Category Archives: History

EVIL Follows the Virtuous. “Justine” reviewed! (Blue Underground / 4K UHD & Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Own Your Piece of Virtue with this 2-Disc “Justine” set from Blue Undergrounda and MVD Visual!  

Unable to continue their religious education, left with a meager currency to afford room, board and food, and holding no station or options for social pursuit, Justine and her sister Juliette are put out to the streets of 18th century France.  While Juliette recruits herself into a Madame’s established brothel for money, shelter, and sleight of hand opportunities, leading a life sinful in flesh, murder, and exploit that reaps luxurious benefits into high society, a more chaste Justine finds her path to be far less desirable.  Her virtue becomes the object of obsession, lust, and is taken advantage of for other’s personal gain.  No longer protected by her parents or the convent’s shelter, Justine is exposed to the wickedness of the world in every form and fashion with only slithers of bliss here and there as a reward of her decency only to be immediately snatched from her grasp before she can even enjoy a second.  Accused of stealing and murder, tortured and branded, imprisoned and convicted, labeled an escaped enemy of France, and with her virtue corrupted by a cult of pleasure seekers, Justine questions a life led in chastity and overall goodness that has brought her nothing but pain and strife. 

On the heels of my own personal overseas trip to France, a trip for pleasure if you must know, I found it timely and fitting that the Jess Franco directed film, the Marquis de Sade’s “Justine,” would be the next celluloid critique of enticing pulpy obscura.  A part of a pair of Marquis de Sade-themed productions from producer Harry Alan Towers, the other being “Eugenie,” the Eurotrash sexploitation is based off Marquis de Sade’s 1791 novel Justine, or The Misfortunes of Virtue and is adapted for screen by Towers from an original treatment penned by Arpad DeRiso (“Death Steps in the Dark”) and Erich Kronte. “Justine” is one of Franco’s most ambitious visual epics with ornate time period customers, elaborate and grand locations, and an anthology of sorts of the titular character’s misadventures through France that disenchant her chastity. Corona Filmproduktion and the Aica Cinematografica S.R.L. served as the co-productions of this Italian-Spanish 1969 film.

Perhaps the most recognizable and most notable adaptation of Marquis de Sade’s novel, “Justine” is also popularized by its identifiable cast with big names in not only Europe but also in America. The opening scenes with Klaus Kinski, in a wraparound narrative as the Marquis de Sade himself imprisoned and suffering visions of bloodied and bound naked women, immediately draws you into the “Nosferatu the Vampyre” and “Schizoid” actor’s character plight and muted damnation into writing about virtue, a misfortunate respectability. The other famous face in the film, one that spans from Europe to the U.S., is Romina Power as the titular “Justine.” Power, daughter of actor-songwriter Tyrone Power, was, in her own right, a well-known Eurovision singer after the release of the Franco film, but it was her father’s musical talents who landed the sweet-faced Romina into the denigrated young woman role. While Kinski acts on pure facial expression alone, using his iconic, distinct facial features, Power offered a more rigid approach like a child locked by confusion and while unintentional and usually not what any filmmaker wants in a devoid of relaying vicarious expressive emotions, Power naive innocence proves key to Justine’s, well dare I say it, naive innocence. Power’s beauty alone could have stood ground in making the attack from angles perversity film work like a charm. One of the more surprising casted members is Jack Palance. Yes, Curly from “City Slickers” or Jake Stone from “Cops and Robbersons” outlines the formidable pleasure-seeking cult leader Brother Antonin with such gusto flamboyance, the must-see and most-enjoyable performance seemingly feels alien to the usual stoic and stern typecasted actor who could rival Clint Eastwood with a fierce thousand-yard stare. Having co-starred in the Franco-de Sade film “Eugenie” a few years later, Maria Rohm, aka Harry Alan Towers wife, plays the role of Juliette and while the story is ultimately a dichotomy of virtue and sin, there’s an imbalance between the two characters for screen time. The Marquis de Sade’s novel was named “Justine” after all. For her alotted screen time, Rohm provides a suitable sinful scarlet woman climbing the aristocratic ladder by cheating, stealing, and killing her way to the top. The cast fills out with Harold Leiptnitz (“The Brides of Fu Manchu”), Horst Frank (“The Cat o’ Nine Tails”), Gustavo Re (“Horror Story”), Sylva Koscina (“Uncle was a Vampire”), Akim Tamiroff, Rosalba Neri (“The French Sex Murders”), and “99 Women’s” Mercedes McCambridge in an unforgettable role as a nasty gang-leading woman whose high-velocity cruelty rockets are so homed in on Justine it’s explosively devastating to watch.

Having seen the elegance of interior architectures inside Paris’s Opera house, walked the cobblestone streets surrounding the monumental Eiffel Tower, and taking in the laissez-faire of the French way of life, I can honestly say Jess Franco captures France impeccably well for an self-exiled Spaniard known more for his sleaziness and horror than his efforts in cinematic expressionism.   Arching with one big showcase revolving around the idea that virtue will get you nowhere and will be nothing but trouble, ultimately putting to question the validity of the decency concept, the narrative is broken up into a mini-scenarios, mostly of Justine being completely subjugated to the wicked whims of others and a handful of Juliette erecting a better life off the backs of others she’s duped or snuffed.  Franco mastered false hope and misconceptions with each of Justine’s encounters as they lure her in with promises of salvation to then only kick her when she’s down and reap full advantage of her inexperience and gullibility that the world is full of good people.  Sordid and cruel, “Justine” is a contradiction of actionable cynicism in the foreground of depicted magnificence in location, costume, and cinematography choices that hews into the coarse callousness; one particular scene comes to mind involves Jack Palance’s Antonin arranged with hand positioning that abbreviates the name Jesus Christ and as Antonin is holding this hand arrangement, he seemingly glides or floats down the stone corridors toward Justine, demonstrating religious imagery as a form of abusive power or corrupted guidance to serve one’s own deviant devices.  Though labeled in some circles a sexploitation film and certainly full of skin from Romina Power, Maria Rohm, and Rosalba Neri amongst others peekabooing their assets through cut potato sacks during the sex slave orientation scene, much of the sex is heavily implied with a limited gratuitous outcome.  Before going fully into an Eurotrash market by the late 70s and all the way through to the 90s, Franco made every effort to be a considerable filmmaker for a broad audience in numerous countries and his dislike for censorship shines through to his work, despite the likelihood of costing him acclaimed fame as a director. 

“Justine” arrives on 4K UHD in a Blu-ray combo set from Blue Underground.  The two disc set is AVC encoded Blu-ray 50gig and a triple layered Blu-ray 100gig with 1080p (standard BR) and 2160p (UHD) high-definition resolution, and presented in the original European widescreen aspect ratio of 1.66:1.  The brand new 4K restoration from the uncensored original camera negative of the 35mm film with Dolby Vision HDR is a foremost upgrade to the highest power, an ultra-balanced grading that reels in a wide variety of colors from interior to exterior that helps bring the ornamentation of 18th century France to a vivacious life on screen.  The saturation is enriched and finitely retuned to deliver the best and naturalistic grading as humanly possible, or as current technology allows.  The Blu-ray offers a just as reasonable presentation but does lack that high attention to detail because of the lower pixel count.  Bitrate decades are a comfortable average in the high 30s to low 40s.  The UHD and standard Blu-ray offer a clean and free from compression artifacts with immeasurable format capacity to render an unimpeachable picture. Both formats come with an English DTS-HD mono, dubbed in English by voice actors and not the original cast. No hissing, popping, and only a slight interference hum. Dialogue is dub boxy but clean, clear, and right forefront without question of what’s being discoursed and is well-folded into the ambient and Bruno Nicolai epic vein-coursing score that triumphs a military march over a classical base. English SDH are optional. In regard to special features, both formats include a new audio commentary with film historians Nathaniel Thompson and Troy Howarth and the French trailer, but the Blu-ray contains archive interviews with director Jess Franco and writer-producer Harry Alan Towers, an interview with author Stephen Thrower of Murderous Passions: The Delirious Cinema of Jesus Franco, a new interview with actress Rosalba Neri, in Italian with English subtitles, On Set With Jess, a newly expanded poster and still gallery, and a Jess Franco dreaded censored cut of the Americanized shorter version of the film under the “Deadly Sanctuary” title in HD and clocking in at 96 minutes, a nearly 30 minutes shorter. The physical features mirror the “Eugenie” 4k/Blu-ray release with a black Blu-ray snapper case with similar thickness. A shackled Justinne graces the front cover, as with the previous DVD Blue Underground release, and has the same cardboard slipcover with an oval shaped like mirror cutout to not block the half-naked Romina Power. Back covers are both the snapper case and cardboard cover have the same layout design but different still images on each. Inside, there is a disc on each side of the case held in by a push lock. The UHD is a sizzling infrared and sultrier posed version of the snapper cover while the Blu-ray, in the same red hue, is a composition of characters clustered together in a circular design. The film comes not rated, region free, and has the presentation feature with a runtime of 124 minutes. The Marquis de Sade divulges a sardonic, topsy-turvy belief that the more you stay virtuous, the more trouble follows as it’s the way of the world and the more you swindle, the more headway you make in life. Jess Franco brings the Marquis’s vision to cinematic life with a grand and sordid tale, dissevering the two ways toward their individual soul crushing path, and discovering morality within the immoral.

Own Your Piece of Virtue with this 2-Disc “Justine” set from Blue Undergrounda and MVD Visual!  

EVIL’s Blight is Captured off and on Film. “Cursed Films” reviewed! (Acorn Media International / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Cursed Films” Now Available on Blu-ray in the UK!  Purchase at Amazon.com By Click the Cover Below.

What do “Poltergeist,” “The Omen,” “The Exorcist,” “Twilight Zone: The Movie,” and “The Crow” all have in common? They’re just not successful horror-thrillers with extraordinary actors and directors, they’re also tagged as some of the worst cursed movies of our time. Severe ailments, planes struck by lightning, bombings at previously booked restaurants, egregious injuries, and even death, lots of death, have surmised belief that the otherworldly powers or the omnipotent universe has waged warnings and, if gone ignored, has blown the kiss of the death. For years, these films held power of people because of a string of unfortunate incidences that link back to rumors that possibly incite mystical retribution for using real corpses, telling stories about the birth of the antichrist, and even family lineage curses by ancient Chinese spirits. There’s no shortage of superstition in the world, a country practically built on the idea of a martyred Jesus rising from the grave, and Hollywood is no exception that the bad things that happen in life will always course people to find a reasonable explanation even if that explanation is an untenable supernatural one.

When we think of curses as a whole, we’re generally point and look to the obvious occult brewing with black magic of vindictive witches, ancient incantations to evoke demonic bidding, Gypsy ill-wills that have lycanthropy teeth, or ominous warnings inscribed by long-ago Egyptian priests keep mummified remains from being marauded by intruders.  These hexes and jinxes are storylines popular in movie culture since the beginning of the first movie pictures, used to entertain, excite, and thrill to the furthest extent of the means.  Who would have known there is a reality bound, darker side to the curse mythos that has been insidiously rooted in the illustrious and dream making film industry?  Cursed films have been the talk of Tinsel town, ambulance chasing tabloids, and the short-lived internet fandom for years, decades now even, surrounding the mysterious misfortunes of certain films.  The Shudder 5-episode docuseries, “Cursed Films,” goes into the weeds with retrospective interviews from cast, crew, religious experts and even mavens of black magic and witchery.  Jay Cheel wrote, directed, and edited the series removes the characters from the story and focuses on building the humanity of the affected, dives into possible reasons for the film or individuals involved to be cursed, and the unfortunate outcomes that have resulted in the loss of life surrounding the project.  Muse Entertainment Enterprise, one of the companies behind CBS hit U.S. comedy “Ghosts,” serves as the production company behind the 2020 released Shudder exclusive series.

With any documentary, the cast are plucked right out of history, fast-forward into the present, to tell their firsthand account of events. Directors, producers, special effects and makeup specialists, and those beyond the realm of the film industry recollect and provide their own interpretation of a beleaguered saga with an interviewer, assumed to be “Cursed Films'” writer-director Jay Cheel, posing the questions to get open access to the inner thoughts of the grieved and impressed to give in full detail their wholehearted accounts. Cheel is able to nab different perspectives that play into the divisive nature of the whole cursed narrative, such as with those, mostly cast and crew, who don’t invest into the transcendental nonsense that has sense become either a minor or major stain on their careers. Others see the unexplainable coincidences to be godsent and beneficial to the production. For example, “The Omen’s” star Gregory Peck’s plane and producer Mace Neufeld’s plane were both struck by lightning in route to the London set only a few days apart. Neither plane sustained life-threatening damage and, thus, strokes of good luck and fortune seemed to be attached to the project along with other instances of death and destruction that averted harm from those involved with the film. Still, many still feel “The Omen” is a cursed film, mostly on the internet horror communities where conspiracies, misinformation, and false narratives run rampant like COVID in the early years. Often when Cheel obtains the perspective a black magician or a witch, Cheel’s attempting to gain not only an understanding of that world from real world practitioners but also to embellish a great melodrama into the episodes. Then, there’s the emotionally poignant Richard Sawyer segment. As the production designer on John Landis’s “Twilight Zone: the Movie,” Sawyer saw firsthand the tragedy that befell one of the film’s segment stories. Lead actor Vic Morrow (“Humanoids of the Deep,” “1990: The Bronx Warriors”) was cut down, along with two children, during a scene with a helicopter that went terribly wrong, and Sawyer’s account is powerfully traumatizing and great representation of how this series should be affect and chill viewers to the heart and to the bone.

“Cursed Films” reveals the terrible mishaps and misfortunes of limelight. If a private person is dies due to illness, accident, or foul play, there’s usually not a major production made out of the occurrence and no grand, “Final Destination” design beyond our understanding is erected to give it all meaning. Under the public eye and recorded by every entertainment medium known to mankind at the time of filming presents public scrutiny, public panic, and public speculation that plots points and charts graphs toward a giant, flashing sign that says, in big bold letters, CURSED! To any given horror fan, much of Jay Cheel’s docuseries is already common knowledge for the most part with the fresh and emphatic take from at the scene interviewees who add compassion and empathy as a shield against those who still think the sweet-faced Heather O’Rourke was doomed by some malison brought to fruition by India-removed skeletons. To the non-horror fan, much of Jay Cheel’s docuseries will have that new car smell and can be engrossed by Cheel’s spin of oppositions that never lay claim to either side as truth but only further what Zelda Rubenstein and Richard Sawyer tried to dispel with reason and tangible accounts is that there is some underlying curse reaching up and grabbing the throats of these films to point of choking the very goodness out of the cast and crew’s souls and only provide morbid curiosity to those seeking out the works stuck in a perpetual cycle of occultism.

Become reeled in by the notorious historical compendiums of “Cursed Films” in the first season that aired in 2020 and is now finally on Blu-ray home video in the UK from Acorn Media International. Though listed as a PAL release, the AVC encoded Blu-ray is presented in a 2.39:1 aspect ratio and is in 1080p, high-definition resolution, so a PAL encoding description would be inaccurate for a HD release. Image quality varies between the clean digital recordings with the interviews in interiors and exterior settings, polished transfers snipped from your favorite classic (and “cursed”) movies, and the raw, unpolished frames or clips that were cut from the film or remained as behind-the-scenes supplemental. All-in-all, picture quality is fine and clear in any regard with no issues of compression on the various mediums. The English language DTS-HD 5.1 surround sound stakes prominences on the dialogue for this is a docuseries reliant on firsthand accounts. Some historical footage can be staticky and flat but fits into the documentary design that pulls clip examples from the archives. “Cursed Films” isn’t going to be actioned packed or atmospheric but the composing duo of “Kicking Blood,” Justin Small and Ohad Benchetrit, offer an engaging soundtrack that could tell the story without the interviewee’s tale of sadness, mysticism, etc. English subtitles are available. For each episode a director’s audio commentary is available as a special feature. The physical feature comes in a slightly thicker Blu-ray snapper with the cover art, which is the same as the U.S. RLJE release, of an unspooling film reel displaying iconic tokens from each movie. The 141-minute and region B playback release houses the film’s certified 15 rating for strong horror, strong language, strong injury detail, sex references, domestic abuse, suicide, and bloody images. Whether you believe in curses or not, “Cursed Films” is a peradventure that’s powerful and uncanny to this very day that’ll have you straddling the fence of labeled condemned films.

“Cursed Films” Now Available on Blu-ray in the UK!  Purchase at Amazon.com By Click the Cover Below.

EVIL Spirits and Japanese Internment Camps in “The Terror: Infamy” reviewed! (Acorn Media International / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Chester Nakayama floats through life living with his immigrant parents on Terminal Island in San Pedro, California during World War II. A photographer hobbyist who helps on his father’s fishing boat and studies at a university, Chester doesn’t have steady employment and has recently learned his girlfriend, Luz, is pregnant with his baby. But those are not the height of Chester problems, or his family’s, when the country of Japan declares war on the United States by bombing Pearl Harbor and mysterious deaths surrounding the Nakayama family point to ancient Japanese beliefs of a Yūrei, or a ghost, clinging to a grudge. As the years past, Japanese American citizens are move from one internment camp to the next with no end in sight being projected as potential spies for the country of the rising sun and for Chester, Luz, and his family and friends, the Yūrei’s scheme endangers Chester’s life and legacy.

Following the success of the Ridley Scott (“Alien”) produced AMC horror television series, “The Terror,” the second season aims to build a new path of dread with a storyline plucked from the late 1900’s of two stranded artic explorer British ships trying to navigate a Northwest passage and now placed in a whole new and different, massive turbulent story and setting laid out in the early-to-mid 20th century during World War II America with Japanese Internment camps.  The second season comes with a partially new title, “The Terror:  Infamy” along with a new cast and new crew as well.  The subtitle’s double entendre refers to the then era United States 32nd President Franklin D. Roosevelt’s Day of Infamy speech given to the public after the assault on Pearl Harbor and also refers to another American infamous time of the mistreatment of the country’s own citizens, the Japanese Americans, placed into internment camps and constantly scrutinized as potential Japan spies.  “Infamy” showrunners Guymon Casady, David Kajganic, Scott Lambert, Alexandra Michan, Jonathan Sheehan, and David W. Zucker, along with Ridley Scott, return to the AMC, Entertainment 360, EMJAG Productions, and Scott Free Productions series.

At the tip of the ensemble cast spear, most consisting of Japanese heritage actors and actresses, is Derek Mio as the Yūrei plagued Chester Nakayama.  Perhaps the biggest role for the Mio, the role transcends Chester from a stagnant part-time fisherman on the dead-end Terminal Island settlement of San Pedro, California to a responsible man of action that sees Chester fight for his family, his wife, his children, and even fight for his country despite the maltreatment in order to course his loved ways safely through a plethora of evil.  While the character grows in an arc of accepting responsibility as a son, husband, and father, Mio never expresses the range of a story of his magnitude that takes him across various domestic terrains and on the other side of the conflict-engulfed world as he’s afflicted by a malevolent spirit.  Constantly confident and seemingly unafraid, Chester just simply endures the hardships along “The Terror’s” bombardment of grim reality.  Comparatively, the younger Japanese American generation are culturally more expressive next to the immigrated older generations in Chester’s father (Shingo Usami) and eldest family friend Nobuhiro Yamato (“Star Trek’s George Takei”) who we witness keep mostly in line with their stoic composures.  Takei, born in 1937, and his family were actually forced into living in converted horse stables and official internment camps across the country during the War and that gives the series a morsel of 100 times it’s weight in authenticity with firsthand experience. Along with the deep sympathies and an infinite amount of shame for the wrongfully imprisoned citizens of war, there’s also immense compassion for Chester’s wife, Luz, played by Chrstina Rodlo (“No One Gets Out Alive”). Rodlo runs the gambit of emotions that convey happiness with her time with Chester, to despondent loss, and to fear while on the run from the American government as well as an evil spirit who threatens her child. Just like the first season of “The Terror,” character staying power is often short lived as the horror and, well, the terror catches up to them in one way or another, but we see fine performances from Miki Ishikawa (“I Don’t Want To Drink Your Blood Anymore”), Naoko Mori (“Life”), Alex Shimizu, Lee Shorten, Hira Ambrosino, and Kiki Sukezane as the incessantly stubborn Yūrei and C. Thomas Howell (“The Hitcher”) with another flimsy performance as a hardnose major serving as head of an internment camp.

Subtly contrasting two very different kinds of horror between the yore of the fantastical Kaiden ghost stories coming to fruition with the Yūrei and the very non-fictional blight on American history that was falsely imprisoning American citizens with Japanese roots no matter what age. Both unsettling constructs are unequivocally provided equal weight in dread much like with season one that showcased the dog-eat-dog desperation of man isolated and trapped in extreme terrain with the supernatural forces of nature with a monstrous, polar bear like creature hunting them down one-by-one. Though the same dance, but a different song, season two has a very welcoming different take of blending of yore with lore that separates itself into a new entity, a new engagement, and a new facet of terror very befitting to the anthological series. Eventually, “Infamy” starts to lose steam when the Yūrei side of the story insidiously infringes fully into the fold when Chester and Luz have fled the internment camps and are living in nowheresville New Mexico. The camps fade away from the story and also from our consideration with only bits and pieces to chew on just to check in on principal characters and has a resolution that’s about as cheated as the Japanese Americans survivors given $25 by the American government to start a new life. Yet, “The Terror: Infamy” is poignant and informative, a better picture of what really happened on the American home front better any textbook could ever properly depict, and exposes the mainstream into the Kaiden-verse of Japanese culture.

The 2-disc, 10-episode Blu-ray set comes from UK distributor, Acorn Media International, with each episode with a runtime on an average of 40 to 45 minutes long and a total runtime of 419 minutes. The region 2, PAL encoded release is presented in a standardized for television widescreen format of 16X9 and the Acorn release doesn’t present a flawless picture with noticeable issues with severe cases of banding and compression artefacts around the darker portions of the scene and trust me, “Infamy” is plenty dim and leaden between John Conroy and Barry Donlevy’s cinematography unlike the previous season’s artic white landscape that brightens much of the frame. The Dolby Digital soundtrack produces a better product with satisfactory quality in all categories of score, ambient noise, and dialogue and is accompanied by well-synced and timed English subtitles. Bonus features include a look at the series part 1 (for disc 1) and part 2 (for disc 2) and the biographical and inside the head look at the characters through the eyes of their portrayers. “Infamy” is UK certified 15 as it contains the AMC edginess of bloody graphic content as well as some offensive language. “The Terror” series as a whole has remarkable historical insight commingled with soul-stirring, skin-crawling old wives’ tales. “Infamy” may not supersede its predecessor but is still one hell of an engaging and unique story that salivates us into wanting a third season.

Southern EVIL Hospitality. “Girl on a Chain Gang” reviewed! (The Film Detective and Something Weird / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Become Tethered to the “Girl on a Chain Gang” Blu-ray at Amazon.com!

Three young Northerners travel down to the deep South city of Caron’s Landing for Civil Rights improvement on voter registration. Their convertible is pulled over by two sleazy deputies with a hankering to stick the activists with trumped-up charges and accost them with an official arrest that forces them to be before a drunk, aggressive named Sheriff Sonny Lew Wymer, Carson Landing’s very own unofficial head of the municipality between his unwavering loyal kin and those in his pocket with blackmail to gain an indefinite number of favors, for swift money-mulcting and to be the victims of Sonny Lew’s judge, jury, and execution sentencing of segregated injustice. An onslaught of abusive authority sends the lone woman of the three activists to do hard labor on a black chain gang and as she attempts to escape, she must survive Sonny Lew’s hound-led manhunt with intent to shoot-to-kill.

Hard to believe that we still live in a society where the surface level racism has improved over the centuries but systemic racism remains a vein-slithering and venomous asp prevalent still in not only public society but in education, justice system, and, well, just about everywhere you can think of and films like Jerry Gross’s “Girl on a Chain Gang,” though ostentatiously sleazy and exploitative as the title sounds, would still ring smidgens of truth profoundly, yet subtly, engrained across the nation even though the Gross’s film was released over half a century ago in 1966 when that pure hatred and ugliness was at peak efficiency, especially in the deep Southern U.S. The producer from New York City who promoted “I Drink Your Blood” and “Son of Dracula,” with Ringo Starr nonetheless, found a knack in presenting exploitation in his directorial feature debut – “Girl on a Chain Gang.” Originally called “Bayou” before a title and script rework, the Dan Olsen original story was penned by Gross and shot more locally to the auteur in Long Island, New York. Nicholas Demetroules cowrote the edgy-for-its-time script full of malversation under the Jerry Gross Productions banner with a logo that looks the hell of a lot like Warner Brothers.

Part of “Girl on a Chain Gang’s” suffocating sleaze success is due in part to William Watson’s rotten-to-the-core, corruption performance as the devilishly intelligent and despicable Sheriff, Sonny Lew.  The “It’s Alive III” actor, who made a name for himself in indie westerns as mostly playing a character on the wrong side of the law, debuted his forte into villainhood affairs with this particular Jerry Gross production by portraying an alcoholic lawman with dirt on the most townsfolk of Carson’s Landing and can persuade them like pawns or like lemmings to exact his will.  Watson’s good at what he molds for the cigar chewing Sonny Lew by never letting up  his foot off the lewdness gas pedal that drifts around internal state investigations into his distortion of the law and even around his own cronies and county bumpkins with secret banter codes that’s clear to them but ambiguous to the naked understanding.  The three young northerners are chosen to reflect the stereotypical justifications to be oppressed by racists eyes just for the way they look in skin and in dress despite their education and suitable for society behavior.  Because one man is African American and the other two whites consort with him, the activists become relentlessly targeted by the bigoted brigade led by Sonny Lew, colluded his deputies (Ron Charles and Peter Nevard), the town drunk (Matt Reynolds), the see-nothing, do nothing bar own (James Harvey), and the unlicensed town doctor (Phillip Vanyon) who is too frightened of Sonny Lew to act on his conscious.  The woman in the mix, Jean (Julie Ange, “Teenage Mother”) reduces down to being the principal object of exploitation inside the story as the titular girl in the chain gang and out being given illusionary promises of future leading lady roles by Gross yet that undertaking never fleshed out.  Between Watson and Ange, a genuine baseline of power over someone else is greatly disturbing and not terribly far from reality.  Most of the other performances are a bit ostentatiously cliched regarding small town Southerners complete with cowboy hats, being sloppy drunkards, and take with a gimmicky draw.  The cast rounds out with Arlene Farber (“Two Girls for a Madman”) as the town floozy, Sam Cutter as Sonny Lew’s public defender uncle and, also including, Ron Segal, Henry Baker, Horace Bailey, Wolf Landsman, Earl Leake, and Richard Antony.

For 1966, “Girl on a Chain Gang” is pretty dark.  Of course, some explicit and taboo subject material that were not acceptable to show on screen back then must be read between the lines, but nonetheless, there’s enough icky and sordid personalities to get your blood boiling and your palms sweaty because of how purely contentious these themes can strike at the heart of a morally conscious soul.  The hammy acting in the second half almost makes a joke out of the context and one can become caught up and lost in the blinding caricatures spouting off ridiculous renditions of the ignorant South population that isn’t supposed to have one funny bone in its body. Though the title is eye-catching and provocative, “Girl on a Chain Gang” is selling more sexism than racism. Jean is only shackled with the chain gang for the last 10-minutes or so, just enough time for a whipmaster’s disparaging remarks to be heard and for two black men to form an escape plan. The title doesn’t speak to much of the three Northerners as a whole being subjected to bigot atrocities and without reading the back cover, you’d think the 95-minute runtime would be entirely a woman in prison film of this poor and young fresh meat working the pickaxe, sweating, and chained to a row of harden convicts with both convict and guard having their way against her will. No. Jerry Gross knew how to market this film, to catch people’s attention, by selling savage social representation as dressed sexploitation.

The Film Detective and Something Weird Video unearthed the Jerry Gross debut long thought to be inspired by the murder of three civil rights activists in Mississippi in 1964 and gave it the special edition Blu-ray treatment. A well-preserved transfer is now cleaned-up eye-candy for a high-definition look this black and white feature presented in now the fairly archaic 1.37:1 aspect, aka Academy, ratio with only a few lingering thin scratch marks throughout. Trust me, we’ve seen far worse transfers and the scratches here are evident but only if you’re keeping an eye out for them. The high contrast and detail offer a good, delineated view of events on average, pulling an average of approx. 20 Mbps. Certain exterior scenes are poorer than others with a slightly more washed brightness. The English language DTS track wavers between a muted mono and a lossy 2.0 with the dialogue suffering the most and so will you know if you’re not wearing headphones as you’ll be up-and-down on the volume of your remote control. There’s a rife static hissing that does random clean up from time-to-time. The audio tracks are clearly unstable whereas the video files have fared better with Hi-Def upgrade. The not rated disc does come with bonus features including software material of a short history from genesis-to-death on Jerry Gross hosted by film historian Chris Poggiali and hardware material in the form a 14-page essay booklet by Something Weird Video’s head-honcho Lisa Petrucci and a novelty ticket of certification of jury service where you can fill in your own name to state you sat in judgement and witnessed the trail of “The People of Caron’s Landing vs. Miss Jean Rollins.” “Girl on a Chain Gang” abstracts only a fraction of deep-cutting prejudice but that makes this roughie old-timer no less important and still remains satisfyingly excessive in its violence.

Become Tethered to the “Girl on a Chain Gang” Blu-ray at Amazon.com!

The Best Spies Seek Thrills When Taking Down EVIL! “Deathcheaters” reviewed! (Umbrella Entertainment / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

If Anyone Can Hide from the Grim Reaper, It’s the “Deathcheaters” on Blu-ray from Umbrella Entertainment!

Vietnam War brothers-in-arms Steve Hall and Rodney Cann banded together well after the fighting was over and channeled all their pent up energy into being adrenaline junky stuntmen for movies, television series, and commercials as a living and as a lifestyle.  When the two Australians are duped and setup into a high speed chase and a daring rescue mission by one of their country’s own clandestine government agencies in a ploy to test Steve and Rod’s daredevil abilities, they pass the qualifying assessments and are offered an espionage job by agency head under the pseudonym of Mr. Culpepper who has no other incentive to provide other than the job to be the most challenging, death-defying operation to gorge on by two extreme sport enthusiasts.  Unable to resist, the stuntmen embark to a secret base on a remote island of the Philippines where they’ll dodge bullets, explosions, and over 100 guards to fight their way in and out to obtain classified documents for their country.

“Deathcheaters” became the third viewing adventure involving the actor-director combination of stuntman Grant Page and director Brian Trenchard-Smith that falls right in between “The Man from Hong Kong” and “Stunt Rock” and clearly delineates an understanding that Grant Page was a genuine fascination for Trenchard-Smith who sought to take the daring stuntman out of solely stunt role and puree him into a leading man role, showcasing Page’s hang-gliding, dune buggy, and skyscraper falls,  for the director’s second feature film released in 1976.  And, then, there’s John Hargreaves who we will dive into his there-but-not there presence later on. “Deathcheaters” is an ozploitation action-comedy that fulfilled two of Trenchard-Smith’s obsessions – stuntmen and spy films – from a story by the director and penned to script by Michael Cove and is produced by Trenchard productions alongside a conglomerate of production companies, including “Mad Max’s”  Roadshow Entertainment (a subsidiary of Village Roadshow), D.L. Taffner (“Ghost Stories”), Nine Network Australia, and the Australian Film Commission.

Undoubtedly, “Deathcheaters” stars Grant Page as the relationship unattached and cocky Rodney Cann whose only other interest besides bedding the single ladies is his enamored basset hound, Bismark.  Cann’s best friend, Steve Hall, is newly hitched to Julia who more-or-less disapproves of her husband’s risky vocation.  “Long Weekend’s” John Hargreaves plays the cheeky Steve Hall with sarcastic charm, matching his complement stunt partner and while Hargreaves has the chops to pull of the persona, the late Sydney born actor is well behind the curve when matched up with Grant Page.  Page is a stuntman playing a stuntman while Hargreaves is an actor portraying to be a stuntman and, unquestionably, that delta shows pretty radically when Page is driving the dune buggy, is descending rapidly from a tall building, or scaling a rock cliff without a harness and Hargreaves is relatively stationary.  Hargreaves has his moments but is greatly overshadowed by the veteran Page.  Before she was Brian Trenchard-Smith’s wife, “Stunt Rock’s” Margaret Gerard was John Hargreaves on screen romance who is vocal but wishy-washy on her husband’s exploits, even on the highly dangerous, international espionage mission assigned by the enigmatic Mr. Culpepper (Noel Ferrier, “Turkey Shoot”).  “Deathcheaters” round out with Judith Woodroffe, Drew Forsythe, Annie Semler, and Vincent Ball.

“Deathcheasters’ falls on the heels of the martial arts success of “The Man from Hong Kong” and is another stunt celebratory film from the ozploitation director with a penchant for large explosions and need-for-speed car chases.  All the stunts were perfectly poised in design and well executed.  Trenchard-Smith isn’t at all afraid to have the camera right in the middle of the action, strapping the 16mm camera to whatever plausible to place the audience in the action with the heroes.  As much as Trenchard-Smith goes full throttle with a tour de force, the same tricks become a little stale after, unfortunately, having previously watched “Stunt Rock” and “The Man from Hong Kong” that also featured self-set wet-gel fires, hang gliding, free falling, and among others aerobatic and dangerous acts that are seemingly in Page’s limited bag of showstopping routines.  There’s rarely anything new in “Deathcheaters” that warrant an awe response and that can be cliched, tiresome, and overall detrimental to the experience unless you’ve never seen a Trenchard-Smith film. If you’re one of those people never to have popped in one of his films, don’t expect “Deathcheaters” to be gritty, tough-as-nails, spitfire. Many of Trenchard-Smith’s earlier films, including “Deathcheaters,” sells solely on the witty, clean banter and a knack for the implied something really terrible happened to the bad guys with nothing ostentatiously explicit in the demise category. “Deathcheaters” can be wholesome, light, and aromatic of a repartee trashcan, but you get some great stunt work, explosions, and a car chase from this 1970’s Australian picture.

Like “The Man from Hong Kong” and “Stunt Work,” “Deathcheaters” too receives the Ozploitation Classics Blu-ray honor bestowed upon it from Umbrella Entertainment as spine number 10. Newly scanned in high definition 4K for the first time, John Seale’s cinematic vision has never looked better in this region free release, presented in standard widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio. The original vault materials held up nice enough to warrant a clear picture with only a few, brief blemishes. The super 16mm shot film, blown up to 35mm, often still feels ever so lightly flat in contour definition and in color; yet all the scenes look naturally aboriginal from the masters. The English language DTS-HD master audio 2.0 mono is a naturally lossy single speaker audio mix that doesn’t exact full representation of the action on screen though robust in fidelity. Dialogue perceives feebler during exterior scenes as capturing dialogue competes with the elements due to poor boom placement or just inferior equipment. Like the other releases, bonus features are nicely packed with a newly extended interviews with Brian Trenchard-Smith, Grant Page, and John Seale from the Not Quite Hollywood documentary, a new audio only interview Remembering “Deathcheaters” with executive producer Richard Brennan, new liner notes from Trenchard-Smith, a 2008 commentary with the director, executive producer, and leading lady Margaret Gerard (listed as Margaret Trenchard-Smith), Trenchard-Smith trailer reel, theatrical trailer, and a Trenchard-Smith directed bonus feature in “Dangerfreaks – The Ultimate Documentary.” The clear snapper case is housed inside a cardboard slipcover and inside the snapper’s liner is a 16-page comic book adaptation from Dark Oz, much like Umbrella accompanied with “Stunt Rock.” “Deathcheaters” shows its age but still pulls out all the stops with amazing stunt choreography and gave way to Grant Page being solidified lead man material, even with his corny one-liners, and simultaneously building upon Brian Trenchard-Smith’s early career in a niche field of being obsessed with overachieving, arrogant, and unafraid stuntmen.

If Anyone Can Hide from the Grim Reaper, It’s the “Deathcheaters” on Blu-ray from Umbrella Entertainment!