Cult Epic founder Nico B. wants to spread the joy of cult cinema to not only the television sets at home, but to the world! The Dutch filmmaker and passionate cult cinema lover has employed me, and other social media coordinators and bloggers, as a servant of his word, delivering the following message to all fans of erotica, horror, and arthouse films!
“We are in our last week, and this is the week that counts. Some of you have contributed to our campaign, thank you so much! and we would ask all who are fans of our label or releases and want to secure its future in the new year, please pick a Perk to your liking and support us in our endeavor bringing you new releases in the years to come. One of the titles we have secured the rights as well for is the most interesting giallo DEATH LAID AN EGG, so there is much work to do, and for such we need funding, which current distributors no longer provide.
Also please give the campaign one more push on your social media:
CULT EPICS INDIEGOGO CAMPAIGN Cult Epics presents controversial art films with a cult following on DVD and Blu-ray. At its 25th Anniversary year Cult Epics needs your support to continue bringing you new releases. Find out more here: https://igg.me/at/cultepics
Please show your support! Every little bit matters and you may get a little something in return if you donate $20 or more! I got my eye on that Nekromantik T-shirt! Only 1 MORE WEEK TO GO!
In the sleepy town of Broken Taint, dimwitted dog catcher Bubba Blanche is the town joke amongst the rest of the moronic residents even in the eyes of former girlfriend Bobbie Jo, wrapping her needs around the naked muscle-shirt arms of a triple wide trailer owning redneck. Bubba swears that he’ll do absolutely anything to win Bobbie Jo back and his pathetic cries stretch deep to the depths of hell, reaching the ears of the The Devil himself who suddenly appears in Broken Taint. The Devil strikes a dubious agreement with Bubba to make him stronger in order to win over Bobbie Jo, but when Bubba wakes up the next morning, the dog catcher has been transformed into a big, bad, and hairy werewolf. His curse becomes a gift straight from hell as he knocks the front teeth out of triple wide, wins the heart of Bobbie Jo back, and earns the respect of the local townsfolk. That is, until Bubba’s curse starts a chain reaction of unfortunate diabolical agreements between the conniving Devil and the town simpletons. As The Devil turns Broken Taint into his own tarnation playground, Bubba must use his newfound canine powers and some of his old hidden strengths to overpower and to outwit the clever Lord of the underworld.
Comic book movies. We either love them or hate them. We judge their fantastic value on the precision of who was casted as the hero or heroine and on the accurateness toward staying true to character origins. This may be common knowledge or it might not, but “Bubba The Redneck Werewolf,” a cigar-smoking, shot-gun carrying, jean-overall wearing werewolf, has been a successful comic franchise since 1995. Created by former CRACKED magazine writer Mitch Hyman, the true success of the provincial lycanthrope stems from the classic tale of a downtrodden individual being granted a huge amount of strength to overcome fear, to unleash ambitions, and to reestablish a brick wall of confidence all the while drinking a six-pack and drive a big truck. I’m sure Mitch Hyman would also note that the hilarity of a rootin tootin redneck werewolf with a patchwork heart of good intentions appeals to the masses as well.
When Two Rubbing Nickels, LLC partners with central Florida based and spoof-specializing video production company And You Films, that’s when Bubba truly comes to life from off the vivid comic book pages to ever critical independent big screen in 2014 where director Brendan Jackson Rogers’ colorful illustration of the hairiest super hero of all time and his barroom dingbats challenge a mischievous and dastardly Devil. What’s even more interesting about this under-the-radar adapted horror-comedy being released by MVDVisual onto DVD is the writer who penned the script. None other than writer, director, producer, and president of Unearthed Films, Mr. Stephen Biro. Yes, the man who delivers spectacular acquired gory avant garde and underground horror films to see a slither of public light puts forth his mighty pen to paper and etches out a perfect blend of comedy and horror that creates a sea monkey world where “Bubba The Redneck Werewolf” radiates with rib-tickling slapstick humor aimed to be darkly unapologetic and fused with embellished illustrations of spew and blood splattering mayhem.
The ensemble cast doesn’t have one single recognizable name credited and that makes this outrageous comedy that much alluring for nothing is taken overly serious. The very title of the film should be a clear expectation without explanation. Without that thespian pressure mounting on the casts’ shoulders, Rogers was able to build an alleviated atmosphere and let the actors be kids performing on the biggest stage of their careers. Even lead actor Fred Lass, who dons the Werewolf suit, had his very detailed and comprehensive werewolf facial mold conformed to show the expressions and the contours of his face. Bubba creator Mitch Hyman even has a starring roles as the Devil, his thin physique and defined face definably pops under a lush shade of hell branding red under a crown of dual horns; his satanic performance cultivates the very worst of humanity, using their greed against them, and reveling in their agony soaked suffering. Mitch Hyman wins the best ungodly trope since Al Pacino rendition of the Devil in 1997’s “The Devil’s Advocate.” Another unique element to harp upon are the strong female characters. Though the comic routinely objectifies female characters on the front covers with being petite and scantily cladded women of the countryside positioned around the massive werewolf with a baseball cap, only Malone Thomas’ role of Bobbie Jo resembles such a booty-jort, low-cut shirt clothed character, but, at the same time, Bobbie Jo remains a fierce constant show of strength for Bubba. She knows what she wants, how she wants it, and when to take it without shame and selfishness. Sara Humbert and Gail Fleming do the same for their respective roles of the blunt bartender Jamie Sue and the clairvoyant gypsy.
MVDVisual shotguns a beer and will deliver “Bubba The Redneck Werewolf” onto a region free DVD come 2017! The comic book image quality does well with the slight rotoscope composite with interlaced moments of raw and naturally colored scenes. The darker scenes in the widescreen 1.78:1 presentation comes off unsharp and blotchy, leaving details solely toward more well lit portions. The Dolby Digital audio track clearly puts forth dialogue amongst a balance ambient track. No issues are detected and sufficiently goes beyond being just good quality. A vast batch of bonus material outshines other indie releases, beginning with a 16 minute documentary “From Page to Screen. The Making of Bubba The Redneck Werewolf. Other extras include deleted scenes, blooper reel, Werewolf and Devil Make process videos, “The Ballad of Bubba” behind-the-scenes music video by The Blast-Offs, and the official trailer. Amongst the top contenders of modern horror-comedies and werewolf films, Brendan Jackson Rogers, Mitch Hyman, Stephen Biro, and Fred Lass have, literally, created a winning combination with their monstrous furry feature.
Ethan Walker is a brilliant scientific engineer, though he doesn’t look it with his long fire-hued beard and pot-belly midsection, but Walker, along with his colleague, believe to have accomplished the impossible: teleportation. When Walker decides to try his machine on himself, the realization of something terribly wrong overwhelms him. Walker didn’t invent a teleporter, he accidentally constructed a time machine, sending himself six months into a grim future where his wife and sister have been brutally murdered and he’s the sole prime suspect. The only way to make sense of the future and to solve the crime against him is to travel back to the past multiple times to unravel a sinister plot and stop the murder of those close to him.
To simply and conventionally tagline “Counter Clockwise,” George Moise’s 2015 directorial debut can easily be described as Terry Gilliam meets David Fincher. Part sci-fi thriller part dark comedy, the adventure of Ethan’s misadventures ingeniously signifies a harsh outlook on the saltiness of our predetermined universe while encountering outrageous and weird characters along the time warp. Ethan, no matter what he does or how he does it, has to use the accidental time machine to thwart the brutal death of his wife and sister and while his reasoning sounds fairly comical being the groundwork of what Albert Einstein calls madness, on-screen it’s rather heartbreaking and tragic to see this guy, an everyday looking joe, desperately attempt to deconstruct, from the unsolicited help of his future selves, a dastardly plot that will destroy everything he holds dear.
Penned also by George Moise, based off a story by brother Walter Moise, along with the film’s lead star, Ethan himself, Michael Kopelow, “Counter Clockwise” will change the way critics will perceive time travel storylines by not as a means of zipping back only once to change the forsaken past, but as a respawning Shakespearean tale of tragedy in order to continue to amend a hapless situation. A respawned Super Mario had more luck saving Princess Peach through the thicket of Koopa Troopas and the fire breathing Bowser. Though the character Ethan repeats his voyage, the way “Counter Clockwise” is written doesn’t convolute itself in the repetition, staging clues as a window into beyond the present and generating eerie and problematic, if seriously disturbed, episodes that doesn’t give Ethan a minute from tirelessly being objective. Combine those elements with George Moise’s neurotic direction and the result seizes to capture not only science fiction aficionados, but movie enthusiasts of every category in this genre-breaking feature. From the first moment of the opening scene, a strong familiar inkling of Ridley Scott’s “Alien” washes over you; the subtle hum of machinery, the slow panning from side-to-side, the very soft touch George Moise applies is uncanny and so endearingly respectful that the direction doesn’t feel like an absolute rip of Scott’s 1979 space horror classic.
Kopelow is the centerpiece that glues the story whole. As Ethan, Kopelow’s gentle giant approach is such a stark contrast to the surrounding darkness that has embodied nearly every other location and character, even his lip flapping, hard loving mother. Extreme opposite on the polar spectrum is voice actor Frank Simms as Roman, head of major corporation aiming to steal pioneered technology from Ethan at any cost. Simms’ talent has two settings in this film, hot and cold; his sound binary method works to composite a character so reasonably rational that when Roman snaps, a trickle of pee squeezes out and runs down your leg at his abrupt and menacing counter personality. The rest of the cast follows suit with pinpoint precision on their coinciding characters and even the eccentric cameo performances were otherworldly good from Chris Hampton’s relishing water fountain patron to Marty Vites one-eyed creepy landlord. Ethan’s landed in bizarre world that hums a very familiar tune in Terry Gilliam’s “Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas” while the amount of downbeat content spurs moments of gritty David Fincher thrillers, especially in one particular scene with the brawny New Jersey native Bruno Amato being the ultimate bad guy henchman by raping a dead woman for spite and for pleasure. The cast fills out with Devon Ogden, Kerry Knuppe, Joy Rinaldi, Alice Rietveld, and Caleb Brown.
The Sex Scene Crew production, “Counter Clockwise,” is not an effects driven project. The indie sci-fi film relies on the trio of coordination efforts in refined editing, camera angles, and practical effects to deliver the intended message. Like I said before, George Moise is neurotic, providing the attention and detail to every scene as if a climatic money shot. Value is placed in the story and in the direction rather than diluting and cheapening with overrated, big budget computer generated special effects that can snap a film’s heart and soul like a thin twig. The biggest effect comes in the form of a composite, placing two Ethans in the same scene and working action off each other. Even the time traveling sequences are a basic edit that’s well timed with simple lighting techniques, gentrifying low budget films more toward a respectable level of filmmaking.
Artsploitation Films’ DVD release of “Counter Clockwise” is an edgy rip in space time continuum sci-fi thriller presented in a widescreen 2.35:1 aspect ratio with Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound audio option. Image quality pars well with modern releases and the same can be said about the audio, especially with the prevalent dialogue. Aside from conventional specs, Moise adds a sensory surplus to stimulate sight and sound hell-bent to strike an unnerving chord strummed simultaneously with providing an awesomely surreal effect. The DVD contains bonus features include “The Making of Counter Clockwise featurette, going behind the scenes of pre-production, production, and post-production. There are also five deleted scenes with commentary and a trio of commentary tracks that include the director, director and editor, and director and co-writer. “Counter Clockwise” is 91 minutes of time hopping suspense, packed with adversity and pitch black humor from start to finish and finish to start.
Click Above to Time Travel to Amazon and Buy this Title Today! (And not six months from now…)
Seven close friends use “Screen It” to live stream online a drug and alcohol bender while partying hard at a vacant swanky home. When Brie awakes in a quiet, dark room of the luxurious house with no sign of her friends, she believes an odd prank is being played at her expense, but when she receives a frantic call from one of her frightened friends trapped inside a wooden box, Brie becomes their only hope of survival. She realizes that her six friends were abducted and buried in wooden boxes around the city, all of which contain it’s own deadly nightmare coinciding with each teen’s personal life. To heighten the tension, their fates are live streamed on the internet for the world to witness. Brie must connect the dots, find the pattern, and save the survivors before they all perish alone.
Australian survival horror “6 Plots” capitalizes on popular teens being terrorized and murdered by a game mastering and mysterious sadist. The story, devised along with live streaming online the six teens’ fates, stems from director Leigh Sheehan and was commercially penned by the newcomer Tim C. Patterson. Alice Darling stars as Brie, the girl left untouched to save her shallowly engrained friends, along with “Wolf Creek 2” star Ryan Corr, Penelope Mitchell (“The Vampire Diaries”), Eliza Taylor, Emily Wheaton, Joey Coley-Sowry, Damien Harrison, Andrew Clarke, and PJ Lane. “6 Plots” introduces characters to face their fears, putting them up against a destined wall of death if unable to overcome challenges inspired by their own lives. Though the challenges are no where near the legacy of the “Saw” games where players have an opportunity to win their freedom themselves by sacrificing something dear to them and are constructed with their good fortune resting in the hands on one sole person, Sheehan’s race against the clock suspense thriller loses steam, never establishing momentum to strike the edge-of-your-seat nerve.
Conceptually, placing unconscious disrespectful teens claustrophobic coffin structures and strategically scattering them along a small island coastal town only to direly drown their body and minds in a game of their own primal fears sounds amusingly devious. To pull off a grand recipe of intertwining cruelty, time would be the most difficult obstacle to hurdle and the plan’s organization and successfulness was ultimately determined on whether or not Brie and her friends were having a party at some random swanky house, which was on the verge of possibly being canceled priorly stated by one of the characters. Time spatially speaking, getting all six of her friends completely setup in boxes miles a part from each other would have taken most of the night, pending on how many hands were involved, and the story indulges a, perhaps, 3 to 4 hour workable time frame from each of seven passing out unconsciously due in part of whatever their drugs were laced with to the time they wake up alone in a confinement of darkness with only an element of personal fear accompanying them. In short, and this might spoil the end for a few readers, The Flash was able to accomplish casket coordination without much hassle. Just kidding…
The biggest issue with “6 Plots” is the story never really comes to a head, never really providing that spark-lit surge of intensity at the point of apex. Instead, the course of action flounders at a lifeless flat line when a moment of clarity for Brie dawns upon her and she figures out the bedeviled jokester’s pentagram pattern, simply by hooking up to the internet and plotting lines onto charts of the island of possible casket locations. Brie made their tormentor’s Russian signal jamming plan the most elementary scheme to deconstruct and solve to date, but that’s due in part to poor character development as well. We know absolutely zilch about Brie, except for the facts that the daredevil rides a motorcycle off road, gives the local authoritative putz a run for his money, and likes to partake in drugs and alcohol. That’s basically all the information we’re given about Brie’s character and, somehow, a character who traditionally would have been nixed right about now was able to unravel a plan much too elaborate for her primitive Netgear hookup intelligence. Not even her tech savvy friend, Marty, could keep up with Brie’s uncanny genius, remarking a couple instances where Brie outthought his intellect about their predicament.
Sheehan’s directorial style hinges upon a fair amount on the horrendously oppressive alternative music soundtrack and mawkish scenes of melodramatics with an example being after witnessing the horrifying demise of one of the teens on live stream, Sheriff Gary awkwardly drops the phone and hastily crosses the room to give Brie a clutching embrace as they both sob in each others’ arms. I’ve seen less over the top performances in soap operas. Certainly a first where melodrama meets tech horror, I found the technology to be sorely obsolete, especially for a film produced only four years ago. “6 Plots” was for sure a champion for Apple products, focal pointing on MacBooks and a Safari internet browser, but, yet, iPhones are rarely used and, instead, a healthy combination of Brie’s Blackberry and Sheriff Gary’s flip phone ultimately saves the day, proving that the latest and greatest tech gear can’t save you from a casket and can’t aid you in murdering people any faster.
Lionsgate home entertainment label delivers the 87 minute Eagle I production onto DVD and Digital Video with a widescreen 2.35:1 presentation and an English 5.1 Dolby Digital audio mix. A high point of this “6 Plots” DVD is the video quality, though now fairly standard with current films in their home release formats. Image quality pops with detail and clarity bringing out the worst specifics in the poorly illustrated representation of the antagonist on ancient cell phones. Audio, again, lies in the realm of modern day conventions, albeit the down under accents are sometimes difficult to decipher. From the start, survival horror “6 Plots” quickly snuffs itself out from ever materializing into, what could have been, a gripping thriller by burying the best parts under a 6-foot deep layer of indigestible fluff that’s rudimentary right to the bone.
Charlie, the daughter of a famed pro-wrestler named Daddy Bison, witnesses the tragic and accidental decapitation death of her masked father while in the ring. Years later, Charlie labors for a video game corporation with underhanded values, but she still feels the call to wrestling, secretly competing and honoring her father’s memory in moonlight matches despite her lover’s wishes. When her corrupt employer illegal obtains Nano byte technology to engineer into their latest wrestling video game entitled ‘From Parts Unknown’ in order to financially steal from gamers, Charlie accidently becomes more involved than just being an innocent bystander. A side effect to the Nano bytes turns people into a horde of flesh hungry monsters on the cusp of being let loose and only Charlie can pile drive a stop to the infected corporate white-collar workers and vicious female wrestlers from embarking on a worldwide takeover.
It’s Bloggin’ Evil is familiar with director Daniel Armstrong’s work, reviewing the Australian born director’s 2013 roller derby slasher “MurderDrome” on the Camp Motion Picture’s home entertainment label. Armstrong’s latest horror installment, 2015 released “From Parts Unknown: Fight Like a Girl,” blends a healthy dose of wrestling into the terror folds. However, this body slamming, drop kicking horror film was produced and completed by 2009, years before “MurderDrome” hit the market, and was shelved in a period of postponement because of post-production reasons, but the Strongman Pictures team bouts with more than half a decade of delays to eventually release “From Parts Unknown: Fight Like a Girl,” a complete horror-comedy battle royal!
With a DIY façade, a talented actor pool dedicates themselves to undertake the high flying, death defying professional wrestling moves of PCW, Professional Championship Wrestling, in Australia and, I must confess, the actors looked legit. There’s an indescribable amount of pleasure and respect that goes into actors braving the chance of injury and accomplishing their own stunt work. Kudos to lead actress Jenna Dwyer for her stunt work to which in an example of her character, Charlie, is air-flung across the square ring and into a metal cage and she falls behind the ropes, landing hard on the mat below. The stunt looked fantastic. To coincide with the physical performances, Armstrong’s script uses slapstick comedy that’s heavy on the satirical undertones. Ross Ditcham’s a good character to spotlight as his role of Frank is the story’s buffoon, branded as being the best friend who doesn’t get the heroine girl of his dreams while running wildly whenever danger, or a brazen female supervisor, is hanging on his coattails.
The combination of performance and wit does hunker slightly from being overshadowed by the wonky cinematography. Every applied color of the rainbow saturates various scenes to, perhaps, wash away the dull gray and white tones of the minimalistic warehouse location or to attempt to upscale production value, but the extreme use of this method conflicts with sharp image details, leaving an opaque and blotchy picture. There’s also some odd framing from either the production or postproduction distribution that’s disrupts the clarity of the actions in the scenes. On the plus side, a solid, passable effort was put forth for the gory special effects, especially when Josh Futcher’s Misha violently implodes the head in of one of the henchwomen with a fire extinguisher, splattering upward a healthy amount of blood while Misha quoting, many times, Ash from “Army of the Darkness.” Tack on superimposed electric current superpowers, a tactical high-powered Uzi, and a little person donning a luchador mask and tights and “From Parts Unknown” tickles all the right parts of your delinquent, shameless senses.
Story wise, a loose introduction semi-torpedoes the backend of Charlie’s growth and embattlements, albeit the killer effects and various degrees of solid acting. The convoluted scenes of stealing the Nano bytes and sprinkled in segments of the Bison Daddy’s fate attempt to set up two simultaneous merging narratives that end up not meshing well or delivering the intended message. After the progression surpasses the Nano Byte mishap, the story starts to take shape, forming more coherently and appropriately to pit our lovely Charlie against an apocalyptic foe, setting up define characters, and setting the stage for an all out slobber-knocker! When Charlie and her mortal allies have the odds against them when rivaled against superhuman opponents, a clear indication that’s just more than good versus evil. Under the surface, Charlie is faced with life adversaries: her unethical boss, an advantage taking supervisor, and other female wrestlers. All of which become flesh eating maniacs and want to rip Charlie apart.
“From Parts Unknown: Fight Like a Girl” has pinned a DVD distributor with the indie label Camp Motion Pictures. The not rated DVD contains a short film “Post-Apocalyptic Chic,” “Fight Like A Girl” music video, Haunted by Humans Music Video, Demented music video, and a trailer vault. Like previously mentioned, the posterized video quality is noticeable within the confines of darker color hues and, especially, in the blacks. The LCPM 2.0 mix audio quality goes in and out with rocky levels of dialogue and ambiance. Graced with an ozploitation with great collaged cover art, Daniel Armstrong’s “From Parts Unknown” and Camp Motion Pictures are a wrestling match made in a hell in a cell! The best wrestling horror film since Mexico’s El Santo films!
It's Bloggin Evil! 