Evil Lends a Helping Hand! “Bloody Knuckles” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on October 26, 2015

Travis, an underground shock comic artist, stirs up a world of trouble with Chinatown crime lord and illegal pesticide seller Leonard Fong when his latest issue of Vulgarian Invasion makes the criminal kingpin a colorfully filthy farce. In response, Fong and his goons table saw Travis’s writing hand off. With his livelihood separated from the rest of his body, Travis falls into a depressive slumber to where he doesn’t leave his apartment, find new work, or even take a stand for revenge. The same cannot be said for his decomposing hand that suddenly revives and confronts Travis. Looking to settle the score with Fong and his gang, Travis and his appendage join forces with a true to life S&M superhero based of one of Travis’s caricatures and take up arms (get it?) against Fong’s criminal syndicate.

“Bloody Knuckles” is vulgar, distasteful, and offensive – I loved every minute of it! Director Matt O.’s (Matt O’Mahoney) debut feature film from Canada makes “Idle Hands” seem weak and childish in comparison. The “Addams Family” Thing is a cutesy puppy dog whose sporting a knitted winter sweater while the “Bloody Knuckles” Hand is cracking skulls as it’s cracking it’s own bloody knuckles in a spiked leather jacket. This Hand is more like the Ash’s evil hand from “Evil Dead 2!” There hasn’t been this much fun in a film in awhile and I’m considering the Matt O. film to be one of my favorite horror Blu-ray releases of 2015 from Artsploitation Films. “Bloody Knuckles” has it all: limitless violence, scrupulous comedy, glorified gore, a penchant for the politically incorrect, nudity, a living severed hand, and a gay S&M badass looking to spank to death the opposition.

Mainly, the underlying message of “screw censorship” hits, in a good way, the main artery for this reviewer as our lovely site, Its Bloggin’ Evil, is all about pushing the boundaries, divulging the full story, and leaving everything out on the table for all to bare witness. Being crass is nice too and that’s “Bloody Knuckles” schtick; a unique stance that most films and filmmakers won’t risk due to the fear of their work not being picked up and released, shunned and stored deep in the depressing closets of death and disparity. “Bloody Knuckles” splays the notion of artistic freedom throughout the duration and in many different formats from comics, to the press, and to shock art.

The special effects were top notch quality and handled by the Academy Award-nominated company Image Engine of Vancouver, who had their hands mixed into major studio work such as James Gunn’s “Slither,” HBO’s highly praised television series “Game of Thrones,” and the prequel to John Carpenter’s “The Thing.” The Hand, whether as a live hand with makeup or a prosthetic one, never looked underfunded or cheesy. The Hand was given a Frankenstein life and was appropriately made into a sympathetic character. Even though Hand is part of Travis, Hand is actually a woman’s hand, Krista Magnusson’s hand to be exact, and not even for a second will you be able to tell. The rest of the effects don’t disappoint; the exaggerated gruesomeness of certain effects shots brings back memories of watching “The Stuff” and “Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky!”

Aside from Krista Magnusson, the lineup of actors and actresses were destined to portray these character roles. Kasey Ryne Mazak as the ruthless and merciless Leonard Fong had pegged perfectly the well-dressed with an oversized ego but with a short stature stereotype. Dwayne Bryshun as Homo Dynamous, a Travis’s gay S&M superhero, brings to life such as an extravagant character, turning a simple gay caricature into a living and breathing bondage Bond. Lead actor Adam Boys as Travis could turn on the charm, the sarcasm, and the girly scream on a dime and so naturally that Travis instantly becomes a likable character. The witty and gritty banter between all the characters, even Hand using the type-to-speech function on Travis’s computer, is well written and doesn’t bog down the blitzkrieg story.

I can’t say I’ve yet to come across a poor release from Artsploitation Films. Aside from a controversial and entertaining subject matter of the films, the Blu-ray’s 1.78:1 aspect ratio has great quality that can outshine many competitors. The Blu-ray of “Bloody Knuckles” contains a clean and sharp image that doesn’t become murky in the darkness to which the film is mostly set, whether being night outside or in dark inside quarters. There’s slight posterization during the a few pitch black night sequences, but I found that everything was nicely outlined or visible without little interference from it. The 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio is the preferable option if you have the equipment; the dialogue is at the forefront which is key for this film and the rest of the tracks are well-balanced. Other audio options include a 5.1 Dolby Digital and a 2.0 Dolby Stereo. There are tons of extras clocking around 130 minutes worth of content and the icing on the cake with the whole release is a portion of Travis’s comic Vulgarian Invasion on the reverse side of the Blu-ray cover art. Hands down, “Bloody Knuckles” is a must own!

Evil Reeks in an Old Magician’s Mansion. “Death’s Door” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on October 22, 2015

A young group of people are mysteriously texted an address for an unknown party. When they arrive, the address takes them to a dilapidated mansion with innards displayed as if time has ceased to exists. When the group tries to leave, all the doors to the outside won’t open, condemning them to the horrors of a magician’s vengeful spirit and his very large and frightening assistant who looms around the mansion’s endless corridors. As the group continues to butt against each other in distress and disbelief, one-by-one they fall victim to the magician’s gruesome parlor tricks behind every door and the only way out of the mansion may be dependent on their families’ legacies.

With a premise similar to the 1999 remake of “House on Haunted Hill” where a group of people are mysterious invited to a creepy house and end up in a death trap, I wouldn’t say director Kennedy Goldsby’s “Death’s Door” aka “The Trap Door” is entirely, 100 percent unique. In fact, much of the film is undeniably the same compared to William Malone directed remake, yet less entertaining and without an all-star cast and a vaster budget. “Death Door” lures with the headliners of more attractive and experienced stars with the Jamaican-born movie and television actor Obba Babatundé and the “Friday” franchise actor, and overall a big, badass monster of a man, Tommy “Tiny” Lister. Yet, like most smaller projects, I’m sure Obba’s and Tiny’s handful of scenes were the majority of the budget pie, leaving a few dollar bills at the bottom of the barrel for special effects that were desperately needed for a film about a ghoulish magician.

The effects were completely inadequate and can’t even equate to the same stature used for “House on Haunted Hill.” Off screen deaths, quick edits and cuts, camera angles, shoddy CGI, the over use of red tints, shaky camera, flash backs, and a prop skeleton tried to sell plausibility when really just added to absurdity. Aside from the lackluster effects, the Goldsby penned script logically doesn’t flow and fails to develop acts. While seeking for an exit, separate groups of characters aimlessly wander the house, trying door after door, and then the next scene could be one of those characters mixed in with another separate group, creating some continuity confusion. Also, much of the script settles to a stagnate, housing an unnecessary long montage of the group being bored, napping, looking glum, or walking from one part of the room to another. To put the cherry on top, a random nude scene is oddly inserted into a montage into the magician backstory portion. There’s no telling who the naked breasts belong to or why they’re naked to even begin with as the exploitive and titillating shot crops out the head and the setting is awfully generic, not placing the body in any familiar surroundings related to the mansion.

I will say that very few of the acting skill sets were not at a total loss. The fast-talking, wise-crackin’ Bruce played by Chico Benymon was entertaining; the character’s angst-fllled stand-up-comic style character goes against the grain, fleeting any ideas of ghosts or any form of malevolency. Tommy “Tiny” Lister is always top notch. The big man doesn’t even have to say a word and he’s downright menacing, even if his character, Jomo, stuffs emotionless Latina’s into tight spaces and fails to soil the pants of the mansion’s guest when quietly walking around them. Sarah Wagenvoord, who I was hoping had the mysterious naked breasts scene due to her massive…well, you know, should have played a more prominent role du in part to her character’s outcome. Actors Michael Bernardi, Felix Ryan, and Danielle Lilley maintained an average performance through a mirco-budget production. The rest foundered to capture any kind of terror or despair or just even trying to be a normal character, overacting the parts as if trying to put passion into reading straight from the script.

The video quality of the MVDVisual DVD comes with hardly any flaws in the video stock or any loss in the natural coloring. The stereo audio is a bit unbalanced between the LFE and the dialogue tracks, deducing to some loss dialogue over the pounding hammering sounds. The extras includes the Kennedy Goldsby directed music video of “Shorty Wassup” by Hip-Hop artist Sizzol Pop. The last piece of bonus material is a behind-the-scenes featurette from the actual haunted house set where the crew has personal encounters with the spirits. “Death’s Door” is a fools gold, a trap, that promises deadly snares, haunting ghoul, and many scares. The ending comes to a complete halt with only tall tales of what might have dastardly happened to most of the characters in the rickety mansion. I would recommend far better old mansion spook stories.

Anybody and Everybody Can Be Evil! “The Summer House” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on October 15, 2015

Markus lives the perfect life: a lucrative job in construction management, an adoring and faithful wife, and a beautiful and smart daughter about to tend a prominent English school. Yet, Marcus finds solace in a double life by living his true self as a bi-sexual man with a secret, younger male lover from one of his construction projects, leaving his wife frustrated and destructive in their foundering marriage. When Markus’s construction colleague Christopher finds himself being squeezed by the taxing agency, Marcus offers to help out a little. Christopher asks his 12-year-old son Johannes to be nice to and to spend time with Markus’s 11-year-old daughter Elisabeth in a show of good faith towards Markus’s good will. With Johannes around most of the time, Markus tries to keep grounded his uncontrollable desires for Johannes, but invites Johannes to Markus’s family’s summer house. Through the summer, Markus and Johannes form a relationship, but not everything is as it’s seems when hidden agendas and surprising outcomes could potentially destroy everyone involved.

An intense psychosexual, “The Summer House” zips straight out of Berlin from writer-director Curtis Burz who touches upon more taboo subject material than one might be able to withstand without feeling guilty, dirty, or rotten. Burz’s pen weaves through one man’s constant struggle between maintaining a barely afloat marriage to a wife he loves because of their daughter and his secretive bi-sexual life in an affair involving a much younger man. Burz also remarks on Markus’s wife Christine and her battle with near tragic depression; she’s complicit in Markus’s affair by allowing him, with only little resistance, to continue, yet Christine wants Markus to rediscover his love for her on his own. The pen continues to weave through the stories of the children, Johannes and Elisabeth. The very nature of a child feels exploited here in more ways than one, but the film’s end game takes an usual twist, one I can’t spill here without spoiling the finale fun. Burz continues to drop dark material presented and staged in a glowing-like and vividly colorful mise-en-scene throughout that would suggest happiness or perfection for all involved; however, the nagging, gloomy undertone remains behind the scenes and unseen and that’s the kind of sadistically gratifying contribution added by director Curtis Burz.

“The Summer House” is a socially controversial film without being overly in your face with it. Nothing is explicit with the subtleties being just enough to make your stomach feel uneasy and to make your jaw clench with anticipation. The scenes with Markus (the then 40-year-old Sten Jacobs) and Johannes (a certainly under 18-year-old Jasper Fuld) kept building the tension between them and Jacobs portrayed a creepy, over-anxious and over-persistent pedophile uncomfortably well whereas Fuld plays his part just as convincingly as a seemingly tolerable young boy who may or may not be curious about Markus’s intentions toward him. The vexation Christine discharges is all due in part, greatly toward, of the leading lady Anna Altmann’s performance. Altmann captures a wife in marriage limbo, looking to rekindle a broken family stuck in stalemate due to her husband’s mid-life sexual crisis while maintaining her daughter’s precociousness. Nina Splettstößer feeds off Atlmann’s motherly performance by portraying Elisabeth as quiet and intelligent, yet passive and conniving who sees her mother as someone who hates her because of how stringent her mother is toward her.

The story’s complex web becomes stickier and the spider draws even closer when Markus’s secret sleepovers become exposed, creating a twist ending not even M. Night Shyamalan could conjure up. However, the story behind Markus’s colleague Christopher and his wife Anne feels ignored and neglected. Aside from Christopher incidentally being the catalyst between Markus and Johannes, Christopher and Anne’s scenes seem unnecessary. One scene has the both adult couples seemingly in the early wine and dine stages of a swinger party, but once most of the kissing between Anne, Christopher and Christine is out of the way, the scene falls short with a quick cut to just Markus finishing off with his wife Christine with all their clothes still on. Christopher and Anne come and go in barely a handful of other scenes that don’t tie into much of the story and would have either been better if either explored further into their adventurous lifestyle to get a better understanding of Johannes or leave them out all together.

Overall, “The Summer House” is deserving of it’s numerous film festival awards and a solid release for not only Artsploitation Films, but also as a film that has been Berlin born even if the film released nearly 3 years ago. Certainly very relevant to today’s modern multi-societal problems including the dissolving of families, behavioral issues with not only pedophilia, but with depression, and to round out the pleasantries with scrofulous affairs. The Artsploitation Films, in a metaphorical broken and cracked pane glass over a solemn Markus family DVD cover, has a widescreen 1.85:1 ratio release with a German and English 2.0 audio track is accompanied with bonus features that include deleted scenes, cast and crew interviews, and a trailer; all content clocks in at around 195 minutes total – not bad all around for an independent feature.

Living Alongside Evil. “A Plague So Pleasant” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on October 3, 2015

In the zombie post-apocalypse, the human discovered that by not firing their weapons allowed the flesh eating hordes to calm their desires, resulting in the protection of the zombie species and institutionalizing laws against the killing zombies for fear of another undead swarm attack. One of the many survivors Clay has lived in a zombie cooperation world for over a year after the initial outbreak along with his sister Mia, whose boyfriend Gerry didn’t survive, but still roams the Earth as the walking dead. With no one truly dying, the whole idea of existence becomes meaningless and where people, like Mia, won’t move on when they’re loved ones still feel very much alive. When Clay discovers his sister’s attachment to undead Gerry, he takes it upon himself to kill Mia’s zombie boyfriend, releasing a zombie swarm post-apocalypse apocalypse on the his town.

Unprecedented and gushing with rage, “A Plague so Pleasant” redefines the way audiences would view the zombie since 1968, constructing still a vicious species of man-eating undead while domesticating them to a lumbering land fixture much like the way pigeons amongst the birds. First time directors Benjamin Roberds and Jordan Reyes triumph amongst the modern zombie competition, spilling their heart and soul onto the script and onto the screen. With a story to match, a Romero-inspired social commentary zombie film held true to form by instilling normality to a post-apocalyptic world. Zombie and man living together. What was that Bill Murray line in “Ghostbusters?” “Cats and dogs living together… mass hysteria.” Clay and Mia were living a mundane life while the dead remained alive and protected, socially poking fun at how society maintain a normal livelihood with zombies: the U.S. Government made killing zombies a national felony, companies were mandated to go through a yearly undead awareness program as a formality, and there’s a guarded visitation area full of the undead much like a graveyard without graves.

Stunning cinematography added much needed life to “A Plague so Pleasant” which settles into an already over saturated zombie genre. Starting in black and white, Clay introduces his life in a offscreen monologue, conveying much of the post-apocalyptic and zombie information. The black and white symbolizes how simple and plain life has become with the living with zombies regulations. When Clay breaks the law by offing Gerry for good, thats when the movie turns to color and creating complications in a black and white life. The once unvarying and shuffling zombie nuisance goes into full berserk mode with “28 Days Later” sprinters thirsty to tear into anything with a heart beat. Only when the zombies turn calm is when life goes back to being black and white, considering the option that normality needs to be simplified to live peacefully.

The special effects by first timer Tyler Carver are a great effort clashing together a classic European Giannetto De Rossi style with Carver’s own settle flair by not being overly gruesome. There’s not an over-the-top, chart-topping special effects moment that defines the “A Plague so Pleasant,’ but there the solid effects subtly throughout satisfies. The zombies overall look are the usual stock type, yet they’re exhilarating to watch with an army of intense actors who are no doubt from the Athens, GA Halloween attraction named Zombie Farm where Tyler Carver has a connection. Not everything about the creation of a frightening zombie was accomplished as much of the audio tracks were out of sync and just too gaudy.

Actor David Chandler as Clay does a fine job portraying a bored survivor and a clueless big brother while also performing the second zombie swarm nearly without speaking during the entire engagement. Mia, played by Eva Boehnke, resembles the gorgeous Lebanese-American porn star actress Mia Khalfia with her giant nerdy glasses. Boehnke creates a free spirited, yet delusional, persona in Mia whose holding onto the past and coping the only way she knows how and that’s by not separating from her undead boyfriend Gerry. We round out the cast with Todd played by Maxwell Moody. Todd becomes the catalyst of the coming events by placing the idea of him and Mia being a couple and putting a bullet into Gerry’s rotting brain. Chandler, Boehnke, and Moody on paper are amateur actors in an estimated $1,500 budget, independent movie, but they own their performances and shine through budgetary constraints.

Another awesome release from Wild Eye releasing that would make a worthy and unique edition to a zombie fanatic’s movie collection. Don’t judge to harsh the production value with the slight aliasing, the out of sync zombie audio tracks, and the muffled off screen Clay character monologue. Instead, focus on the cinematography, the actors performances, and the genuine story telling of a socially awkward scenario. Let “A Plague so Pleasant” infect, let it sink it’s teeth deep, and let it help turn your undying attention unto a lively concept.

One Pissed Off Evil Crustacean! “Queen Crab” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on September 29, 2015

Melissa discovers a massive King crab on her home’s shore off of Crabbe Creek, Nowhere, USA. Her fondness for the crab forces her to take it as her pet and naming in Pee Wee. Her scientist father works constantly and diligently in the basement, trying to create a genetically modified food source to nourish the billions of people that will overwhelm Earth in the years to come. When Melissa returns home with Pee Wee, she feeds the crustacean a handful of her father’s genetically enhanced grapes. The grapes cause Pee Wee to grow at a rapid rate, but when Melissa’s home blows up due to an experiment gone array that tragically kills both her parents, she’s left to be raised by naïve local sheriff uncle while she protects Pee Wee on her lake covered land. Twenty-years later, Melissa can no longer Pee Wee, who now goes by the name of Goliath, from slaughtering cattle, protecting it’s young, and seizing a small town full of trigger-happy rednecks!

Deep under the giant ocean of micro-budget directors, director Brett Piper is a name I’ve caught before on my critique fishing pole line. Nearly a decade ago, I viewed Piper’s biological terror film “Bacterium” and the estimated $30,000 E.I. Independent Cinema release had instilled hope in me that reviewing non-mainstream projects would be a promising venture and not an anguishing waste of time. Piper’s latest film “Queen Crab” distributed by Wild Eye Releasing continues to impress without the flashy green dollar signs. Working with “way less” than he had on “Bacterium,” Piper puts his unquenchable zaniness into hyper-drive, soaring through old time monster movies and creating one more lasting impression from a dying breed of late-night drive-in horror movies.

“Queen Crab” is a combination of Gordon Douglas’s “Them!” and Desmond Davis’s epic classic “Clash of the Titans,” cultivating similarities from both films. The stop-motion special effects animates the monstrous crab to life and creating a charming piece of movie magic. Pee Wee, the crab, is compiled of stop-motion animation, traditional effects, green screen, and literally minor computer imagery. Some scenes of Pee Wee look really fantastic while some obviously didn’t receive too much attention during post-production and that’s expected. Pee Wee, or Goliath when adult, looks phenomenally, and cheekily, stunning during stop-motion animation. Also, the superimposed backgrounds, creating an eerie atmosphere, adds to the bigger than life aspect of this small budget adventure.

A package like this comes complete with overemphasized, sometimes ear-aching, acting from a range of talented, yet novice, cast such as Michelle Simone Miller, Danielle Donahue, Rich Lounfello, Kathryn Metz, Steve Diasparra, Ken Van Sant and A.J. Delucia. When at first glance of the Wild Eye Releasing DVD cover, I wouldn’t have expected anything less from the multifaceted cast who look to be having just as much fun in being a part of the Piper project. The DVD cover does strike a familiar resemblance to Asylum Entertainment’s straight-to-DVD artwork with absurdity and does tell small tall tales with the explosive war zone artwork which is only half true, but Brett Piper and “Queen Crab” don’t try to create a facade and bluntly tells you, in the form of their artwork, that a giant crab ripping people to shreds and destroying stuff should be a film that never takes itself seriously no matter what the context the story is in.

The Wild Eye Releasing DVD cover defines the movie, but my real only gripe with this outside binding is why the synopsis. The backside synopsis doesn’t give an accurate portrayal of events and seems more tuned to classic monster movie scenario where a comet awakes a “centuries-old beast.” I don’t know what to say, but there’s certainly no comet involved. Other than that minor flaw, the DVD is accompanied with a good handful of extras that include a commentary with director Brett Piper and producer Mark Polonia, a blooper reel, behind the scenes featurettes, a sneak peak at Brett Piper’s “Tricyclops,” and trailers. “Queen Crab” creates larger than life horror, sci-fi, and fantasy fun for nearly all ages. I hope to see another Brett Piper creature feature film soon and hopefully it won’t take another decade!