EVIL Versus EVIL to the Death! “Mad Foxes” reviewed! (Cauldron Films / Limited Edition 4K UHD and Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on December 11, 2025

“Mad Foxes” LE 4K UHD and Blu-ray Still Available to Get Before X-Max!

Playboy Hal drives fast cars and enjoys a good time. While driving his girlfriend out for a night on the town, a road rage run-in with a Nazi biker gang leaves one of biker’s dead and Hal continues on his way to the nightclub for bubbly and music. The bikers track him down, beating Hal to a pulp and raping his date as the night ends. Not to roll over and be passive take to insult, Hal recruit’s a friend’s dojo class for an all-out brawl during the outside funeral ceremony for the biker’s fallen comrade, taking violence to the extreme by castrating the gang leader. In retaliation, the entire dojo class is gunned down in a vengeful massacre days later. Hal and the biker gang continue their back-and-forth as they embark on a short-term blood feud aimed to annihilate each other’s lives, spilling violence beyond friends and into family ties without mercy.

A tale of perpetual revenge and exploitation from Spain, “Mad Foxes” takes one-upping to a whole new grotesque level. After production manager Paul Grau worked on the tantalizing pictures “Secrets of the French Maid,” “Caged Women,” and “The Amorous Sisters” and before helming the comedic sexploitation “Six Swedish Girls in the Alps,” the Nordic born filmmaker debuted with tit-for-tat terror in the streets film cowritten between Grau and softcore, erotic film producers Hans R. Walthard (“Six Swedes in Paradise”) and Jaime Jesús Balcázar (“The Couple’s Sexual World”), leaving no surprise to the shocking and provocative nature of this Euro-nasty that castrates Nazi bikers, shotguns old ladies in wheelchairs, and blows up entire apartment buildings all in the name of spite. Erwin C. Dietrich and Hans R. Walthard serve as producer and executive producer under the production collaboration of Jaime Jesús Balcázar’s Balcázar Producciones Cinematográficas and Reflection Film.

A biker gang revenge story sounds right up there with “Death Wish” starring Charles Bronson, but instead of Bronson’s character going up against the impossible odds by way of an organized and self-controlled planning, executing, and removing the threat for good, “Mad Foxes” strikes impulsively while the iron is hot with such ferocity it’ll make your head spin right off the neck. José Gras (“Hell of the Living Dead,” “Conquest”) envelopes himself to the solo side as Hal in contra the larger Neo-Nazi biker gang. Hal’s a bit of a philanderer though it’s not entirely explicit but his raped date Babsy (Andrea Albani aka Laly Espinet, “The Hot Girl Juliet”) is a quickly and inexplicably out of the picture before he picks up free-spirited nomad Silvia (Laura Premic) and, by then, Hal seemingly doesn’t have any other care in the world though the aforesaid date Babsy, or perhaps it was his young girlfriend, was raped, and his good friend’s entire dojo, plus said friend (Paul Grau), are massacred in an open fire execution of bullets after they wipe the floor with the Neo-Nazis in a karate skirmish that ends in the gang leader being gratuitously castrated. Having already cross paths with the gang at least four times, Hal hops in his fast car and drives to the countryside to get away from it all, picking up Silvia on the way, but he inadvertently leads the ruthless camo and leather-cladded gang, led by character played by Peter Saunders and Eric Falk (“Blue Rita,” “Ilsa: The Wicked Warden”), to his wealthy, elderly, and impaired parents and their house servants. From there you can imagine the bloodshed that quickly spirals into payback but all throughout the retaliatory strikes, one begins to question who the actually is the good guy in all of this because Hal actually initially ran one of the biker’s off the ran and to his death, driving away with speed and a serene sense of no remorse or concern. Does Hal bring an ill-fated war upon himself? One could argue a case for it. “Mad Foxes” rounds out with Helmi Sigg, Brian Billings, Garry Membrini, Ana Roca, Hank Sutter, Iren Semmling, Hans R. Walthard, Esther Studer and Guillermo Balcazar.

“Mad Foxes” is a gratuitous showcase of trashy Euro cinema, the grindhouse champagne of Spanish sleaze, and has little worth toward elevated commentary or technical grandeur. Yet, within our miniscule cinema-thirsty molecules and riding along our less trodden synapse highways, a spark of interest can’t keep our eyes off the lurid lunacy that’s unfolding before us. Paul Grau has invested, produced, and released an entertaining indelicate that won’t bore, won’t tire, and won’t be a total waste of time in its eye-for-an-eye format. Does one man’s need for revenge need to make self-preservation sense? No. Does a bike gang have the wherewithal to track down one man from city-to-rural without breaking a sweat? No. One aspect of the story that holds relatable consistency through the years, decades, or even millennia is that violence remains a universal truth, and “Mad Foxes” has plenty of teeth to tout when an act of pettiness turns into the next World War for one man and a biker gang. The story is no “Death Wish” or “Death Sentence” but it does remove rationality from the shackles of a rancorous reality and plops viewers into the throes of an odd quarrel that won’t seemingly end until the very last standing have turned vertical, and all signs of life has ceased. Hal’s no rogue ex-cop or former elite marine, just a regular playboy with friends in karate places and has a stubborn will to take on the gang singlehandedly on their own sordid turf. Grau’s unabashed violence never stumbles or wanes to be implied with the Switzerland director helming a Spanish produce movie that churns out Italian-like shock with the closeup carnage and the cynical nature of a fatalistic bout.

Cauldron Films proudly presents “Mad Foxes” Ultra High-Definition debut to the world featuring a new 4K restoration with Dolby Vision HDR color grading on an HVEC encoded BD66 with 2164p. This limited-edition 2-disc set also includes a standard Blu-ray presentation that’s AVC encoded on a BD50 with a 1080p resolution. The Dolby Vision HDR 10 offers extensive and immense saturation that’s balanced, stable, and more vibrant in it’s support of a wider pixel range. Without compromising the story’s gritty nature with an unflexed amount of detail, textures retain their respective fabric types from the sheen of Hal’s silveresque bomber jacket to the taut leather of the neo-Nazi bikers. The skin tones appear organic with a surface appeal that denotes and defines body hair, wrinkles, and other skin imperfections, more notably in close ups. Focal depth does not completely wash out objects or landscapes with careful delineating a sandy beach and wavy ocean with distinction while the cityscape has the light and tone range in clarity of the object. Only the UHD was covered for the image review, but the Blu-ray pulls from the same 4K restoration that I suspect has most of the same results but with a lesser pixel count in the quality that may be not as perceptible. Both formats include an English DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio, a DTS-HD 2.0 mono, and a Spanish DTS-HD 2.0 mono mix. All include optional English subtitles in, what I consider horrendous, ADR mixing. Dialogue has clarity and is clean throughout, but the voice acting is just beyond reproach with drab inflection to express the right emotion during the scene, its all fairly monotonic and automaton deliveries through the asynchronous matching of voice and mouth. With no innate recording during filming, the milieu sounds are limited to the immediate action of post-production kick and punch skirmishes, a volley of gunshots, car and motorcycle engines, and murderous snikts of blade strikes. This, in turn, limits and relegates the surround sound channels to mostly the front with only a flutter of immersive quality, mostly with the revving car engines and the occasional gunfire. Special features on the UHD only include the commentary by film critics Nanni Cobretti and Merlyn Roberts. The commentary is also on the standard Blu-ray along with additional content in The Untold Story of Robert O’Neal: a near feature-length interview with leading man José Gras discussing his career in Europe, Erwin and the Foxes offers interviews with producer Erwin C. Dietrich and actors Eric Falk and Helmi Sigg discussing their roles and the production, an additional interview Mad Eric has a second interview with actor Eric Falk, and Troy Howarth provides a video essay with stills and video snippets in Nazi Fox Bikers Must Die. The special features round out with an image gallery and a feature trailer. The curated packaging comes in a rigid slipbox with new compositional artwork by Justin Coffee. Inside, is a clear Amaray Blu-ray case that display same primary artwork and is accompanied with an adjacent folded mini poster, also of Coffee’s art. The UHD is region free and the Blu-ray is region A for playback as both films carry an unrated designation and have na 80-minute runtime in their widescreen, 1.85:1 aspect ratio, presentation.

Last Rites: Revenge films are often formulaic but “Mad Foxes” is no ordinary payback thriller that continues to the hit back well into last man standing. The new Cauldron Films’ limited-edition boxset pushes the media technology to max superiority sure to squash any rival, unlike Paul Grau’s ceaseless chaos.

“Mad Foxes” LE 4K UHD and Blu-ray Still Available to Get Before X-Max!

A Bond of Friendship Formed Over an EVIL Annual Contest. “The Long Walk” reviewed! (Lionsgate / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on December 9, 2025

“The Long Walk” on Blu-ray for the Holidays!

Over a decade ago, a divisive civil war nearly tore the United States of America apart, leaving in it’s wake a country on the brink of financial ruin and its place in the world behind other nations. To help heal the nation back into an industrial superpower, an annual long walk was enacted to be a show of encouragement, an act of bravery, and to instill a sense of duty and production amongst the citizens of America. Voluntary participants of young men, one from each state, must walk continuously at 3 ore more miles per hour with a military escort. Last man standing will be bestowed a large cash prize and granted one wish of their choosing. Those unable to continue their trek at the required pace will be issued three warnings before being gunned down, punching out their ticket. Home state’s Ray and Georgia’s Peter form a bond on their walk that’ll test not only their friendship but their will to live in hopes to change the contest’s cruelty.

“The Long Walk” has itself been on a long walk to being adapted on film from the first official novel by the prolific and renowned suspense writer Stephen King under his pseudonym of Richard Bachman. I’ve italicized official because the late 60’s novel wasn’t published and released until 1979, five years later after “Carrie” was published in 1974. Through the hands of George Romero and Ridley Scott, neither could materialize a filmic rendition of what is considered his most grim work. That is until “Constantine,” “I Am Legend,” and “Hunger Games” director Francis Lawrence came along, acquired the rights, hired “Strange Darling’s” JT Mollner to script the project, and produced perhaps the most disturbed dystopian film of 2025. “The Long Walk” feature is a collaborative production from Spooky Pictures, Electric Lady, and Miramax, is produced by Steven Schneider, Francis Lawrence, Roy Lee, Cameron MacConomy, Rhonda Baker, Ellen Rutter, and Carrie Wilkins, and has been given executive producer Stephen King’s blessing for minor, yet impactful, creative control.

“The Long Walk” courses with a young but up-and-coming cast with a veteran icon bringing up the rear as coxswain spurring the unpleasant action. “Licorice Pizza’s” Cooper Hoffman, son of the late Philip Seymour Hoffman, and English actor David Jonsson whose just came off his part in a big science-fiction horror franchise with “Alien: Romulus” from last year. Together, Hoffman and Jonsson play the central characters of Ray Garrity and Peter McVries, two young men who formulate a bond while voluntarily participating in the annual deadly contest that traverses for hundreds of miles through heartland portions of an undisclosed state. Right from the get-go, Ray and Peter hit it off as the check in for the contest simultaneously upon arrival with the story quickly introducing and discerning a select sundry of other walkers that are either in it to make friends, be an in-it-to-win-it antagonists, or be a formidable indifferent with a spectacular end to their ticket or otherwise arc toward either direction. In these walk-along parts are Ben Wang, Charlie Pummer (“Moonfall”), Joshua Odjick, Tut Nyuot, Roman Griffin Davis, Garrett Wareing (“Independence Day: Resurgence”), and Jordan Gonzalez supporting the Ray and Peter narrative with their own in-state regionalism and dialect backstories and motives for sacrificial strutting, which their exit that much more poignant. Then you have Mark Hamill, who needs no introduction, in a performance on a totally different plane of existence than the young man walking for their very lives. Blind to compassion and stern on his belief sacrifice is necessary for the greater good of the nation, Hamill as no nonsense brass, known only as The Major,” is a mythical figurehead initially held in high esteem and awe or overall indifferent amongst the young men. All except one with Ray being the firm outlier of contrarian using passive aggressive measures that build to an endgame goal. Sporting large aviators, green fatigues, and occasionally holding and firing a sidearm, Hamill’s method ways really come alive within The Major’s gung-ho disposition inside an authoritarian America. Judy Greer (“Jurassic World”) and Josh Hamilton (“Dark Skies”) round out the cast as Ray’s parents.

No matter how grim “The Long Walk” spans the 108-minute runtime, the story isn’t necessarily all bleak. While the time period is unknown and the war that has seemingly divided the nation goes unsaid, one can assume the decade is late 1960s to early 1970s based off the military fatigues and weaponry, the dialect and slang vernacular, and the outer shell of the world with clothing, cars, and storefronts that speak to a simpler time where no cell phone exists, transmitter radios are the news and music, and the presence of any modern-day convenience lost amongst the vast fields and deprived brick-and-mortars of small town America. Yet, the story walks along the lines of some alternate, dystopian reality, pre-dating a “Hunger Games” like contest involving the permanent elimination of young people in effort to better society. Fortunately for “The Long Walk,” director Francis Lawrence directed “Hunger Games” and that gives him a leg up on the tone this adaptation needed for the big screen but although the two share a similar theme, the differences between them are vast with “The Long Walk” set in a past instead of a future dysphoria, objects and places are established and grounded by reality rather than creative fiction, and the violence is by far the grislier. Often, violence can be gratuitously supplemental and unaffecting but Lawrence’s intention to show closeup executions contrasts with weight against the boys’ bond building during their fear and their ambition test. With every explosion of brain matter and bits of flesh the stakes are real and the tension is thick even if the panic is subdued amongst the walking competitors. Yet, with every ticket punched, that tightness starts to show signs of shuttering in conjunction with fatigue and that carries on for miles. Much like the film adaptation of Frank Darabont’s “The Mist,” the ending for “The Long Walk” has been altered from the novel with prior Stephen King approval and while “The Mist” absolutely shatters all the hope with tons of despair and irony in a blaze of glory ending where one’s heart drops like a cannonball in the ocean, “The Long Walk’s” finale barely fizzle to make the same impact and can even be said to be a predictable modern moving ending.

“The Long Walk” puts one foot in front of the other toward a new Blu-ray release from Lionsgate. The AVC encoded, high-definition presentation in 1080p, is stored on a BD50 with a widescreen 1.39:1 aspect ratio. Sharp detail in the small percentage desaturated picture offers a mid-20^th century America air along with the costuming and production sets and locations. Fabric textures result better in sweat-induced cotton Ts overtop a variety of muted shaded pants and solid army fatigues while the rest of the landscape has a green, brown, and tan landscape of a scarce Midwest, harnessing widescreen and medium shots for the open terrain that equally freeing and beautiful yet also confining and harsh in the grim, dystopian contest; however, the textures take a back seat to the chunky bits of exploded flesh, blood, and brain matter splattering either in gray and painted asphalt or spreading amongst the wind. While the detail doesn’t provide all the gory bits and pieces there’s enough there to really cause alarm from within. The English Dolby Amos is the primary English track for best to enclose the immediate space surrounding the 50 State participates feet hitting the pavement and the escorting military convoy tank and wheel tracks. Gun shots are jolting that tear into the audio senses in step with the graphic nature of the scene of apathetic militaristic executions. There are curious post-execution sounds from the blood pooling on the street in what sounds like a continuous gush of blood that hits the side channels; its an odd action for sound to take audible shape, especially in scenes that are not an extreme close up but rather materialize out of medium shots. Dialogue is perfectly suitable in the conversational piece between the young men and the gruff Major. Other audio format choices include a Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 and a French Dolby Digital 5.1. There are also an English 2.0 descriptive audio and subtitles in English, Spanish, and French. Special features include feature length documentary Ever Onward: Making the Long Wal” with crew – such as director, writer, and DP – and cast – including Cooper Hoffman, David Jonsson, Garrett Wareing and more – interviews discussing the depths of “The Long Walk” from A-to-Z, from it’s previous adaptation concept rights held in limbo down to the individual character mindsets. Two theatrical trailers are the only other special features encoded. Lionsgate Blu-ray Amaray case is encased a O-slipcover with straightforward (pun intended) artwork that’s also on the case artwork. The digital copy leaflet is inside for digital moving watching pleasure. The 108 minute film is encoded region A and is rated R for strong bloody violence, grisly images, alcohol, pervasive language and sexual references.

Last Rites: An intense and somber America born out of division and fear is a reverse reality, an alternate take on what could have been or could be soon, as “The Long Walk” glorifies sacrifice as a scapegoat for national pride, strength, and the greater good in a warped sense of authoritarian rule and industrial encouragement.

“The Long Walk” on Blu-ray for the Holidays!

The Key to EVIL is to Kill Each Other For It! “A Hyena in the Safe” reviewed! (Celluloid Dreams / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on November 27, 2025

“A Hyena in the Safe” is on Black Friday sale! Get It at Amazon.com

Eleven months after a jewelry safe heist at the Bank of Amsterdam, a group of specialized international thieves from all over Europe reunite at an Italian mansion estate during a city carnival celebrate used as a distracting facade for their gathering. Each have a key that form a coalescence to open the safe to ensure not one of them will swindle the others and make off with the jewels worth millions. Their ringleader Boris, who’s now deceased, hid the safe in his mansion with this wife Anna overseeing his plan and portion of their lifted prize. When one of the keys end up missing, a series of deceptions and murders begin a feisty vying for the each of the keys. One-by-one, the criminals fall for inconspicuous laid deadly traps and engage in murderous rendezvous until there’s only one left standing as the old saying goes, there is no honor amongst thieves.

Italy director Cesare Canevari, notable for his contribution to the exploitation subgenre with “A Man for Emmanuelle,” “The Nude Princess,” and the notoriously renowned “The Gestapo’s Last Orgy,” wrote-and-direct a post-caper, bordering giallo in 1968 titled “Una iena in cassaforte,” aka “A Hyena in the Safe.” Coming in on the incline toward giallo’s height of success, Canevari’s whodunit has less the conventional murder mystery elements but does have arouse that lack of trust amongst the principal characters, a high body count, a vaguely mysterious killer, and definitely a highly stylization of camera angles and visuals that’s correlates with the time period and give this giallo less of a terror firming shape and more of a “Clue” like profile. Canevari cowrites the script with Alberto Penna and is a production of Fering SRL based in Milano, Italy where the film was shot.

“A Hyena in the Safe” is carried by an eclectic, ensemble cast of international actors and actresses playing the roles that are not of their respective nationalities. Going around the horn first with the keyholding thieves begins with Stan O’Gadwin’s Klaus, the German, Ben Salvador’s Juan, the Spaniard, Karina Kar’s Karina, the Tangerine and the only non-European of the group, opera singer Dimitri Nabokov’s Steve, The Englishman, and “The Slasher … Is a Sex Maniac!’s” Sandro Pizzchero’s Albert, the Frenchman. The aforementioned cast primarily reduces to Italian and German actors in a virtually performance only role to exact and exude their character personality types in with Salvador, who gives Juan a thinking man’s confidence within a patient self and has a way of seducing women to extract information, or with Klaus, who’s aggressive pressing as an authoritarian German leans toward pursuit efficiency, or Steve, who’s quietly plotting multiple reserved schemes to deploy later. Those not a part of the heist crew from the Bank of Amsterdam is Anna, the criminal mastermind’s wife portrayed by Maria Luisa Geisberger, and she, too, is a keyholder but only because the attractive femme fatale takes over the helm with the storage of the jewel vault and implants her own brand of deception after announcing her husband’s demise from an illness. Jeanine (Cristina Gaioni) and Callaghan (Otto Tinard) are the last two who round out the ensemble in their corresponding roles of Albert’s blonde bombshell girlfriend who’s folded into the scheme at the chagrin of the others, and boy does she take a humiliating beating when Albert comes up short on his key, and the jewel appraiser who watches all the backstabbing unfold from the sidelines and counts down the bodies with the metaphorical removal of their party favor baggies, ones that would have been used to split the jewels between them upon opening the safe.

What’s interesting about “A Hyena in the Safe” is the beginning of the story plotted at the act of reassembling the team and only provide expositional context to a heist well after it’s been done, eleven months ago in fact. All the characters are fresh and unknown to the audiences, we don’t know their personalities, their skills, their habits, or their attitudes toward one another, and all that dynamical odds and ends has processed, forcing those new to the film to watch, listen, and learn their way through the personality types and the situation at hand. The tension is quickly laid out amongst the already side-eying and suspicious group of sophisticated thieves that react no differently from the lower class of thief with same cutthroat intent. Keeping up with Canevari’s edited pacing and unconventional angle shots that squeeze out the tension with taut framing on expression-filled cutting of eyes and fear-induced faces, the mounting intriguing factors wet story hungry appetites with playful catering of the imagery that also consists of fixed and tracking shots. Considering the film’s more conservative decade, Canevari builds tasteful implied sexual acts between conniving characters and is only explicitly, in physical means, when the scene calls for it, leaving gratuitousness begging to be let in. One aspect with the pacing that hurts the enticingly heightening pressure cooker between the first act’s slow trot through choppy seas of character dynamics to elucidate taciturn behaviors and backdoor alliances and the last act’s spit firing and cutdown of those who are left standing, there is seemingly no middle act to funnel the trepidation and mystery from one end to the other in an abrupt ease into a quickly diminishing situation that goes from murder mystery to battle royale with switchblade umbrellas, electrifying door handles, and an indoor garage that can turn into an asphyxiating fish tank in a matter of minutes. There’s an early James Bond campiness to the story’s temperament that can’t be ignored while be positively and simultaneously interesting.

Celluloid Dream’s third release title today “A Hyena in the Safe” arrives onto a new high-definition Blu-ray for the first time that’s AVC encoded onto a BD50 and presented in 1080p and in its televised pillar boxed full screen 1.33:1 aspect ratio. The restoration of the original, likely, 35mm film stock was done by Rome’s Cinelab Services from the original camera negative, which also included the color grading. The resulting transfer is peak restoration quality with a fresh coat of brilliant paint, a clear coating of texture producing details, and a virtually flawless image within the spherical lens picture. Perhaps slightly on the orange side, skin tones come through a variety of shades to match the nationalities of the criminal enterprising collective. Juan’s dinner jacket evokes tweed textures while Jeanine’s high, golden hair style never loses individual strands in the near all-bright-and-golden wash. The original Italian mono mix was secured from the optical sound negatives attached to the filmstrip. The mix had processed the Italian ADR in post and attached to synch to the celluloid, creating a near perfect pace and synchronicity with the conversational action though the lips doesn’t exactly match the actual words being spoken. Speaking of dialogue, for a mono track the nice and robust with clarity from an untarnished negative albeit it’s lack of depth and not from the true source, and that goes for ambience as well. English closed captioning is available. Special features pack the encoding with a commentary track by Celluloid Dreams found and film critic Guido Henkel, interview featurette 7 Guests for a Massacre with Cesare Canevari (misspelled Canevaro on the back cover), Albert actor Sandro Pizzochero, Nini Della Misericordia, journalist/critic Adriana Morlacchi, and journalist/critic Diego Pisati discussing the film’s influence and pizzas from cast, crew, and critic perspective, a video essay by Andy Marshall-Roberts Schrodinger’s Diamonds: The Duplicitous Mystery of Hyena in the Safe, a location featurette of the shooting setting The Mysteries of Villa Toeplitz, an image gallery, and the theatrical trailer. The two-faced cover art, same art of dead bodies falling out of a safe, is set with the primary English language on the cover with the Italian language title cover on the reverse side. The cover art on the encasing O-slip with a character composition design of a shadow-induced, high-contrast illustration by graphic artist Thu-Lieu Pham of Covertopia.com has slip art similarities with same art on both sides but with the title in either in English or Italian. In the insert is advert for Celluloid Dream’s previous two releases – “The Case of the Bloody Iris” and “Short Night of Glass Dolls” and its upcoming fourth release “The Black Belly of the Tarantula” while the reverse side gives credits and acknowledgement in regard to the film restoration. “A Hyena in the Safe” comes not rated, clocks in at 92 minutes, and is region locked for A, North America.

Last Rites: “A Hyena in the Safe” is a no laughs, all bite giallo caper once obscured from the public view now brought to the forefront of our attentions with a new Blu-ray release worth backstabbing for!

“A Hyena in the Safe” is on Black Friday sale! Get It at Amazon.com

To Be or Not To Be EVIL? That is the Question! “#Shakespeare Shitstorm” reviewed! (Troma / 3-Disc 4K UHD and Standard Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on November 20, 2025

A Wild and Crazy Shakespearean Parody of “The Tempest!” Own it here!

Inspired by William Shakespeare’s revenge and restoration themed play, “The Tempest,” the ostracized pharmaceutical scientist Prospero plots his revenge with whale laxative as gushes of multiple killer whale defecation shipwreck the excrement slathered global elite to the shores of Tromaville, New Jersey where Prospero owns a nightclub and laboratory for his mad experiments. Miranda, his beautiful daughter blinded by the Trauma of her mother’s suicide, falls for Ferdinand, son of the rich pharmaceutical king Big Al who, along with Prospero’s twin sister Antoinette, betrayed Prospero to exile and displacement. Revenge is a dish best served as cocaine tainted with mutant growth hormones concocted in Prospero lab. With the help of a wheelchair bound crack-whore as his right-hand pusher, Prospero’s vindictive plan melds bodies and bodily fluids together in one flesh heap of disfigured dysfunction against the conglomerating corporate greed in the midst of two lovers formulating a bound beyond partisan lines.

Troma Entertainment president Lloyd Kaufman returns to the director’s chair to helm a classical rendition of William Shakespeare’s “The Tempest” with the NSFW eloquent title “#Shakespeare Shitstorm” and, as any self-respecting Tromaville fan knows, Troma titles can be extreme literally and, in this case, the adaptation is one big splash park of diarrhea. “The Tempest” isn’t the company’s first re-imagining of a Shakespeare’s work with “Tromeo and Juliette” being the humble career beginnings of now mega-MCU and DCU director James Gunn (“Guardians of the Galaxy,” “Superman”). For Kaufman, “#Shakespeare Shitstorm” might be one of the last directing efforts for the independent filmmaker and social justice warrior as he reaches into his 80^th year of age, but that doesn’t stop the 50-year moviemaking vet from passionately wanting to create art from behind the camera to in front of it with this Brandon Bassham script based off a story between Kaufman, Gabriel Friedman (“Slashing: The Final Beginning”), and, of course, the Bard of Avon. While Shakespeare doesn’t foot the bill for the budget, him and Troma do have something wildly in common being masters of the low-cost arts as Kaufman, Troma cofounded Michael Herz, Doug Sakmann, Justin A. Martell, and John Patrick Brennan produce “#Shakespeare Shitstorm” on a shoestring budget put muster together a wild and crazy story and effects movie.

Kaufman’s so passionately about making art and filmmaking, and also watching his bottom line, that he also dons a dual role playing the revenge-seeking and masterclass scientist Prospero and crossdressing, which he’s done frequently and without a morsel of shame, to become the treacherous twin sister and marketing guru Antoinette. Kaufman’s continues to throw caution to the wind in an unabashed performance that’s outrageously crude and lined with verbose dialogue that’s definitely memorized with monotonic intention but none of that should be surprising as Troma was built on fervor absurdity, and all the actors have a range of tactlessness that runs the gamut. The eclectic personalities never conflict with overlapping or feel forced as sometimes they often do with Troma or with farce comedies in general. Each character shines on an idiosyncratic level, such as Abraham Sparrow’s Big Al’s magnified pompous and drug-fueled pharmaceutical big shot, Amanda Flowers (“Werewolf Bitches from Outer Space”) crack-whore cripple Ariel, and Dylan Mars Greenberg (“Psychic Vampire”) as a social media influence and justice warrior. Kate McGarrigle and Erin Patrick Miller, like Kaufman’s Prospero and Antoinette, play two characters from the Shakespearean play with Miranda and Ferdinand respectively. Their opposite sides, Romeo & Juliet-esque affair has more an even keel, still absurd without a doubt, but better balances the stranger side of the deep character pool. Let’s also note that “#Shakespeare Shitstorm” is also a musical that puts more effort in synching action and lyrics into a frame already filled with slapstick surrealism and socio-political satire. The cast rounds out with Frazer Brown, Monique Dupree, Teresa Hui, Ahkai Franklin, Zoë Geltman, Zac Amico, Elizabeth D’Ambrosio, Nadia White, Dai Green, Vada Callisto, and special guest stars Ming Chen, Tommy Pistol, Bill Weeden, Julie Anne Prescott, Doug Sakmann, and Catherine Corcoran.

If afraid to get down and dirty with drowning in logs of whale feces, be offended by the large, and small, phalluses and other nudist behavior, be enraged by the comedic appropriation of the disabled, transgendered, and race communities, or just become upset at the smallest off-kilter behavior and uncouth conduct, then “#Shakespeare Shitstorm” should be on your top ten list of must watch because that’s Troma’s whole schtick is to challenge the uptight and corporate commercial narrative that has everyone on edge and afraid to walk on the permissible wild side, especially in art that’s supposed to covered by freedom of expression and speech. Kaufman puts the light on the irony, the preposterousness, and the two-faced hypocrisy that is the dark side of social media, such as cancel culture, which is in itself is an ironical dig at far liberal thinking, a stance bred from the same gene pool that has supported Troma over the last half a century, but that doesn’t mean Troma stops parodying and caricaturing the gentrifying and oligarchical elite with their own brand of downright vulgarity, and being funny and rights advocating while doing it, such as an extreme deluge of whale feces being evacuated right onto a luxury yacht, shipwrecking the survivors onto the seedy shores where a tainted drug nightclub brings revenge to a fleshy, body-horror amalgam finale that is Brian Yuzna’s “Society” on steroids and Viagra. Characters Miranda and Ferdinand represent the best parts of both worlds, restoring and evolving out from their parental trauma induced wormwood ways into love and hope, two core values Troma preaches from the rooftop.

“#Shakespeare Shitstorm” receives a huge 3-disc UHD Blu-ray and standard Blu-ray release that’s….not a shit storm. The UHD is HEVC encoded, 2160p ultra-high definition resolution, BD66 with an HDR10 range and the standard Blu-ray is AVC encoded, 1080p resolution, BD50. Troma pulls out all the stops for what could have been Kaufman’s last feature film directorial, leaving nothing to chance with detail and sound immersion to make sure audiences get into the sticky crevices of every mutated orifice. Cloudy with haze, bathed in neon lighting, and lots of rough, low-lighting doesn’t provide the utmost specifics surrounding every textural aspect but there’s plenty to field in both formats that warrant squeamish reactions and repulsive states through the mound of transformative flesh that for the most of the time show their fabricated prosthetic qualities. While both formats produce a vivid image, neither one of them really stand out above the other with only minor, insignificant detailing coming through the UHD. The film is presented in a widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio. An English DTS-HD 5.1 master audio mix is surprisingly utilized! Environmental ambience, diegetic and non-diegetic, has isolated channeling, such as the pitter-patter of rain through the back channels, that provide a layered sound design and added depth to the picture. The dialogue, through regular conversation and musical numbers, retains a clear understanding without any feebleness and often times with Troma productions, the audio can sound one-dimension, but this Kaufmann film is a multi-diagonal product with an abundance of surround sound through all the bodily fluids and it’s acts of secretion sounds. Rob Gabriele, Filipe Melo, and Louise Aronowitz music and compositions run with the Troma tide in executing highlighted whimsical and comedically inclined numbers for the actors to either be engulfed by or lip-sync. English subtitles are available. Two discs packed with extras extend the endless absurdity. First disc includes a typical introduction from Lloyd Kaufman, also available before running the feature, who teases the road ahead and shows enthusiasm for the film’s UHD properties, there’s also two commenter tracks – one with Lloyd Kaufman and fellow producers Justin Martell, John Brennan, and Mark Finch and the other with actors Zac Amico, Teresa Hui, Amanda Flowers, and Dylan Mars Greenberg, producer John Brennan and production designer Yuki Nakamura, who both also work on the Last Drive-in with Joe Bob Briggs, regaling their tales through production designing, a music video Tromatized featuring Abbie Harper, a Troma Now advert featuring two lone Tromettes bored and looking for something to do/watch when Uncle Lloyd gives them Troma streaming guidance before locking lips, and the teaser plus three theatrical trailers for the feature. The bonus 2nd disc includes the full-length, behind-the-scenes documentary Brown is the Warmest Color (a riff on “Blue is the Warmest Color”) that follows the pre-principal-and-post production and all its departmental successes, problems, and day-to-day that though even shows how ardent Lloyd Kaufman is about his on-set direction for art, love, and expression, it also does show how tyrannical, at times, he can be on set with an impatient nature and rigorous time productivity. Also including on the disc is Tromalbania as the production goes to Albania to finish the yacht sequence, Troma in Times Square is another video marketing maneuver for the company’s streaming service by having Toxic Avenger face off against the evil Netpix, isolated musical numbers from the film in #Shakespeare’s Shitstorm: Musical Numbers, and the auditions for select roles, including but not limited to Dylan Greenberg Mars, Nadia White, and Amanda Flowers. The encoded features are definitely good insight and tourist attraction beacons that depict movie magic, intent, and can offer comedic and cringeworthy states of independent filmmaking, but packing a punch as well is the packaging that offers embossed tactile elements of the O-slip with some sick (awesome) illustrative, back-and-front artwork by Sadist Art Designs The black UHD Amaray sports a white trimmed version of the O-slip backside artwork and inside is a hinged flap that tightly secures discs 1 (UHD feature) and 2 (standard Blu-ray feature) with the third disc snapped securely onto the interior back cover. Each disc displays a different story depiction with either the front O-slip art on the UHD disc with the standard Blu-ray and the bonus disc with memorable movie imagery. The self-labeled comedy-epic, with gashes of unhinged body-horror, has a runtime of 94 minutes with the not rated 4K UHD disc is encoded as region free while the Blu-rays are region A.

Last Rites: “#Shakespeare Shitstorm” may be a lot of things – crude, offensive, over-the-top – but Lloyd Kaufman’s supposed last magnum opus seizes every opportunity to make a statement, one that’s literally on a crapload of sociopolitical and cultural renaissance level!

A Wild and Crazy Shakespearean Parody of “The Tempest!” Own it here!

There’s No EVIL Treat with This EVIL Trickster! “The Jester 2” reviewed! (Dread Present / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on November 16, 2025

“The Jester 2” Blu-ray Is a Must-Get Sequel!

15-year-old Max is a girl without friends and with her bordering the edge of maturity that leaves her too old for trick-or-treating. Dressed as magician with an enthusiasm for card tricks and slight of hand, Max tries unsuccessfully to make the best of her Halloween night as school peers mock and tease her until the animated and sinister Jester comes before her to show her a trick of his own. When Max foils his trick, the Jester’s undertaking to contractually collect souls for Devil every All Hollows Eve comes into jeopardy as he loses his power to trick others. The Jester forces Max’s hand to play tricks on others for their souls to be collected by the end of the night before his own soul burns in the internal inferno. As the night goes on, Max must outplay the supernatural killer whose desperate game to spill as much blood as possible before the end of the night is coming to a full carnage head.

Our review of Colin Krawchuk’s “The Jester” called it “clever, entertaining, and devilish,” concluding out the review with “The Jester” acts the whimsical clown of conscience-stricken torment with an indelible joker different from the rest of the villainy pool. Yeah, we liked it. Krawchuk and team return for a sequel, simply entitled “The Jester 2,” that opens backstory doors for the mischievous maniac whose mask grins from ear-to-ear and knows all of the tricks of the soul reaping trade. Only one problem lies in his path, a 15-year-old girl who may be better a deceiving than he is. The standalone sequel doesn’t segue with the original film, creating a new whole installment that anyone could enjoy without watching the original 2023 film or it’s viral short films both films are based off of. Krawchuk writes-and-directs to be inherently different not only from the first film but from the large slasher genre that’s seen its fair share of clownish killers as of late. Traverse Terror and Epic Picture Group collab once again for another Dread Presents release with Epic Picture Group leadership of Patrick Ewald coproducing side-by-side with “Bag of Lies” producing team of Victoria McDevitt, Jake Heineke, and Cole Payne.

Michael Sheffield returns with his top hat and cane as the manically mute and mischievous Jester but with a slightly different approach to the Jester’s appearance. Instead of a Venetian mask strapped around his head by an elastic band, the sequel’s Jester has a mask that’s seemingly an extension of his face, delineated by the rivulet of exposed under flesh between where skin ends and where mask begins. Without Sheffield’s enthusiastic harlequinade and long, drawn out glares and motionless menace through empty, black eyes of the mask, “The Jester” films and shorts would without a doubt not be as entertaining and terrifying. This time around, the Jester has a new foe in a 15-year-old girl with puerile dreams of magic and trick-or-treating. It’s safe to say this girl, Max, is a loner with her peers making fun at her expense, but Max, as a final girl against the Jester, is intelligent and crafty in the face of pure evil despite her ounce of fear to live and be free of his threat against those she cares for – mother (Jessica Ambuehl, “Black Mold”) and sister – and strangers, even the ones that bully her. Making her feature film debut, the then early 20-something Kaitlyn Trentham has a convincible foot in the door of “The Jester’s” awkward teen being the equalizer against supernatural Hell spawn. Trentham can pivot between dejected loner to confident talent to the improvising fighter in the matter of circumstances, and when one of those circumstantial events involves Max’s family, a game of wits opens the chessboard for the next few moves. Forced to align before “Halloween” night comes to close, “The Jester 2” is exclusively between Max and The Jester, good versus evil, for most of the narrative with filler, supporting characters weaved into the pattern to support the threat of tension and a high body count a sequel can be proud of.

Sequels tend to do everything bigger with their inlaid bigger budget off the back of a successful first film. Big name talent, bigger effects, higher body count, etc., but character and story creator Colin Krawchuk doesn’t take the bait for a bigger boat and pushes that need to multiply tenfold “The Jesser’s” presence amongst audiences down to a suppressed level. While that might seem counterintuitive to the idea of sequels, “The Jester “thrives on story and sf/x simplicity, letting Sheffield and Trentham battle it out and drive the story of certainly a different scenario from the first film. The original “The Jester” embodies a similar tone but the control was imbalanced to “The Jester” with a supernatural upper hand always on the pulse of his tricked prey. The sequel kinks the hose, stopping the Jester’s paranormal flow of life and soul snatching to be humbled by his need from a mortal who ultimately has his existence hanging in this teen girl’s sleight of hands. This creates a perceptional shift from the Jester’s omnipresence, omnipotent immortality to he’s scraping by with desperation and longshot dependency on a young teen magician with a homemade costume. This is not to say this new installment into the Jester’s ethos and extended qualities is downgraded or is riding the exact same original wave toward a mundane surf as the kills do have incremental whimsical value and there’s certainly more of a visual effects presence than before and it’s done well to push the sequel to be a step up and forward in conjunction with the good versus evil alliance storyline.

Epic Picture Group and Dread Presents returns the Jester for another go-around of illusionary ill intention with a Blu-ray release. AVC encoded with 1080p, high-definition resolution on a BD25 and presented in a widescreen 1.78:1, the standard for video metrics supplies “The Jester 2” with adequate levels of a color saturation on a graded scale that leans toward ever so slightly a piano black finish. Details hover between great depth to vague depending on the focus which Krawchuk and “2 Lava 2 Lantula’s” cinematographer Kevin Duggan who play with the perspective focus in the realm of an already detail-vague and hard-lit night shoot that’s contrast heavy, obtaining nice shadows around the contours of the Jester’s mask. Duggan is not the returning cinematographer from the original 2023 film but really channels Joe Davidson’s (“President’s Day”) style that’s near raw with graded elements and focus precision. “The Jester 2” offers an English Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound and a Dolby Digital 2.0. Much of the 5.1 is frontloaded with a trickle of atmospheric coming through side and back channels in a watery compressed copy of the track, that was likely recorded in Dolby. Dialogues rendered clearly and cleanly, the Jester doesn’t speak anyway so much of his diegetic sounds are the ruffling swifts of his suit and hat with some walking cane taps, and the supernatural and killing ambient action has a punchy quality of a slight toon quality. English subtitles are available for selection. Special features include a director’s commentary, a making of featurette which is of Colin Krawchuk speaking on camera about the genesis and fruition of creating a sequel and sustaining villain with clips intercut into the interview footage, and the trailer as well as other Dread Presents’ previews. The 87-minute Blu-ray is open to all regions for playback and is the film is not rated.

Last Rites: “The Jester 2” is the same but different and kills as a context sequel for a villain on the right path to being a successful franchise.

“The Jester 2” Blu-ray Is a Must-Get Sequel!