EVIL Does Not Sit and Rollover. “Good Boy” reviewed! (Visions Home Video / 4K UHD Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on April 5, 2026

“Good Boy” Now Available on 4K UHD Blu-ray from Visions Home Video

Indy is a good boy, a loyal nova Scotia Tolling Retriever pet and friend to his owner Todd who’s had him since being a puppy. When Indy senses trouble, a troubling shadowy figure lurking and following his owner, he tries to do all that he can to protect the one he loves the most. Struggling with a chronic illness, Todd retreats to his grandfather’s isolated cabin deep within the woods for a little rest and relaxation after a medical scare that put him in the hospital. Indy senses the supernatural force has followed them away from the city and into the rural family home. As the presence moves about the house, moving closer and closer toward his friend, Todd’s chronic illness becomes increasingly worse, and Indy’s nightmares bend reality as the shadow begins to take a horrifying shape. Todd’s disease has him nearly incapacitated and unaware of the dangers that surround him, leaving Indy as the last line of defense against the looming dark force that wants to take him.

Pet owners rejoice! A horror movie with a story from the perspective of its star, a dog. The 2025 supernatural thriller “Good Boy” has Indy, the then 8-year-old dog’s real name, headlining the film, directed by Indy’s owner Ben Leonberg, horror short filmmaker with such recent credits as “The Fisherman’s Wife” and “Dead Head” from within the last decade. Leonberg also wrote the script alongside Alex Cannon and took over three years to make due to the complexity of working with untrained animal actors, a task that’s easier said than done, to accomplish Indy’s character narrative from his point of view, and, of course, the rigorous A-to-Zs of creating a feature length film. Leonberg coproduces “Good Boy” with Kari Fischer and Brian Goodheart. “Good Boy” is a self-referential studio made film with the company name called “What’s Wrong With Your Dog?”

If casting an animal with a hesitation stillness and pensive piercing eyes, Indy is the four-legged fur baby on the short list. This specific Nova Scotia Tolling Retriever, a breed known for his hunting qualities and retrieval of gunned down carcass and not acting, is an untrained thespian by all means but has a multitude of expressions that work toward the menacing supernatural sense of dread and uneasiness. When Indy stares into a dark corner, it’s shadows expanding slow across the walls and floors, the stare does convey concern. When Indy cries and whimpers in apprehension of being left alone or his owner unaccompanied outside the house, those high-pitched cries and frantic movements from window-to-window bring narrative tension to unsafe separation from man and his loyal best friend-protector. It’s clear that director Ben Leonberg treats his star pup with star focus, providing a dog-level perspective view that incepts and evokes a reaction just like any human character. This applies even to the interactions with Todd (Shane Jensen) and his swaying, emotional reactions working through his own ebb-and-flow pain of a mysterious illness that plagues him. Our first scene with Todd has him sitting motionless on the couch, in the dark, and drooling blood from his mouth in an indistinguishable view of his face, a motif amongst all human characters in frame to keep the focus on Indy’s facial Rolodex of emotions. We never do know what’s wrong with Todd, whether be cancer, organ failure, or perhaps even the supernatural’s malevolent exposure, but it’s made clear he’s on death’s door in more ways than one. The only human face shown is through the VCR playback of Todd’s grandfather and it’s the unique bone structure of horror friend Larry Fessenden (“Habit,” “Jakob’s Wife”) who often seems to be in, in some way, shape, or form, in a number of Shudder distributed films recently. Arielle Friedman and Stuart Rudin bring up the small cast rear.

“Good Boy” is simply not a novel concept. There have been a few animal centered and perception movies throughout the decades, to name a few we start with “Babe,” the loveable little pig who finds friendship with a barn spider, then there was the tearjerking one with an orphaned bear cub who hitches to an adult male to avoid game hunters in “The Bear,” and, lastly, “Homeward Bound” was an adventurous return home with human voiceovers for two dogs and one cat team. The element “Good Boy” does differ from those aforesaid examples. Aside from giving Indy a voice, the non-personified canine is dropped into an intensely atmospheric horror framework that removes the safety net of having opposable thumbs and the misunderstanding between man and animal that makes the tense situation that much more riveting when Indy can’t express to his human the danger that lurks. There’s a heavy theme of animal sensing danger or something amiss with someone carrying an unseen disease, that disease in “Good Boy” manifests as the shadowy figure that acts like the harbinger of death, or to the dark tune of a grim reaper, lying-in-waiting and eventually reaching for Indy’s human pal, Todd. In this concept is the tragic downhill of Todd and the heartbreaking care Indy tries to protect and care for his unsuspecting master but in between all of that concern and drive for Indy is a steady fear something isn’t right, looking past Todd’s ailment toward a showier threat that, to an extent, plays like a device of ignorance for Indy, one that truly distracts him for the real danger plaguing Todd that bets the question, do dogs cope with trouble by creating a diversion?

Visions Home Video, a premium home media label from UK’s Vertigo Releasing, retrieves “Good Boy” for a UK-Ireland 4K UHD Blu-ray release that’s supported on a HEVC encoded, 2160p ultra high-definition, BD100. Through surreal nightmares, inky darkness, and graded with primarily dark gray and bluish tones, “Good Boy” faces images challenges with an indie production attempting to instill atmospheric fear and subtle bumps in the night. That challenge is ultimately met its match with DolbyVision that’s able to decode those type, often blocky, negative spaces and darker color scheme in its high dynamic range. Texturing works to fiber explicate Indy’s golden coat but much of the other details are kept in the dark as Indy’s, with his coloring, is represents almost like a bright spot amongst the color palette, even Todd is obscured in darkness, rain, or mist, but the details that do show do emerge. Two English audio tracks are encoded with a 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio and a LPCM 2.0 Stereo. In regard to the surround mix, back and side channels diffuse the atmosphere non-diegetic sounds to create an immersive environment of a creaky old house pitter-pattered by rain and gusts of wind. Coupled with the front work dialogue and the forceful jump scare moments creates a cinematic bubble that puts viewers right into the dark and stormy eeriness while sitting in their living room, if the viewer has the appropriate audio setup. Dialogue is clean, clear, and prominent albeit ambiance tries to nudge it out of the way at times to but unsuccessfully. Minor instances of depth of Indy, or even the presence, scurrying about the house have leveled balance in what is mostly a still air progression of Indy’s voiceless communication efforts. English is the only available subtitles. Special features include a making-of featurette Making an Indy Film and the theatrical trailer. There are more attractive physical features within Visions Home Video’s black and silver two-toned cardboard O-ring slipcover that leans into the shadow motifs. The same image art is also on the Scanova one-sided sleeve but inside, in the insert, is a double-sided folded mini poster with the same art plus an additional design. There are also four post cards with stills from the feature. The UK 15 certified release has strong horror and bloody images in its brisk 72-minute and region free runtime.

Last Rites: In horror, animals are mostly the perceptive ones, able to see and sense danger that can’t be seen with the human naked eye, and Ben Leonberg captures that phenomena through a fear-induced illness metaphor, one that lies and waits until terminal lucidity knows there’s no escaping the inevitable. Not even man’s best friend can stop it.

“Good Boy” Now Available on 4K UHD Blu-ray from Visions Home Video

Yorgos Lanthimos Early Day EVIL is Not to be Missed! “Dogtooth” reviewed! (Visions Home Video / 4K UHD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on March 26, 2026

“Dogtooth” Available on 4K UHD Blu-ray from Visions Home Video!

Three adult children remain on home grounds by their manipulative father to protect them from the outside world and keep them suspended in a childlike state. Educated on a basic level and even educated incorrectly to strategically keep their spongy intellect pure and from asking too many questions about the curiosities beyond the front gate, the children must complete chores and workouts under their father’s regimental thumb, earning tokens to keep them engaged with simple activities and rewards, but the outside can’t be stopped from seeping in with exterior influences raising more questions than the father can keep up with lies, excuses, and fabricated stories. If he finds his children entertaining an inspiration, his immediate reaction is to manipulatively redirect or even use violence if necessary to put his children back in a stationary line, scaring them of dangers outside the home, such as the killer ferocity of a household cat as it’s curiosity that killed the cat. Or is it the other way around, did the cat kill the curiosity?

Way before his 2026 Oscar nominated film “Bugonia,” way before his quicky dark-comedic Frankenstein variation “Poor Things,” way before the shapeshifting deadline of forced relationships in “The Lobster,” offbeat and provocative Greek filmmaker Yorgos Lanthimos directed “Dogtooth,” the 2009 psychological horror-drama that displayed a disturbing power-dynamics of a nuclear family by a manipulative father of three. Lanthimos co-wrote the script alongside Efthimis Filippou, a regular collaborator with the director from Filippou’s debuting “Dogtooth” script up until 2017 psychological, life invasion thriller “The Killing of a Sacred Deer.” “Dogtooth,” or “Κυνόδοντας” in the native Greek vernacular, is filmed in the heart of Athens, coproduced between Lanthimos, Yorgos Tsourgiannis, and “Do It Yourself” producer Katerina Kaskanioti, and is a collaborated studio project of Boo Productions, Greek Film Center, and Tsourgiannis’s Horsefly Productions.

“Dogtooth” consists of a tight cast of six actors between the parents, three kids, and a security guard employed at the father’s manufacturer. Some would say Christos Stergioglou plays one of the worst manipulating parents on screen of our generation with a calm demeanor and a convincing nature while having a ferocious side of physical punishment against those going against the grain. With a small cast, those taking the beatings can be his children. “Singapore Sling’s” Michele Valley is in the mother role, an equal schemer in her abetting of the problematic parenting, but it’s quite unclear whether the Mother is either in on the Father’s paranoic protective plan or whether she too is a victim of his deceit. While she can be seen deriding her children in seldom words and violence, she too follows Father’s strange ways: pretending to be a four-legged guard dog like her kids, never leaves the house, succumbs to Father’s sexual habits, etc. The sex never extends from parent to child, leaving most of Father’s perversities kept intact by Mother and a good old fashion VHS stag tape, but there’s still exploitation done amongst the children. Treated to his own arranged woman to bed, overseen by his Father, the son’s sexual hormones and desires are made docile by the security guard Christina (Anna Kalaitzidou) from his father’s work and is seen as an act of transactional duty rather than having a presence of affection. Christos Passalis does embody his character with a young, pre-adolescent boy with tempers, sibling competitiveness, and appropriate reactions to all things that accompany a young boy. Eventually, after Christina is let go exploiting and influencing the younger daughter with sexual tradeoffs and forbidden contraband, the son is forced to have sex with one of his sisters to maintain the stability of a pure environment. Angeliki Papoulia and Mary Tsonia are the Older and Younger Daughter with similar appearances and attributes, too exemplifying childlike qualities, that make them also like twins in how they act and how they act with each other with the Eldest naturally, without purposeful intent, trying to break free of her father’s grip in the way children do – in irritational and hurtful ways. Other than Christian, none of the main principal characters have a name, leaving them to be a representation of any family of any kind out in the world. Steve Krikris, Sissi Petropoulou, and Alexander Voulgaris round out the film’s supporting parts.

Yorgos Lanthimos takes helicopter parenting to the extreme but in subtle, death-by-a-thousand cuts techniques simply by sheltering in place his entirely family for years and himself teaching his children lessons of his own fabrication. Taught the world is a dangerous place, where cats are the most feared and deadly animal who killed their exiled “brother”, the children fear what’s beyond their sprawling compound so much they don’t dare cross the gate line. Vulgar worlds like pussy are defined with innocuous objects, such as lamp light, and lesser provocative vocabulary, in this case zombie, is given the designation to little yellow flowers. The children’s minds are so brainwashed, their identity is also erased along with their names, mostly busying themselves in the same sterile clothing that evokes no emotion whatsoever. Lanthimos extends this common place sense of being into the character interactions, whether between family members or the supporting characters, that make the entire tone feel that more unsettling and perfunctory. The sexual tension is chronic, even between the siblings it’s uncomfortably prevalent, but never malicious on the surface as the acts are kept dutiful and necessary to sustain dominion over the children and perhaps even the wife despite its icky film coating. The whole idea of the titular dogtooth is a rite of passage from childhood to adulthood, the latter suppressed by the weaponization of sex, education, and threat, for when the permanent adult canine, or dogtooth as Father puts it, falls out is when a child can leave the next and in that is manipulative false hope that one day, the strongest tooth, it’s ability to rip through meat and sinew, will fall out on its own accord, essentially making the children a metaphorical dogtooth that needs forceful extraction from its rigid system of enameled manipulation.

Courtesy of Visions Home Video, a premium home media label from Vertigo Releasing, “Dogtooth” arrives on 4K UHD Blu-ray in the UK-Ireland. Presented with 2160p in the original aspect ratio of 2.39:1, the HEVC encoded BD100 has a superior encoding compared to previous models and other region 4Ks with a Yorgos Lanthimos approved transfer of the 35mm negative that’s contains and controls the grain that once had issues in previous releases with ill-defining effects on darker sections of the scene, establishing corrected contrast where intended and needed other releases failed to accomplish. A natural light grading shines through with immersive coloring from the monochromic, or achromatic, outfits to the saturation of greens of the compound estate, a dynamic range of the metadata, DolbyVision. There’s very minor speckling off some individual cells on the stock but the overall product is the best “Dogtooth” has looked and deserves it. There are a pair of audio layers available: a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 and a LPCM 2.0 Stereo both in Greek with optional English subtitles. The monotonic dialogue alleviates many issues associated with these tracks as there are no inflections, tones, forced accents, or any other shaded types of vocal manipulation. The plainspoken, forth-right conversing creates a naturally prominent layer that’s clean and concentrated above all else. That’s not the say the soundtrack or the ambience drags or lacks behind though it is slightly less dynamic in its diegetic range. You won’t be fully immersed with audio hits through side or back channels, but every layer has a stronger and bolder presence than before in previous releases. Special features include a film in tandem audio commentary with stars Angeliki Papoulia and Christos Passalis, an archived interview with Yorgos Lanthimos from 2009, a 2025 London Film Festival stage interview with more in-depth insights from Lanthimos, three deleted scenes, and two original trailers. Visions home video release is a vision in itself starting with the beginning layer, a cardboard O-ring slipcover with a somewhat glossy, upscaled image of one of the female children locked behind a bar-cell of bare legs. The same image is represented as the primary sleeve art inside a Scanova case (no Blu-ray logo at the top). Inserted inside are four collectible cards of high-quality stills from the film and a double-sided folded mini-poster. The region free release is UK certified 18 for strong sex and nudity inside the duration of 97 minutes.

Last Rites: “Dogtooth’s” disturbing fan outs, spreads like an infection of manipulation, but is localized in and around the property that’s become a cage, or an invisible fence, with the latter being more poignant to the storyline with the father having them bark and be on all fours like a dog, a pet symbolism indictive of egocentric power over those one can control from the beginning. The new Visions Home Video 4K UHD release is a new and improved upgrade for any collector’s wall.

“Dogtooth” Available on 4K UHD Blu-ray from Visions Home Video!

Cinderalla’s Beauty Evokes an EVIL of Jealously, Obsession, and Beauty Standards. “The Ugly Stepsister” reviewed! (Second Sight Films / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on March 21, 2026

“The Ugly Stepsister” on 4K UHD Blu-ray from Second Sight!

Elvira’s mother weds a wealthy estate owner to re-establish life and permanence in high society. Alongside living with her sister Alma and her new, beautiful stepsister Agnes, Elvira keeps on smile on her braced teeth though she’s passively mistreated by those around her. When Agnes’s father suddenly passes away and it’s unearthed the estate has no money to its name, the opportunity to attend the monarchy ball for the prince to select a wife from a pool of available the virginal maidens is Elvira’s persistent dream to marry a prince and get her family back in wealth and power. Elvira attends finishing school to learn proper lady etiquette but her braces, round nose, and pudgy exterior pushes her aside of teacher’s attention in favor of the beautiful, blond Agnes. Primeval cosmetic surgeries, tape worms, and no sympathy from her mother send Elvira down a path of obsession despite the harm to herself as she eyes the prize of landing the prince of her dreams over her stepsister.

Based off the classic folk and fairy tale Cinderella, debut feature film director Emilie Blichfeldt takes a different perspective on the story that retains its roots in happily ever after but redirects the core narrative to the eldest stepsister in immense obsession, pain, and suffering to obtain the seeming unobtainable, to marry a prince. “The Ugly Stepsister” the 2025 dark comedy and body horror from Norway that emphasizes the lengths one will take to become noticeably perfect in every aesthetic way. Blichfeldt regularly visit the concept of a deranged perception of beautiful in her short films from the 2013 documentary “Do You Like My Hair?” that aims to spin a reinvention on beauty standards by finding it from within and the more body fantastical “Sara’s Intimate Confessions” that follows a big and tall disproportional woman exploring what it means to be feminine with her overly talkative vulva. “The Ugly Stepsister” also tackles beautiful in a more painfully, cathartic way in order to achieve, much the same way a cheerleader sustains a lower body weight to make the squad or the self-harm models put themselves through to stay thin and beautiful. The film, entitled in it’s native Norwegian as Den stygge stesøsteren, is a coproduction between Lava Films, Film i Väst, Scanbox Entertainment, Zentropa International Sweden, and Mer Film with Lizette Jonjic, Ada Soloman, Mariusz Wlodarski, and Maria Ekerhovd in the role of international producers.

Though a beauty already in her own right, Lea Myren donned prosthetics and makeup for the titular Elvira to make the appearance of later teen, early 20s woman just on the verge of losing the baby fat. Other personal traits added to Elvira’s character are braces, dark corkscrew curls, and muted toned outfits to further and contrast as a perceived ugliness within the context of the era, but in reality, Elvira’s beautiful young woman already with soft, large eyes, a curvy physique, and a natural gift of goodness within her that’s twisted by exterior conventions on what is defined as beauty. Shedding some of those elements, like the braces and weight, transform Elvira into a more desirable young lady now visible to all, from her draconian etiquette teacher who initially wouldn’t give her the time of day to the Prince who first looked upon Elvira with disgust in her natural state before become an exquisite creature stemmed from surgery and other unnatural body manipulations. Myren wonderfully careens the character right into the dirt as Elvira cuts off her nose to spite her face, damn near literally, on the quixotic quest to change her outer shell that ultimately changes her from the inside. Constants in Elvira’s life, or way, are Agnes, who’s only referenced as Cinderella once in a look that isn’t too cinder-y, played by Thea Sofie Loch Næss (“Arctic Void”) who doesn’t struggles with her character’s looks but contends with her new family’s acute empowerment, mostly rooted in family favoritism and jealousy, as well as Alma, Elvira’s younger sister with a by far majority much more comfortable in her own skin despite having dressed similarly with frizzier, unkempt hair by way of Fo Fagerli’s approach. Loch Næss doesn’t portray the as pure and innocence of the Disney classic, with her passionate romance with the stable boy in the hay barn, but the character is fairly close in all other regards with the more significant change to the characters being the stepsisters, especially Elvira’s reserved notions turned bitter when being compared to Agnes. Alma is altogether out of the equation with no bitterness in her heart nor with any malice whatsoever to anybody but tends to her sister’s rise and downfall with little pushback. Ane Dahl Torp (“The Wave”) is in the role of the mother Rebekka who will do anything to advance her daughter in society, mostly for selfish reasons as we’ll gather later on through a course of characters, such as the Prince Julian (Isac Calmroth), stable boy Isak (Malte Gårdinger), brutal plastic surgeon Dr. Esthétique (Adam Lundgren), and finishing school head mistresses/lesbian lovers (Katarzyna Herman & Cecilia Forss) who have contrasting approaches, both negative, toward Elvira’s waistline.

“The Ugly Stepsister’s” body horror is more than just a serious manipulation in losing weight and cutting more than corners toward image perfection. The real horror is in the shame, the shaming of the body that’s overlooked, called out, and humiliated and to make matters worse for Elvira, her body type is by all of today’s standards curvy in the right places and beautiful albeit a body double was used for her pre-trim down nude scene. Prosthetics are in place around the face and arms to make Lea Myren appear a little weightier, but the difference is extremely negligible and that’s the real power of horror when it’s terribly subtle, an already beautiful young girl succumb to peer and societal pressures that induces crazy self-harm for opinionated ideals and appearances. Blichfeldt’s ideas of body-shaming extreme measures done by Elvira are not a far stretch from what self-conscious people do today about their weight. Instead of swallowing a tape worm egg, one can stick a figure down their throat to achieve the same effect. Instead of breaking a nose to re-mold with a hammer and chisel, surgery and medicines are abused ot be the new, easy, fast weight lost solution. Blichfeldt comparative shots linger on Agnes with Elvira seething with envy and with the director’s bold choice of provocative nudity, exposing genitalia and depiction of X-rated acts, engages an alluring perversity that sheds light on a superficial world of beauty and sex, shielding the core, deeper problem of societal shame.

Second Sight Films brings the Shudder and Vertigo Releasing North American marketed “The Ugly Stepsister” to 4K UHD Blu-ray. The ultra high-definition release is HVEC encoded onto a BD66 and presented in HDR10 with Dolby Vision, at 2160p, and in it’s the original aspect ratio, a European 1.66:1 widescreen. Match the dark toned nature, the grading also exacts a somber coating with mahogany and ebony wooden structures and dimly lit castles of a Victorian era to bask in an austere state were, more so with personal happiness, is hard to come by. Details are hard to stomach, in a good way, with proximate detail in the special effects closeups, such as in the mutilation scene where a nearly severed toes are hanging on for dear life by what little skin in left tethered to the foot, that go into macrolevel detail and is accentuated by the additional pixels. Skin tones appear natural and unique to each individual in a purposeful contrast of fair and tanned skin along with different layers of texturing between organic qualities and the fabric outfits they wear, such as Agnes more single block outfit with a smoother design compared to Elvira’s multiple layers and pattern garb. The Norwegian DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 has an eclectic powerhouse soundtrack of synth and string orchestra from John Erik Kaada and Vilde Tuv. The story doesn’t have a great deal of direction use for the 5.1 mix with mostly a conversating piece with mostly diegetic ambience, leaving the 5.1 less immersive than required, but there is vitality and strength behind the dialogue and action, clear and unobscured in its clean presence. The multitude of squishiness, again the severed toes and also the removal of the tape worm through an orifice, is highly emphasized more max effect. Areas of depth mostly lingers around the front but there are opportune moments in medium shots for audio expression. English subtitles are clean, accurate, and well-paced. Special features on the standard 4K release include a new audio commentary with director Emilie Blichfeldt and filmmaker Patrik Syversen, a new audio commentary with critic Meagan Navarro, a new interview with Blichfieldt This is my Ball, a new interview with star Lea Myren Generational Trauma, a new interview with Cinderella actress Thea Sofie Loc Naess Take Up Space, a new interview with special effects artist Thomas Foldberg Character and Gore, a special effects featurette The Beauty of Ugly: The Effects of the Ugly Stepsister, a visual essay from Kat Hughes A Cinderella Story, deleted scenes, and both the Blichfiedt short films mentioned earlier in this review: “How Do You Like My Hair?” and “Sara’s Intimate Confessions.” The review here is for the standard 4K UHD Blu-ray set but there is a limited edition set that includes the 1080p Blu-ray as well. The black Amaray case features a character still of Elvira on the front cover in all her dark maiden and sweet-faced glory. There are no physical extras inside. UK certified 18 for strong sex, nudity, and gore, “The Ugly Stepsister” from Second Sight Films is region free and has a runtime of 109 minutes.

Last Rites: “The Ugly Stepsister” is a yarn not yet explored in other Cinderella tales, especially when it involves body horror and a sexually explicitness that that will forever make watching the Disney classic now uncomfortable when a recalled thought from Blichfeldt’s film pops into the visual cortex. Yet, it’s a remarkably twisted story from a different perspective that isn’t magically fantastical but grim and tragic.

“The Ugly Stepsister” on 4K UHD Blu-ray from Second Sight!

A Hole in the Stratosphere Mutates a Whole Lot of EVIL! “Ozone! Attack of the Redneck Mutants!” reviewed! (Video Vengeance / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on March 16, 2026

Protect the Ozone Layer or Else Meet a Mutated Redneck Fate! Buy “Ozone! Attack of the Redneck Mutants!” on Blu-ray

Arlene, a passionate university student of environment science, and acquaintance Kevin, the untroubled son of an oil tycoon, travel to Poolville, Texas where Arlene’s adamant cause to save the planet has put her on edge with the imprudent Kevin and his family’s oil drilling, planet contaminating business. Arlene’s mission in the rural town is to test the Ozone layer after a chemical manufacture spill while Kevin tags along much to her chagrin. Before she can analyze the effects of the spill, the residents of Poolville begin to mutate into festering, flesh-eating creatures and Arlene and Kevin are stuck in the middle of the mayhem. The exposure mutates Poolville’s population at a slow and unpredictable rate that leaves no where safe to shelter and their own lingering presence exposes them also to the chemical agents. The longer they stay, the greater the chance their body will transform into flesh-craving fiends, wild-eyed and disgorging green vomit trying to get to their next meal.

On the heels of “The Abomination,” shot back-to-back in the same month and also at nearly all the same set locations, “Ozone! Attack of the Redneck Mutants” is the perfectly obscure grindhouse film for a double bill from directors Bret McCormick, who helmed the house-shelled creature feature “The Abomination,” and Matt Devlen’s environmental bumpkin zombie horror! Shot on location in and around Poolville and Fort Worth, Texas, the lo-fi, flesh-eating, in more ways than one, gory feature is written by Brad Redd and produced by the Devlen and McCormick due along with composer Kim Davis, credited as Marie Skylar (“Body Parts”). The film has a strong cautionary, allegorical theme of man-made containing spill effects on the environment, such as the ozone layer in this narrative, and their underlining harmful effects on humans that go to an exaggerated level of devouring each other in bits and pieces. The body horror indie is self-funded by McCormick and Devlen and had a short run on VHS micro-label Muther Video.

If you’re one of the lucky ones and seen Bret McCormick’s “The Abomination,” you may notice familiar actors in Devlen’s “Ozone! “The Attack of the Redneck Mutants!” However, the protagonists do a reversal of demeanor with Blue Thompson as Arlene, the environmental science student who is thrust into being a competent and adept fighter against the mutants whereas her character in “The Abomination” was no different than the stereotypical female victim of horror trope. Scott Davis tackled the creature in his house with mild composer, even when it devoured his friends and family, but Davis’s Kevin Muncy is foolish and cowardly, wailing to the top of his lungs and flailing his arms and legs when attacked like he’s drowning in deep water because he doesn’t know how to swim. Arlene and Kevin are an unlikely pairing, environmental antagonists, stuck together in the mutated middle traversing the back country while rural residents transfigure before their eyes into flesh-hungry fiends. Loafing gun-toter Wade McCoy and his mother Ruby are two of those Poolville denizens that that come under threat. Played by Brad McCormick, Wade’s a bit of a stereotypical caricature of the term redneck with plaid shirt, truck hat, beer in hand, and shotgun at the ready, as seen in earlier scenes with his character blowing off the broad face of old gourdes in his backyard. Wade’s mother Ruby (Jance Williams, “Tabloid”)) is a fireball in her own aged way that’s gives evidence to Wade’s beer, guns, and philandering ways. The rest of the cast are all farming mutants who receive sangre-spilling screentime with Luther Webb, Barry Stephen, Londy Porter, Regina Hackenbush, Leon Bardol and Lorraine Dowdy, Rhonda Rooney, and Barbara Dow as their victims.

Spitting in the face of the budget’s limited purse strings, or rather spewing neon green glop right into it, “Ozone! Attack of the Redneck Mutants!” has tremendous cult appeal with its sly editing of human-to-mutant transfiguration and its evisceration and cannibalism gore effects that munches on intestines, a staple dish for the prototypical zombie, undead or otherwise. The horror looks monstrously great on screen with simple syrup editing under its grindhouse celluloid aesthetic that concentrates a steady transformation of surviving environmental terror, a theme that’s been persistently weighty on activists, politicians, and science communities’ shoulders and minds to this date. Man-made chemicals and chemical reactions have had a known effect on the ozone layer since the mid-1970s when chemists found chlorofluorocarbons, such as in certain aerosols, had a negative depleting result on the ozone in the stratosphere. “Ozone! Attack of the Redneck Mutants!” pulls from that scientific fact and swirls it with an extreme horror element devasting to humanity. Devlen and director of photography Guy Rafferty secure perfectly framed shots, with one sequence coming to mind of a grass field with wildflowers and buzzing with nature and the camera pans up and over a rolling hill toward a smokestack manufacturer that makes the connection stronger and more impactful to the story. There’s also a subtle conspiracy between oil tycoon inheritor having some involvement in his father’s oil business and the twist knowledge that his family has a relationship in owning and distributor culprit chemical substances that igniting hell on Earth, sparking extended internal beef, as if the protagonists weren’t already polar opposites butting heads and at each other’s throats between their ideals of big oil and an environmental science, the latter on the precipice of being a muckraker.

Tapping into the same man-made environmental crisis horror to the likes of “Godzilla” and “The Crazies” and if you’re hungry for more of the same subgenre, “Ozone! Attack of the Redneck Zombies” is a bloody good time on a downsized appetite, now available on Blu-ray for the first time from Visual Vengeance, a partner label from Wild Eye Releasing. The director approved standard definition master from the original 8mm elements comes out of the antiquated format shadows onto an AVC encoded BD50 but the transfer was done from super 8 celluloid, retaining much of the emulsion gaps in light leaks and garners a fair amount of speckling, cigarette burns, and vertical scratching but the overall original print has been cared for, well preserved to offer an upgraded resolution as much as the increase in pixels allows with an untouched grading that keeps the nostalgic, sandstone complexion. A full screen 1.33:1 is the original aspect ratio applied also here on the Blu-ray. The English PCM mono track is about as a feeble as you expect but adds to the nostalgia in it’s muffled, boxy, and slightly hissy-scratching post-production recording. You honestly don’t need it touch up or have it upgraded into channel multitude or else it loses that signature singularity associated with hard-to-find, cult budget horror from the 80s. The front channel produces all the action and dialogue surrounded by simple fixed score and it works better than most of its ilk, but you’ll still find it lacking vitality and having a mismatch gap between the action and the audio. English subtitles are available. Where the technical aspects of a Blu-ray are always subpar, because of the fair warning received at the beginning of each film, the encoded and physical special features are what fans crave from the always happy to delivery Visual Vengeance label. Encoded is a commentary with producer/co-star Bret McCormick and actress Blue Thompson, a second commentary from horror/film experts Sam Panico and Bill Van Ryn, an interview with actress Blue Thompson which is an extension of her “The Abomination” interview on that Blu-ray release, location visits, deleted scenes and outtakes, including special effects behind-the-scenes, without audio, the original VHS intro reel from Muther Video, an archived interview with Matt Devlen from a Cinema Wasteland screening, a producer trailer reel from Matt Devlen, Devlen’s short film “Babies,” actress Barbara Dow’s acting reel, an interview with fellow era director Mark Pirro (“Nudist Colony of the Dead”) on the film, an archived public access TV interview Hollywood Unseen, a Devlen interview on the Let’s Watch Movies podcast, feature image gallery, the trailer for McCormick’s “Tabloid,” and other Visual Vengeance preview trailers. A massively encoded presence is always accompanied by a massive physical presence, beginning with a newly commissioned cover art by graphic artist, The Dude Designs, on the cardboard slipcover. The same art is also the primary art on the reversible sleeve, but I like to turn it around, switch it up, to reflect the original VHS box art. Inserted in the clear Amaray is a mini-folded poster with even more new art by a different artist, Andrei Bouzikov, an official, black and white comic book adaptation with Marc Gras doing all the artwork from cover-to-cover, a white paper puke bag with the feature title, a Muther Video sticker, and a retro sticker sheet from Visual Vengeance! A Visual Vengeance release is like opening a present on Christmas morning! The region free, unrated film has 93-minute run which, in my honest opinion, is a bit too long for the story being told as does drag between first and second acts, and if memory serves me, “The Abomination” was exactly the same way.

Last Rites: Gun-carrying, tobacco-spitting, beer-drink rednecks stand no chance against the manmade decay of planet Earth in this done-right DIY horror from Matt Devlen that’s creatively spewing its neon juices galore! Video Vengeance sheds light on another obscure release that doesn’t deserve to be at the bottom of the barrel with its natural celluloid intact, a whole lot of extra goodies in the special features, and a fun and yearned full physical presence too good to be true.

Protect the Ozone Layer or Else Meet a Mutated Redneck Fate! Buy “Ozone! Attack of the Redneck Mutants!” on Blu-ray

One Man’s Love and Another Man’s Revenge Take on the Mothers of All EVIL! “Forgotten Pistolero” reviewed! (Carambola Media / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on March 10, 2026

“Forgotten Pistolero” Now Available on Blu-ray!

Rafael is a hunted man as he travels from Mexico to Texas searching for his childhood friend Sebastian, a son of a Mexican general who years earlier was slain by an unfaithful wife and her lover shortly after returning from war with the French. When Rafeal happens upon a man living in solitude on the land, he identifies him as his long-lost friend who has forgotten about his traumatic past and decides not to revictimize his friend of the past, but when Rafael is captured by bounty hunters, Sebastian saves his life that spurs Rafeal into unveiling to his friend his real childhood tragedy. Sebastian and Rafael set upon a mission of revenge and to save Sebastian’s sister Isabella, who Rafael has fallen in love with and who has had an arranged marriage to a humble shopkeeper to rein in her opposition to her mother’s betrayal. As the two men battle unscrupulous gun-toting henchmen and deal with their own personal issues in their own way, the gunfighters unravel the truth about their Sebastian and Isabella’s parents while shooting their way toward those directly responsible for unending their tranquil lives.

“The Forgotten Pistolero,” aka “Gunman of Ave Maria,” aka “Il pistolero dell’Ave Maria” is the 1969 Italian spaghetti western based on the converging of Greek tragedies from Aeschylus, Euripides and Homer. Notable Italian western director Ferdinando Baldi, director of “Texas, Adios” and “Django, Prepare a Coffin,” pulls forth the betrayal and revenge tale out of the fourth century and into the 19^th century set in the semi-arid landscape between Mexico and Texas with spears traded out for six-shooters. The script is penned by multiple writers with Vencenzo Cerami (“The Silent Stranger”), Pier Giovanni Anchisi (“Hate is My God”), Mario di Nardo (“Aphrodite, Goddess of Love”), Federico de Urrutia (“Hour of Death”), and even director Baldi to grasp the immense drama of tragedy and place it inside the context of a western gunslinger. “The Forgotten Pistolero” came at the height of the spaghetti western subgenre produced out of Italy with “Django” producer Manolo Bolognini as feature showrunner with Izaro Films and B.R.C. Produzione as production companies filming primary in Spain doubling as the Central and North American west.

Like many Italian films of the era, especially in the spaghetti western and horror subgenres, the cast is comprised of multinationals with New York-born Leonard Mann at the lead actor credit. Mann, who began his career in Italy and continued acting in a number of Italian films (“The Unholy Four,” “Death Steps in the Dark”), plays the titular pistolero Sebastian inexplicably haunted by his past while living in solitude until childhood friend Rafeal, played by Italian-born Peter Martell (“God Made Them… I Kill Them”), discovers his friend and reveals he truth that’s subconsciously plagued Sebatian for far too long. There’s a show of unspoken connection between the two characters that time faded and is rekindled by mutual respect in both – Rafael’s intentions to not hurt Sebastian with the truth by running away after finding him and Sebastian’s tracking him down and saving him from bounty bandidos. No words needed to describe their bond and through Mann and Martell’s acting do we see that connection solidify to be indestructible. Completing the childhood friendship is Isabella, played by Spanish actress Pilar Velázquez (“Naked Girl Murdered in the Park”), who is forced to marry a humble yet good man shopkeeper Ignacio (Luciano Rossi, “Salon Kitty”) to be out of illicit lover Tomas’s way as he tries to woo back Anna, both of whom staged a coup and killed Sebastian and Isabella’s father, General Juan Carrasco (José Suárez, “Texas, Adios”). Isabella adds crucial love interest to Rafael’s state of mind as the hunted gunman finds solace at the bottom of the tequila bottle with his life on the run and his love married to another man. Rafael’s only hope is Sebastian, thought dead or believed to have vanished by his treacherous mother Anna (Luciana Paluzzi, “99 Women”) and her scoundrel lover Tomas (Alberto de Mendoza, “Horror Express”) who have drifted apart and have their own complex dynamic to which in itself is failing falling out to have permanently taken a father away from his children and have it result all for naught. Sebastian slowly reconnections with Rafael and himself as his subdued vengeance is ironically rooted by a fierce craving to see those responsible pay.

Ferdinando Baldi’s surface-layer retribution theme has a subaqueous depth of leagues-upon-leagues of combative and raw emotion, seeded by a singular event of betrayal, separation, and loss all in the life-altering blink of an eye. Though crucial to thought processes and motivations of the character on either side of the moral coin, the story bypasses the long years between the assassination when Sebastian, Isabella, and Rafael are children and much later when the obligation of adulthood comes knocking. What’s not depicted from those omitted years are the trials of Rafael’s passion for Isabella and his arduous ordeal to evade capture by Thomas’s goons nor the privy of Sebastian’s life since the death of his father other than it’s made known Rafael’s mother took Sebastian under her wing and died recently. What’s also missing, and has becomes quite a negative plot hole in the story, is how Rafael and Sebastian learned to gun fight and do it extremely well that becomes key to their reckoning success. Isabella too suffers living in close proximity to her mother and her illicit lover with a seething hate, especially for her mother, and her relationship with a timid but kind shopkeeper who aims to please her happiness without demanding much from her already shattered childhood. Triggering trauma, down the bottle depression, suffering in silence, and a searing hatred coupled with perfected embattled showdowns and gunslinging escapades lead up to an unraveled, truth-be-told twist ending of scorching inferno on where it all started. Baldi knew how to frame a shot that paired people with steady tension or to find their true North when it came to exposition and his gunfights, and though not inundated with rabid rapid-fire riddling with bullet holes, “Forgotten Pistolero” does stand firm in the turbulent ocean of western films, especially with flawed, hero-errant protagonists.

Catalogued title 001 for the IFD Films offshoot label, Carambola Media, distributed through Diabolik DVD, “Forgotten Pistolero” quick draws a new 2-disc, high-definition Blu-ray, encoded with AVC on a BD25 for the English ADR and a BD50 for the Italian ADR language version because it’s accompanied with extras. The different languages are encoded on individual discs. The extra pixels offer an extremely high level of detail that reproduces a competent saturation of a warmer graded film, complete with saddle brown and burnt sienna tones, brightly lit in exterior definition and really absorbed with the interiors from it’s 2K saturation of the 35mm print presented in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio. No obvious print damage to the 1969 film, emulsified and preserved properly for later restoration efforts of today. Often skin tones appear orangish, as seen in many DVD updates, but the color correcting process works wonders with “Forgotten Pistolero’s” verisimilar viewing. As noted, each language track has its own disc that offer two audio options on each disc. The English and Italian language discs come with a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 Mono mix and an uncompressed LPCM 2.0 Mono, both rendering ideal fidelity through the power of early Italian cinema ADR with only insubstantial studio inference and no hissing or crackling pops to note. Either track will work with a seemingly natural flow, even the English track since some actors are mouth articulating English works, as any kind of desynch between the action of talking and the post-production audio has egregious control. Gunfire has that distinctly rich ricochets effect, and the punches pack a nice wallop when struck, both typical in spaghetti western greats. The interview with Leonard Mann and the original trailer is exclusively on the Italian language disc whereas the English track focuses just on the feature. The standard Blu-ray comes in a standard Amaray with an extra lock-in flap for the second disc. The sleeve art is of the film’s original poster art with a shirtless Leonard Mann, who’s never shirtless in the film, looking cowboy rugged with his gun holstered on his hip. The hard A region encoded disc is not rated and has a runtime of 83-minutes.

Last Rites: Don’t mistake “Forgotten Pistolero” as an ordinary spaghetti western and don’t ever compare to it to The Man With No Name trilogy as a totally separate type of Italian western but the Carambola Media release is something special, pulled from the depths of Greek mythology, and spun to be a tale of tragedy, twist, and a torrent of gunfights and emotions.

“Forgotten Pistolero” Now Available on Blu-ray!