande and Langley are again making beautiful violence together with Blue Fox Entertainment’s James Huntsman (“Bunker”), a parent company of the film’s distributor, Red Hound Entertainment, and “Butcher’s” Doug Phillips as producers and another “Butcher” producer, Kevin Preece, as associate producer.

Aforementioned, “Butchers Book Two:  Reghorn” doesn’t subsequently follow the first feature and introduces new set of paltry protagonists versus a new set of insatiable and vile cannibals deep within the middle of the woods of Nowheresville, America.  The party forcibly partook in the cannibals’ cruelty isn’t necessarily all an innocent party as they’re mostly kidnappers looking to score big from their captive.  Dave Coleman (“Ghoul House”), Miguel Cortez, Sam Huntsman (“Bunker”), son of producer James Huntsman, and Hollie Kennedy portray the ensnared antiheros with the latter two being most of the focus amongst them, seeing that they are cousins that evoke more empathy than the less empathic former.  The wild car outside of that and who are not the viciously outweighing outliers is the girl in the trunk, who is actually a man named Corgand Svendsen.  The androgynous model from Canada hikes up a skirt and wears a tight top crop to become the damsel Ash but Ash is no damsel in distress.  The story shifts from Ash’s bagged head and wrists tied helplessness to become the infiltrating protagonist to take up Clyde and Crusher to do what’s right, even if that means saving the skin, literally, on a couple of her captors.  Svendsen gives a calm and subdued performance, especially as a hostage in the money scheme and in the bloody mitts of cannibals, but perhaps there’s more than what meets the eye for Ash.  Perhaps, Ash is a part of the kidnapping scheme in a theorized plot between Ash and Sam Huntsman character Josh who frequently tries to make Ash comfortable in the whole ordeal and Ash is just trying to salvage her investment, but the strength of that theory never fully materializes in Ash’s motivation to go against two ruthless killers rather than to flee free with her life.  Clyde and Crusher are the two mysteriously originated characters who live in the woods and eat people.  Their background is not specified or shared in any minute way but “What Lurks Beneath’s” Nick Biskupek plays a mean, man-eating son of a bitch in Clyde while Michael Swatton, who previously played one of the Watson brothers in original “Butchers,” compliments his “little” brother as a colossal, head-crushing freak of a nature left in the audience’s peripheral view.  The sequel’s casts ends with Mark Templin (“We Are the Missing”) as a moment of reprieve stopgap sheriff tracking down the vehicular accident victims who may not be victims after all.

Watching “Butchers Book Two:  Raghorn” is like watching in a déjà vu fog.  The similar premise to the 2020 film peruses familiar aisles of country-chic cannibals chopping careless characters who stumble into their killing grounds.  What the sequel drops is the perversive and family legacy angle, reducing the story to just two brothers living isolated on the outskirts and barbequing people as they happenstance wander by.  Langley also doesn’t up the graphic nature but sustains the same amount of gore and mordacious violence.  Even when cutting down the killer contingent down half its size, violence remains taut and palpable for shock effect as Langley does make the savagery purposeful rather than just gratuitous.  “Raghorn” is by no means a bigger, badder sequel, as most sequels tend to try and exceed expectations and outdo the first, i.e. more blood, bigger body count, detailed special effects, etc., but the indie roots that made the original film palpable are still firmly grounded with a, literally, grab-it-by-the-balls, suit yourself story without the poking and prodding influences of a rapacious producer or studio with flashing dollar signs in their eyes. 

Breaking Glass Pictures’ “Butchers Book Two:  Raghorn” would have been a perfect fit for the distributor’s short-lived extreme horror sublabel, Vicious Circle Films.  However, we’re still glad the sequel made the home video market under one of Philadelphia’s most prominent indie distributor labels with a DVD release.  The MPEG-2, single layered, DVD5 is presented in an upscaled 1080p with a widescreen 16:9 aspect ratio.  While not receiving high-definition resolution, you’ll be fairly pleased with the quality of this release that retains some faithful reproductions in textural details, such as Clyde’s cutoff jean jacket and overall grimy attire that does highlight the jacket’s frayed ends and the outlined dirt patches or the engulfing variety of foliage that naturally exhibited innate green shades, but also the general appearance is soft in the more depth of details.  Langley, who wears multiple production hats between editing, directing, and writing, also is behind the cinematographer lens to create the space of depth and to be stylistic with a few pan and track occurrences.  The English Dolby Digital 5.1 surround mix is the only lossy option available that renders a traversable diffusion of sound throughout with balanced layers between dialogue, ambience, and soundtrack layers.  Clyde’s intelligent intelligibility under a twang tongue clearly finds the audio receptors with the remaining dialogue denoting clarity in the same fashion. English subtitles are available for optional use. While Breaking Glass Pictures’ releases do not have a wealth of bonus content, most have some content to peruse; however, this particular release is feature only. The region 1 playback DVD has a runtime of 89 minutes and is not rated.

Last Rites: From the book of Andrian Langley’s cannibal misfits, a second story lives and breathe in “Butchers Book Two: Raghorn,” a gruesome, miscreant fanned, survival of the hungriest for their cravings tale wrapped just a tad too lightly for proper consumption.

Ready to Eat? “Butchers Book Two: Raghorn” Available Here on DVD!

The Itsy-Bitsy EVIL Crawled Down Your Throat and Ate Your Insides! “Sting” reviewed! (Well Go USA Entertainment / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Sting” Is Available for Pre-Order for a Blu-ray July 30th Release!

A rebellious, preteen girl wading through the stepfather muck of new family dynamics befriends a small spider she discovers while snooping around a neighbor’s room in her apartment building.  The unique, small spider can mimic her every vocal sound, quickly captivating the girl’s interest as she seeks solace from her upended life, and the spider is constantly hungry being sequestered to a jar as the girl’s newfound pet.  The more she feeds the spider she’s named Sting the bigger it grows in a short period of time.  During the night, Sting unconfines itself and roams the airducts, immobilizing apartment residing animals and people alike with a potent paralyzing bite, to then web-encase them in the ducts and feast upon her captured prizes while still alive.  When Sting threatens the girl’s family, she must put her angsty squabbles and feelings aside and take the fight to her once beloved pet that has now become a giant, flesh-eating, arachnid.

There hasn’t been this much fun in a giant spider movie since “Eight Legged Freaks!”  “Sting” is a 2024, Australian creature feature from “Wyrmwood” franchise director Kiah Roache-Turner who pours portions of his own experiences in life into the script, metamorphosing “Sting” from being not only just a monstrous amount of arachnophobia but also a personally purging of multitude of fears rolled up into one web-slinging scary movie.  The story is set inside a slum apartment building in New York City at the centric mercy of a Northeastern blizzard; however, “Sting” is actually shot on a production stage in Sydney, in the New South Wales province of Australia, that has taken on the doubling duty for The Big apple.  “Sting” is a coproduction between Align Films, Pictures in Paradise, and See Pictures with “Wyrmwood:  Road of the Dead’s” Michael Potin, Jaimie Hilton, and “Daybreakers’” Chris Brown producing.

The cast is comprised of mostly Australian actors modulating their voices to the American accent and doing a rather impeccable job at it with only a slight slip of a slower drawl.  The principal nuclear family opens in the middle of new dad throes, the building’s handyman Ethan (Ryan Corr, “Wolf Creek 2”) struggling to not only meet the demands on his slumlord boss / stern aunt by marriage named Gunter (Robyn Nevin, “The Matrix Reloaded”) but also navigate a path toward a better, more-to-his-liking job while also reaching through and connecting with his defiant stepdaughter Charlotte (Alyla Browne, “Furiosa:  A Mad Max Saga”).  Sting, the spider, runs through the apartment tenants that include a depressed and alcoholic widower (Silvia Colloca, “Van Helsing”), a monotone marine biology grad student (Danny Kim), and even a spirited exterminator (the only American in the film in Jermaine Fowler, “The Blackening”) who holsters a nail gun for NYC protection as well as vermin gas bombs on his utility belt.  All-in-all, diversity is rich if not slightly stereotyped, but Roache-Turner does a really good job at telling their backstories through the camera shots and without the need for much expositional dialogue, such as the unsaid death of the widower’s family but enough visuals and grief expressions do formulate what happened.  Components of backstory life heighten the tension, or even share awkward moments, collectively between neighbors and family members that lead to presumptions and to, eventually, an explosion of distrust and anger that makes the perfect screener to blind them what’s really creepily-crawlingly around.  Noni Hazlehurst and Penelope Mitchell (“Hellboy” ’19) conclude the casting as immigrant mother with Alzheimer’s and her first-generation daughter married to Ethan and trying to also navigate a precarious life out from under her slumlord aunt’s grasp.

“Sting” is one of those movies that reminds horror fans why the genre is great and beloved.  Titular spider named after the “Lord of the Ring’s” sword that injured Shelob, the giant spider, in “Return of the King” and a definitive “Alien” inspired film, complete with a viciously blood-thirsty extraterrestrial bug that suspends prey with webbing and a badass female heroine, “Sting” masters the giant spider effect by mostly using practical means.  That’s right, a giant spider puppet, manned by eight puppeteers, checks most of the computer-imagery at the door and enters with confidence from master of effects Sir Richard Taylor and his team from Wētā Workshop, who has help build effects for the recent “Mortal Kombat,” Ti West’s “MaXXXine” films, and has had a helping hand in the MCU.  Skulking on ceilings, stealthily silking down, locomoting with smooth, natural movements as the spider, approximately the size of large black Labrador, has manipulated properties to lurk and hunt to visually feed the need and scare the phobia right into your once comforted being.  The story’s struggling family and honesty-is-the-best-policy themes ground “Sting’s” rabid arachnida with relatable turmoils, especially from a parenting and child point of views and anyone who has had children or parents, like the majority of us do, will understand preteen problems.  Ultimately, Sting represents childish hidden secrets, something they can control of their own volition, and a rebellious cause that’s ironically not good for them, turns uncontrollable, and is an obvious problem, akin to doing drugs for an extended period.  Sting might not be a line of cocaine or a hypodermic needled filled with narcotic poison, but space spider does have toxicity that courses a paralyzing agent conveyed by a single bite. 

Spiders are the demonized sharks of the land and continue to string webs of fear inside audiences.  Well Go USA Entertainment Blu-ray of “Sting” proves spiders still secrete a damn good monster movie that’s one part “Aliens” and one part “Charlotte’s Web” with an AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition, BD25 release presented in a 1.85:1 aspect ratio.  For a Well GO USA product, “Sting” is one of their better compressed discs that I’ve seen, retaining unexpurgated blacks and fling out glistening, texture palpable details throughout, and there were a plenty of black and low-lit areas to what afflicts most of the label’s releases, a potentially image sidelining obstacle. Coloring is a tad soft but moderately sound when juxtaposed against an enormously, slick gun-metal toned spider. The English DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio surround sound mix renders with strength, a solid, multi-channel testing sound design when the spider creates a clatter in the airducts for back, side, and front localization. Depth appropriate is fine as well as a wide range of audio action onomatopoeia. No issues or obstacles obstructing the clean and clear dialogue, layered in the forefront and level weaved into the action where needed. English subtitles, as well as English SDH and French subtitles, are optionally available. Typically, we do not usually receive in-depth special features from Well Go USA due in part of his long history with Eastern films where bonus content seems nearly nonexistent. For “Sting,” there’s a substantial behind-the-scenes featurette taking a long look on the Roache-Turner’s concept and inspiration, the Creation of the Monster sizes up how the special effects were completed by Sir Richard Taylor’s company, interviews with the cast and crew on making the film, and the theatrical trailer. Encased inside a conventional Blu-ray Amaray, Sting has, in my opinion, a very effective, genuinely creepy poster of a spider walking across the floor next to a body, graded in a blue hue and working deep with the shadow angle for potency. Well Go USA surprises again with the fun disc pressed art of a toon-ish illustration that doesn’t seemingly fit the rest of the package marketing but becomes clear from the storyline. An advert for the company’s other newer releases, “The Flying Swordsman,” “Your Lucky Day,” and “A Creature Was Stirring,” is adjacently tucked in. “Sting” has a well-paced 91-minute runtime, is region A encoded for playback, and is rated R for violent content, bloody images, and language.

Last Rites: No doubt about it. “Sting” is fang-tastic! A modern spidersploitation film that flexes hard, built upon the strong backs of some great pop culture and science-fiction horror moments as an endearing tribute.

“Sting” Is Available for Pre-Order for a Blu-ray July 30th Release!

God Works in Miracles, Man Works in EVILs. “Immaculate” reviewed! (Neon / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Mary Didn’t Have This Much Trouble. “Immaculate” on Blu-ray!

Devout American nun, Sister Cecilia, has been appointed a position in the Italian countryside, a historical convent where terminally ill nuns live in the sisterly comfort of hospice.  Feeling blessed for the opportunity to serve and her faith remaining second to none, the young nun believes she found her true calling and takes her devotional vows in the eyes of God and Jesus Christ, amongst other young nuns in confirmation.   During her training of changing out bedpans and beheading chickens for meals, an uneasiness washes over Cecilia ever since the night of her confirmation reception and being granted to behold one of the stakes that was impaled through the hand of Christ.  As if by miracle, an explanation suddenly and terrifyingly reveals itself not only to her complete shock but the entire convent when she’s discovered to be pregnant through immaculate conception.  As weeks turns to months, Cecilia is forced to focus on baby instead of chores but there’s something dark and malevolent happening behind the convent doors that result in her unable to leave the convent grounds, fellow outspoken nuns disappear, and one sister commits suicide.  The once blessed opportunity has turned into unimaginable terror with no way out. 

Sydney Sweeney is so hot right now.  With her provocative success on HBO’s take of youth and vices in “Euphoria” and a nihilistic teenage daughter in the same premium channel’s series, “The White Lotus, the now 26-year-old Washington state-born actress has also peppered her career with horror films, even at a childish age with her first appearance, a minor role, in a comedy-horror “ZMD:  Zombies of Mass Destruction” and continuing her fresh and new vocation with notable parts directed by notable directors, such as John Carpenter’s “The Ward” and Tibor Takács “Spiders,” that would subsequently offshoot into principal leads of less heeded, moderately successful thrillers when in adulthood with “Along Came the Devil,” “Dead Ant,” and “Nocturne.”  Her latest venture is one she became personally invested in, a modern-day nunsploitation titled “Immaculate,” reteaming Sweeney with her 2021 “The Voyeurs’” writer-director Michael Mohan at the helm of their latest collaborative effort.  Mohan, however, did not write the film with feature film newcomer Andrew Lobel taking the job that would take a decade to fruition once Sweeney, who auditioned for the role when she was 17 years old, made it her passion project to see it come to life  Alongside Sweeney producing is Ben Shafer, Riccardo Neri, Michael Heimler, David Bernard, Jonathan Davino, and Teddy Schwarzman with Neon distributing the Black Bear presentation of the Fifty-Fifty Films and Middle Child Films coproduction. 

Sweeney exacts the very definition of virginal innocence, a small-town girl with a miraculous backstory that nearly cost her her life.  As a sincerely devout Catholic in Sister Cecelia, Sweeney must shape up an intake of naivety that blinds her to the subtle sinisterism amassing around her.  To do that, a medley of personalities must dupe her, sway her, disparage her, and comfort her to keep the character balanced before the blindsiding shock that surprises her with a twisted misconception and exploitation of God theme. Heading up the mix of madness is the convent’s resident priest, Father Sal Tedeschi, played by Spanish actor Álvaro Morte, indoctrinating a warm welcome as a guise for advantageous deceptiveness, but for what, we yet don’t yet know.  The alarming setup pins Cecelia to the convent grounds, surrounded by equally unconscionable characters in an insistent Cardinal Franco Meroa (Giorgio Colangeli), a benignly sweet Mother Superior (Dora Romano), and a disparaging Sister Isabelle (Giulia Heathfield Di Renzi”), and with little options of escape, or even allies within the walls, Cecelia is truly alone against a rogue Catholic sect that seeks to resurrect Christ in an unconventional and unnatural way against Canon law.  Cecelia’s arc fully embraces the change through Sweeney’s rather transfigured understanding of the religious institution Cecelia devotes her life to and, in the same breath, the nun keeps with the organization’s traditional principles of God’s will and not man’s interference and must be the righteous hand of wrath.  “Immaculate’s” cast rounds out with Benedetta Porcaroli, Giampiero Judica, Giuseppe Lo Piccolo, and Simona Tabasco, who has a “White Lotus” connection with Sydney Sweeney.

If you’re like me and avoid most trailers, reviews, or spoilers to try and keep an unbiased opinion, you may be taken aback by “Immaculate’s” gargantuan twist that goes against everything you may know and believe about the Catholic Church’s dogma and principles.  Granted, several non-Catholics likely believe the Church is corrupt and with recent years’ newsworthy scandals, those Church cynics’ fire has had a continuous stream of fueling fodder.  “Immaculate” plays into the fear, pessimism, and beyond reproach suspicion by subverting religion as a false façade and integrates unlikely, go-against-the-grain coupled themes of genetics tampering, bypassing God, murdering in His name, and even exploiting the Catholic hierarchy with slivers of patriarchal governance over a woman’s body.  We get the latter from the very first opening sequence of Cecelia having just arrived in Italy and is brought before two custom officials who remark, in Italian in order for her now to understand, that her religious vocation to be obedience, impoverished, and chaste wastes her youthful beauty. Then again, “Immaculate” is not beautiful; it’s grotesque, perverted, and shocking and at the core, a purity that’s being sullied by deranged power and evil enlightenments.  Cecelia represents a beacon of hope in a maelstrom of immorality. 

Shudderingly intense and sordidly messed up, “Immaculate” arrives onto a Neon Blu-ray home release.  Presented in a widescreen, Univisium aspect ratio of 2:00:1, the AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition, feature is housed on a single-layered 25 gigabyte disc.  Curious the reason why Neon would choose a lower capacity for such a purposefully soft and dark videographic image that creates a solemn tone inside a harsh appearance of an unpronounced period piece, perhaps set around the 1960s-1970s judging by the wardrobe, suitcases, and other set dressings.  Not also to exclude the premature notions of genetic manipulations that have made giant modernized leaps in the contemporary day-and-age.  Even with emaciated encoded, “Immaculate” looks pretty good around skin tones and textures and not a tone of compression follies to report.  With darker images on lower capacities banding and blocking rear their ugliness but there’s not a tone of that here. Saturation reduction plays into the time period and mood and the specified range of grading is kept to a modestly warm yellow, greens, and reds surfacing above ever so slightly through thick shadows of inkier, key-lit or candle-lit frames and even making a miniscule presence in daylit moments, boarding classical noir on some occasions.  The English-Italian DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio has lossless appeal that wriggles out clean atmospheric genre cues through the multiple, surrounding channels.  Creaky doors and floors, deep footsteps, cavernous echoing, all play into the ambience track’s gothic timbres.  Conversating dialogue mounts a clear fixed positioning that sharp and clean through Sweeney’s character’s slight Midwestern intonation to the heavily and broad Italian accents from native vernacular to second language English speakers.  A descriptive English 2.0 audio track is also available as well as optional English and Spanish subtitles for the primary track.  One reason “Immaculate” is on a BD25 is because of the only bonus feature available is a feature length commentary track with director Michael Mohan.  The physical side of the Neon release includes a slipcover with the same tones mentioned above with a pious looking Sydney Sweeney in habit and also covered stoically in blood from the collar down.  The backside of the slipcover scarcely has technical information which is pleasant to see the limited real estate being used for something else other than the nuts and bolts that should remain on the Blu-ray’s Amaray case.  Its slightly reminiscent of the way certain boutique labels design their limited slips.  However, what’s not reminiscent of boutique design is the same slipcover front and back image is used for the Blu-ray case too.  Inside is sparse with only the disc with a simple yet effective black background, red titled pressing.  Rated R for Strong and Bloody Violent Content Grisly Images, Nudity, and Some Language, the Neon release has a runtime of 89 minutes and is encoded for region A playback.

Last Rites: “Immaculate” is blessed be the fruit of present-day Nunsploitation themed with power trips that attempt to bypass God and the laws of nature. The finale powerfully depicts and deciphers the principles of one’s firm held faith under God’s will, and perhaps wrath, in its ugliest form.

Mary Didn’t Have This Much Trouble. “Immaculate” on Blu-ray!