Category Archives: Just fucking awesome

You, Me, and EVIL Makes Three on “The Island” reviewed! (Eureka Entertainment / Special Edition Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“The Island” from Eureka Entertainment and MVD Visual! Order Here!

Geography teacher Mr. Cheung faith in his student’s studies lacks encourage and their grades likely won’t improve.  He decides to take his class on a field trip to an isolated island he once visited more than a decade ago as a young man.  With the intended purpose of relaxation, Mr. Cheung refuses his students of mentioning any schoolwork and studies to try and enjoy the coasting waters and the native nature the island has to offer.  However, there’s more than just animals and plants inhabiting the island as a family of three eccentric brothers welcome them with strange behavior and creepy vibes.  When the younger brother selects one of the student girls as his bride to carrier on their lineage, the once ideal getaway traps Mr. Cheung and his students without a way of escaping the irrational whims and delusions of the three brothers.  With a retrieval boat still a day out, the cornered teacher must keep his party alive at all costs. 

Considered Hong Kong’s answer or version of the backwoods pursuers of cutoff society people, 1985’s “The Island” secludes normal kids and their acquiescent teacher on an island where inbreeding has corrupted the copies of three brothers who’ve recently interred their adamant mother to rest and who’ve been searching for mainland women suitable to be the unsterile youngest’s wife.  Leung Po-Chi, or Po-Chih Leong, director behind “He Lives By Night” and “Hong Kong 1941,” produces a Jekyll-and-Hyde contrasting tale that’s sad and bleak to the core with a script not pinpointed to one particular writer but rather to a creative team within the production company D & B Films, aimed to capitalize on the western grim nature of the deranged and callous upon the unsuspecting and innocent seen in such exploitation and other B-pictures as Hong Kong shifts from the longstanding yet now waning Kung-Fu pictures.  Dickson Poon, Sammo Hung Kam-Bo, and John Sham, the founders of D & B Films, produce the film. 

John Sham may not be the ideal looking or sounding hero with a receiving hairline close to Three Stooges’ Larry Fine, thick, round spectacles, and about as average build of a middle-aged man as they come, but for “The Island” the ‘Yes! Madam” actor and D & B Films’s cofounder is suitable and ideal to be the pliantly, run-of-the-mill geography instructor looking to leave the woes of education behind him for a chance to revisit a place from his youth.  Unfortunately, Sham’s inadvertently the head of the snake as everyone remembers the exposed poisonous fangs threateningly elongated from with out the jowls underneath the reptilian beady and glowing eyes.  No one really remembers the slithering body unless there’s a warning rattle connected at the end.  That’s how the rest of the student body reproduces in trying to portray characters to care about but not really achieving the level of sympathy needed to rise about that film of understanding.  One of the more prominent kids is Phyllis, labeled the chunkier one by youngest aggressive, the snotty-simpleton Sam Fat (Billy Sau Yat Ching, “Scared Stiff”) and she’s targeted for Sam Fat’s procreation affections.  Played by Hoi-Lun Au, Phyllis has a working but tiffed relationship with Ronald (Ronald Young, “Sex and Zen III”) and see the untimely death of Ronald sends Phyllis into seeing red, being a formidable survival combatant against the remaining Fat brothers Tai (Lung Chan, “Encounter of the Spooky Kind”) and Yee (Jing Chen, “Riki-Oh:  The Story of Ricky”).  Billy Sau Yat Ching, Lung Chan, and Jing Chen are distinctly diverse to the best possible way, and each deliver their own dish of crazy that gives “The Island” an inescapable locked inside a padded cell substructure all too familiar on its base componentry but alien enough to master a new diverging kind of terror.  Che Ching-Yuen, Chan Lap-Ban (“Hex After Hex”), Kitty Ngan Bo-Yan, Lisa Yeun Lai-Seung, and Timothy Zao (“Diary of the Serial Killer”) costar in the relatively fresh faced and unknown at the time casted film. 

Leung Po-Chi wets our whistle with an opening of an intense forced marriage ceremony involving shuddering sexual exploitation and personal space invasive mistreatment of a mainland young woman, a swimmer who swam her way into trouble with the island’s inhabitants – an elderly mother and her three disturbed sons with the goal of using her for breeding a new bloodline.  This ultimately sets up the tone for a bleaker story that tells of nihilist cruelty with a thematic division between the urban educated and the unsophisticated rural folk, in this case the rural Bumpkins are isolated island inhabitants, but then Leung switches gears with a lighthearted introduction of frolic scurrying teacher and his students as they spread amongst the island’s sandy beaches wearing brilliantly colored skin tight swimsuits and bask in the island’s natural beauty with a couple of them going tangent into their own personal secondary storylines.   Those subplots never vine out and upward to flower fully but there’s enough stem and leafing groundwork between the good old gay times and a few individual internal affairs to setup sympathy for at least a select few as the relationship between visitors and residents quickly sours with Sam-Fat’s eyes growing bigger and bigger and his drool becoming slobbery and slobbery for Phyllis.  There’s not a ton of autonomy for the brothers who do their mother’s bidding long after she expires, committing themselves to the original plan of marrying off Sam-Fat in a show of take and force that robs Mr. Chueng’s dual purpose plan of a good time of fun and nostalgia.  Leung acutely abrupt faces again, back to the cruel inklings from the beginning, that displays unsettling camera shots, dark and low-warmth lighting, and a ferocity that’s always been with the brothers now more evident and growing inside the remaining survives who must fight for each other as well as themselves.  Leung’s style feels very much like a blend between the quick editing and fast action of a martial arts production but has the lighting and chaos-laden horror of an Italian video nasty that does see and lingers onto blood spilled. 

“The Island’s” a terror-riddled getaway that has arrived onto a new Blu-ray from UK label Eureka Entertainment routed through North American distributor MVD Visual.  For the first time on the format outside of Asia and as part of the company’s Masters of Cinema series (#324), Eureka’s Special Edition release is AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition resolution, BD50 and presented in the original widescreen aspect ratio 1.85:1.  With a brand new 2K restoration scan, “The Island” has impeccable quality measure that emerges the most minute details in every frame.  Skin tones have inarguable organic quality and a true-to-form reactionary sweat-gleam look induced when the chase is on.  The textures pop through in garb, foliage, and in dilapidated structure that gives certain discernibility and depth of object.  The original print has virtually no wear or tear as well as any aging problems, appearing to be a fresh off the reel transfer with natural appeasing grain.  The original Cantonese mono track is the only track available and is really the only mix we could expect and receive without a remastering, but, in all fairness, the mono works well enough to satisfy dialogue, ambient, and soundtrack integrity in its limited fidelity box  Dialogue is clean and clear on the encoding with no damage or other verbal obstructions but the modulation favors the antiquate characteristics of the era and the paralleling ADR offers little synchronous value, both to not fault of Eureka.  The optional, newly translated English subtitles by Ken Zhang pace well and are in flawless transcription.  The special edition is encoded with a new commentary with East Asian film expert Frank Djeng, a second new commentary by genre connoisseurs Mike Leeder and Arne Venema, a 2023 interview with the director Po-Chih Leong Surviving the Shoot, East Asian film expert Tony Rayns provides an appreciation video essay Tony Rayns on “The Island,” and the film’s trailer.  The limited-edition set comes with a red and yellow pastel colored O-card slipcover with new beaitfully illustrated artwork by horror graphic artist Ilan Sheady, whose supplied extreme and gory “Terrifier” franchise artwork to European media books, and delivers “The Island” a warm glaze of trouble-in-paradise, capturing the essence of what to expect from the story.  Original poster art graces the clear Amaray façade with a sepia image of John Sham from the opening scenes on the reverse side.  The limited set also includes a 19-page color booklet containing photos of “The Island” as well as other Leong productions, cast and crew credits, To Genre and Back:  The Cinema of Po-Chih Leong program notes by Roger Garcia for a strand celebrating Po-Chih Leong at the 2023 Far East Film Festival, an interview with the director conducted by Roger Garcia All Within the Same Film:  An Interview with Po-Chih Leong, and bring up the booklet’s rear are viewing notes and release credits.  The not rated feature has a runtime of 93 minutes and is region A/B locked for playback.

Last Rites: Director Po-Chih Leong’s trip to “The Island” is beyond bleak in social commentary and in of dire situation of nothing but pure innocence being destroyed by those left forgotten on the outskirts of mainlanders and of sanity. Eureka Entertainment’s Blu-ray honors “The Island” with praise upon praise for its slick high-definition picture, solid extras, and beautifully designed O-slipcase and design.

“The Island” from Eureka Entertainment and MVD Visual! Order Here!

EVIL Minds the Door! “Raw Meat” reviewed! (Blue Underground /2-Disc 4K UHD Blu-ray and Standard Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Raw Meat” Its What’s for 4K UHD and Standard Blu-ray Dinner!

Young lovers Alex Campbell, an American studying abroad, and Patricia Wilson discover an unconscious man on the steps of a London metro subway station.  When they alert a beat cop and make their way back to the spot, the man had vanished.  Assuming the well-dressed man an alcoholic sleeping off a bender, David and Patricia move on with their lives while the police report comes across the desk of Inspector Calhoun, an eccentric investigator who recalls a recent string of disappearances surrounding the same London station.  Over the next few days, several more station related disappearances occur, forcing Inspector Calhoun to dig deeper into the mysterious circumstances involving a missing Mi-5 agent and three subway employees with David and Patricia his only witness to at least one of them.  When Patricia suddenly goes missing with her last known siting at the subway station, a concerned David explores the train tunnels that connect the last known whereabouts of all whom have vanished, leading him to a tragic history of collateral damage survival, long forgotten generational lineage, and cannibalism. 

London, England was the first to introduce the metro subway station to the world in 1863 with the Metropolitan Railway.  It seems only fitting that London be the setting for “Raw Meat,” a subterrain horror that integrates London’s metro history with the consequential hazards of an early underground railway, the insufficient costs that prove to be costly, and the pitied blamelessness of unthinkable survival from neglectful businesses.  Originally entitled “Death Line,” rebranded to “Raw Meat” for American audiences, the 1972 film is actually directed by an American, Chicagoan Gary Sherman, in his debut and would go on to helm “Dead & Buried” and “Poltergeist III.”  Based off an original concept form Sherman, one that takes the plausibility and some fact of workers being buried under a collapsed railway project and survive generationally living off the nourishment of each other in more ways than one, the script is penned by Ceri Jones and is a production of Harbor Ventures and Kanter-Ladd Productions with the late “Police Academy” franchise’s Paul Maslansky producing

I’m going to preface this character introduction with “Raw Meat” would not have been as entertaining if it wasn’t for the peak performance by a more eccentric Donald Pleasance in a pre-“Halloween” performance.  As Inspector Calhoun, Pleasence is fully in charge as an intimidating case investigator with a snarky wit, or as Christopher Lee’s MI-5 character put it, what a droll fellow you are in a stiff yet jab remark exchange interaction between the two British icons of a bygone cinema industry.  Lee’s role is only a fraction in comparison to Pleasance and would have been two big personalties too big for the meager production to contain.  Another staggeringly highlighted performance comes from an unknown in Hugh Armstrong’s portrayal of the subhuman cannibal whose fellow inbred family members have all left by deceased means, leaving him alone and the last of his kind with mumbling tunnel vernacular and unkempt open sores all over his body and face in a state of unhealthy living conditions.  Armstrong’s acted ungainliness renders the man a monster amongst society standards but also sheds a softer, compassionate light upon reflection of his forced position into a world he knowns no better about having grown up completely in the railway tunnels all his life, living off what he can scramble up which included human flesh and organs.  In contrast to Pleasance and Armstrong, David Ladd (“The Klansman”) and Sharon Gurney (“Crucible of Horror”) impress as middle ground, plain as can be, characters being two lovers in the midst of mystery, almost becoming history themselves when the man targets her to amend his loneliness in a gibberish mind the door effort to show her affection.  Normal Rossington (“House of the Long Shadows”) and Heather Stoney are the only two understated completely overstated in the film as Inspector Calhoun’s constant whips demands for bolos and tea.  James Cossins, Hugh Dickson, Jack Woolgar, Clive Swift, Gerry Crampton, Terence Plummer, and Gordon Petrie pull into the station as the remaining cast.

Hovering between the horrifying truth of early construction, underground railway accidents and the urban legend of trapped workers under tunnel collapses, Gary Sherman unearths middle ground terror somewhere in between the two with a plausible terror line narrative that not only instills recognition of the past and those who gave the ultimate sacrifice but also invites the nonfictional hunting-cannibal rising to the surface in search for food and, to an extent, companionship.  The cast elevates “Raw Meat’s” character efflorescence but there’s also other areas to illuminate its noteworthiness that take the film from out of the tunnel shadows as cinematographer Alex Thomson’s bleak tunnel aesthetic rouses filth and a sense of hardcore survival over a century.  The 7-minute tracking shot near the beginning, at the introduction of the cannibal’s tunnel home depicted with a decorum of decaying and freshly strewn corpses salvaged for their organic parts, is an astonishing backwards tracking shot without a blip of hesitation and lingering just enough to seed an unsettling undergrowth of grisly ghastliness.  The only drawback from “Raw Meat,” if looking for one or perhaps it’s not even a big deal, lies with the young couple Alex and Patricia.  It’s possible to stumble into a situation, as they did after coming off the last train for the night and crossing paths with an unconscious man on the staircase up to the surface; however, Alex and Patricia were not exactly looking for trouble or pursuing a follow up on the man’s health-and-wellbeing, God knows they argued over about their stance on helping ailed strangers in public, but they wind up having this off topic tangent about said contentious topic and rebuild the tumbled down building blocks of their relationship for a stronger bond.  Yet, lightning strikes twice in the subway tunnel and Patricia is whisked away by the tunnel ghoul in a second pure coincidental interaction that ignites Alex to make good on that stronger bond with Patrica by investigating her last known whereabouts.

Be a cannibal and consume “Raw Meat” on a new 4K UHD and Standard Blu-ray 2-Dsic combo set from Blue Underground. Restored and scanned in 4K 16-bit from the original uncensored camera negative with Dolby Vision HDR and presented in a widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio, “Raw Meat” comes from out of the near total blackout of tunnelling darkness of standard definition and poorly contrasted previous Blu-ray editions with a precision of delineating crafting brilliance, adding depth of separation between object and background.  The HVC encoded,2160p ultra high-definition resolution, BD66 was well aimed to squash any compression issues, leaving blacks black and textures coarse that nearly lift off the screen.  You can actually try and count the whiskers on Christopher Lee’s caterpillar mustache.  Colors have also improved and enhanced in saturation without being overly intensifying; “Raw Meat” thrives on the dank, dark world of not only the abandoned tunnel line but also the cold and sleazed London streets.  Alex Thomson’s tunnel life aesthetic musters an earthy and dingy frontage and coupled with some hard glowing red, yellows, and the subsequently mix orange, there’s a real harrowing subterranean tone in the man’s macabre ossuary home.  The 2nd disc standard Blu-ray is AVC encoded, 1080p resolution, BD50.  Blue Underground’s release offers multiple audio options, including a new Dolby Atmos mix alongside the already established DTS-HD 5.1, both rendered in English.  Toggling between both surround sound mixes, there’s little-to-no difference in the immersive experience.  Atmos provides an echoier shaft experience that can be heard as directionless whereas the DTS specifies the reverberating soundwave direction based on channel markers.  Mind the Door is certainly more accentuated as it lingers through the chambers just a little more ubiquitous and chillingly underscored.  With no crackling or hissing, dialogue is clean, clear, and robust that solidifies Donald Pleasance as a master of quick wit and blunt investigation tactics as well as the track cherishing the quality of all other players involved.  Some instances of dialogue are ADR, likely due to poor record quality, resulting in an artificial separation between the action frame and the post-production recording.  Train sounds play a supporting factor and are acutely integrated into the design of a makeshift substation construction from an abandoned platform.  The other audio options include an English 1.0 DTS-HD and a dubbed French 1.0 DTS-HD.  English SDH are available.  Disc 1 – the 4K UHD Blu-ray – contains two commentaries a 1) archived writer-director Gary Sherman, producer Paul Maslansky, and assistant director Lewis More O’Farrell and 2) a new critique and analyst commentary discussion from film historians Nathaniel Thompson and Troy Howarth.  Bringing up the UHD rear are radio/TV spots and various trailer cuts.  Disc 2 – standard Blu-ray – has all of the above on disc one plus an interview with writer-director Gary Sherman and executive producers Jay Kanter and Alan Ladd Jr. Tales from the Tube, an interview with star David Ladd, producer Paul Maslansky, and assistant director Lewis More O’Ferrall From the Depths, and an interview with the now late Hugh Armstrong, the cannibal tunnel man, Mind the Doors.  An extended poster and still gallery flesh out the standard Blu-ray’s supplemental content.  The classic poster art has been upgraded to a textile vision of blood red and half-naked men and women with blank chromium eyes within the embossed image on the slipcover and that extends to the sides and back of the O-slip.  The same illustration also graces the black 4K UHD Amaray as primary cover art, but this different variation has more natural coloring on the hair, tattered clothes, and skin tones on the white-eyed ghoulish faces.  The reverse side of the cover is the original “Death Line” titled cover art as seen on the old MGM DVD with the bearded man walking on the railway with a lit-up train to his back and a woman lying seemingly dead on the rails in front of him.  The Blue Underground release is Not rated, clocks in at 87-minutes, and is encoded to play in all regions.

Last Rites: A classic of subterranean horror, “Raw Meat” is much more than a broad line of cannibalistic terror. The new Blue Underground Ultra Hi-Def release illuminates the wretched state of being and the ugly truth of generational survival that provides a strange brew of compassion for the forced feral human who feeds on human flesh.

“Raw Meat” Its What’s for 4K UHD and Standard Blu-ray Dinner!

A Talking Black Lab with EVIL Red Eyes Target Children. “Where the Dead Go to Die” reviewed! (Mountain Oddities Home Video / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Where the Dead Go To Die” Now Lives on Blu-ray!

The first story in a disturbing 3-part omnibus tale concerns a little boy named Tommy.  Constantly at each other’s throats, Tommy’s troubled  parents don’t burden him down in their mini bickering wars and abusive verbal tirades where he becomes the passive aggressive fodder for each of them to shell the other with, but when Labby, a talking, red-eye dog proclaiming to be a messenger of God’s word, tells Tommy to kill unborn brother because he’s the antichrist, Tommy’s world is turned upside down when Labby murders both parents and the unborn child in the name of God.  In another story, a man steals liquid memories by killing people and extracting an intoxicating substance from their memory glands to inject them into his own body.  One particular liquid memory of a dying prostitute sends him through a warped nightmare of the underworld, one where he may never return to normal.  The last story focuses on a mask-wearing deformed boy named Ralphie, whose Siamese twin brother’s face protrudes out of the side of his face, and his infatuation with schoolmate and neighbor Sophia.  When trying to impress Sophia by relating to her father, Ralphie learns the father records VHS tapes of Sophia being molested by older men and is coerced to partake in an act Sophia is an unwilling participant.  At the behest of Labby, what Ralphie does next will put a fatal stop to the madness that surrounds him and his soulmate crush. 

In the same clunky spirit of crude early 1990’s computer generated imagery or in the early days of the original Playstation graphics, Jimmy ScreamerClauz’s “Where the Dead Go to Die” fully embraces the ungainly graphics in a 3D world of unimaginable horror where kids and demons intersect with wretched results.  The 2012 omnibus reflects three short narratives from ScreamerClauz and combined into one seriously screwed up tale, orchestrated by deal brokered wit Unearthed Films’s Stephen Biro who was sent two of ScreamerClauz’s short films – “Tainted Milk” and “Liquid Memories” – and challenged, or maybe even championed, ScreamerClauz for a third to build toward, and the eventual release of, a feature length product.  With the challenge accepted, the full-time musician and 3D animation artist succeeded with an unforgettable story that’s pure evil at heart and a surreal kaleidoscope of ghastly phantasmagoria.  ScreamerClauz not only writes, directs, and composes the film he also produces under the Draconian Films and Chainsaw Kiss production companies.  

As it has been already established Jimmy ScreamerClauz wears many hats in his production, we can add another with his voice acting of the demonic, fireball-eyed dog, Labby and along with the director’s voiceover participation, other genre actors and filmmakers are casted to voice one, or possibly more than one, of the crudely animated, disturbingly souled characters.  “Subject 87” director, “Reality Bleed-Through” actor Brandon Slagle tackles a double voiceover with the memory addicted man as well as Sophia’s sleazy abusive father.  As Sophia, the once upon a time softcore horror actress Ruby Larocca (“Witchbabe:  The Erotic Witch Project 3,” “Dr. Jekyll & Mistress Hyde”) has real innocent palpability up against Slagle’s aggressively toned, VHS-recording, and peeping perve that is her in character daddy.  Larocca also voices the mysterious advice-giver with the Lady in the Well and as the dying Hooker in the arms of the serial killer-for-liquid memories Man.  Another multi-voice player in the film and who also had a stint in the sex and violence category is Joey Smack with a string of strangler themed films (“Vampire Strangler,” “The Masked Strangler,” “The Bizarre Case of the Electric Cord Strangler, etc.,”).  Smack extends himself into a child and parent performance as the deformed Ralphie in “The Masks That the Monsters Wears” and Tommy’s dad in “Tainted Milk” that gives provides range albeit the quintessential grown man mimicking a child’s voice unmistakableness in the cracking high voice.  Much like Larocca, there’s something pleasant in seeing names like Linnea Quigley (“Return of the Living Dead,” “Night of the Demons”) and Devanny Pinn (“Nude Nuns with Big Guns,” “Bloodstruck”) be credited to voice because that takes the focus on their physical appearances and gives them a chance to actually be seen, or rather heard, with their dialogue performance.  In this instance, Quigley and Pinn embody the rancid maternity of Sophia and Ralphies’ mothers respectively.  “Where the Dead Go to Die” rounds out the cast with more B-movie actors in Trent Haaga (“Terror Firmer,” “Killjoy 2:  Deliverance from Evil”) as Ralph’s ashamed dad as well as Carlos Bonilla, Victor Bonacore, and Joshua Michael Greene. 

How a filmmaker chooses and utilizes his brand of CGI landscape is how that filmmaker’s film should be judged in the gelling of those areas, in my opinion.  “Where the Dead Go to Die’s” crude 3D animation is the intended result from Jimmy ScreamerClauz’s choice in conveying his short story narrative, but that intention won’t stop audiences and critics from browbeating and disparaging the film.  Yet, if accepting the former viewpoint and watch with understanding eyes through that recognition lens, “Where the Dead Go to Die” is one messed up and horrifying dystopia accentuated by the animation that gives each chapter more weight toward wretchedness and wrongdoing, gelling with tremendous intent to scramble the proverbial innocence with demonic forces and human perversions.  Some of the ideas and concepts swirling around ScreamerClauz’s head and make it into the three tales were just images he thought were visually neat but that speaks loudly on the dark mindset of creativity and many of those images are now temporally seared, scarred permanently into our long-term memory lobes.  Granted, tale transitions and recycling back to their sole connection with each other route into choppy territory at best, creating a windy, bumpy road in braiding the three chapters together under a single umbrella of animation style and storytelling, but “Where the Dead Go to Die” is a poignant and throbbing like touching a raw, exposed nerve through gouged muscle and tissue.  Every inch of surreal, sawtooth imagery is like a knife twisted into our virtuous side because upon closer look at Jimmy ScreamerClauz’s story containing children being hurt is only separated by the mere stylistic choice of cinematography. 

Out from the distribution shadows of Unearthed Films and in the hands of adult animation distributor Mountain Oddities Home Video, also in partnership with MVDVisual, for a new Blu-ray release, one we haven’t seen since Unearthed Films released the DVD and Blu-ray in 2012.  The first of two initial releases from Mountain Oddities Home Video, the Blu-ray comes AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition release, on a BD50 packed with extras.  Being mostly rudimentary 3D animation installed into a complexity of kaleidoscopic imagery, critiquing the quality is beyond our control but the compression is amply successful with no artefacts to note and the colorful saturation and grading levels provide an enriched, amalgamated dough of diabolic devil-bread, presented in a 1.78:1 widescreen aspect ratio that’s more compromised to its now out of print Unearthed Films counterpart from more than decade earlier.  Two English audio options are available:  a DTS-HD 5.1 surround sound and a DTS-HD 2.0.  At home audio recordings outside the sound barrier studio boxes are not as refined, capturing mic interference and hissing as well as the differences in varying audio volumes that don’t match between interacting characters in the same scene, creating that unshared space and gap.  Dialogue is unimpeded and clear and ScreamerClauz’s original gloomy-looming score fuels the deep morosity and malevolent themes.  English subtitles are option available.  Extras include a director’s commentary track with Jimmy ScreamerClauz, deleted scenes, an online video-conference interview with ScreamerClauz hosted by Quality Violent Cinema, behind-the-scenes featurettes of snipped dialogue recordings and interviews, including Linnea Quigley, Youtuber Diamanda Hagan’s video review of ScreamerClauz’s animated shorts “The Scuzzies,” and the director’s short film catalogue with “The Scuzzies” (that includes commentary), “Labby vs Mr. Pickles Rap Battle,” “Clinical Sodomy,” “Affection,” “Mutwa,” “Reality Bleed-Through Remix.”   Mountain Oddities Home Video’s Not Rated release is listed as the uncut version with a 95-minute runtime available with region free playback. 

Last Rites: An adult animation pushing the envelope with taboo themes involving kids and when you mess with kids, the public taste goes sour, but “Where the Dead Go to Die” swirls surrealism with poignant acting and strange fever dreaming amongst the basic, albeit creepy, animation.

“Where the Dead Go To Die” Now Lives on Blu-ray!

Protect Yourself from EVIL Because “Tonight She Comes!” reviewed! (Jinga Films – Danse Macabre – MVDVisual / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Tonight She Comes” is Now Available on DVD! Purchase Here!

Two women looking to spend quality debauchery time with their friend at her family’s rural cabin arrive find their friend is nowhere to be seen or heard from but they do discover a lost mailman asleep on the cabin porch on his first day.   As the trio yuck it up with plenty of booze and flirtation around the campfire, locked out of the cabin with still no sign of their girlfriend, the day turns to night and they’re eager to get into each other’s pants for an alcohol fueled fling.  Unfortunately for them, their lost friend just showed up naked out from the adjacent lake.  What usually would be an invitation for an extended good time, the naked friend is stained head to toe in blood and determined to kill anyone in her path.  In their escape, they run into a backwoods family of black magic occultists trying to fix their titanic satanic mistake before everyone dies.

If a campy, gory, backwaters horror engulfed in occult get your filmic scary movie juices flowing, then “Tonight She Comes” should be at the top of your must-watch list.  The 2016, American-made feature from writer-director Matt Stuertz takes the cabin-in-the-woods trope to the extreme to the likes of a farcical feat many have tried but only a few achieve.  “Tonight She Comes” is Stuertz’s sophomore picture behind the cleverly titled found footage horror “RWD,” or “<<RWD,” as in the rewind symbol you’d typically see on VHS players, and has since his bloodthirst for horror with the practical effects-driven and supernatural terrorizing of a young woman in this year’s “Human” and is currently in production with a gory vampire flick, “Wake Not the Dead.”  Gory is Stuertz niche tinged with a repulsive tone that’s not just splatter nor intestinal evisceration.  Cinematographer Chris Benson and sound designer Jamison Sweet, of the St. Louis-based production company Lamplight Films, and Twenty Eighteen Seventy-Six’s Stuertz produce the film.

What’s neat about the progressing script, acutely angling 90 degrees to keep the story fresh and unsuspecting, is the principal leads constantly change hands.   By conventional standards, the young, good looking, white male mail with a pleasant disposition in James (Nathan Eswine) places audiences on that path with a post title opening of the inexperienced, first-day-on-the-job James doing his route diligently despite difficulties locating an address.  Also, in comparison to his dimwitted and degenerate best friend Pete (Adam Hartley, “The Slender Man”), James is a pedestalled prince.  As the day turns to night, James begins to show cracks in his gallantry and the baton is roughly passed to the rough around the edges but tough as they come Ashley (Larissa White, “Charlatan”).  In another dynamic duo curiosity, her best friend in Lyndsey (Cameisha Cotton) drunkenly sluts her way to the end of the whiskey bottle and toward the inside of James’ pants, demarcating the horror tropes between the two pairings by sticking up and out the perverted goofball and the alcoholic promiscuous while keeping in protagonist good graces and staid James and Ashely up until the baton is passed along again inside the trio of an occult practicing backwoods family who messed up a reincarnation spell and inadvertently resurrected a powerful, murderous demon.  Between the family-first Pa, Frances (Frankie Ray, “Bad Haircut”), the near silent big brother, Philip (Brock Russell) and the rational sister, Felicity (Jenna McDonald), the protagonist shift lands in the lap of the younger sister who takes charge in a show of no nonsense command and force that deserves respect for a role that’s usually diluted or wasted in isolated cabin horror.  Each actor performs exactly on Stuertz given script with the cast rounding out with former model Dal Nicole in her full birthday suit for most of her screentime as the Kristy inhabited demon plodding to kill in a nonstop wrath.  

Most audiences and critics will pan “Tonight She Comes” as nonsensical drivel touting a gauntlet of gore and a fixed nudity to carry it into a favorable edge with fans.  All I have to say about Matt Stuertz script and vision is it breaks the conventional stereotypes into shattered shards and uses those shards as gouging, bloodletting weapons.  On it’s face, “Tonight She Comes” appears to be another run-of-the-mill cabin-in-the-woods horror with throwaway characters and many vague plot points that don’t have an encircling reference.  Stuertz purposefully throws cation to the wind and makes the movie he wants to see, a no-holds barred blood fest geared to obliterate the tropes and only provide slivers of important information, just enough to pass the bar to the next round of ironfisted thrashings.  The story never allows the sediment to settle between the character action and dialogue debauchery, the eclectic and interesting POV shots, the diabolical practical effects, the sparingly used but effective visual effects, the continuously guess where this story is heading and, of course, the unabashed eye candy that is Dal Nicole fully nude in full time.  The other thing that can bog down viewers, and rightfully so, is the time check title cards that are supposed to tick down to the moment the demon emerges into the fold, turning the events of youth fun into a grind of survival. Randomized and spelled out, literally, the interjected times don’t seemingly match the span of time passed on screen.  What should take a few minutes between scenes, the title card states hours had passed; I’m not positive if this is part of Stuertz’s trope lampooning or not but this portion excels as more distracting from its theme-bombing track.

Another great and gory to the extreme release from the collaborating collective of Danse Macabre, Jinga Films, and MVDVisual.  “Tonight She Comes” comes to a new DVD release that’s MPEG2 encoded, 720p standard resolution, on a DVD5 and presented in a widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio.  Not peak image quality by any means of available formats out today, solidifying this DVD release a roll back to a lesser picture quality, but digital capturing goes without saying that DVD can still be a formidable format in regard to picture quality.  Likely, you will not see too much different between standard and high-definition but there are subtle areas of contrast, such as the black areas does contain faint banding and the details don’t inlay a zing of crispness like they should.  A film that starts off with a title card reading, THIS FILM SHOULD BE PLAYED LOUD… AS HELL, the DVD does the statement and Stuertz’s film justice with an uncompressed English 5.1 surround sound mix that highlights on and hits upon the important sound effects, screams, and building discordance, tumbling minor tone, and spiny synth-rock and 80’s horror-inspired score of Wojciech Golczewski (“We Are Still Here”).  Dialogue lands with prominence amongst the clatter and chaos layers that gives a real sense and elevation to the dialect of Jenna MacDonald’s tough backwoods occultist.  Not much in the way of depth as mostly everything is taken to the extreme volume, actions far and near, but range is aplenty by spanning the innocent swashing of alcohol in a bottle to the splatter of brains on the wall, from the crackling of fire to the gnarly rip of flesh being torn apart, and the robust force of bullets being fired to the deluge of menstrual blood filling a cup.  Yes, it’s one of those movies!  English subtitles are available for selection.  Special features include a Matt Stuertz commentary track, deleted scenes, a behind-the-scenes and raw footage look with cast and crew interviews with some still in character wardrobe, the Stuertz’s short film “Slashers,” and the teaser and theatrical trailer.  The DVD packing is about as generic as they come with the naked silhouette of the titular villainess standing in front of not the cabin the film in not the forest this movie takes place.  The arrangement is reminiscent of an “Evil Dead” knockoff.  The tall DVD Amaray case has nothing more to note in terms of physical prowess.  Aforementioned, this DVD is a rollback release in a few ways, and one is, unfortunately, the rating with a Rated R cut with a runtime of 84 minutes whereas previous releases were not rated clocking in at 90 minutes.  However, as far as I can tell, the Jinga Films, Danse Macabre, and MVDVisual does offer region free playback unlike early editions locked in at region 1.

Last Rites: If looking for something not too serious, checks all the gory and gross boxes, has decent practical and visual effects, and bares skin, “Tonight She Comes” is a fierce, ferocious, and fight-to-the-death option worth the viewing calories!

“Tonight She Comes” is Now Available on DVD! Purchase Here!

EVIL’s Path to being a Psychopath. “The Beast to Die” reviewed! (Radiance Films / Limited Edition Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“The Beast to Die” on Limited Edition Blu-ray from Radiance Films!

Former war journalist, Kunihiko Date, stabs a veteran police investigator to death.  He then uses the detective’s revolver and guns down three, after hours casino employees in cold blood and steals the day’s earnings.  Date’s seemingly random acts of violence and theft from a respected war journalist and photographer are not just random acts but part of a methodical plan for an upcoming heist of a bank in Tokyo’s Nihonbashi district.  Casing the bank’s security, personnel, and layout, Date’s perfect plan has one hitch; Because of the bank’s size and bustling busines, he’ll need a little help.  By chance, he comes across Tetsuo Sanada at an annual school alumni dinner with his closest friends who have a violent run-in with Sanada as their antagonistic waiter.  Seeing the same potential disregard for life and disdain for existence conventions, Date approaches Sanada and mentors him under a nihilistic wing.  Now with a plan and an accomplice, Date’s violent holdup can move forward but to what end is the length of his sociopathic carnage. 

“The Beast to Die,” aka “野獣死すべし, Yajū shisubeshi,” is the intense and violent noir-thriller from Japan, directed by “Dead Angle’s” Tôru Murakawa and a script by Shoichi Maruyama (“The Triple Cross”).  The 1980 released feature would be Murakawa and Maruyama’s second feature length production together behind 1979’s “The Execution Game,” the second film of a trilogy known as “the Japanese Game Trilogy is a visceral yakuza tale of a kidnapped hitman unable to escape the criminal underworld. “The Beast to Die” is a step away from the Japanese gangster film; instead, focuses on the interpretation of war trauma, the cynical views of precious life, and has subtle presences of U.S. big brothering, asexual themes, and coarse, unforgiving violence at the highest level of sophisticated society.  Adapted from the Haruhiko Ôyabu novel of the same name, the written origin mirrors the vehemency of visual art with the film produced by Haruki Kadokawa (“Virus”) and “The Resurrection of the Golden Wolf’s” Mitsuru Kurosawa and Tatsurô Shigaki under the Toei Company and Kadokawa Haruki Jimusho.

Undoubtedly one of the best sociopathic performances of our lifetime, “Horror of the Wolf” and the Japanese Game trilogy’s Yûsaku Matsuda is a cool, awkward, and, if not, plotting cucumber amongst the masses of jovial and hustling Tokyo denizens.  There’s a serenity about Matsuda’s Kunihiko Date that’s unparalleled, represented by blank stares, a patient demeanor, and precise movements that come in stark contrast in the film opener where Date takes down four people in one night in a show of murderous inexperienced bravado.  Even in the thick of combative survivalism, there’s only objective goal in his sweat infused brow and focused eyes while others gesture and make an invitational show of his attack or of their pleas for mercy.  Date becoming lost in classical music is a formidable way of grounding himself, not only from the high of excitement and thrills of killing, but also a way to retain sanity in the notes, an aspect he quickly unravels from when not exposed to classic music for an extended period.   Oppositely, Tetsu Sanada is full of pent-up anger as if he’s constantly hitting his head on the wall aiming to break free of the surroundings that confine his wild tiger attitude, yet Takashi Kaga (“Isle of the Evil Spirits”) maintains a personal struggle lock on the full emergence of Sanada as Kunihiko’s equal.  This dichotomy between the anger and tranquility of two sociopaths is immensely palpable that leads to a purposeful instability in a number of areas – hesitation and certainly, the sweat-inducing fear and the cooled fearless, and, eventually, the relationship’s ultimate internal destruction.  Thrown into the Kunihiko and Sanada tango is a potential love interest in the puppy-eyed Asami Kobayashi (“Sixteen Years Old:  Nymphets’ Room”) and her shared classical music and tenderness connection with Kunihiko and a happenstance Detective, played with casual approach by Toshie Negishi (“The Rapacious Jailbreaker”), being in Kunihiko’s consciously aloof presence as a pressuring force that suspects something between something off with Kunihiko and the murder of his detective colleague. 

“The Beast to Die” explores various themes around the indirect damage of post-war trauma and living and feeling like an outsider of the what’s consider the normal societal collective, but there’s another avenue to look down when consider Murakawa’s villainous protagonists.  Kunikhiko Date may have been scarred by war, but his mind always had an inkling for bloodthirst, sated through the images of a photographic lens that captured the horrors of global conflict from military losses to the collateral damage.  Upon his return to Japan, Date had lost the exciting sensation of death that has exceled his rationality beyond being Godlike, able to take life without conscious due reproach.   Sanada, in a way, is similar in his radical viewpoints but Date finds him more talk than action, held behind the line he has yet to cross unlike Date’s journalistic meatgrinder and his self-drive to kill the detective and casino workers.  As far as vices go, neither men have an appetite for sex:  Kunikhiko  watches a sex worker masturbate with little interest and his connect with Reiko doesn’t go beyond the gazes into each other’s eyes and Sanada’s fortunate relationship with his girlfriend provides him with well-off opportunity in money, business, and romance but because she dapples in rendezvous with a U.S. sailor, Sanada finds himself engrossed with spite.  Both men become essentially sexually impotent with seeing red, in anger and in blood, replacing that primal need or ravenous appetite.  The last scene between the two men becomes a crucial turning point in their cruel comradery as the forceful sex act with an unconscious woman sends the other unravelling their partnership for good.  “The Beast to Die” is a cynically cold narrative without regard for human life in the traumatizing belief one can surpass the omnipotent Gods by ending the existence of others.

A compelling dark thriller relatable to contemporary trauma feeding mentally warped violence, “The Beast to Die” arrives onto a limited-edition Blu-ray from Radiance Films.  The UK label produces a Kadakawa Coprporation-created digital 4K restoration transfer from the original and pristine 35mm print.  AVC encoded onto a BD50 and presented with 1080p high-definition resolution in a 1.85:1 widescreen aspect ratio, this Stateside edition is the picture of health with a rich palate that’s stark with contrast.  Skin tones and textures, as well as fabrics, emerge into perspicuousness without missing or dropping a beat.  Negative spaces and shadows enshroud appropriate with the keyed lit dim levels.  The grain is pleasant, stable, and natural and there are no real issues with the print itself, withstanding the test of time.  The uncompressed Japanese PCM 2.0 Stere track offers a reasonably ample sound design and fidelity with post-production dialogue, foley, and ambience recordings that creates some mismatch and distancing space between the action and atmosphere audio and the character diegetic dialogue.  There are no rough patches to mention within the audio recordings, producing more than fine discernible quality to the technical threshold.  Japanese to English translator Hayley Scanlon provides newly translated English subtitles that are spotless in the Blu-ray’s world premiere with English subtitles.  Limited to 3000 units, Radiance offers exclusive special features, including new interviews with director Toru Murakawa, screenwriter Shoichi Maruyama, and a film critique and analysis from novelist and screenwriter Jordan Harper.  The newly commissioned artwork by TimeTomorrow revamps with a new look and layout on the classic, original poster art as the primary Amaray front cover with a reversible side housing an alternate rendition.  There are new and archival essays and archival in the limited edition booklet with 27-pages of color stills, a Tom Mes Yusaku Matsude:  Lost Rebel essay from 2004 showcasing the art and films of the lead actor, a new Tatsuo Masuto essay Shadow of the Beast, cast and crew acknowledgements, and transfer notes and Blu-ray release acknowledgements.  Encoded with a region A/B lock, Radiance Films release has a runtime of 119 minutes and is not rated.

Last Rites: Radiance Films’s limited edition run of “The Beast to Die” is immaculate in every aspect – filmically, technically, packaging – and is an important piece of Japanese culture and cinematic criterion.

“The Beast to Die” on Limited Edition Blu-ray from Radiance Films!