Category Archives: Horror Inspirations

Taxi Driver by Day, EVIL Serial Killer by Night! “Dr. Lamb” reviewed! (Unearthed Films / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Dr. Lamb” is ready to operate.  See him in action on Blu-ray from Unearthed Films and MVD Visual!

Quiet as a boy verbally and physically abused by his stepmother yet laid to experience the adult perversities at the permission of his unconcerned father, Lam Gor-Yu, now as a man, is still quiet and still has unusual interests as an afterhours taxi driver.  Triggered by rainy nights when a torrent of verbal abuse by his female passengers send the usually reserved taxi driver into a homicidal fury, extending his lonely nights into straggling women, returning their bodies to his family homes, and video tapes his exploits within his fascination for amateur medical procedures.  When the police raid his family home after developed disturbing pictures were discovered at the local print shop, Lam’s entire family is hauled into questioning and it’s to Inspector Lee and his team to unearth exactly what transpired to the lifeless bodies seized by a notoriously sociopathic serial killer.

When you think of serial killers globally, Hong Kong isn’t the first place that comes to mind.  In fact, Hong Kong isn’t even a blip on the radar as the Pearl River Delta residence only has two known serial killers attributed to the city.  One of those killers is Lam Kor-wan – aka The Jars Murderer – aka the Rainy Night Butcher – who terrorized the then British territorialized Hong Kong in the early 80s, killing and post-mortem mutilating four young women.  La Kor-wan became the notorious inspirational material for the Danny Lee and Billy Tang (“Run and Kill”) co-directed Dr. Lamb that was released in 1992 and penned by Kam-Fai Law (“The Close Encounters of Vampire).  “The Killer’s” star Lee, who was more Chinese action star than filmmaker, developed the film, reluctantly at first, during the time when Hong Kong’s Category III classification rating was extending from solely high-end erotica and sleaze into extreme horror and thrillers.  Lee served as executive producer with Parkman Wong, who also worked alongside Danny Lee on “The Killer,” under Grand River Films Ltd.

To be portraying one of two Hong Kong’s serial killers feels like an unsurmountable responsibility burdening the actor’s shoulders in order to parallel the motivational intricacies and the mental mindset as accurate as possible knowing that the character can’t just blend into a vast serial killer fold where you can find multiple variations of John Wayne Gacy or Jeffrey Dahmer being grossly rendered for U.S. pop culture exploitation.  Yet, in steps in front of the camera Simon Yam, one of Hong Kong’s prolific action stars in the late 80s to early 90’s now stepping into the shoes of a real-life maniacal persona and relatively close to where all of Lam Kor-wan’s dirty-little-deeds took place.  Simon Yam could very well be the killer himself, that’s how brilliantly Yam’s performance is in what’s certainly a confident display of range in contrast within his acting opus.  Replacing a gun with a scalpel, Lee and Yam dig deep into the character’s psyche with an interpretation of why Lam Kor-wan did what he did and, frankly, Yam just went stoically wild to reach Lam’s staggering levels of crazy as he descends deeper into the retelling of his encounters with each victim. While “Dr Lamb” is a grim tale, there’s a comical side to it with the police force, supervised by Inspector Lee, played by Danny Lee himself in a duality position of cast and crew. More of the comic relief stems from Inspector Lee’s second-in-command, an experienced, yet overweight, cop who lets others handle his workload. Literally named Fat Bing, comedian and “Human Lanterns” actor Kent Cheng continues his whimsical routine in unvarnished subject matter revolving around separate bits and pieces of people’s tissue and organs for twisted pleasures. Collateral damage of Lam’s horrifying late-night exploratory surgery antics on women involve his family as they also become suspects. Lam’s father (Siu-Ming Lau, “A Chinese Ghost Story”) keeps his blinders on while the evidence piles only to be turned when his son’s transgressions include a minor family member does his own flesh and blood then cross a line of no return.

There are always two sides to every story. No, I’m not saying there are two repelling sides to The Rainy Night Butcher’s homicidal havoc. “Dr. Lamb,” as a film, has a dichotomy about it that’s half biographically true and grim while the other half is crime drama peppered with clownery. The combination is odd and equally as frustrating as the black tone of the historical background and the graphic nature of some authentical depicted acts of inhuman urges find their way weaved into the fabric of cavalier cop buffoonery who, on one hand, seem really good and really intense at their job while, on the other hand, lack the gumption for sobering behavior. Even when investigating Lam’s videotape (to which there is no way in Hell Lam videotaped that himself as the camera moves as he’s engrossed with necrophilia and removing body parts), the cops overact the disgust with what looks like chunky tuna being forced out of their mouth along the lines of appearing like vomit. The underplayed theme is anything but funny in its psychological context of misanthropy and misogyny. All of Lam’s scenes of cruelty are told in flashback through his perspective, molded by his undertone hate for women. “Dr. Lamb” is a misogynistic tale bred out of childhood abuse by a woman close to his family and unabashed and unattended by his lenient father’s lack of concern. Three out of the four women Lam taxis-to-taxidermy often verbally and physically assault him and plague his personal space with their awful behavior, setting a dial backwards in his battered brain that reminds him of the time his stepmother slapped him or forced him into a closet for hours. Is “Dr. Lamb” a Freudian lemma that Lam sees his ruthless stepmother in these women and turns on them to humiliate their corporeal existence? That’s a deep dive, but not as deep as “Dr. Lamb” cuts as a visceral experience based off of one of Hong Kong’s notorious serial killers.

Distributing in at number 8 on the spine of the Unearthed Films’ Unearthed Classics banner is “Dr. Lamb” on a new Blu-ray home video. The region A locked, AVC encoded, BD50 is slicked up with a 1080p high-definition upgrade presented in a widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio. As one of cinematographer Kin-Fai Mau’s first few pictures, the cool blue and misty has an interesting allure like a hazy bad dream subdued by an infusion of looking through blue glass with a prism of white light filtering through. Perhaps not as detailed as desired, the release does stand above the rest with low-level continuous speck blemishes that are only noticeable if you’re searching for them. Two audio options are available: a Cantonese LPCM 2.0 Mono and a Mandarin LPCM 2.0 Mono. Both tracks do come with well-sync and accurate English subtitles with the only downside is in their quick sojourning. There are a few instances where the subtitles pop up for literally a second as a result of quick nature of the dialect to get to the next set of text. While toggling between the two languages, my audio receptors really took to the Cantonese for a more natural flow and visually for unison between speech and speaking. The Mandarin is certainly more powerful but also too over-the-top as in watching I relate to watching old Japanese with English dub. The special features include an audio commentary by Ultra Violent’s Art Ettinger and Cinema Arcana’s Bruce Holecheck, a background interview about “Dr Lamb’s” genesis with the story producer Gilbert Po Lamb to the Slaughter, an interview with film critic James Mudge on the Golden Era of Cat III Three Times the Fear, a talking point conversation about “Dr Lamb” from film academic Sean Tierney, an Atomic TV interview with star Simon Yam, and trailers. The physical release itself comes with a 6-page, color booklet essay from cinema academic and author Calem Waddell (producer of “The Collingswood Story” and many horror-film related documentaries). A cardboard slipcover with one of the more provocative poster arts. Unearthed Films’ Blu-ray comes unrated with a runtime of 90 minutes. When perusing what to watch one night, be sure to hail down this cab of fact-based macabre driven by “Dr Lamb’s” psychological psychopathy and his pathologic urge for unnecessary medical procedures.

“Dr. Lamb” is ready to operate.  See him in action on Blu-ray from Unearthed Films and MVD Visual!

EVIL Moves in When Sister Goes Missing! “Sister Tempest” reviewed (Darkside Releasing / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on



“Sister Tempest” – on Blu-ray home video at Amazon.com

Private school art teacher Anne Hutchinson faces an alien tribunal on the set of circumstances surrounding the sudden disappearance of her younger sister.  Anecdotally going through the chapters of her life, beginning with her parents perishing when the sisters were young into growing up in a confrontation household between the sisters’ warring personalities to Anne’s desperate search for her younger sister after an ugly fight one night.  Still reeling from the abrupt disappearance, a new student joins her class that ensues a sudden fascination from Anne.  When the student shows up one night at Anne’s house, unloading woes of being kicked out of school due to lack of funds, Anne offers sympathy and suggests staying in her sister’s room that’s now been vacant for some time, but Anne’s new roommate hides a secret as she must feed on raw meat to combat of a body-covering boil sprouting illness.  Little does the art teacher know that there’s a connection between her sister’s disappearance and her former blood-thirsty pupil that will shock her very core.

What happens when a promise to another person can’t be kept because that person’s will and commitment is so strong it’s becomes a severe fault?  From an not from this world alien perspective, the contradictory and irrational nature of humankind has a profoundly illogical pattern to it that bears hardly any understanding to an unlike mind.  There’s fragility to interpersonal relationships and to the people devoted to those relationships that force unforeseen, sometimes fatal, consequences when expected coherency and harmony turns into irrational chaos from seemingly arbitrary means.  This is how Joe Badon’s genre-bending “Sister Tempest” expresses that conundrum of curious conscious with a surrealistic sci-fi-horror-drama that teeters on the edge of deadpan.  The 2020 released “Sister Tempest” is the second written-and-directed feature film from Badon, following his 2017 experimental horror “The God Inside My Ear,” which falls upon similar “Sister Tempest” lines of emotionally distress-induced bale.  Filmed in New Orleans, Louisiana, “Sister Tempest” is a produced by Badon, editor/sound designer Joseph Estrade, Dustin Rosemark (“Inferno”) and cinematographer Daniel Waghorne with visual effects artist Clint Carney (screener of “Dry Blood”) and Miles Hendler serving as executive producers.

After a series of prefacing introductory and non-linear story scenes, Anne Hutchinson, a debut feature role for New Orleans based actress Kali Russell, sits in negative space wearing an orange jumpsuit and being introduced to her alien tribunal council.  Dazed and confused, but not totally in shock and frightened about being in the presence of otherworldly extraterrestrials, Anne recounts events surrounding the disappearance of her sister, played by Holly Bonney (“Bird’s Eye).  As sisters, a defined line between the older responsible and the younger immature is contentiously formed between Anne and Karen as they deviate from earlier promises after their parents’ untimely death to take care of each other.  Through Anne’s retelling of her life, her mother, though hard and disciplined, had a conditioning care that burdened the eldest child with a sense of duty and care at a young age and this really is no different from most firstborns who shoulders already a ton of responsibility regardless in taking on even more when the parents are no longer around.  You love them to death is great idiom that rings true in Badon’s subversive-cinema standards tale when the sisters can’t see eye-to-eye on matters and there’s a loss of connection, accountability, and gratitude that the audience can relate to.  For much of the picture, Holly Bonney takes a backseat to Kali Russell’s spiraling disconnect that affects her relationship with love interest Jeffrey the Janitor (Alex Stage, “Eat Brains Love”) and new life-entangling pupil Ginger (Linnea Gregg).  The latter Greg played character has a little more layers to peel back that involves directly with Anne.  Ginger’s is venom in disguise as vampire of sorts who requires raw meat and to keep her human appearance intact.  There’s a representational duality in Ginger, reflecting both a monstrous quality and a sweet innocence that ties into Anne personally and into the search for the sister.  “Sister Tempest” rounds out the cast with Clint Carney (“Dry Blood”), Lucas Boffin (“Return to Sender”), Andre LaSalle (“The God Inside My Ear”), Cami Roebuck (“Children of Sin”), and Sarah Rochis.

“Sister Tempest” has a foundational design we’ve all likely seen before with breaking points, dualities, and downhill-racing mystery unfathomable to the naked eye, but the Josh Badon story inexplicitly feels different from the others.  Perhaps because of Badon’s unconventional storytelling style that throws the normal perceptions for a loop, literally and figuratively, with a 50’s-ish callback to science fiction films or its glamour of 70’s-ish British horror in color and macabre or an unsane mixture of both. I’m not going to sugar coat “Sister Tempest” as an easy to follow, low-hanging fruit film that simple, straight-forward, and is everybody’s cup of tea. That would be a waste of peddle spiel. There’s a zaniness quality that can’t be ignored that surrounds the principal Anne character as if she’s experiencing an ersatz world normally. Some would say that Anne’s caught in a maelstrom, or tempest, of unclear thought and her ordeal is catalytically charged by the work and the love that is poured into her sister’s wellbeing only to be thrown back into her face. Badon has a flair for the unusual, an eye for the odd, and can extravasate an uneasy air from a capsule of seemingly randomized happenstance and beyond the already preternatural events to aggregating the wayward tension.

“Sister Tempest” is the very definition of independent movies with a take it or leave it spellbinding archetype that’s unlike anything ever seen before. You can bear witness to Joe Badon’s mesmeric madness and melancholy with a brand-new Blu-ray from Darkside Releasing. Presented in two aspect ratio formats, a 2.39:1 and 1.33:1, the screen really runs the side-to-side gamut. Image quality shows zero sign of issues from the high-definition digital video, shot on a 4K black magic pocket cinema camera. The blacks are deep and rich as well as the coloring through Daniel Waghorne’s versatile cinematography involving gel lighting, color reduction, and spotlighting. The English language 5.1 surround sound shows no sign of slowing down this A/V wonder with clean and lively multi-audio tracks that come through every channel definitively. Bonus material includes an audio commentary with the director, produces, and actors, a blooper reel, a deleted scene, and trailers for Darkside releasing surreal and giallo films. “Sister Tempest” Lynchian style is not going to please the masses, but it’s certainly the wildest ride in the theme park of contemporary indie cinema.

“Sister Tempest” – on Blu-ray home video at Amazon.com

Creepy. Kooky. Mysterious. Spooky. All Together EVIL! “The Addams Family 2” reviewed (MGM and United Artists Releasing / Digital Screener)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

RENT “THE ADDAMS FAMILY 2” ON PRIME VIDEO

Morticia and Gomez Addams have lived dangerously head on for all their grotesque lives and loving every second to the fullest with their strange family.  Nothing scares the macabre mother and father of Wednesday and Pugsley until their children begin to display the adversarial and angsty signs of growing up, creating a distancing wedge between them.  As Morticia and Gomez are missing the hideous and fright-filled family time once shared morosely and adventurously between them and the children, a zany road trip is planned across the deepest, darkest parts of the country to rekindle again that kooky Addams family bond, but when the threat of possibility that Wednesday may not truly be an Addams comes to light, Morticia, Gomez, Uncle Fester, Lurch, Thing, and even hairy cousin IT, will do anything, kill anyone, to prove Wednesday is a full-blooded Addams.

For over 80 years, Charles Addams’ creepy-crawly and spookily quirky family has been entertaining the masses with their avidity for danger and the deranged.  Now, one of America’s favorite bizarre families is back on the big screen with the animated sequel, “The Addams Family 2.”  Returning directors Greg Tiernan and Conrad Vernon delivered an origin story in 2019 that developed the who and how the demented Addams came to be one as one of the most lavishly and lovable lamentable families we all grew up with in popular culture.  The Canadian-American filmmaking twosome take the Addams’s on a road trip into a whole new direction with a standalone story separate from the first’s that revolved around inclusion and not judging a book by its cover.  “The Addams Family 2” is a production of Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer (MGM) and Cinesite Animation and presented by BRON Creative, a Jackal Group/Glickmania production, with Conrad Vernon, Gail Berman, Jason Cloth, Aaron L. Gilbert, Kevin Miserocchi, Andrew Mittman, Alison O’Brien, and Danielle Sterling return as producers and executive producers. 

The sequel reteams the loaned voice talents of “Dune’s” Oscar Isaac as Gomez, “Prometheus’s” Charlize Theron as Morticia, “Suspiria’s” Chloë Grace Moretz as Wednesday, “Big Mouth’s” Nick Kroll as Uncle Fester, and “Hocus Pocus’s Bette Midler as Grandma, picking up almost entirely where they left from the first film, voicing the core characters with twisted, haphazardly happy soul that keeps aligned the original concept with room for originality.  Hip-Hop and gangsta rapper Snoop Dogg also returns as the manipulated high-pitched voice of Cousin IT and lending his more vocational vocals on a couple original songs for the soundtrack, including “It Ain’t Nothin’.”  However, one original film voice doesn’t make an encore.  “Stranger Things” and the upcoming “Ghostbusters: Afterlife” star Finn Wolfhard is replaced by feature film newcomer Javon “Wanna” Walton as Pugsley Addams due to, supposedly, Wolfhard’s pubescent changes in his voice.  To circumvent an obviously different sounding Pugsley, Tiernan and Vernon reduces Pugsley amount of dialogue to nearly zilch with only an exclamation or two as Pugsley becomes more of the running gag, punching bag trope for Wednesday’s diversely ingenious methods to off a die hard Pugsley.  Also new is Wallace Shawn (“The Princess Bride”), who always manages to be typecast in animation as a pygmy, shrewd character – see “Incredibles,” “Toy Story,” and “Happily N’Ever After” for reference – playing a hired hand to “It’s” Bill Hader, who comes aboard as chief antagonist, Cyrus, with a master plan to make a lot of money off Wednesday’s unmatched smarts. 

Cinesite’s animation continues to be a tribute to Charles Addams’s original comic strip characters in appearance and keeping the action cutting edge with a variety of textures and fluorescent lighting to sustain a tightly spooky, yet still toon like, veneer without being chunky or plastic in appearance.  Frequent collaborators Dan Hernandez and Benji Samit are joined by “Cars’” screenwriter Ben Queen and “The Spy Who Dumped Me’s” Susanna Fogel with a script that hones in on the mad dash, madcap hallmarks of sword fighting, axe-throwing, flame shooting, and monster brawling that makes the Addams family THE Addams family.  The script keeps the action moving as the family traverses across the nation, evading Cyrus’s dissimilar henchmen, while the two Addams children find their place in pre-adolescence with Wednesday battles alienation and Pugsley attempts at wooing the opposite sex, but absent from the script is landed comedy.  Chock-full with slapstick humor, many of the jokes will go over the head of PG youngsters who won’t understanding Pugsley wanting dating advise from a Cousin It’s pimp-like status or the overabundant morbid humor that crosses the line, even for the Addams, with a Donner Party joke and one of the characters actually being killed off by Wednesday.  Considering the PG rating, the two latter bits really stick in the mind of an adult with children.  Also, the script honestly lacks something else, an important staple in Addams grim culture that can be challenging to apprehend if not present, and that is the Addams’s house.  Family and house are separated for nearly the entire duration, leaving the diabolical funhouse as an omitted character lost to the whims of Grandma’s large house party which is scarcely and sorely revisited.  Instead, Thing, who has an eyeball on the wrist by the way (never knew Thing had any sort of optics), and Uncle Fester, with a side-story of him metamorphizing into an octopus as a result Wednesday’s story-opening grandiose (mad) science fair project, drive an ostentatious camper that pales in comparison as the house substitute.

Hitting U.S. theaters nationwide today, October 1st, “The Addams Family 2” is a solid kickstart to the beginning of the Halloween season as a United Artists and MGM distributed release.  The sequel will also be available to rent through the following platforms:  Amazon Prime Video, Apple TV, YouTube, Vudu, DirectTV, Spectrum, Xfinity, and among other digital outlets and pay TV operators.  Aforementioned, the 93 minute, animated feature is rated PG for macabre and rude humor, violence and language with much of the more grave content flying over children’s heads.  Trust me, my 7-year-old and 4-year-old either didn’t understand the references or didn’t catch the intent.   Seeing the kooky antics of the Addams family back in the spotlight keeps the lovable ghoulish characters alive for generations to come, but with “The Addams Family 2” borders being insipid with a trying-to-impress out of the box and unconventional Addams road trip narrative that nearly creates the unthinkable to happen – making the adventurous Addams family a dull bunch.

The Crossover EVIL Has Been Fearing! “Straight Outta Nowhere: Scooby-Doo! Meets Courage the Cowardly Dog reviewed! (Warner Bros / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on



“Warner Bros. Home Entertainment provided me with a free copy of the DVD I reviewed in this Blog Post. The opinions I share are my own.”

A sub-frequency sound sends Scooby-Doo into a crazed and booty shaking fit.  So much so, Scooby runs away from the mystery solving gang and straight into the quaint, bizarre rural town of Nowhere, Kansas where he bumps into another canine, Courage, whose experiencing the same soundx and sensations.  When a plague of monstrous cicadas dig from out of the earth, Scooby and his friends, plus Courage and his lovable human Muriel and grouchy old farmer Eustace, must understand the copious amounts of the longstanding strange and unusual happenings in Nowhere to solve the mystery of the giant cicada attack that goes deeper into Nowhere’s roots…literally.  The two dogs have to peel off their scaredy cat shells and face fear head on while chowing down some of Nowhere’s delightful delicacies!

Finally!  The two most famous, fright-filled dogs make their cinematic crossover debut in “Straight Outta Nowhere:  Scooby-Doo!  Meets Courage the Cowardly Dog” that brings the terror tenfold to toon town!  Under the supervision of the serial animation director, Cecilia Aranovic, who helmed two previous Scooby-Doo installments, “Scooby-Doo! And the Curse of the 13th Ghost” and “Scooby-Doo:  Return to Zombie Island,” and tackled the action-packaged animation of “DC Super Hero Girls,” finds herself tackling a short-lived, Cartoon Network created cult fan favorite, “Courage the Cowardly Dog.”  Returning to the Scooby-Doo universe is the televised “Mystery Incorporated’s” writer and editor Michael Ryan penning a script with Courage the Cowardly Dog and creative mastermind of John Dilworth in mind to maximize all the grandstanding personalities faithfully.  Both lovable and yellow-bellied pooches are produced by Hanna-Barbera Productions, who do more crossovers of their cartoons characters than NBA’s Tim Hardaway, and are joined by Warner Bros. Animation and Cartoon Network studios. 

“Straight Outta Nowhere” reteams the “Mystery Incorporated” voice cast of Frank Welker as Fred Jones and Scooby-Doo, Grey Griffin as Daphne Blake, and “Scream’s” Matthew Lillard as Shaggy Rogers.  The revamped “Ducktales’” Kate Micucci replaces Mindy Cohn as the voice of Velma Dinkley with an apt Velma impression that easily transitions without discording the mystery solvers.  Courage voice actor Marty Grabstein reprises his quirky exclaiming hound whose full of heart and also returning Thea White stepping into the boots of Muriel, one-half of Courage’s owners.  Sadly, like original voice actor for Eustace, the late Lionel Wilson, who passed away shortly after the original show’s discontinuance, Thea White also passed away but the sting of her death was more poignant as White past July at the age of 81 and this crossover is presented in White’s memory.  Bugs Bunny and Daffy Duck funnyman Jeff Bergman voices the grouchy and sarcastic Eustace without missing a beat and with about as much cynicism as his predecessors even when unloading a boatload of scares with his giant and unsightly boogey-boogey mask!  A Eustace classic! To preface my character opinion, this movie is obvious about the Scooby and Courage spellbinding the little viewers about location gumption in themselves to face their fears when it matters, but Scooby and Courage’s friends and family provide pivotal, building black support that should render each mystery solver and podunk rural-ite as a mini-lead within the story. That’s not the case inside this crossover that lacks specifics with certain characters, such as the straightforward Fred, Daphne, and Velma who instantly fall way behind without much dialogue or screen time in favor of the more caricatured Muriel, Eustace, and Shaggy. Eustace even gets his own rap music video. Some minor characters from Courage’s past return to scheme and terrorize with the voice work rounded out by Jeff Bennett (“Friday the 13th Part VII: The New Blood”), Chuck Montgomery, and Paul Schoeffler.

Who would have thought it? Scooby-Doo has been a staple of Saturday morning cartoons, television specials, spinoff movies, holiday events, and has been reimagined animatedly and in live-action since 1969. And Courage the Cowardly Dog? Well, Courage ran on Cartoon Network from 1999 to 2002 with little specials here and there in between, but virtually radio silent when compared to his over 50 year-old co-star. Yet, did you know, the 2021 film isn’t the first time these two hounds crossed paths? That’s right, Scooby and Courage (along with Shaggy, Mureil, and Eustace) were first seen in a brief Cartoon Network promo together that you current see on Youtube – search “Scooby and Courage Cartoon Olio.” To be honest, I had assumed Scooby-Doo, who has spanned over multiple generations, is practically known worldwide in every household, and has been an invaluable money-making machine for Warner Bros., would tip the crossover screen time into the animated Great Dane’s favor, but in a pleasant surprise, a good chunk and crucial portions of the story revolves around Courage and his immediacy characters who are brought to the forefront with Scooby and the gang clearly taking a backseat to the smaller, lesser known pup.  Even the animation sides more with Courage, preserving within a smoother veneer the intrinsically warped details familiar to the show, as seen with Eustace’s Courage-scaring mask or Courage’s fluid scared reactions, and we can be honest with ourselves that although Scooby works in Courage’s surrealistic macabre world, the Dane and his gang have been rendered countless times in many different animation styles throughout the last five decades.  Enigmatically familiar to one of the mysteries Scooby and his gang dive right into, the tale fashions a composite of two different protagonist dynamics to expose who or whom are behind the giant cicada attack and the hypnosis causing ruckus; however, like the original episodes of the early 2000s, Muriel and Eustace are present just for the ride as Muriel stumps a self-frustrated Velma with elementary riddles and Eustace mouths off like an old kook without as much as a care in the world around them or what’s happened in their own backyard of Nowhere. 

Witty, zany, and all of the above with a nostalgia high, “Straight Outta Nowhere:  Scooby-Doo!  Meets Courage the Cowardly Dog” will delight fans of both series with the hope for more team-ups in the future.  Warner Bros. Animation will release the film on DVD come Tuesday, September 14th with a G rating approved for all audiences and with a runtime of 78 minutes. The disc’s animation picture quality is about as animated and as lively in it’s vibrancy as the characters with no real cause for format concern as aside from a cleaner, more robust color palette, the colors translate nearly indistinguishably from it’s 1080, HD counterpart as the colors do saturate nicely, leaving little room for a potential washed or dull veneer. The English (and dog gibberish) language Dolby digital 5.1 surround sound mix boosts an energetic and immersive output with nonstop creature effects, explosions, laser zaps, etc. All the creepy ambience and score that make “Courage the Cowardly Dog” spookily alluring is right here on this DVD, filling out the channels with dichotic range and space with the depth. Screams take centerstage as the keystones to ever scary flick to maximize the intended feeling of fear and, in this case, laughter. One of the more disappointing aspects of the release is the special features and while three episodes, seemingly randomized picks – Scooby-Doo! Where Are You!’s – “Decoy for a Dognapper” and The Scooby-Doo/Dynomutt Hour’s – “The Gruesome Game of the Gator Ghoul” and “Chiller Diller Movie Thriller,” is a blast from the past and a bit of nostalgia watching reruns as a kid, I really wished there were interviews with the voice cast, especially Marty Grabstein, Thea White, and Courage creator John Dilworth to laud the show and let the fans their appreciate for the little guy…meaning Courage. “Straight Outta Nowhere:  Scooby-Doo!  Meets Courage the Cowardly Dog” wins on many levels: Courage the Cowardly Dog is back, Matthew Lillard is Shaggy once again, and the most petrified pooches in all of animation land bring two generations of people together for the whole family to enjoy their staple idiosyncratic gags and colorful personalities.

A Must Own “Scooby-Doo Meets Courage the Cowardly Dog” on DVD!

That Little Strip of Tape Keeps EVIL From Spying On You! “Eye Without A Face” reviewed! (Gravitas Ventures / U.S. DVD and Miracle Media / UK Digital)

Posted by Steven Lewis on



A lonely agoraphobic hacks into the laptop webcams of six beautiful women across the Los Angeles area, tapping into their lives as a compassionate friend from afar.  His voyeurism allows him interaction, even if it’s virtually, and to deal with his severe introverted panic attacks brought upon him by an extremely abusive father and an absent mother as a young boy.  As he continues to stare at the screen, watching the women’s every move, he becomes convinced that one of the women is drugging, killing, and cannibalizing her one night stands.  Trusting his struggling actor and eccentric Youtuber roommate with his secret, too much ambiguity divides their suspicions until the recorded videoclip files of the women’s death show up on the hacker’s computer one-by-one, leaving the hacker vulnerable to possibly someone watching him. 

Every time your laptop monitor is in the upright position, you’re face-to-face with the onboard camera reflecting every movement you take and everything that happens in the background.  Voyeurism is a powerful drug, a contactless addiction where the depraved eyes crave the lifestyles of others to either stimulate the opiate-secreting pleasure endorphins or for more nefarious reasons, such as obtaining sensitive information that can be used for blackmail or theft.  “Eye Without A Face” represents that all-seeing laptop camera lens peering into what should be a private space, quietly invading without making a sound, and possibly turning into the big brother you never wanted.  Ramin Niami’s written and director voyeuristic thriller plays into that unobstructed power over someone by an antisocial hermit and the more that hermit stays reclusive in his shell the more he feeds into his feed of women, becoming more delusional in his attachment for them.   The L.A. shot thriller is a production of the Iranian-born filmmaker’s Sideshow Films with leads Dakota Shapiro and Luke Cook co-executive producing alongside Karen Robsen and Somme Sahab.

Playing the agoraphobic, voyeuristic, hacker Henry is Dakota Shapiro making his feature film debut.  Henry on paper sounds like an oily and unscrupulous lowlife unable to fit as a piece inside society’s puzzle as he watches women from the comforts of his untidied home and unwashed sweatpants.  Niami saw Henry on the contrary as an abused loner seizing at the thought of being out in the world, being around people, and finding comfort incognito with being these women guardian angel.  Henry is empathetic, modest during more private acts, and speaks to them like an equal in a guiding, positive voice without a hint of aggression.  Dakota Shapiro accentuates Henry’s unthreatening existence with dopey eyes and a lethargic posture. Shapiro’s decelerates so slowly that he makes Luke Cook appear like Speedy Gonzales. “The Chilling Adventures of Sabrina” actor is Henry’s house tenant, Eric, an aspiration Aussie actor trying to land a gig, any gig, in Hollywood and his influencer status is an obsession in itself as he garnishes followers for his own path toward Tinseltown stardom. Eric’s intense self-arrogance can be a put off, but he’s oddly chumming with Henry even after Henry lets him in on his little watcher setup, buying his landlord breakfast nearly every morning, providing him drugs, advising him to stop taking prescription drugs, and trying to find a crack in Henry’s impervious shell as if it was a personal challenge extended to him undertake. Their relationship is night and day, hot and cold, and often splashed with awkward friction with Cook laying on the thick, goofy charm with great attention; yet despite Eric’s knack to have money for everything else but Henry’s rent, the struggling actor eagerly wants to befriend Henry in who might be considered Eric’s only friend as sad as that might sound. All of Henry’s other friends are unaware their performing for the all seeing webcam eye as the cast rounds out with Vlada Vereko, Rebecca Berg, Ashley Elyse Rogers, Evangeline Neuhart, Sarah Marie, Danielle Hope Abrom, and Shekaya Sky McCarthy.

There’s more to “Eye Without A Face” than what meets the…uh, well…eye. While the voyeurism isn’t sexually gratifying but the act itself certainly a core aspect, the blatancy of it is more a distraction to what’s really being conveyed by Niami’s script that’s more aligned with “Henry: A Portrait of a Serial Killer” as the film exhibits key homages to the Michael Rooker starring and John McNaughton directed film. Henry falls into the hazards of a blackhole by becoming entangled in a web of women, drugs, and mental illness without almost never leaving his chair.  Eric unintentionally perpetuates Henry’s reasoning for deviating from his straightened arrow path and constant routine.  In all fairness, that arrow was already severely bowed and wavy at best as the 30-something-year-old has more than definitely broken a few federal and local laws by spying on women through their hacked webcams.  Between the nightmares of an abusive father, memories recalled at Eric’s prying, and being fed the disillusion that the medication he’s taken for years is a figment of a society system trying to control him, Henry has to choose to stick with his current reality or try to be something more than a slug in his inherited home, going as far as to calling into one of the girl’s Onlyfans type website and striking up more of a branded I-am-a-stalker conversation than clearly expressing interest in just casual conversation that sends her into a panic defense mode.  From there, “Eye Without A Face” nearly resembles a theme of anti-confidence resulting in Henry blowing up his quaint and satisfying lifestyle when reaching for a little more that ends with disastrous consequences and becomes woke to his triggering of quelled past.  The surprise twist fails to hold water, making no splash when easily discerned, as it’s slathered way too thin and too revealing around Henry’s anxiety-riddled and panicked life.

The invasion of privacy leaves chills with an overwhelming uncomfortable take on the voyeur thriller while the shocking twist kicks around an underwhelming subplot too easy to spot in Ramin Niami’s “Eye Without A Face,” released on U.S. DVD on August 10th from Gravitas Ventures and on UK digital this coming Monday, August 23rd from Miracle Media. The region free Gravitas Ventures DVD is presented in a 16:9 widescreen aspect ratio on a DVD5 and is displayed with a healthy serving of natural digitally recorded coloring that only strays toward a yellow-mustard tint more noticeably whenever Henry dips into a tense or distressed state. The cinematography is the debut feature film work of Sideshow Films’ Tara Violet who has clever POV shots of characters in front of the camera and characters sitting in front of another camera while acting their individual personalities by a high resolution webcam. Among using different types of distortions to render Henry’s mindset, Violet also takes a page out of Terry Gilliam with a wide-angle lens and touch of a Dutch angle to compound the crazy factor. The Dolby Digital English language 5.1 surround on has prominent dialogue unimpeded by shoddy equipment or mic placement that renders good sound design with passable range and depth, especially during webcam dialogue and other miscellaneous sounds. DVD lacks special features aside from a static menu and, obviously, digital releases don’t usually come with any extras well. No bonus scenes during or after the credits. Despite some elements extracted respectfully from inspired classics, “Eye Without A Face” shares a troubling angle on creepy in a digital world and the calamitous ill-effects of ill-advised help that’s no more useful than saying to an uptight person with an anxiety disorder, “you just got to relax.”

“Eye Without A Face” available on DVD / Blu-ray / Prime Video!