Category Archives: sci-fi

Next Step in Evolution Leads to EVIL’s War Against the Common Man. “Scanners” reviewed! (Second Sight / 4K UHD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Scanners” 4K is Head Popping Good! Buy it Here!

Dr. Paul Ruth is a ConSec scientist, the head of the private contract weapons department on the “Scanner” project.  A Scanner is a highly developed human with psychic and telekinetic powers able to control and damage the minds of others through the nervous system.   Ruth’s latest case is Cameron Vale, a vagrant helped by Ruth to control his self-detriment powers with the use of a scanning suppressive drug known as ephemerol.  When one of Ruth’s past subjects, a renegade Scanner known as Revok, infiltrates and assassinates a live public demonstration of the Scanner project with the intent to wage war on non-Scanners, Ruth’s only hope is to convince to conscript Vale to join the fight and infiltrate against Revok who kills any Scanner who doesn’t join his growing army.  Vale’s search for Revok leads him to learn of a treacherous mole within ConSec and that ephemerol is being weaponized against the normal human race.

On the heels of our Second Sight 4K review of David Cronenberg’s 1979 film “The Brood,” Cronenberg’s following film “Scanners” released two years later in 1981 ups the ante in elaborate special effects and high conceptual themes twirling around in a bowl of body horror soup and is now also available on 4K UHD from the UK Second Sight label!  Like “The Brood,” Cronenberg writes-and-direct a dysphoric film in his birth country of Canadian, per his normal track record of principal production countries, specifically shooting in in the urban and greater areas of Québec, Canada.  The first film of a trilogy, to which Cronenberg did not return to direct the subsequent sequels with both films released a decade later in 1991 and helmed by “Screamers” director Christian Duguay, is a production of the  CFDC (Canadian Film Development Corporation), Filmplan International, and Montreal Trust Company of Canada with Pierre David and Claude Héroux both returning from “The Brood” as executive producer and producer, respectively. 

The face of Scanners has been and always will be Michael Ironside, included on most poster and home video release stills and artworks of a flaringly distorted Ironside as Revok deep in a frighteningly milky-white eyed scanner turbulence.  The “Total Recall” and “Starship Troopers” actor has a face the camera loves, especially in an antagonistic role with Ironside’s gifted devilish grin, dagger eyes, and sarcastic stoic expressions.  However, he is not the heroic lead of Cronenberg’s “Scanners.”  Ironside is not even in the top three headlining credits.  That foremost distinction is consumed by Stephen Lack (“Perfect Strangers,” “Dead Ringers”) in the Cameron Vale role and Lack’s performance is indicative of his name in a completely overshadowed protagonist role.  Lack’s monotonic bordering dangerously to catatonic presence is swallowed up by Ironside who has fewer scenes but instills punchier passion toward his character’s rebellion against humanity cause, plus the contour control over his mannerism and expressions are impeccably cinematic  There are other actors credited ahead of Ironside, beginning with the greatly dramatical Patrick McGoohan (“Escape from Alcatraz”) as the pro-scanner ally Dr. Paul Ruth whose commanding the Vale assignment, “The Clown Murders’” Lawrence Dane as a traitorous ConSec company man Keller in Revok’s pocket lining, and “The Psychic’s” Jennifer O’Neill as fellow pacificist scanner and Vale love interest Kim Obrist.  Each actor finds their individual, attributable, character voice while giving into the required performance with commitment, a sentiment that was not shared by Lack in a strong leading man contender against the forces that face him or scan his mental space.  “Scanners” rounds out the cat with Robert A. Silverman (“The Brood,” “Jason X”), Mavor Moore (“Heavy Metal”),  Fred Doederlein (“Shivers”), Adam Ludwig (“Short Circuit 2”), and Victor Desy (“Rabid”) with that iconic head explosion scene.

To follow up “The Brood” almost right on its heels with “Scanners,” David Cronenberg’s creative synapses were just thunder stroking on all cylinders with ways to evolve mankind into next level grimdark science fiction.  The simple premise of the advanced human condition sparking a potential war between normal man and Scanner man with a private weapons developer in the middle, perhaps inadvertently or intentionally coaxing a new breed of man, is elevated by the special effects of Gary Zeller (“Visiting Hours, “Amityville II: The Possession”) and the makeup alley-oop by Dick Smith (“The Exorcist”) to give audiences those head-exploding, vein-popping, fire-starting special effects that are sear so well into the mind they’re virtually unerasable from the mind, as if real life scanners were implementing the reel into the occipital lobes themselves.  Plot devices like these inarguably saturate the cloak-and-dagger, on-the-run, and species-eradicating storyline with leadup anticipation, building suspense through the truth and lies of Vale’s assignment as well as Vale understanding and, ultimately, accepting his gift rather than seeing it as a burden or a blight to his being.  Unlike “The Brood,” “Scanners” leans more into the physical method of effects with not only the pulsing veins and the white contact lenses but Cronenberg amps up the pyrotechnics with violent and fiery explosions, both of which do a number of the body with blunt invisible force ravaging soft tissue, and also sets ablaze characters’ specific, isolated areas for visual awe and a presentation of a whole new possibility dimension plane of the mind and body that can create, endure, and eventually destroy.   

“Scanners” rounds out the pair of Second Sight’s David Cronenberg releases onto 4K UHD, in conjunction with “The Brood.” The HEVC encoded, 2160p ultra high-definition, BD100 houses the director approved 4K restoration transfer, presented in Dolby Vision HDR10 and in a widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio. Previous HD releases favored a slightly anemic image with a tilted color grading that never approached the aesthetics of the cinematic era. Second Sight improves on this with a present in time natural grading true to the late 70s into the early 80s. Healthy, organic grain filter through with an agreeable measure, never overtaking the details that effect upon texture and substance, such as from the massive head explosion with all the intricate gory bits of hair and flesh flying splattering about make for ideal visual immersion to the more macrolevel of inside circuitry when Vale enters the computerized nervous system through scanning. Skin tones render over organically with no flashes of a slightly orange tinge as in previous releases, corrected to overall completed neatness on the finer points. An English DTS-HD 5.1 master audio and a LPCM 1.0 mono consummate the release with fidelity honoring mixes. The surround sound offers a constructed immersive dynamic riddled with explosions and a feverish Howard Shore score engulfing the echoing of the scanner waves to denote the telekinetic or psychic use, but the mono track offers something far greater than any retroactive designed immersion track could offer, a genuine, unforced mix. Both tracks offer clean, robust dialogue with a clarity to match. English subtitles are available on both. Special features include a new audio commentary by Canadian film writer Caelum Vatnsdal and a second audio commentary by film academic William Beard. If comprehensive interviews straight for the horses’ mouths are your thing, than Second Sight has you covered with new and archive interviews with Stephen Lack My Art Keeps Me Sane, Michael Ironside A Method in His Madness, Lawrence Dane Bad Guy Dane, cinematographer Mark Irwin The Eye of Scanners, composer Howard Shore Mind Fragments, executive producer Pierre David The Chaos of Scanners, makeup artist Stephen Duplus Exploding Brains & Popping Veins, and with makeup effects artist Chris Walas Monster Kid. A new visual essay by Tim Coleman Cronenberg’s Tech Babies cabooses the special features. Encased in a traditional back UHD Amaray, the new artwork also sports a prominent and looming Michael Ironside as a raging scanner Revok but now Stephen Lack has presence space with his own iconic and disturbing moment from the film now on the front cover, as the little spoon of course. The companion standard Second Sight release of “Scanners” is UK certified 18, has a runtime of 103 minutes, and is region free!

Last Rites: “Scanners” never looked so good. An exceptional inception of a release from Second Sight Films that continues to aim high and raise the bar with every title they touch, like King Midas without being cursed by their success.

“Scanners” 4K is Head Popping Good! Buy it Here!

No One Can Hear You Scream in EVIL Found Footage Space! “V/H/S/Beyond” reviewed! (Acorn Media International / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Go Beyond the Limit with “V/H/S/Beyond.” Now on Blu-ray!

Six new tapes push the boundaries of what we know is true and what we know as reality.  Six new tapes confirm that we are not alone on this Earth or even in this universe.  Sex new tapes shows the horrors beyond our plane of existence and into another dimension of fear of the unknown.  A special tasked police force raids a house horded by violent, brainless baby-nappers only to discover the horrible creature lurking in the attic.  A megastar under the pressures to perform breaks from the mortal chains of human greed and power.  Skydiving friends encounter an alien attack miles above the Earth surface.  A doggie-daycare aims to transfigure and train people to sit, rollover, and behave like good, obedient hybrid canine creatures, a woman determined to find proof of extraterrestrial’s in the Mojave desert found curiosity didn’t just kill the cat, it also brought it back to life to kill it again and again and again, and a two flea market bought VHS self-tapings quite possibly reveal the horrifying truth of if we are alone in the world.

The next grand tour through “V/H/S” horror has entered orbit!  “V/H/S/Beyond” abducts and probes our fear receptors with invasive and terrifying cold instruments of science-fictional horror tales.  “Beyond” marks the 7th entry into the found-footage anthological franchise formed over a decade ago in 2012, created and produced by genre devotee Brad Miska under his founded, longstanding horror website Bloody Disgusting, and this entry’s theme “Beyond” denotes a sci-fi flare from the hellish man-made creations to vicious visitors from the void above.  Miska returns as producer alongside Josh Goldbloom, James Harris, and Michael Schreiber all of whom have been a part of the series since 2022’s “V/H/S/99.”  Cinepocalypse Productions, Studio71, Spooky Pictures, and Shudder serve as coproduction companies for the shorts directed by Jay Cheel “Abduction/Adduction,” Jordan Downey “Stork,” Virat Pal “Dream Girl,” Justin Martinez “Live and Let Dive,” Christian and Justin Long (yes, that Justin long from “Jeepers Creepers” and “Tusk”) “Fur Babies,” and Kate Siegal “Stowaway.”

“Beyond” introduces a variety of situations, mostly flipping between man-made mistakes to alien encounters, with a medley of spirited characters to shepherd the shorts where they need to end in a timely outcome.  Each found footage story is inherently different with no two situations nearly alike, keeping to the same synonymous rhythm that has garnered fandom for the “V/H/S” anthologies.  The wraparound segment has the facsimile of a mystery documentary of two flea market purchased tapes that are believed to be evidence of alternate life beyond this universe with mock interviews given by the actors casted in the film – Brian Baker, Gerry Eng, Sam Gorski, Mitch Horowitz, Wren Weichman, and Trevor Dow discussing the history of tapes and the house they’re filmed in, social alien background and perception, and determining if the tapes are authentic.  Like all the other wraparounds, story progression is interspersed between the five other shorts with the first being “Stork” where the special police task force W.A.R.D.E.N. takes the fight to the paranormal.  Officers Broome (Thom Hallum, “Bull Shark”), Aubert (James C. Burns, “Lake Dead”), Bennet (Jolene Andersen, “Doctor Death”), Ivy (Tyler Andrews), and E.T. (Vas Provatakis, “Children of the Pines”) storm an infested monster house with rookie Segura (Phillip Andrew Botello, “Devil’s Revenge”) to save stolen infants.  From here, paparazzi Arnab (Sayandeep Sengupta) and Sonu (Rohan Joshi) find themselves at the mercy of an all-powerful and vengeful goddess in megastar Tara (Namrata Sheth), birthday boy Zach (Bobby Slaski, “White Terror”) finds himself free-falling into an alien invasion, doggie daycare owner Becky (Libby Letlow) is dead serious about Frankensteining the purrfect fur babies, and UFO researcher Halley (Alanah Pearce) will find that discover the truth will be a painful purgatorial experience.  “Beyond” brings a wide range of talent to the table with ensemble casts, streamers, Bollywood actors, and solo preformists to exact another side of fear for the franchise with a principal supporting cast rounding the anthology with Virat Pal, Rhett Wellington, Hannah McBride, Matthew Layton, Braedyn Bruner, Phillip Lundquist, and Kevin Bohleber.

One would think an anthology series built upon the idea of a found footage would eventually become stale amongst the public who are feeling the fatigue of an overused subgenre, much like the zombie subgenre in the early 2000s to early 2010 where every George Romero wannabe with a handheld camera set out to either homage or hit it big with the next undead head success.  Found footage is currently, or rather vaguely, in the throes of being overworked because of how cost efficient and effective films of its ilk can be to those inspired to create.  However, the “V/H/S” series hits differently.  For one, it’s an anthology series that brings a fan of imagination to its whole and we’re not subjected the one type of found footage narrative as dissimilar styles, tastes, direction, writing, etc., converge by means of short films.  Another element of “V/H/S” staying power is the series created and developed by genre admirers, such as Brad Miska whose veins course with literally nothing else but the blood cells of the horror.  Lastly, “V/H/S” continues to evolve by colliding past and present, nostalgia and current, and myth and fact together with a serrated surrealism that can thrill you with, often times, hell on Earth entertainment as well as scare the living bejesus out of you.  “Beyond” maintains the trend by coming out of the 80’s and 90’s vibe from the last three installments and diving headfirst into beyond the scope of traditional monsters, terrestrial creatures, and iconic monsters for nothing born of his Earth, such as with the wraparound story, “Stork,” “Live and Let Dive,” and “Stowaway,” and nurturing more a mad-science madness in “Dreamgirl” and “Fur Babies.”  A possible detriment to “Beyond’s” ability to connect with fans of fear and frights with the latest entry leaning heavily on the physical side of action-gore that sometimes is a tall order of campiness rather than the instillation of underlaying, psychological terror aside from the Mike Flanagan (“Oculus,” “Doctor Sleep”) penned “Stowaway” that evokes some segregated space isolation and a death-defying situation that still feels the repetitive painful sting.

“V/H/S/Beyond” lights up the night sky with blood red intergalactic splatter and takes mad science to a whole new abominable level with a new Blu-ray from the UK label Acorn Media International.  The AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition, BD50 presents the film in a widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio with an occasion retro-slip into pillar box 4:3 for that VHS façade.  Image presentation ranges because of the home movie, handheld camera, and body cam found footage trope that’s this series bread-and-butter.  Through the intended static, interlacing and tracking lines, fuzzy darkness, quick movements, and mostly whichever video interference objects one can think of, minus authentic celluloid print damage, to pseudo-sell found footage realism.  The outcome is superbly effective and highly captivating albeit moments that are too agitated to understand and connect objects and sounds in the narrative, another part of the collective that makes it effective yet also makes it wasted runtime space for viewers.  What’s not wasted is the chainsaw point of view in “Stock” where ripping through and decapitating monsters has DOOM inspiration all over it. A majority English with some Hindi DTS-HD 5.1 surround sound mix is, too, designed to mimic the gimmick of handheld found footage. Distortions and other audio mic cuts and external interference on the audio system are included to sell the illusion and are often done at great detail in time, overlay, and spatial fractions in-between viewer and what the view is experiencing on screen. Depth is mostly front loaded within the context of first-person viewpoints while the surrounding channels take a subtle backseat but whisper through when there’s a sound behind the camera. LFE charges in during more rambunctious moments, which there are a lot of, and are not quelled for the sake of dialogue that’s mostly discernible when necessary. English subtitles are available. The encoded special features on a static menu include the pre-visuals of explosions, disintegrations, and free-falling bodies on the practical skydiving of the cameraman explain how many jumps were needed to put the pieces altogether for that breathtaking scene at 20,000 miles in the sky, actress Libby Letlow’s audition tape for Becky in the “Fur Babies” short, the making of “The Dreamgirl,” a behind the scenes of “Stork” with IGN, and the how the timelapse was created in “Stowaway.” Physical areas of the releases are about the same other Acorn Media Releases with the thicker UK Amaray casing that has the illustrated cover art of the “V/H/S” thematic skull worked into the swirling steller-laden of scary space. Inside is just the disc pressed with the same image art. UK certified 18 for strong violence and injury detail, “V/H/S/Beyond” has a runtime of 114 minutes and is not noted on the back cover in regard to the region playback, usually Acorn Media releases are hard encoded with region B, but this particular release play on a Region A setting and could be very well region free.

Last Rites: The “V/H/S” team continues to maintain a sustainable supply of fresh meat for the grinder in relation to its current theme. Plenty of splatter, mayhem, lunacy, and backbone quivering chills to get lost in “Beyond’s” cosmic Hell. Can’t wait to see what’s next in store for the anthology!

Go Beyond the Limit with “V/H/S/Beyond.” Now on Blu-ray!

The Apex Predator of the Sea is Now the EVIL From Beyond the Stars! “Space Sharks” reviewed! (Wild Eye Releasing / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Your Daily Dose of Sharksploitation with “Space Sharks” on DVD!

Interstellar scientists voyage home after discovering and retrieving a new species of shark and carnivorous plant from the planet Crypt-X.  When a rogue meteoroid field strikes the hull and sends their ship careening toward the Nevada desert, only one human survivor emerges from the wreckage to face off as the only resistance against a deadly combinational species of highly technological and predatory sharks and the piranha-like swarm of hungry vegetation.  At the same time, a group of recovering addicts are led onto a scenic desert trail for a spiritual nature hike while a conspiracy theorist, toyed with by clandestine organizations, makes his way west to locate the crash and uncover the truth connecting the space sharks with every other conspiracy theory known to man.  Man versus space shark versus killer plant in an extraterrestrial showdown on Earth’s terrain and only one will survive in what’s surely be a massive Government coverup.

Tornadoes whip man-eating sharks through the air in “Sharknado.”  Engineering virtuosos yet undead World War II Nazi soldiers ride monstrous, flying sharks to wreak havoc on modern civilization in “Sky Sharks.”  Now, outer space is no longer quiet and safe as a newly, deadly breed of predator is brought to Earth in “Space Sharks.”   Director Dustin Ferguson, a director with an oeuvre of low-budget horror going back as far as 2010, pens and helms the adjunct indie horror-comedy under his pseudonym of Dark Infinity and his latest is to infinity and beyond being right up there at the top of the schlockiest of sharksploitation.  Filmed and around Burbank California, doubling with no much likeness to the deserts of Nevada near the Grand Canyon, the team behind “5G Zombies” and “Amityville in the Hood” SCS Entertainment in a co-joint effort with Wild Eye Releasing, who also distributes the title, releases “Space Sharks” with Wild Eye Releasing’s founder Rob Hauschild producing and associate produced by Julie Ann Ream and Joe Williamson.

For all of roughly five minutes and a couple of lines of dialogue, Eric Roberts secures top bill on this what’s sure to be lost in the sharksploitation pit of nonsense.  The once formidable 1980s and 1990s star, and brother to the high-powered and elegant Julia Roberts, “Best of the Best” and “Runaway Train” star has ebb-and-flowed vertically between mainstream Hollywood films and the lowest-of-the-low indies.  “Space Sharks” is definitely in the latter category and doesn’t showcase much of Roberts’ given talent that has in recent years strayed to the more eccentric in a countless number of Dick, Jane, and Harry productions.  Longtime scream queen Brink Stevens is another familiar who you’ve might not even known existed in the film if it wasn’t for the credits.  Playing the nature hike leader but enveloped under the shade of a large sun hat, hidden behind large black sunglasses, and, too, with very little screentime, Stevens comes and goes like the snap of a finger.  Other cult film actors are added to this ridiculous recipe with Mel Novak (“Game of Death,” “RoboWoman”) and Scott Schwartz (“A Christmas Story,” ‘Café Flesh 2”) folded into a cheap, B-movie run cast batter of Ferguson regulars to give this tasteless schlock some spice.  If “Space Sharks” had to select a true principal lead, Allie Perez (“Amityville Emanuelle”) would be the closest as the lone surviving scientist with arms training to fend against the upright and muscularly athletic sharks while trying to make her way home to dad, Mel Novack, but tasked to protect desert lost civilians Nick Caisse (“Apex Predators 2:  The Spawning”), Traci Burr (“Death Bitch”), Janet Lopez (“Liza: Warden from Hell”), Ben Anderson (“Witchblossom”), Breana Mitchell (“Cocaine Couger”), Daniel Joseph Stier (“The Clown Chainsaw Massacre”), Christine Twyman (“It Wants Blood!”) and Joshua Mooney (“Axed to Pieces”) from being chum. 

An “Alien” and “Predator” rip-off integrated into the multifaceted farce that has become sharksploitation.  As premises go, “Space Sharks” has a promising plotline of a newly discovered, extraterrestrial species of shark being returned to Earth for scientific, governmental weaponization or examination and then runs amok the desert when things go terribly South.  That story is far more lucid than previous low-rent, quick-produced features of a supernatural shark emerging jaws first out of a toilet bowel.  Also, the way the trailer was cut had “Space Sharks” perk ears of interest with a very similar appearance to “Street Sharks,” a mid-1990s Saturday morning, animated television series of muscular man-eaters that were half-man, half-shark heroes running around beating up bad guys on a weekly basis.  Then, we see the film and we were wrong, dead wrong.  “Space Sharks” is a half-cocked mashup of too much, too little of unwanted knockoffs and crisscrossing ideas.  Computer-generated designs of the brawny tech-sharks are not terrible for budget but do borrow quite an uncomfortable bit from our favorite jungle and urban hunter, the Predator, with heat vision, cloaking ability, and the methods of skinning and suspending corpses upside down.  The pull from “Alien” is more subtle with an opening credit title that comes about in the same gradual style as the Xenomorph films.  Ferguson is no stranger in his cache of flattery and audiences likely wouldn’t have minded the echoes that entail if it wasn’t for the nonsensical chasing of conspiracy theories, a space mission stemmed with little-to-no details, explanation of tiny alien sharks grown to be elite hunters, man-eating plants, giant spaceship crash that befell no concern, zero character developments, dynamics, and arcs, and a story edit too perfunctory to keep focus.  

“Space Sharks” invades retail shelves with a Wild Eye Releasing DVD. The MPEG-2 encoded, upscaled 1080p, DVD5 houses essentially the encircling feature presented in a widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio. The upscale barely registers with a mid-range decoding rate at approximately 5 Mbps. Textures are not as defined inside the context of tangible captured frames whereas any post-production object, computer generated with commercial animation software, is about as backwards realistic as an early 90s source coded video games, such as the blockiness, square-pegged Doom or Duke Nukem 3D. “Space Sharks” has an ungraded, unpolished overlay that leaves colors desaturated or muted and the compression seizes control with blatant aliasing issues when characters run around like free range chickens evading foxes. The long opening through galaxy is the best “Space Sharks” will get that exposes colors, multi-shaped object, and an ease of poorly rendered animation burden with a rather decent composition of visuals and soundtrack to kick off the film. The English language stereo 2.0 mix too rides that sliding scale of independent filmmaking with a low-frequency, heavily saturated audio mix that can’t harness and real in isolated elements, and without that even diffusion of sound, every exterior noise maker attaches itself to the dialogue and the intended ambient sound. Dialogue renders through anemically but has enough strength to be heard and intelligible, even if what’s scripted is not. English subtitles are not available. DVD unfolds as a feature-only product with an al carte selection of Wild Eye trailers that are usually on every Wild Eye home video releasing, special features withstanding. A time warping 70-minutes runtime has this just over hour long feature feel much longer in is unrated, region free format.

Last Rites: Simply put, if you’re looking to watch something jawsome, “Space Sharks” is more space junk and not worth going anywhere near its orbit.

Your Daily Dose of Sharksploitation with “Space Sharks” on DVD!

EVIL Doesn’t Want You to Be All That You Can Be! “Despiser” reviewed! (Visual Vengeance / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

The “Despiser” Collector Edition Blu-ray Is a Must Own!

Gordon Hauge is an inspirating artist with little motivation.  Having just lost his contract work, being evicted from his home, and his wife leaving him, Gordon is left with virtually nothing, even no purpose.  While speeding home late a night, Gordon swerves to avoid pedestrians in the road and crashes his car, waking up in a nightmare-scape purgatory reigned by a malevolent monster known only as The Despiser.  The Despiser’s ragmen minions, governed by The Shadow Men, wreak havoc on the land by stealing nuclear warheads with the objective to rip a dimensional, absconding hole in their world that’ll lead into Gordon’s.  The Despiser’s only obstacle is a ragtag group of pious, historical fighters stuck too in purgatory after sacrificing their lives for a greater good and now are missioned to release everyone from The Despiser’s malicious hold over the Ragmen souls, as well as escape limbo themselves.  When The Despiser threatens his wife, Gordon joins the fight against evil and takes the battle head on.

Unlike anything you’ve ever seen before in the movie category, “Despiser” is the dark fantasy, action-thriller from 2003.  “Beyond the Rising Moon” and “Invader” Philip J. Cook’s own written-and-directed sci-fi odysseys distill the genre game by challenging the visual inside a unique story on a low-budget.  “Despiser” is no different digging into the horror building blocks of a soul-swallowing netherworld with a goliath creature having dominion.  Testing the waters with computer generated scenes still in their infancy and shot on the stringent, temperamental, and ever quality fluctuating video tape, the pre-millennium feature was shot in Cooke’s own home and makeshift production studio in Virginia of 1998, running against the wind and against the odds of coming out top with a promising product that audiences will like.  Cooke’s Eagle Film’s serves as the production company that naturally puts the filmmaker in the producer’s chair. 

In the role of the disoriented artist down on his luck Gordon Hague is Mark Redfield (“Dark and Stormy Night,” “Chainsaw Sally,” and the producer of the Redfield Arts Audio Podcast “The Midnight Matinee”).  Brassy and cocky, Gordon Hague feels very much like a classic character browbeaten into being cheap ground coffee, diluted by his own lack of ambition with a flavorless future.  That is until Gordon dies unexpectedly and becomes the prophesized champion of gung-ho, gun-toting good doers at the edge of oblivion and obliteration.  Guided by Carl Nimbus, an early 1900s cavalry soldier played rather convincingly cool by Doug Brown, the group is contrived with different era, different walks-of-life, and different skillset individuals fighting the good fight against a soul-damning manipulator, whom in itself is alien to the purgatory topography of fire, brimstone, lave, and apparently littered with nuclear missiles.  Fumie Tomasawa (Frank Smith), Charlie Roadtrap (Tara Bilkins), and Jake Tulley (Michael Weitz) form what’s left of the crusading squad, and each have their own personalities, backgrounds, and views toward eliminating the threat of otherworldly damnation. On the opposite side of the spectrum are the Shadow Men, the Despiser’s right hands overseeing the mindless henchmen known as the Ragmen. Shadow Men inhabit corporeal bodies and are a wild bunch of frenzy determination. In the story, there are only two individualized Shadow Man but one of those goonish souls sees three embodiments in a variety of acting styles by Dan Poole, Richard Dorton, and Mark Hyde with Jeff Rathner giving us first taste for the Shadow Men’s near indestructibility. Gage Sheridan, Mike Diesel, Chris Hahn, and Brian Neary fill in the supporting cast.

Early PlayStation graphics interlaced and spliced with live action shots of a doom and gloom purgatorial world is great way to surmise “Despiser.”  Just on the precipice of fine tuning the gaming-changing visual effects at the turn of the century, movie worlds go from tangible mattes, practical backgrounds, and hand-painted compositions to simply a green or, in “Despiser’s” case, a blue backdrop screen that allows actors to do their thespian work without anything around them to interact with or bounce off a certain emotion or reaction and visual effects artists will add-in and blend worlds, creatures, and effects in post-production.  Cook, along with Cory Collins, chiefly constructed an anhedonia embodied layer in between the plane of existence and the eternal beyond without losing a step with a seamless live actor application.  The whole film feels like the introduction prologue short in the first “Resident Evil” game, a mix exchanging edit of virtual and physical, but Cook doesn’t just switch frames between the two formats to tell the story, the imaginative animator and filmmaker adds life into his virtual landscape without being terribly clunky or be an ostentatious show his stitchwork.  Naturally with early VFX graphics, not every computer modeling element is forgiving and much of that expression lies with the antagonist, the Despiser himself.  The water-dwelling, dungeon being with limited movements and remains mostly in the shadows and for good reason with a scale that likely couldn’t be conceived or achieved in a technology that hasn’t yet be refined for the desired quality and public acceptance, and while the limited scope of the Despiser is bothersome, especially having to sit through it’s same motions over and over, Cook’s engaging story eases the pain tremendously with a suicide mission enlisted with likeable characters you really don’t want to see perish in purgatory. 

Evil Dam Trolls, holy light ammunitions, and nuclear missiles are only the tip of the iceberg in the new Visual Vengeance Blu-ray release of “Despiser.”  The Wild Eye Releasing subsidiary label prologues with the usual A/V disclaiming but the director-supervised transfer from the standard definition master of the original tape element holds up remarkably well on an AVC encoded, 1080p, BD50.  Perhaps a little radiantly effervescence, the frothy-rimmed and delicate in detail final product enhances the presentational submerged in sardonic storyline.  Besides, much of the early computer-generated imagery is smooth anyway and, in contrast, the palpable pieces often standout with deeper, textured nuances.  Bood spurts and muzzle flashes are, too, fashioned neatly into the frames.  Presented in a pillarbox full screen 1.33:1 aspect ratio, Cook balances the coloring and lighting inside the CGI world to roughly match the out-of-the-CGI-box steely tones of blue, green, and silver tints under softer shadows.   The lossless LPCM stereo mix offers up a pretty true to self fidelity that could, one day, receive an extensive channel and refining upgrade.  Machine gun fire, and there’s a ton of it, spatters off with an ingrained rat-a-tat force that’s more polished than your typical indie production whose discharges sound more like cap guns.  Dialogue plays to the makeshift setting strengths, providing echoes where needed in more cavernous locales to the muffled notes of long-range speak.  Optional English subtitles are available.  With a Visual Vengeance release you know you’re getting topnotch exclusive special features and packaging as well as archival goodies encoded onto the larger capacity disc, including two commentary tracks with director Philip J. Cook and actors Gage Sheridan and Mark Redfield on one and cult movie enthusiasts Sam Panico and Bill Van Ryn on the other, a making of “Despiser” featurette with Cook and Mark Hyde that goes deep within the nuts and bolts of it all, a handful of deleted scenes with title cards, a running blooper reel, outtakes, a storyboard to animation, the original lava-road DVD animated intro menu, a behind-the-scenes and art gallery, “Despiser” trailers, the Visual Vengeance advert trailer, and Cook’s “Outerworld” and “Invader” film trailers just beyond the fluid, cardboard cutout animated menu. But wait, that’s not all! Andrei Bouzikov’s illustrated compositional machine guns, mushroom clouds, and the four-armed Despiser, nearing Ghana-poster level but keeps in line with the filmic material, is a sight to behold on the cardboard O-slipcover. Inside, on the primary cover of the clear Blu-ray Amaray case, you get even more new art from Stefan “STEMO” Motmans that’s less tapestry art and more iconic as it is epic. The reverse side holds “Despiser'” original poster arrangement that’s simple yet effective. The disc is whimsically labeled with encircling blue, purple, green, and red evil trolls while the opposite, insert side has a folded mini poster of Bouzikov’s art, a colorful, dual-sided synopsis and Blu-ray acknowledgement sheet, and no release would be complete without the retro VHS sticker sheet. The 16th Visual Vengeance release is region free, unrated, and has a runtime of 105 minutes.

Last Rites: The soul wants what the soul wants and that is “Despiser” on a Visual Vengeance, collector’s edition Blu-ray. An out of pocket, retro-modeled, and portentous hell on Earth from beyond the stars movie too good to skip the bad parts.

The “Despiser” Collector Edition Blu-ray Is a Must Own!

A Little Space Can Asunder the Strongest Bond. “Alien Love” reviewed! (Sector 5 Films / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Its Not Strange Love, It’s “Alien Love” now on Blu-ray!

Ryan Van Hill-Song and his wife Sadie are a happily married couple despite their age gap.  Ryan’s ardent journey and dream to reach beyond the clouds and into space is on the verge of coming true while Sadie decides to take a break from the vocational rigmaroles of her young life.  Ryan’s NASA mission goes without a hitch except for a brief loss in communication with headquarters.  Upon his return home, Sadie notices a behavioral difference in her once loving husband who now acts strange in his own surroundings and around her.  Despite a few amorous encounters, Ryan becomes strangely obsessed with the extraterrestrial concept through alien themed movies, local artistic murals, and anecdotal accounts that are engrained into their home city’s culture.  As Sadie begins to suspect Ryan is no longer her husband after learning about her pregnancy, NASA agents move in to chase down Ryan and capture his true being.

Strap yourself in to blast off into the great unknown of extraterrestrial copulating with Simon Oliver’s 2024, Sci-Fi romance-drama, “Alien Love.”  The serial Australian documentary director puts a pause on the confluence of beings from the space frontier, the mysticism of the occult and supernatural, and historical contexts to land terrestrial blending-aliens amongst us, hiding under human skin as our family and as our lovers; in this case with “Alien Love,” as astronaut and husband Ryan Van Hill-Song with a concealed agenda.  The script, that presses themes of usual relationships and their potential inertia, is penned by the principal male lead, Nathan Hill, and Simon Salamon, both of whom are coming hot off the script press of their last feature “Lady Terror” from the previous year.  Hill dons the producer hat as well under his production company NHProductions with Sector 5 Films’ Warren Croyle footing and distributing the microbudget feature. 

Nathan Hill producers, co-writes, and stars in most of his pictures.  However, for “Alien Love,” the accomplished filmmaker breaks up the routine monotony by taking a backseat in the director’s chair to enhance focus on Ryan Van Hill-Song, the astronaut who returns to Earth and is not the same man who left his planet.  Aside from a few lines in flashbacks and a quick, laconic replies here and there, Hill mostly lounges about or takes a run while in character, leaving the brunt of the dialogue and emotional work in the hands of Ira Chakraborty, a model-actress in her full-length feature debut in the role of Sadie.  Ira carries the story that mostly just stagnates with scenes of Ryan’s wandering alien obsession and absence seizure indifference all the while Sadie frustratingly can’t decipher her husband’s acute loafing and lack of any kind of emotion in contrast to the flashback lovey-dovey affections.  The craftier part about this devolving dynamic is the theme it represents between fantastical expectations and grim reality, especially between two considerably different people on a collision course of marital decline.  Throw a baby in the mix, a more calamitous cocktail ensues.  NASA agents, supervised by Colonel John Smith (Edward Mylan), are on the hunt for the close encounter, and if you’re wondering what the hell is NASA is doing in Australia, well, let me school you on that there is a NASA deep space communication center in the land of Oz to allow seamless communications to spacecrafts when the Earth rotates.  The more you know…  “Alien Love” fills out the cast with Eleanor Powell, Demz Lato, Sam Ready, Chase Kauffman, John Robertson, Robert Rafik Awad, Ben Bramwell, Savita Bungay, Emily Farrell, and Dan Heubel.

Preboarding the “Alien Love” ship saw an audience collective view of similarities toward the Rand Ravich directed, Johnny Depp and Charlize Theron-starring “The Astronaut’s Wife,” and after soaring through “Alien Love’s” story, that general consensus is spot on as the Simon Oliver helmed, Nathan Hill production is a remake of the 1999 New Line theatrical release on a much smaller scale.  Going into the film knowing this, there ironically emerges less subjectivity because expectations were set and the cognitive ability to examine “Alien Love” for more than just a remake is formed.  The aforementioned theme of wedging differences between two people is characterized by the age gap and ambitions.  Ryan’s an older man, this fact is mentioned a few times early on, chasing a space dream and Sadie is somewhere 20-30 years his junior and judging with conversations with friend Abbey, Sadie is or was in university.  Love at first is healthy, vibrant, exciting, and hopeful like any first-time marriage but the gap, symbolized by Ryan’s change, becomes alienating, literally, and the once strong bond between the two lovers is now reduced to the occasional sex and just being in proximity of each other as interests change and connections become stale.  This unfortunate walk-through of life is told through the sensationalism of an alien inhabiting human form, but the message of marital decay is loud and clear with all the hallmarks of a souring union between two very different people.  When the alien does make the screen, the simplistic mask man works here with a decent alien archetype look without it being overly schlocky; however, the need more for more context is sorely missing as Oliver goes for more style than substance as the need for digital lens flares and art compositions unbraid the build of the story.

From Sector 5 Films comes “Alien Love” on an Australian Blu-ray home video.  The AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition resolution, BD-R has lossy picture quality simply because it’s a BD-R; however, the bandwidth appears to be adequate to suppress artefact issues and sustain a stable, reliable quality throughout.  Details and colors are generally soft, textures lack distinction, in what is more of a hazy aura veneer with muted colors and no dense shadows, over kneaded by warm pink and rich blue gels to heighten the dreamy affect.  Delineation works for the cityscapes and some handful of land planted with powerlines and towers coupled with interesting camera angles and work.  The only audio option is a lossy English Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo mix that heavy on exposition and Jamie Murgatroyd’s mingling with epic soundtrack.  Dialogue layer has dynamic change depending on how cavernous rooms can be or if background ambience levels are higher that suppress vocal projection.  Overall design diffuses fine from a stereo output with clean and clear dialogue.  Special features include a feature parallel audio commentary with stars Nathan Hill and Ira Chakraborty, an interview with Hill and Chakraborty going over fan questions, interview with esteemed John Hipwell (“Lady, Stay Dead”), deleted scenes with commentary from Nathan Hill, a blooper reel, still gallery, and trailer. With the encoded special features packed with goodies, the Blu-ray design and package leans toward more standard fare with a traditional Amaray case with no inserts or other tangible accompaniments.  Primary cover art looks inexpensive, air brushed, and circa science films of the 1950s.  Disc is pressed with the same image.  The 75-minute feature comes unrated with region free playback. 

Last Rites: “Alien Love” will not be the knock-your-socks-off science fiction film of the year nor will it dazzle with awe-inspiring special effects. What Simon Oliver and Nathan Hill specialize with their latest film is storytelling of a disintegrating couple during alienating times, plain and simple, with a heavy emphasis on the plain and simple.

Its Not Strange Love, It’s “Alien Love” now on Blu-ray!