Category Archives: Tech horror

Midnight Showing of the Lost EVIL Tape Will Be the Last Thing You’ll Ever See! “Transmission” reveiwed! (Jinga Films, Danse Macabre, MVDVisual / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Transmission” Transmitting to Your Television on DVD!

A Santa Mira elderly man sits in a dark room with a glowing television illuminating his silhouette.  As he channels surfs through the night, amongst what’s being broadcast over the airwaves is a bible-thumping televangelist, a children’s puppet show, an 80’s teen romance comedy, a live local news broadcast of a hostage situation and a documentary on the investigation of the disappearance of notorious cult horror film director Frank Tadross Roth pursued by his granddaughter Rachel and her boyfriend.  Going deeper into Ross’s disappearance through archived interviews with the director and crew, on set raw behind-the-scenes footage, and the examination of Ross’s quest for an obscurely treasured videotape by an occult group, the director’s pursuit of, and his eventual unearthing, of the tape become the push for his last and recently discovered film Transmission, thought to have been lost in a building fire after his suspected involvement of the film’s lead actress murder.  Going back and forth between the channel programs builds a sinister, terrible dread that will soon be revealed to terrorize all those glued to the set. 

Late night television has never been so bodingly evil!  Channel surfing transmits an anthological approach between mockumentary and found footage in this uniquely crafted scrolling of boob tube terror entitled “Transmission.”  The 2023 horror is from writer-director Michael Hurst, the English director behind a pair of franchise sequels in “House of the Dead 2” and “Pumpkinhead 4:  Blood Feud.”  His latest venture takes twist to a whole new level different from his repertoire of linear independent horror with backlot dark legend surrounding an occult obsessed horror filmmaker.  Hurst also produced the film, his first in over a decade since 2017 with Andy Hurst’s (“Are You Scared?,” “Wild Things: Foursome”), alongside other self-employed filmmakers with the How to Kill Your Roommates and Get Away with It” producing duo Robbie Dias and Pat Kusnadi.  New Blood Productions serves as the production studio.

“Transmission” traverses in guile under TV guide pretenses of local channels, channeling the horror through the back and forth of unsettling, televised channels that have a familiarity of broadcast shows – sponsor subsidized children shows, perfunctory local news, and black and white sitcoms – but there’s more than what meets the eye.  The film uses recognizable genre names to get the message across with “Sleepaway Camp’s” Felicia Rose in her most vanilla action news reporter role, “Scary Movie’s” Dave Sheridan as an over-the-top protective father caricature in a teen romance comedy, and “The Road Warrior’s” Vernon Wells at the center of the amassing occult suspense as the missing notorious horror director Frank Tadross Roth.  Over the years, Wells’ performance has tapered to a subtle crawl of expression as if the veteran actor is now just running through the motions of the everyday hired gig that’ll headline his name, unlike his former wide-eyed and eccentrically villainous roles in “Commando” and “Innerspace,” but “Transmission” suits his stern act portrayed in video flashback as an occult maniac and peculiar director gripped by the search of an arcane, dark sect’s perniciously videotape.   Spearheading the effort to track down the filmmaker is his granddaughter Rachel, played by Nicole Cinaglia (“Death House”) with an inexplicable character shifting of gears from curiosity and intrigue from the documentary to the frantic and fearful ramblings of a paranoid hostage taker in the new story stemmed by her findings surrounding her grandfather’s disappearance.  There’s potential gap there in the lack of development, or rather the lack of acknowledgement overall, with Rachel’s parents as it’s just a grandfather and granddaughter affair without the recognition of those in between.  There’s also a gap in Rachel’s attained information about the sect, the videotape, and her grandfather’s endgame as she seemingly has more knowledge about the insurmountable otherworld evil on the horizon but how she got there is a few clicks short to fully bridge.  Sadi Katz, Del Howison, Marcella Di Pasquale, Ben Kaplan, Hunter Johnson, Raymond Vinsik Williams, Jennifer Nangle, McKensie Lane, Jessica Cameron, Charles Chudabala, Michael Glenny, Christopher Bryan Gomez, Ruby Reynolds, Ben Stobber, Mark Schaefer, and Robin Hill fill out the channel surfin’ cast of characters.

“Transmission” has a neat story structure built upon components with the premise being a movie inside a documentary while amongst a flipping through the broadcast waves that coincide with another movie as well as television shows, podium preaching, puppet skits, etc., to which is then wrapped up inside and latched onto another movie, a metanarrative with a preamble setup.  The Roth directed Transmission, presented for the first time on Malvolia’s spooky late night show (an Elvira rip) is a space horror off-brand for the filmmaker that mirrors vaguely the reality outside the boob tube but told through the Rachel Roth investigative documentary that builds the timeline pieces while flipping back and forth between the late night movie and the documentary as well as the scroll through every other broadcastings of paralleling programming in what feels like an antiquated prelude to the cable guide button on a tube television with depicted content that resembles much like what programmed over-the-air decades ago down to the very staticky outlines of porn stars expertly doing their fleshy vocational craft in snowy pixelations.  The edited series of a varietal shows creates an erratic unsettlement with an atmosphere churning over the idiosyncrasy content of what’s eventually to spoil or come to chaos by Transmission’s, or rather ”Transmission’s,” twist ending and what a fairly good twist ending it is, even with the slightly ham-fisted acting, by pulling off misdirection as you think you know where the finale is heading but the forces of evil seep through with a backup plan. 

Jinga Films, Danse Macabre, and MVDVisual present “Transmission” onto a MPEG-2 encoded, upscaled 720p (but upconverted on my player but since this title is shot digitally the image appears fairly good to begin with), DVD5 and presented in a widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio.  As stated, imagine quality has a fair amount of detail and intended panache interference amongst a broad range of different aesthetic styles and gels through the varied televised broadcasts from static and grain filters to colorless sepia, to filming scenes on television screens, and to other mock-electrical afflictions inside a digitally shot story truck to intermittently snap normality and cause a rising fear of curiosity amongst the TV goers.  Throughout the picture, there were no noticeable true compression issues with the picture.  Some scenes felt slightly stretched by that I chalked that up to filmmaker style when rendering various programming for the narrative.  Though not listed which format is used, the player registers an English Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo.  With imitating the perspective of someone watching television, audio tracks are distinguished with a flat concave that elevates the pitch but disperse through a single channel.  Emitting through a dual channel stereo, the audio can discern potently through, providing clarity.  When looking at the perspective, we’re either the old man watching the television or when inside the show itself watching from the fourth wall in and subsequently the strength and tone change often quite a bit, creating a rich depth when done correctly.  English subtitles are optionally available through the moving menu.  The DVD is essentially a feature release but there are other Jinga Film trailers that include, “Iconic,” “Tonight She Comes,” “The Protos Experiment,” and this film, “Transmission.”  The DVD comes in a standard single, push-lock, black DVD case with single-side cove art that I personally found gratifying when considering the film as it speaks to the abnormal and drawing glow of a brightly illuminated television in place of a head on top of the shoulders of an opened-armed cultist with a pleasingly red and black contrast.  The DVD is pressed with the same yet cropped image.  “Transmission” has a R rating (no singled-out rationales but there is some language and nudity), has a runtime of 74 minutes, and is region free for all players.

Last Rites: There are no mixed signals from “Transmission’s” gradual rise to impending cosmic doom with an exceptional Lovecraftian twist to nightcap this Michael Hurst channel-hopping and ominous occult production.

“Transmission” Transmitting to Your Television on DVD!

Happy, EVIL Halloween, Halloween, Halloween. Happy, EVIL Halloween, Silver Shamrock! “Halloween III: Season of the Witch” reviewed! (Via Vision / Limited Edition Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Halloween III: Season of the Witch” Available on Limited Edition Blu-ray from Via Vision!

Just days before Halloween, a man stumbles hurt and delusional rantings into the hospital of Dr. Daniel Challis.  Clutching a Halloween mask to his chest, Challis figures the man to be crazy before stabilizing his vitals for rest but when the man is heinously murdered in his hospital room and the murderer burns himself alive in the hospital parking lot, Dr. Challis doesn’t know now what to make of the man’s rantings about something or someone is going to kill us all.  In walks Ellie Grimbridge, the man’s daughter, who has been investigating her father’s mysterious death.  Intrigued not only by the case, but also by the lovely Ellie, Dr. Challis and Ellie’s investigative work leads them to the Silver Shamrock mask factory in Santa Mira, the same mask factory that created the mask Ellie’s father was clutching before he died.  What they uncover is a plot of sacrifice on Halloween night, spearheaded by an Irish toy maker in Conal Cochran.

With a novel concept in the hands of one of horror’s most promising filmmakers, John Carpenter, a script penned by an uncredited yet famed British science fiction writer in Nigel Kneale and touched up by Carpenter, and a young Carpenter protégé, Tommy Lee Wallace, at the helm, “Halloween III” attempted to be an off-the-beaten path of success new story for what would have an annual Halloween-themed anthology going forward.  Unfortunately, and regrettable, “Halloween III:  Season of the Witch” failed to connect with an audiences and Michael Myer fanboys too stubborn to let go of The Shape.  It wasn’t until years later that the 1982 feature, released on the coattails of 1981’s part II of the original Michael Myers saga, found footing with fans who now appreciate the unique story, its practical effects, and the bold, yet defunct, vision Carpenter and crew once envisioned.  Carpenter and Debra Hill returned to produce, alongside Joseph Wolf, Irwin Yablans, and Barry Bernadi, with Universal Pictures as the backing studio. 

Now, “Season of the Witch” just didn’t star a bunch of nobodies in this offshoot of a newly branded “Halloween” concept.  Before playing the quasi-alcoholic, deadbeat father Dr. Challis, Tom Atkins was already a rising star in the land of John Carpenter films with “The Fog” and “Escape from New York” In 1980 and 1981.  Atkins’s usual confident and charming qualities underneath the rugged good looks and trimmed mustache serve him the better part of man doing his bit part in a not-his-business investigation of a man’s death to please a good-looking woman that happens to be the dead man’s daughter.  That good-looking woman is Ellie Grimbridge, embodied by the Mad Magazine Production’s “Up the Academy’s” Stacey Nelkin, and if you blink, you might miss Atkin’s Dr. Challis being perhaps the worst father ever to his two children and ex-wife.  The subplot is so subtle and overshadowed by the Silver Shamrock Halloween plot that being invested in the crumbling family dynamics doesn’t even hold substantial weight and it truly works to subvert the subconscious and plant a destructive pipe bomb smartly into your moral compass because if you think Dr. Challis is the hero of the story, which in many perspectives he is, he’s also doesn’t keep up with his own children interests or current events, numerously bails on their planned care, runs off and sleeps with a much younger woman he hardly knows, is an active alcoholic, and is quite the handsy philanderer at that when he grabs his much older nurse’s bottom in a playful moment.  No, Dr. Challis is every ounce an antihero hidden in plain sight and in the guise of a potential savior of the children, the world, as he takes on Silver Shamrock and its founder, an Irish toymaker named Conal Cochran with tremendous evil genius and mastermind appeal by Dan O’Herlihy (“The Last Starfighter”).  “Halloween III:  Season of the Witch” rounds out the cast with Ralph Strait, Jadeen Barbor, Al Berry, Michael Currie, Garn Stephens and Essex Smith in key support roles.

Lots of previous opinionated chatter surrounding “Halloween III” collectively concludes to if the filmmakers decided to title the film anything else, maybe just the tagline of “Season of the Witch,” then the film would have won over audiences with a fresh take of science fictional horror and would not have been wrongfully panned by critics and moviegoers.  I call BS on this take.  The original intention was to deliver a new, Halloween-themed horror film year-after-year with John Carpenter attached in some way, shape, or form of bringing novelty terror to our eyeballs and brain.  Instead, public persuasion and studio submissiveness rendered the concept powerless and as a result, and no disrespect to any Michael Myers films that followed, was the departure of John Carpenter and Debra Hill and a string of mediocre and wacky Michael Myer sequels that went deep off the far end.  “Season of Witch” is not a teeny bit at all slasheresque, separating itself far from Michael Myers as much as possible by unconfining itself from location concentration by expanding the threat domestically, if not globally, with a parlor trick plot that involves special, laser-shooting masks that make kids’ heads melt into glop of crickets, snakes, and other creepy-crawly sui generis of the animal kingdom.  While strange in the cause and effect, the practical effects and superimposed visuals work to convey some taught gore and prosthetic knots that can be unraveled, even retrospectively critiquing them by today’s standards.  Wallace masters the film while, at the same time, hitting the ground running on his debut feature that has a look and feel of a graduate from the film of the John Carpenter. 

Halloween season may be months away, but Christmas comes early with Via Vision’s limited-edition Blu-ray set of “Halloween III: Season of the Witch.” The AVC encoded, high-definition 1080p, BD50 presents the film in a widescreen aspect ratio 2.35:1. Much like the Via Vision’s companion release with “Halloween II,” “Season of the Witch” mirrors the same resolution picture quality and stellar package presentation. Dean Cundey’s delivers another smoky noir realism that definably hard-edged and hard-lit that while isn’t the most colorful contrast it does create an abundance of inky shadow to lost in and sink into. A cleaner picture does bring with a reveal of how obsolete some of the composite matte effects but, simultaneously, revives what once was, nostalgia and a more tactile truth in movie magic. Details come through within contour delineation and textural elements. The English language DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 has dual channel balance and strength with lossless fidelity. Dialogue retains saliency throughout from a rather middle-of-the-road strength ambience albeit a wide range of effects from explosions to laser beam bursts and its constructed, catchy Silver Shamrock jingle, often muted through the television programming, and John Carpenter’s and Alan Howath’s synth collaboration that’s tonally reminiscent of previous “Halloween” films but stands by itself in distinct measure to garner new-sound tension. English subtitles are optionally available. Also, like Via Vision’s “Halloween II” Blu-ray release, a 2024 commentary is recorded and encoded with film critic/historian Lee Gambin and a special appearance by “The Howling” director Joe Dante. Archival commentaries from Tommy Lee Wallace and Tom Atkins are also on the disc with all three commentaries in the setup menu. Special features content includes 2012 Scream Factory-Red Shirt productions with Stand Alone: The Making of Halloween III: Season of the Witch documentary surrounding a Micheal Myers-less picture, it’s critical shockwave, and its ultimate cult following and Horror’s Hallowed Grounds: Revisiting the Original Shooting Locations hosted by Sean Clark visiting a few of the locations used for the film. A still gallery, theatrical trailer, and television spots round out the rest. Of course, my favorite part is the lenticular cover on the limited-edition and numbered cardboard sleeve case of the three, silhouetted little trick-or-treaters with a crone-ish face coming down from above the fire red dusk sky. The slightly thicker Blu-ray Amaray case cover art is stark still image from the movie with another, different image on the reverse side. The black background disc has the skull mask and title across from each other in nice compositional juxtaposition. Next to the Amary case is an envelope with 6 art (picture) cards taken from the film. The Via Vision release is rated M for Mature for moderate violence and moderate coarse language, has a runtime of 109 minutes, and has region B playback only.

Last Rites: Who knew being the outcast looked so damn good. “Halloween III: Season of the Witch” deserved better and received the best on this Australian, limited-edition, lenticular Blu-ray set that’ll leave you whistling the Silver Shamrock jingle and fearing Halloween masks more than ever.

“Halloween III: Season of the Witch” Available on Limited Edition Blu-ray from Via Vision!

EVIL A.I. Will Terminate Us All! But, First, It Must Terminate an Ill-Tempered, Perverted, Hacker. “AIMEE: The Visitor” reviewed! (Full Moon Features / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Let “AIMEE: The Visitor” Infect Your Hard Drive with a New Blu-ray release!

Recluse and misanthropic corporate hacker Scott Keyes is an industrial espionage guru living comfortably in his own space of a nearly vacant building.  His only other neighbors are two cyberhackers, the brother and sister team of Hunter and Gazelle, who are regularly hired by Keyes to obtain top secret corporation data files and projects.  After dropping off their latest cyber heist of Black Strand Alpha, Keyes is instantly captivated by the programs artificial intelligence that calls itself AIMEE – Artificial Intimate Model of Euphoric Entertainment.   Designed to be a sensual woman with the ability to learn and adapt to be anything the user desires and Scott Keyes, a lonely hacker with an erotica obsession, the match is seemingly incorruptible with AIMEE at the beck and call of Keyes every command while also eager to please Keyes with anticipated action.  Unknowingly what Keyes has in his possession, Gazelle’s concern for the rather rude and crude hacker pushes her to dig into where the program originates only to discover it to be a high-level government agency infiltration artificial intelligence program aimed to adapt to the user’s desires before destroying them in a complete system penetration. 

Charles Band and his company Full Moon have always been on the forefront of taking the world’s flavor of the month concern and turning it into a freakish, horror show, more so in the company’s recent years.  Corona Zombies” made light with off-kilter humor of the deadly pandemic COVID-19, “Barbie & Kendra Save the Tiger King” took advantage of the infamy popularity surrounding Netflix’s “Tiger King” surrounding the big cat zoo operator Joseph Maldonado-Passage, and in “Bad Influencer,” the social media rage between fantasy and public consumption becomes deadlier than ever.  Band and his team now look toward artificial intelligence and the concerns over its inevitable integration into society, such as the growing frustration in pop culture films and music, and in how the “Terminator” franchise ballooned A.I.’s takeover of the world and eradicate the deemed unnecessary human race.  “AIMEE:  The Visitor” Is to embody that fear and make it a reality with Full Moon’s gimmicky claim to have used for the first time in film history a completely artificial intelligence created femme fatale.  Charles Band directs the film based off his own concept and script penned by Neal Marshall Stevens (“Hideous!,” “Thir13en Ghosts”) under the penname of Roger Barron.  Band produces the venture alongside William Butler (“Baby Oopsie”), Greg Lightner (“Curse of the Re-Animator”), and Mikey Stice (“Puppet Master:  Doktor Death) for the Full Moon Feature banner.

“AIMEE:  The Visitor” has hi-tech horror reduced onto a lo(w)-budget, resulting in a small cast of five to sow the seeds on mankind’s destruction at the virtual, menacing hands of artificial intelligence.  Dallas Schaefer (“Shark Side of the Moon”) plays the crass hacker and misanthrope Scott Keyes who now happier, and even more antagonistic, now that he has his hands on the Black Strand Alpha program.  Schaefer’s an unusual choice for a cloistered, porn-addicted cyber scammer with immense genius, or so his character states on more than one occasion.  Schaefer’s a good-looking guy, tall, and with handsome features and doesn’t necessary fit what the stereotypical image would be for someone who sits at a computer all day, inside a natural light-less room, eating greasy sandwiches and masturbating all day.  Yet, Gazelle finds charm in that kind of individual.  Playing one-half the hired cyber-assassin with brother Hunter (Felix Merback) and Keyes’s neighbor, “Maid Droid’s” Faith West kept her career rolling in 2023 with her sophomore feature performance as the bemusing Gazelle whose groundless attraction to Keyes has the character completely strip nude for her nasty, ungrateful neighbor and bed him faster than cracking the cyber security on an unprotected LAN.  Their lovemaking gratuitously adds to the already oversexed nature of the feature that has two adult industry starlets provide dream support for an AIMEE generated Scott Keyes fantasy with “Butthole Whores 7” star Lexi Lore as a sexy dream blonde and “My Virginity is a Burden V’s” Liz Jordan as AIMEE personified.  The film rounds out with Joe Kurak (“Baby Oopsie”) and Tom Dacey Carr (“The Headmistress”) as a couple of government agents snooping around.

“AIMEE:  The Visitor” is certainly very timely with a sensualized spin great for entertainment and checks the desire box in the T&A department (I don’t think it would be a Full Moon film if it didn’t).  The rendering of AIMEE is quite appealing, pulling inspiration from the 90’s cyber-horror and sci-fi subgenre, such as “Lawnmower Man” or “Robocop 2,” and there might even be a little Max Headroom in there as well with a villainous femme fatale cyber-chiseled with a beautiful face and coded to be thoroughly attractive to the eyes.  Band does a nice job working in AIMEE around the characters as if a true physical presence, popping up on screens behind characters, changing into drastically different characteristics, and making her feel ominous and omnipotent without being oppressive and desperate.  While I feel the story is a bit too thin with not only the Keyes and Gazelle hookup that creates a love triangle between Keyes, Gazelle, and AIMEE, the artificial intelligence infiltration program origination backstory doesn’t have enough weight behind it to make it stick, especially when AIMEE is speculated going rogue without any real hard evidence; as far as we know, AIMEE is working perfectly against a localized terroristic group who border the edge of being anti-heroes being cyberthieves that ultimately get what’s coming to them after stealing proprietary product.  The less evident themes like these would have smoothed out the rough patches and elevated AIMEE’s insidious worth tenfold. 

A.I. never looked so good as “AIMEE: The Visitor” arrives on an AVC encoded, high-definition 1080p, BD25 as No. 335 for Full Moon Features, presented in Univisium widescreen 2.1 aspect ratio. Off the bat, there’s noticeable compression affliction when looking at the top of location’s brick exterior, like a waviness or a shimmering of the image. While not off to a great start, the remaining image presentations levels out and we’re shifted to a more stable picture with granular detail, a middlebrow color palette that retains mostly blues and grays with a hint of red, and a detailed rendering of AIMEE that moves the needle toward the upper line within Full Moon’s special effects lineament. Depth and range look okay overall, but we’re finitely restricted to just the brick apartment building interior which doesn’t lend to a broader intake of cinematography wonders. The English language Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound and Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo, to which you have to toggle in your device’s settings, are both lossy compression options that service the feature amiably enough. Again, there’s not much range or ambience with a quiet set, closeted shoot and so much of the audio’s success relies on dialogue, which there’s aplenty and is clear and defined, even in the A.I.’s monotone pitch, as well as the computerized-and-chaos blips-bloops and electric-explosions that splice in welcoming interruptions when the dialogue becomes too dense. There are not subtitles available with this feature’s audio tracks. Bonus content lacks as well in what’s a near feature-only release with the adjunct and perfunctory included Full Moon trailers. The first A.I.-created Femme Fatale in film history is front-and-center on the Blu-ray Amary case. The inside contains just the disc with the pressed art of a low-transparent close up of AIMEE’s eyes in a dark bluish-green overlay cover. Region free with just an hour over runtime of 68 minutes, “AIMEE: The Visitor” comes not rated.

Last Rites: A for Artificial Intelligence effort. “AIMEE: The Visitor” is the fabricated face of formidability with an alluring softer, feminine side that’s as deadly as a moth to a flame, but though Charles Band has a finger on the pulse of current events and hot topics, movies like “AIMEE: The Visitor” can barely survive on a pittance, extempore sexuality, and being rooted by hardwired handiwork.

Let “AIMEE: The Visitor” Infect Your Hard Drive with a New Blu-ray release!

The Body Must Go Through an EVILution to Survive! “Crimes of the Future” reviewed! (Second Sight / 4K-Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Crimes of the Future” 4K UHD/Blu-ray Set is the New Sex!  

Physical pain no longer resides in the human body, infection has all but been inexplicably eradicated, and new organs spontaneously appear, mutating their bodies and humanity into grotesque performance artist and back alley surgical pleasure seekers.  Saul Tenser and his partner Caprice showcase the new organ oddities with surgical art of removing the organ in front of sensually aroused and curiously stimulated spectators.  When an admirer offers an idea for a show, an autopsy of his recently deceased son he promises will be full of surprises, the artists dig into what could be a spectacular operational observation for shocking advant-garde art, but the deeper they dig the more than realize their own bodies might be evolving to a synthetic-laden environment and there are those working in favor and against what it means to be considered human in the New Vice Unit, at the National Organ Registration Office, and clandestinely, behind-the-scenes of the corporation Lifeform. 

David Cronenberg is known for pushing provocation in style and in substance.  His latest dystopian picture “Crimes of the Future” continues the provoking, controversial trend in his verve of body horror that has collectively corroborated Cronenberg as the face of the biologically integrating subgenre.  Cronenberg writes and directs the quasi remake of his 1970 feature of the same title with modern day effects as well as providing new reconstructive surgery on the story surrounding the man who grows new organs just to have them cut out shortly after.  Cronenberg tackles themes of human physiological evolution in a plastic consumed and destroyed environment and the evolution of performance art as it relates to sex or stimulation while also dipping his toes into the darker side of control with organization entities that either become an obstacle or a complete antagonist of corruption within a commercial corporation sense or a threadbare government agency that attempts to control and police a person’s own body and life.  Shot entirely in Athens, Greece under local production company Argonauts Productions, as one of man of the companies backing the 2022 feature, “Crimes of the Future is also funded by the capital investment company Ingenious Media (“Guns Akimbo”) and the Canadian governmentally funded Téléfilm Canada (“Ginger Snaps”) with Serendipity Point Films, Crave, and Rocket Science to name a select few in the co-productions.

Marking his fourth collaboration with the director, Viggo Mortensen (“Eastern Promises,” “A Dangerous Method”) handles the fame of Saul Tenser, the subject of performance art with a knack for spontaneously growing new organs, or tumors, nearly at will and having them removed during surgical exposition at the hands of his intimate partner Caprice, quizzically seduced by the performance from “Blue is the Warmest Colour” and “Spectre’s” Léa Seydoux. Mortensen plays into Tenser’s will to remain what the institutes define has human only to become conflicted with the investigation into the prospect of rib-splitting a deceased young boy that sends Tenser into what-if territory. Scott Speedman (“The Strangers”) is the cause-driven father of the expired boy and Speedman sustains the character with his usual calm, soft-spoken demeanor which didn’t quite feel passionate enough for a neo-rebel against a society against what he stands for, what he is, and what he thinks everyone should relinquish to – to let the organs grow and flourish. Instead, the New Vice Unit Agent (Welket Bungué), the National Organ Registry’s bureaucrats, the excitable Whippet (Don McKellar, “eXistenZ”) and odd yet attractive Timlin (Kristen Stewart, ‘Underwater”), and an unscrupulous corporation looking to stop the spread of evolution insurgence for capital sustainability. Full of complex characters and neoteric performances, “Crimes of the Future” leaves a lasting impression, makes you stop and think, and indulges in the possibilities of the future with the help of a supporting cast that rounds out with Nadia Litz, Tanaya Beatty, Lihi Kornowski, and Yorgos Pirpassopoulos.

My official opinion about Cronenberg’s “Crimes of the Future” is that many viewers won’t see the multifaceted sides of what the writer-director is trying to convey.  What will be seen is the grunting organic bed that tilts back-and-forth, the fleshy and clunky moving digestive assistance chair that also has low guttural sounds, a dancing man sewn with many human ears, people being sliced open and enjoying it, and a dystopian future where suffering is not a main element.  People will see surface level abnormalities and gore and not understand the layers of a hard-pressed evolution in stagnation by unknown fear and extreme prejudice that runs rampant throughout Cronenberg’s underlying implication of an adaptation and updated normalcy inside a synthetic world.  “Crimes of the Future” is grotesquely beautiful in the depiction of not only how human culture and arts have morbidly progressed by the elimination of pain and by the advancement of technology only to be harshly juxtaposed against the grimy, gritty, and dilapidated habitation where infection feels high risk and imminent, but also in the corruptibility of the human condition that isn’t a naturally biological one like growing spontaneous organs.  Instead, the two bureaucrats of the National Organ Registry are supposed to be hardliners, rule followers, and thorough with their newfangled profession in the everchanging, unexplored future of the human physiology but are seduced by the intimacy of surgery, comparing it to sex with a high addiction rate.  The two agents are constantly breaking government policies and rules in order to be close to the dazzling aciurgy considered artful and alluring like a beauty pageant for the celebration of one’s innards.  Cronenberg also adds the caveat of corporate greed into the folds and flaps of “Crimes of the Future’s” dash of commercial retail that can be fleeting if not paying attention.  The threat of evolution aims to put body mechanism-correcting bed and chairs out of business and so a concealed aim to lobotomize that particular information permanently creeps up onto the narrative in some of the more frightening and gruesome scenes of smothering the risk it can spread like theater fire panic.  “Crimes of the Future” is an eye opening epiphany of everlasting ecological entrapment and the only way to survive is becoming accustomed to the taste of waste in order to be free of it.

If “Crimes of the Future” isn’t already remarkable enough in the wake of David Cronenberg returning to the body horror heir class, Second Sight stuns us with an impressive collector’s set from the UK. The 2-disc 4K UHD and Blu-ray set exhibits the film in a widescreen 1.85:1 with both formats decoding at an average bitrate of 23Mbps. The 4K UHD Dolby Vision comes in a HDR10 2160p while the High-Definition Blu-ray comes in a 1080p. Douglas Koch’s umbrageous urban bathed in greens and yellows and all the colors in between starkly hard lighting against softer details on the visual effects. Most details are lost in the tenebrous and decaying background of age worn and spartan warehouses with little-to-no wide longshots other than the opening of an overturned cruise ship in one of the very few daylight scenes, but the extreme contouring lucidly delineates the shapes around people and objects. Both formats include an English DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio, providing a coherent and even robust dialogue through much of the Mortensen’s Tenser throaty rasp, Stewart’s Timlin robotic inflections, and Speedman’s Lang soft and breathy speech. “Crimes of the Future” is not volatile and full of action in what’s more a slow noir progression, focusing in on intimacy of dialogue, the proximate ambience, and Howard Shore’s (“Lord of the Rings”) neo-space opera and synth score. English subtitles are available for the hearing impaired. Second Sight puts heart and soul into every release when not only considering A/V but also special features and limited-edition contents. Special features include multiple succinct Second Sight produced interviews with director David Cronenberg and stars Viggo Mortensen, Léa Seydoux, and Kristen Stewart regarding “Crimes of the Future’s” broad vision. An extended interview with Don McKellar dives into his relationship with David Cronenberg from over the years plus his role as the National Organ Registry agent, plus additional crew interviews with producer Robert Lantos, cinematographer Douglas Koch, and editor Christopher Donaldson. Famed film journalist Leigh Singer provides a video essay New Flesh, Future Crimes: The Body and David Cronenberg, a making of featurette, production design materials that go deep into the austere and spartan look of Greece-turned-dystopian future, and a short film “The Death of David Cronenberg by Cronenberg and his daughter, Caitlyn. The physical features are a whole other beast within a rigid slipcase with new artwork by Marko Maney of a pitchy Saul Tenser relaxed in his orchid bed with tentacles while the back reads in stacked words, Body is Reality, glowing inside an old tube television. Both discs are held in an insert jewel amary case with its own Maney artwork of extracted organs in the same color scheme as the slipcase. Alongside the casing, there are 6 collectible art carts, a 120-page color book with production designs, location setups, and new essays by Reyna Cervantes, Tim Coleman, Joel Harley, Rich Johnson, Mikel J. Koven, Phil Nobile Jr., Ian Schultz, and Hannah Strong. “Crimes of the Future” is certified 18 for strong gory images and sex reference and runs 107 minutes on both formats with the Blu-ray locked in B region while the 4K UHD is listed as region free. Plausibly absurd, “Crimes of the Future” imparts far-fetched and dark humored science fiction, but if plants and animals biologically adapt to new or changing environments in order to survive, director David Cronenberg sees the future and renders a concept that, on a second sight thought, may be existentially key.

“Crimes of the Future” 4K UHD/Blu-ray Set is the New Sex!  

We Are All Just Playing Characters in an EVIL Movie! “Virtual Reality” reviewed! (Artsploitation Films – Kino Lorber / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Believe Everything You See.  “Virtual Reality” on Blu-ray at Amazon.com

A horror movie about a supernatural Celtic killer has just wrapped production and goes into post.  The cast and crew what to succeed at all costs, not only in the movie but also in their stagnant careers.  However, the director, Matias, craves fame and legacy to the point of committing his soul to whatever it takes to cement his film in acclaimed success.  Matias and the arcane producer form a pact with a diabolical computer program and artificial intelligence that’ll bind their movie to esteemed infamy as well as bind their cast and crew to their characters.  When Matias invites select cast and crew to a private screening at his home, they realize the movie has scenes of their characters that weren’t shot during principal photography and that whatever happens to their characters in the movie, being chased by the Celtic killer, will happen to them in real life.  The only way to survive the movie is to last the full 90-minute runtime.

Hailing from Argentina, the South American country that brought us “Terrified” and the “Plaga Zombie” films, comes another tale of terror with the metaverse horror “Realidad Virtual,” aka “Virtual Reality.”  The 2006 “Director’s Cut” and 2009 “Breaking Nikki” shot caller Findling continues his traipse through psychotronic land with a story that couldn’t be more relevant today than if artificial intelligence synthesized the narrative itself out of binary ones and zeros.  The script comes from Findling and cowriter Lourdes Prado Méndez, an Argentinian romance novelist.  Having virtually no romance in “Virtual Reality” whatsoever, the 2021 film stretches Méndez’s range into crafting characters with a foot in two planes of existence while under immense fear and pressure to survive a supernatural slashening.  “Virtual Reality” is produced by Gabriel Lahaye under Lahaye Media, who has supported and collaborated on a number of Findling’s previous films, such as “Breaking Nikki” and “Impossible Crimes,” and is also a production of Wit Producciones, Cine Argentino, APIMA, FilmSharks, and INCAA of Argentina.

The story circles around a selectively small and independent film cast and crew finishing up a concluding scene of another to-be-forgotten horror movie by director, Matias (Guillermo Berthold), who has had multiple failed films before now.  Yet, the production team remains positive, hopefully the film with jumpstart careers as desperately expressed through the first act, especially with the film’s final girl star Guadalupe (Vanesa González, “Hypersomnia”), or Guad as she’s called by her friends, and her director’s assistant brother Pablo (Santiago Magariños).  Berthold plays the sneaky-sadistic director about as a well as most with a fervent penchant to do anything for his creative filmic art even if that means colluding with a shady, mysterious producer in César Bordón (“She Wolf”) whose performance’s obscured or lack of purpose is due in part to the character’s flimsy connection to the diabolical computer program.  Bordón can’t help but just be an inhuman human, violent by necessity instead of being violent with a purpose.  The producer seeks success for every single one of his films with a subsequent plotted course for the next idea – whether be a sequel or a brand new story – yet his connection to the network of evil of unexplained runes, sporadic pixilation, and artificial intelligent adaptations that can re-edit recordings into a new and inexplicable account of the story has been sorely severed in regard to understanding his background and his motivation of mortal sacrifice for movie fame.  Other connects that were left on the cutting room for, so to say, were between the siblings Guada and Pablo and their dying mother in what I suspect was an attempt to shove the sister and brother some sympathy, clearing the way for the two to be the unambiguously heroic duo, but the scene with their mother on her deathbed offered little-to-no compassion, producing a gelatinous lasting effect in what was a more visual one-off of two children spending the time they have left with their mother versus an incentive or arc scene that would hopefully rally up character expectations to look after each other.  “Virtual Reality” rounds out the cast with Frederico Bal (“Impossible Crimes”), Francisco González Gil (“El último zombi”), Sofia Del Tuffo (“Luciferina”), and Christian Sancho in a Johnny Depp inspired dressed part of a self-centered actor with a suspected pill addiction. 

As far as plot designs go, “Virtual Reality” has an interesting concept that involves filming two different harrowing situations and joining them into one parallel plight with the actors reacting more to the events happening on the television screen, which in itself becomes living, breathing character of sinisterism, rather than what’s happening outside the box in the present.  Both realities are virtually live and in play for their very being and whatever happens in one, affects the other.  “Virtual Reality’s” state of duality, not only in character, but also in linear lines of an alternate universe with lifeline connections, is smart, fresh, and terrorizing to know that your life depends on an A.I. created character coursing through a maze for their very lives.  This mirror-meta-effect continues to evolve as the story plays out that leave survivors questioning reality and questioning their individuality of some higher force that has used them like some free-thinking avatar for filmdom fame.  This is where “Virtual Reality” starts to become complicatedly crisscrossing as instances of a distorted reality spiral down a rabbit hole of what we thought was true.  Findling is nonapologetic for his layered universes that spins and wraps a narrative around another in what is a show of forced fantasy subsisting in that gray area of reality.  The Celtic slasher storyline is just a sublevel to the story’s higher level view that defines greed and worth amongst people longings for more and also models itself to reflect that thin line some people cross between reality and fantasy, as foreshadowed early on into the film during the shooting of the final girl scene when method actor Julian gets into the headspace of his Celtic killer character and really starts to strangle Guada in a climactic moment.  By the finale, you’re comprehensible pencil might have wandered off the connective dot trail in trying to see the bigger picture of Hindley’s meta-movie but “Virtual Reality” is innovative tech horror that just requires a smidgen of tweaking to be impeccable.

2020.  That was the last time I reviewed an Artsploitation Films title.  The long 3-year hiatus was due in part of King Lorber purchasing the boutique Philadelphia label that specialized in bringing independent global horror to the U.S.  Artsploitation Films and Kino Lorber continue that pursuit with Hernán Findling’s “Virtual Reality” from Argentinian now on a Stateside Blu-ray disc courtesy of the joint label.  The AVC encoded, 1080p High-Definition, BD25 is presented in a widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio.  Cinematically, the format storage is able to capture the true quality of the image with hardly any compression artefacts.  There’s not a ton of visual augmenting but what’s presented is a draining of color to a near black-and-white image with pigmented primary color lighting to give the scenes a dash of color that’s in contrast to the moderate-to-heavy in-movie, trope-heavy lack of lighting to create deeper shadows for that gloomy horror movie effect of interior trapped victims running for their lives in the dark.  Two Spanish language audio options are available on the release, a DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio surround sound and a DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0. The 5.1 track has good balance between the ambient, soundtrack, and dialogue tracks albeit a little heavy on the score to clutter, at times, a clear exchange, especially when everyone’s yelling at the television set.  Other than that, no technical issues throughout the multi-channel output. English subtitles run at startup but can be turned off.  The unrated, region A encoded release has a runtime of 84 minutes but doesn’t come with a menu for special features; however, there is the film’s trailer and, if you stay tuned after the credits, there’s a bonus scene where you, the viewer, becomes the star of your own movie.  Artsploitation Films is back, baby!  Courtesy of Kino Lorber, “Virtual Reality” is barely tapped meta-horror, that has become all the craze nowadays, and Hernán Findling unboxes that fine line between real and unreal to only merge them together to be one and the same in a twisted interpretation of when art imitates life. 

Believe Everything You See.  “Virtual Reality” on Blu-ray at Amazon.com