Evil Never Breaks, But Your Mind Will! “The ID” review

Posted by Steven Lewis on November 23, 2016

Feeling trapped inside her own childhood home, middle-aged Meredith Lane is stuck caring for her elderly and abusive father. Unable to live a life of her own beyond the house’s closing-in walls, Meredith uses her memories of her youth to create a world toward which she can escape. A world involving past loves, spinning them into what could have been, but as the years slip by and her youth fades in stasis, hope for a normal way of life seeps from her grasp…the same with reality. Meredith continues to humor her father’s oppressively verbal and physical mistreatment, sacrificing to his everlasting grip and blackmailed for when she tries to stand up for herself. When her judgement finally breaks down from complete desolation, the lines blur between what’s fantasy and what’s real. When a routine delivery woman starts to suspect Meredith’s instability in the midst of her father’s abrupt absence, Meredith’s real and fantastical world begins to crumble under the first, fine line cracks of psychosis.

“The ID” is a 2015 psychological narrative thriller from the “Never Sleep Again: The Elm Street Legacy” and “His Name Was Jason: 30 Years of Friday the 13th” documentarian producer Thommy Hutson. To keep with the “A Nightmare on Elm Street” theme, Amanda Wyss, who portrays Tina in the original Wes Craven film, headlines as the lonely and disturbed Meredith Lane, the sole caretaker of her limit pushing father, played unnervingly by an unkempt and unsympathetic Patrick Peduto. Initially, you have to compassionately feel for Meredith’s situation as her father, whether intentionally or not, absolutely tortures and demeans her to the fullest extent, but when getting down to the brass tax, Meredith has always held her father’s life in her hands. All she needs to do is act.

When Meredith’s quasi-levelness with reality is finally pushed over the brink, she does act, snapping toward a tone setting second half of the story that’s arguably more disturbing than her combative relationship between Meredith and her father. “The ID” morphs into full blown psychological horror and, not that Hutson’s film wasn’t a terror of the mind before, Meredith completely crosses that thick defined line between her father and her gentlemen caller from the past. These opposition of two worlds are in the beginning stages of a collision in which both can’t exist in the same space that’s familiar to a presentist perspective. Huston works diligently to deliver the inner workings of Meredith’s psyche, lingering her father’s vocal presence throughout the story even if his physical form vacates, and merging her wondrous past into an antagonistic present.

Amanda Wyss has a multifaceted performance that shouldn’t go without stating and Wyss should be praised for her representation of suffering from a delusional mental disorder, originating either from a family history, in this case her father’s state is quite the example, or from other external influences. Both factors could have contributed and Wyss’ precision in the character makes the result difficult to split the two possible origins for her breakdown. Wyss’s performance becomes overshadowed only by the fierce acting by Patrick Peduto, creating an uncomfortable hostile interaction that’s so alien to a father and daughter relationship, it should be illegal. There’s a lot of hate, disgust, regret, shame, and mistrust from Peduto’s character that one can certainly assume Meredith’s father is a few cards short of a full deck and Meredith’s intentions could have been absolutely sane. Only one character wasn’t impressive in the whole ordeal lies with Tricia played by Jamye Grant. The delivery care character felt overwritten to be the catalyst; her obsessiveness for Meredith and her father, as she notes getting close to the couple, felt right up there at stalker level with unnecessary cause and effect to bring Meredith in more trouble than she’s already in. Grant did what should could to absolve the character from being obscenely forthright, but Tricia’s unable to pull back just enough to allow comfortable separation of a concerned citizen.

CAV Releasing’s of the 87 minute runtime Blu-ray of “The ID” from the production companies Ranch Media and Panic Ventures is presented in the original 2.35:1 aspect ratio on a single BD-25 disc. The presentation doesn’t spin much of a colorful offering that’s slightly dull without a pop or a splash of vivid hues sans the split psychosis scenes that are hefty in blue while overly exposed. Prevalent details are far more unusually blotchy, glossy, and scattered under the lower bitrate encoding that isn’t necessarily noticeable because of the setting being isolated to just Meredith’s childhood home. “The ID” isn’t an action heavy or scenic riddled film that requires much detail. Under the Dolby Digital 5.0 mix, a fair amount of unmistakable clarity and range emits fully through each channel with solid LFE and balanced tracks to level out the video quality woes. An option for a LPCM 2.0 is also available. Plentiful bonus features include a feature length commentary with director Thommy Hutson and star Amanda Wyss, an interview featurette entitled Needs, Wants, & Desires, intercut behind-the-scenes segment, alternate and deleted scenes, audition footage, and official stills and trailer. Thommy Hutson’s “The ID” is far from his usually schtick of horror documentaries, but clearly showcases the director’s talents within the psychological horror subgenre and will be the building blocks of his narrative directorial career.

“The ID” on Blu-ray. It’s cheap psychological horror!

An Evil Short: “Love is Dead” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on November 13, 2016

During a therapy session, Peter recounts the tragic last and painful moments with his distraught wife Mara before she commits suicide. Peter’s recollection is a raw and unadulterated look into the common and devastating marital strifes that plague to destroy connecting relationships and end tattered lives.

Frequent horror journalism Jerry Smith writes and directs “Love is Dead,” a short traumatic drama film stemmed from pieces of his own life brought to fruition, delivering an emotionally charged shower scene with adult stars Joanna Angel (“Evil Head,” “Re-Penetrator”) and her on-screen, off-screen lover Aaron “Small Hands” Thompson where Mara (Angel) confronts Peter (Thompson) with questioning infidelity while cornering and confining him in the shower. There’s a bit of back-and-forth that eventually lands Mara into the bargaining stages of the Kübler-Ross model, aka the five stages of grief, where she bets she can give better head than Peter’s undisclosed lover. As Mara proceeds to go downtown in an erotically uncomfortable moment of irrationality, Peter’s built up anger goes from hot-to-cold in a stinging moment of what should have been a gratifying release. Now for a side bar, being two professional adult film stars and a real life couple, the fellatio scene could have been not staged or could have been completely staged with some teasing cinematography accompanied with that familiar slurp and gag audio effect. Either way, the dynamic between the tattoo-riddled performers is fairly natural and passionate in their own Burning Angel regards, but does favor less like a ready to romp fantasy and more like a provocative insight of marital desperation and chapter ending turmoil.

Aside from Angel and Thompson, “Insidious” actor Ruben Pla tackles the outsider character looking in through the mindset of Peter’s therapist Michael. Michael is not only rightfully and objectively cold and stern, as many therapist are groomed to be, but he’s mechanically and brutally forward, dishing out the painful truth to Peter when Peter’s inner conflict comes to the forefront on whether he could have saved Mara or not. Though minor in screen time, Pla’s role partakes as a major contribution worth the respect of the short runtime.

The 10:50 minute short is a product of the independent film studio Sickening Pictures founded by BJ Colangelo and Zach Shildwachter. “Love is Dead” can be viewed from free over at Sickening Pictures Vimeo page, but beware, the film is definitely NSFW! Check out the Jerry Smith inspired “Love is Dead” short that’s full of overwrought pain, doused in uncomfortable situational nudity, and barred with incomprehensible loss tightly bottled inside a reality-checking one-sixth of a hour.

Evil Surpasses Decades and Has Never Looked So Good! “Francesca” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on November 11, 2016

Fifteen years after the kidnapping and disappearance of Francesca, the young daughter of renowned poet and stage performer Vittorio Visconti and his wife Nina, a string of brutal murders by a relentless psychopath links itself to the case of missing Francesca and sparks community outrage with the deaths that are connected with Dante Alighieri’s The Divine Comedy. Detectives Moretti and Succo eagerly take on the case, that’s heavy with burden, to quickly apprehend the murderer but to also solve a more than decade old missing child case. As the bodies pile up and Moretti and Succo attempt to get closer to a resolution in the midst of grave public panic, a web of past dark secrets depict a convoluted picture surrounding the private Visconti family that may or may not be directly involved in what really came of poor young Francesca.

The sweet, bloody sweet giallo genre is not dead! The crime mystery thriller with shockingly grisly murders is alive and well and embodied in the soul of Luciano Onetti’s 2015 sophomore directorial that’s co-written with his brother, Nicolas Onetti. The Onetti brothers’ “Francesca” release gets a treatment deserving of kings with a gloriously and beautifully illustrated cover and inner lining that contains powerfully-packed 3-disc Blu-ray and DVD combo set distributed by the artistic gorehounds Unearthed Films and the multifaceted MVDVisual. Complete with an inscrutable and deranged killer that’s greatly diabolical in their own insane world built upon the Buenos Aires born director’s passion for Italian horror, every giallo loving attribute has been meticulously applied to “Francesca” from the shrouded killer to the use of characterizing the antagonist with simply their leather bound, throat-gripping hands high above the clicking of offbeat high heals not casted far from a creepy doll used to motif the killer’s ominous presence. Blood red violence streaks of eye disfigurements, or any facial disfigurement, throughout a script that’s much attuned to the structure and content, reigniting a flame of hope in a declining genre to which the 33-year-old Onetti appears to hold very dear to his heart.

In addition to the inner mechanisms and the ivory gears that constitutes a giallo film, Luciano Onetti takes his feature that one step further by reducing hues and adding an Italian post-production dub track, overlaying the assumptive Argentinean dialogue, to zip back to the past for a time hop location that’s purposefully set in 1970’s Rome. With props true to the time period, “Francesca” has undoubtedly a budget that delivers the malevolent charm of a Dario Argento slasher with a slightly modern taste for the Michele Soavi ghastliness, working seamlessly together to compile an apt tribute of surging giallo birthed right out of South America. “Francesca” is a stunning visual, a clear marker of filmmaking inspiration inspired by classic filmmaking that’s specific in it’s venture from familiar Italian editing techniques to capturing or creating the menace in even the most mundane of filler scenes.

“Francesca” is certainly a film that glorifies the anti-hero with a killer wreaking havoc amongst the public’s most disparaging people who got off the hook easily. When considering the depth chart, this vigilante psychopath exploits Dante’s work as a means of justification where one’s person journey to the gates of heaven must first travel through the gates of hell, providing a similar Charon’s obol of sorts where a metaphorical coin is viewed as a bribe for the gatekeeper or ferryman of souls. Even if considered an anti-hero, the murderer still manages to appeal as the villain because so much of the story’s focus is on Moretti (Luis Emilio Rodriguez) and Succo (Gustavo Dalessanro) and both Rodriguez and Dalessanro make their first on-screen film debut, suitably connecting with “Francesca’s” elderly ambiance.

The Not Rated Unearthed Films and MVDVisual 3-Disc Blu-ray and DVD combo is 77 minutes of pure fanboy gold, presented in a widescreen 2.35:1 in a vary of purposefully pruned coloring and intended faux film stock imperfections to recreate a 1970’s Italian giallo. The Italian dialogue track doesn’t quite synch and, again, that’s deliberate to fabricate a past ideal. My only gripe with this release is with the English subtitles as there were a few issues, including some key mistakes in spelling and with the pace of the subtitle that were way too quick. That shouldn’t sway anyone from this awe-striking and gorgeous limited edition release that comes complimentary with a booklet of an in-depth review from Ultra Violent Magazine’s Art Ettinger. The third disc rounds out the release as the film’s soundtrack, scored by Luciano Onetti and his progressive rock that’s a slight modernization of the synch-prog rock of this particular genre’s decade. “Francesca” comes straight out of a forgotten 40-year time capsule, looking to violate the eyes, minds, and ears of a younger generation and stimulating the nearly flatlined Italian giallo genre.

Hurry! “Francesca” is a Limited Edition release! Won’t be around forever!

Takes Evil to Know Evil. “The Anatomy of Monsters” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on November 4, 2016

Timid sociopath Andrew patrons alone at a low-end bar, sipping delicately on straight whiskey and waiting for the perfect opportune moment to approach the right lonely woman. Andrew is not looking for a one night stand. Andrew is on the hunt for a victim, but when the night’s odds don’t seem to be in Andrew’s favor, a lovely young woman approaches him at the tail end of the night and begins to make small talk. After a night of coincided flirting, the woman seductively invites Andrew back to her motel room for some provocative foreplay, but before Andrew can move in for the kill, he suddenly realizes that the woman might just be as more of a sociopath than he could ever imagine by turning Andrew’s moment of a gratifying kill into her tragic tale of a more experienced and assured killer.

Suspense thriller “The Anatomy of Monsters” is the sophomore film from the multitalented writer-director Byron C. Miller and stars Tabitha Bastien, Jesse Lee Keeter, and Connor Marx in a twisted narrative involving love, death, and the struggle between the two. Miller, unfortunately, wrestles to keep buoyant the scope of his story contained as scenes teeter when holding an airtight structure as Bastien’s character, Sarah, asserts her mortal coil. Her plight doesn’t grasp the attention needed to draw in an audience; instead, the back and forth between her present plea with Andrew and her past of leading a double life of affliction with whether to act on her killer instinct with the love of her life or not either passively regresses or just stands completely in place, not moving a motivational inch to take the much needed mile in making us believe in Sarah’s tragic love story and the story is actually, well, tragic by not building the passion between Sarah and Nick, played coyly by Connor Marx, as they just hunker inside Nick’s quaint apartment, affixed to his bed or couch while contemplating their instantaneous love for each other.

A part of the film’s indelicate sting comes from Tabitha Bastien’s performance. Sarah, in the very definition of the character’s persona, is a sociopath which denotes a monotonous person to be without empathy, to have an ice cold demeanor, and to be calculating in their actions. While Bastien epitomizes a sizable amount of emotionlessness, her presentation leans a bit more toward being ingeniously staged, emitting a phoniness that doesn’t naturally crossover. If I didn’t know better, I would have guessed Bastien was a T-100 cybernetic organism underneath a flesh and blood outer layer from “The Terminator’s” apocalyptic bleak future. What Bastien does attribute very well to “The Anatomy of Monsters,” aside from her mechanical display, is a pair of piercingly bright eyes set upon a unique belle face akin to that of the nice looking girl next door you peeping tom on through the cracks of your window shades. Jesse Lee Keeter opposites Bastien with a more genuine approach that favors a Michael C. Hall similarity complete with a kill kit. Keeter’s Andrew is an example of well-written hesitation, exhibiting more of a killer’s struggle to maintain a low profile whereas Sarah leaves nothing to the imagination, baring it all out on the proverbial table with the extreme potency of egocentric cockiness.

Along with Miller’s stationary script, the industrial rocker’s sporadic editing technique can be best described having a short-sighted attention span and his shaky handheld camera visually impairs the viewing pleasure of one monster’s monstrous thirst for death. “The Anatomy of Monsters” feature does play the role of being the quintessential independent product, but without stability and patience, Miller’s artistic craftsmanship suffers heavily from the technical aspects with really the only exception stemming from the minor gore scene during Andrew’s brief description of past murders, committing to a solid neck piece mock-up that realistically seeps blood in order to get the good throat slit shot.

A fond blend of John McNaughton’s “Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer” and Showtime’s “Dexter,” “The Anatomy of Monsters” is slated for a DVD and Video on Demand release on November 15th from the Philadelphian distributor Artsploitation Films. Certainly a film that’s an attestant to an American-horror, Byron C. Miller explores the corners of the dark and deranged minds associated with serial killers while meddling through the conventional intimate affairs of the masses, spurring an atomically explosive situation from a slowly, simmering boil. Though technically unattractive with arguably underwhelming and sulky performances, suggestions of a greater notion leaves behind an everlasting scar tissue from the necessary urges and the unquenchable desires of a killer can be appreciated.

Watch The Anatomy of Monsters on Amazon Video!

Get Caught In Evil’s “Flytrap” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on September 28, 2016

Newly hired UCLA astronomy professor James Pond becomes mixed up with peculiar behaving individuals when his car breaks down in a quiet suburban neighborhood. Held hostage in a small house, James reluctantly follows orders from an automaton man named Gilligan involved with a unusual plan for James to reproduce with the lovely Mary Ann. James’ ensnarement feel like a gag at first until he awakes bound to a bed and strapped with a shock collar; the once thought innocent fling with Mary Ann has taken a turn for the worse when he the realization that the whole human race could be in jeopardy. James becomes captivated by Mary Ann’s innocence, naivety, and beauty making his attempts to escape more difficult without her, but if he decides to stay, a ominous question mark will determine his fate.

“Flytrap” is a micro sci-fi thriller production written-directed by 1995’s “The Mangler” screenwriter Stephen David Brooks and stars television series “Salem” Jeremy Crutchley as Jimmy Pond, Austrian born Ina-Alice Kopp as Mary Ann in ambivalence, and Jonah Blechman as the emotionless Gilligan. From the get-go, “Flytrap” slowly builds a momentum, but never really gains the full steam while revolving around Jimmy Pond’s detainee state. Ambiguity plagues the story with many unanswered questions, leaving more for the audiences’ imagination rather than to the exposition and that begs the question whether everything that did happen to the astronomer happened in reality or in just in his mind? For example, the voice in the air condition duct stays anonymous until, maybe or maybe not, the end and, perhaps instead, that was all just Jimmy’s subconscious informing him of his rational side opposed to what his heart desires such as, for instance, Mary Ann is not who she seems. Is Jimmy that much wrapped up in his paranoia?

If you didn’t notice from the film’s synopsis, references from “Gilligan’s Island” are abundantly staged throughout, especially with the character names. Jason Duplissea has a minor role as the Skipper for only a brief moment and we never see Duplissea grace the screen with his presence again. Besides, Duplissea didn’t resemble his television show namesake as the others. Other pop culture references, such as Alfred Hitchcock, MTV’s Punk’d, and various others, are mentioned but the conveying of these felt as if the film didn’t have a single original thought starting with their characters, especially with the hip English astronomer and his vast knowledge of American and British pop culture. Yes, Jimmy Pond was struggling to humanize his captors, who supposedly hail from the planet Venus, with bad dancing, some romance, and an unquenchable yearning to be free, but the intention comes across technically clunky, delivered with no substantial soul. Other technicalities fair far better with great lighting to create an inauspicious atmosphere. Combine that with some solid performances from Jeremy Crutchley, Ina-Alice Kopp, and a frightening mechanical Jonah Blechman and the situation turns hopelessly weird.

Aside from Jason Duplissea making little less than a cameo, other characters quickly pop in and pop out of the story. Billy “Sly” Williams involvement lacked girth when his character Rondell sits rather very patiently through the weekend, waiting for Jimmy to call or pickup his cell. There’s no motivation other than sit and wait and call the police where the inept police department uses a machine instructs to leave a message of a crime being committed. When Rondell finally has the opportunity to do big things in order to assist Jimmy, another moment is zapped away without a trace. Like Williams, Jonathan Erickson Eisley’s Azarias had a brief scene shunted even more quickly away once introduced chained tightly bound in the house’s basement and at that precise moment, a window of opportunity cracks open to help clear up the baffling enigmas giving much puzzlement to Venus’s plan to take over or destroy mankind. Given his incarceration, we can assume Azarias is Jimmy’s equal, a previous captive with a failed outcome. Omit Williams and Eisley roles and the Brooks’s film prospers into comprehension that much more.

“Flytrap” is a festival winner – “Best Non-European Indie Feature at the European Independent Film Festival in France, Best Low Budget Feature at Worldfest Houston, Special Jury Prize at the Chelsea Film Festival as well as Best Feature, Best Supporting Actor (Jonah Blechman) and Best Ensemble at the Los Angeles Independent Film Festival” – but falls to captivate and entertain even if chocked full of shadowy undertones of paranoia and loneliness. Pond, Jimmy Pond – a Bond reference “Flytrap” also made – needed more development to sauté an emotionally motley character until he’s well burnt to an cracked crisp. There will be no critiques on the audio and video as the disc provided was a screener. Check this psychological sci-fi thriller on digital HD through Amazon Instant Video, Vudu, and iTunes.