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EVIL Manga to EVIL Movie! “Liverleaf” reviewed! (SRS Cinema / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“LIverleaf” Pushes Through the Bleak to Shine. On DVD Now!

The move from Tokyo to a dwindling rural town hasn’t been easy for middle schooler Haruka.  Most of her classmates have grown up with each other and formed vicious cliques that bully her relentless during and after school.  Mitsuru Abu, a photography enthusiast and Haruka’s classmate is also an outsider but has family ties to the area, is about her only friend and whom she finds attractive.  Upon returning home after spending the day together, Haruka finds her family home engulfed in flames, her mother and father dead, and her little sister severely burned over her entire body.  The loss of her family, her only emotional support, mentally compromises Haruka’s self-control and sends her spiraling into a revenge fueled murdering spree, targeting her bullying classmates who had a hand in the inferno of her family home.  The root of malevolence is not as it appears on the surface, and it will be up to Haruka to kill her way in finding the truth and reveal the secrets.

Adapted from the popular manga series, “Misu Misō,” written by Oshikiri Rensuke, the film version incorporates the indelicate dramas of being a school age teen in while reproducing faithfully the graphic gore, violence, and disturbing nature of character of the series in great detail.  Titled “Liverleaf,” as in the resilient, mountainous found three-lobe leafed flower that resembles the human liver and can withstand harsh winter conditions, is helmed by “Let’s Make the Teacher Have a Miscarriage Club” director Eisuke Naitô and penned by Miako Tadano of “The World of Kanako,” another manga-based film adaptation.  The 2018 film, which can be described as a revenge-drama with particle elements of horror, is shot in one of the snow-covered foothills of Japan’s mountain regions and is produced by Shigeto Arai (“We Are Little Zombies”) under the production banners of the Nikkatsu Corp. and the L’espace Film Co.

Anna Yamada is in the lead role that’s very familiar and culturally significant to Japanese cinema.  A scorn-born femme fatale that’s merciless and personnel, the kind of role that Quentin Tarantino exacted in his tribute to Asian revenge narrative with “Kill Bill,” starring Uma Thurman, hunting down the offending party and dispatching the scum from the Earth in a one-by-one fashion.  The “Suicide Forest Village” actress Yamada headlined “Liverleaf” as mid-to-late teen portraying the manga series’ preteen or early teenage girl Haruka Nozaki.  She isn’t the only nearly adult woman to play a teen in the throes of hormones, peer pressures, and angsty conditions sideswiped by wickedness and a taste for dominance as the whole student body pretends to be a youthful waste in a snowy, mountainside village on the verge of collapse.  Howling Village’s Rinka Ôtani, as Taeko Oguro, stands out with her bright orange hair and a sense of indifferent authority being the supposed head of the gaggle of bullying girls.  “Liverleaf” is Ôtani debut picture and Ôtani would eventually reteam with Yamada on “Suicide Forest Village,” but their first dichotomized performance as protagonist and antagonists brings a palpable tension to the screen.  Throw a boy both girls stoically can’t admit with a lot of expression and that pressure pot grows into an ugly shape of jealousy spurred love triangle.  Mitsuru Aibe is tall, handsome, kind, and a photography buff always looking for the raw and beautiful moment to capture on film.  Played by Hiroya Shimizu, “The World of Kanako” and “Sadako” actor instills that hope for the future and a glance of stability amongst the opposing craziness that has ensued between the rebirthed revenger Nozaki and the horrible highschoolers now fearing for their lives because of their responsible part for the monster they’ve created but does he really provide a safer, greener pasture Nozaki needs to return to once her retribution is complete?  Kenshin Endô, Masato Endô, Reiko Kataoka, Seina Nakata, Arisa Sakura, Aki Moita, Minoir Terada, Kazuki Ôtomo, and ReRena Ôtsuka are cast in one messed up and depressive high school student body that ends in a blizzard of bloodshed.

One thing about “Liverleaf,” if looking at and considering all the components of the feature as a whole, to take away from the adaptation is how Eisuke Naitô facsimiles the plot points of a manga series or, in more general terms, Naitô” has plucked the rudimentary concepts straight from any regular extreme manga series, not just from Oshikiri Rensuke’s Misu Misō.  Yet, “Misu Misō” is very faithfully extracted from the illustrated pages for live action execution down to many of the details with very few changes to the story’s original design. Gore has an extreme graphic nature juxtaposed against the snow, contrasting in homage to those historical revenge genre films set in the same harsh, white blanket, and like all the heroines, or anti-heroines, Haruka Nozaki speaks her soul in her outfit, dressed in a continuously deepening red after each gruesome dispatch of her classmates.  This saturation into crimson extends into this belief that Nozaki is bordering being supernatural, like most condemned women done wrong, who somehow find the superhuman strength, endurance, know-how, and resilience in their own disdain for blood and violence to slay beyond their normal means without batting an eyelash.  “Liverleaf” is not the chippiest of narratives with a coursing core of grim doom and gloom through a quickly dilapidating little town with an austere school, junk pits, and modest structures that inhabit indifferent teachers, brooding teens, and a mental illness that ranges from inherent sociopathy to social sociopathy of peer pressures and bullying. 

SRS Cinema brings manga pen and paper to the big screen with their unrated DVD release of the film adaptation titled “Liverleaf.”  The MPEG2 encoded, upscaled 1080p, DVD9 release is presented in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio.  “Liverleaf” stands out unusual from the other SRS releases, a company that prides itself on standard definition 480 and 720 resolutions and compressing features and their special features onto a packed DVD5 that creates eye artefacts on already low budget, commercial grade, inexperienced film.  Instead, “Liverleaf” has punchier colors and distinction on that segregates the austere from the vibrancy and the extra space helps allow for this decoding to be as smooth as possible on what some may now consider an antiquated format.  Decoding at a higher range of 7-9Mbps, compression imprudence doesn’t show itself here with a clean picture that retians inky voids, charted snow mounds and footprints in a white sheet of snow, and the colors and details on objects that natural enlarge themselves when in contrast, such as Nozaki’s red jacket or the red, orange, and yellow glow of house flames against the night sky.  The Japanese LPCM 2.0 stereo renders a clean mix of dialogue, ambience, and soundtrack.  Dialogue’s clean, crisp, and clearly upfront of a subdued diegetic sound mixed from the boom mic or from post and a Hisashi Arita soundtrack that scores Japanese revenge in non-traditional Japanese notes.  Post mix and action does create some separation that uncouples the visual onomatopoeia of the activity but remains negligible throughout.  The burned-in English subtitles synch well and are error-free.  Extras include a featurette from Manga to Movie that goes into the history of manga and the adaptation concept which most thought the film couldn’t be adapted, Elijah Thomas supplements with his own thoughts and opinions on “Liverleaf” as well as another featurette titled Liverleaf’s Obsession that looks at the character’s dangerous obsessive qualities, the trailer, a Oshikiri Rensuke, biography The Comically Twisted Mind of Oshikiri Rensuke with narrator voiceover going into the writer’s family history and “Misu Misō” genesis, the trailer, and talent files on Anna Yamada, Eisuke Naito, Hiroya Shimizu, Miako Tadano, and Rinka Otani.  These features house behind a static menu, that only has a play option alongside the extras, with a neat art illustration of a murderously ominous Naruka Nozaki.  The cover art hints at the film’s stark contrast aesthetics with a Naruka Nozaki wrapped her red coat and jetblack hair sprawled out on the white snow.  The Amaray does not come with a reversible cover nor any tangible extras inside.  DVD has region A only playback and has a runtime of 114 minutes. 

Last Rites: “Liverleaf” is a surprising, better-than-no budget teen revenge thriller that deals with obsession, depression, and a consternation that Haruka’s tragic journey through the pits of a lowly high school hierarchy will only get worse before it gets better.

“LIverleaf” Pushes Through the Bleak to Shine. On DVD Now!

There’s No EVIL Magic Cure for the Inevitable. “Bag of Lies” reviewed! (Dread / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

See What’s in the Bag! “Bag of Lies” on Blu-ray!

When everything seems to be going Matt and Claire’s way with a strong marital bond, a beautiful house, and rising careers, life throws them a nasty curveball – Claire is hit with inoperable, terminal cancer. Laid up in bed, her weak immune system and fleeting strength are spent on retching up the remains of the chemotherapy treatments she suddenly quits. Matt, under a considerable amount of pressure in losing his wife, has tried everything from conventional medical treatment to the snake oil practices of holistic cults. Desperate for a cure, Matt turns to a man and his bag. Not just any bag, but a bag given the right ritual and stated purpose will produce all that Mark desires and, in this case, the return of his wife’s good health. The man warns that rules must be followed and when Matt can’t uphold his end of the agreement, what he wishes for will still come true in a way most unpleasant.

“Bag of Lies” is the 2024 released supernatural thriller to boldly state that no matter whatever miracle cure is trialed or desperate attempted, one can’t stop the juggernaut of grim inevitability, and if somehow, someway one beats the momentous odds, nothing will ever be the same again or, perhaps, it will be worse.  Debuting his first feature, David Andrew James is the mastermind behind the screen treatment of the story, directing and writing the shooting script based off a story by Nick Laughlin, known for his art and props on “Wrong Turn” remake and “Bones and All,” and “Clever Girl” creator Joe Zappa that tackles one of the more painfully enduring occurrences of impending loss, the slow and excruciating rot of cancer that selfishly takes everything and all anyone, especially loved ones, can do is sit and watch the wasting away from internal consumption of being.  “Bag of Lies” is another Dread Presents and Traverse Terror collaboration, produced by Dread and Epic Picture’s Patrick Ewald and Matt Cleckner alongside Spencer Frazen, Joe Hui, Victoria McDevitt, Jake Heineke, and director David Andrew James.

One of the problems “Bag of Lies” has lies with the married couple Matt and Claire Quimby, played respectively by Patrick Taft and Brandi Botkin (“Bystanders,” “Wicked Ones”).  The problem is not chemistry as the affectionate teasing and relationship frustrations are the hallmarks done right to reflect any kind of amorous partnership on screen and the fact that Taft and Botkin have previously collaborated also makes establishing an already established couple a lot easier but the latter has been under different roles and conditions with Taft producing projects, such as “Wicked Ones,” and both also having roles in the same television series entitled “Wildfire” but overlapping only once in their own three episodes span.  The problem falls upon how their characters got to be where they are now and that creates an injustice to that particular unpleasant side of the story because the audience never experiences the good times the Quimby’s once had before cancer strikes at Claire, not even in a remote sense, and that ultimately fails them because its hard to fall long and hard if not privy to the height of their good fortune.  The lack of backstory extends to the supporting cast with Matt’s awfully empathetic cousin Harold (John Wells, “The Possessed”) who hangs around, brings over a 6-pack, and occasion reworks their basement to surprise Claire with an in-house music studio, more so the former two, and the mysterious man Al (Terry Tacontins) who offers or is sought out or is just happened upon, it’s unclear, the even more mysterious bag option to Matt with a vague understanding of instructions or the cost of what he’s about to unleash or sacrifice or both.  These supporting characters lack of reason for being a cog in the bigger machine seems happenstance rather than necessary to the progression or the problem in what evolves into more of a three-way triangle between Matt, Claire, and an unusual young woman sneaking into their house and property and has a quirky laugh and a dark circle on her palm, played by Madison Pullins (“Baby Oopsie: The Series”).  Aja Nicole and a Kayla Theis round out the cast as Matt’s doctor friend Gwen and local bartender Lilly who has loved one ailment issues that parallel to Matt.

The title “Bag of Lies” is a spin on the idiom a pack of lies, defined as a grouping of false statements or information led to deceit.  “Bag of Lies” plays and preys upon that deception of an all-in-one, quick-and-easy remedy aimed to be a cure-all when, in reality, the thing to solve all your problems is nothing but snake oil that builds hope out of desperation, that sees confidence stemmed from false promise, and instills blindness to the consequences it delivers.  David Andrew James favors suspending in disbelief more than what’s comfortable as Matt experiences haunting visions of ominous means to an end yet doesn’t seem too bothered to really dig into the background and so the story flounders in the second act with Matt just experience weird and frightening sights and sounds without even an attempt to explain, until near the end.  Frankly, if I kept seeing a quirky, quizzical madwoman constantly around and inside my house, the cops would be on speed dial.  Instead, Matt lets himself be silage for the taking, cut off from the rest of reality for the most part without ever going to the authorities, without ever confiding in his friends, nor without ever digesting his experiences and talking about it with his wife, who is usually part of the strange visional equation.  That isolation plays into the burdening effect of trying to beat the odds by doing it yourself and not asking for help, which is definitely being depicted here in Matt’s own surreal nightmare, but the lackadaisical effort and having one peculiar instance roll over him after another breaks down the story’s credibility.  Much like the cancerous rot that’s eating his wife from in the inside out, Matt’s own rot origins from being stagnant and it’s that do-nothing that bears the consequences of terrifying transfigurations in not only his sweet Claire but also in himself. 

“Invasion of the Body Snatchers” interlocked with desperation and a melancholic longing is how the “Bag of Lies” shapes fictional hope around a wrenched inevitability, similar to what the French author Guy de Maupassant once said,, “ the only certainty is death.”  Dread and Epic Pictures brings home an unrated, AVC encoded, 1080p high definition, BD25. Presented in a widescreen 2.40:1 aspect ratio.  Brandt Hackney’s shadowy cinematographer has a fairly nature presence in natural daylight sequences but utilizes a quite a bit of low-level, low-frequency lighting to create a soft incandescence and low-contrast shadows spreads.  Much of the same textures and colors are shown over and over and without that breadth of diversity, comparing scene-by-scene details are more than slim but what’s apparent is subordinate to the atmospheric lighting, or lack thereof, to create moody, broody dark house settings with little light to expose detail and color.  Even in bar sequences, the dimness doesn’t allow detail.  The English audio offerings are a Dolby Digital 5.1 and a Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo. What’s uniquely about the “Bag of Lies” audio facet is the distinct distortional soundtrack by James Paul Bailey who, in his own words, could never recreate or repeat the score again because of the randomized tones and feedback produces by temperamental distortion boxes, overlayed and modulated to produce a one-of-a-kind soundtrack to parallel the rotting horror “Bag of Lies” corkscrews into. Dialogue does the job with a clean and clear rendering by an indifferently satisfying sort of humdrum performances unfazed by the surrounding sideshow of black bag magic and the curious curiosity that’s emerging vocally from within its capacity. There’s decent localized range within Quimby house with conversating interactions with a door or a vent in between, using post-production to fill in hurling diatribes from the basement below toward Matt in Claire’s voice. English and Spanish subtitles are optionally available. Special features include a brief behind-the-scenes featurette with cast interviews voicing their deconstructing opinions about the story. Though not listed on the back cover, there is a longer, more in-depth featurette around James Paul Bailey’s distortion oeuvre for the film that’s quite comprehensive, plus the film’s trailer and other Dread Presents film trailers. Physical features are just like all the other bare minimum Dread-Epic Pictures release with a standard Blu-ray Amaray and no inserts. The cover illustration has clunky written all over it with a photoshop job of what looks like a giant dirty taco, but it’s the titular bag, with a dirty disfigured hand reaching up and out. The release has a region A playback and has a runtime of 96 minutes.

Last Rites: Neither great nor is it terrible, “Bag of Lies” skips a few key steps toward being a promising indie horror and though the theme is poignant, fantastical, and infused with a jarring soundtrack, the ironic inevitability is there is no cure for what can’t be fixed.

See What’s in the Bag! “Bag of Lies” on Blu-ray!

An Invisible, EVILociraptor is No Walk in Jurassic Park! “The Invisible Raptor” reviewed! (Well Go USA Entertainment / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Insivible Raptor” Tearing Onto Bluray! Buy it Here!

 once promising paleontologist is reduced to being a dinosaur theme park sideshow act after being swindled and sued for a discovery of a lifetime aboard.  When a deadly and intelligent lab created raptor escapes from its maximum-security confines, the paleontologist, an attractive ex-girlfriend returning into his life, and an eager townie security guard with no friends must put a stop to the first living, breathing carnivorous dinosaur in 65 million years, but tracking down an invisible creature with razor sharp talons and teeth is no easy task, and they must follow the carnage and bloodshed of its wake in order to stop it.  With little resources, relying mostly on the paleontologist’s expertise and the chummy security guard’s willingness to take life-or-death risks for his new friends, the trio rope in a local, rough-around-the-edges chicken farmer to persuade the foul ancestor into a madcap trap before the whole town becomes raptor food. 

Audiences shouldn’t care about another “Jurassic Park” sequel.  Instead, any cretaceous period anticipation should all be channeled and focused toward Mikey Hermosa’s “The Invisible Raptor.”  The 2023 comedy-horror is not land of the lost as it lands right in our homes on a new physical media release.  Written between first feature film writers Mike Capes and Johnny Wickham, the “Dutch Hollow” director Hermosa is not one bit phased by the prospect that his main villain is every bit nasty and furious as antagonists come but is entirely out of sight!   With the challenge accepted, Hermosa aims to pull of the next big comedy-horror dinosaur film since “Tammy and the T-Rex” while ribbing in fun it’s bigger, more successful, campy-somber, franchised brethren mercilessly.  Hermosa coproduces the Showbiz Baby and Valecroft production with writers Capes and Wickham as well as William Ramsey and Nic Neary with Well Go USA owning the theatrical and at-home presentation rights. 

Capes writes for himself as the hard-up paleontologist Dr. Grant Walker, a play on Sam Neill’s Dr. Allen Grant, who has succumb to being of caricature of his profession and while the Dr. Walker is downcast despite his credentials, educations, and reputation, opposite him is the town goof Deniel “Denny” Denielson (David Shackelford, “Beneath”), a friendless, family-less, theme park security guard who’s repute amongst his peer is lower than fossilized dinosaur crap, but his attitude remains cheerful and positive.  The two characters complement each other with budding growth in their arcs of Dr. Walker not pushing people away like he did with ex-girlfriend Amber (Caitlin McHugh) and Denny, with every ounce of his hillbilly being, trying to a fault to make a friend.  There’s a slew of eccentric side characters but one not more as colorful as chicken farmer Henrietta McClusky.  Played by the early 70-year-old Sandy Martin, the “Scalpel” role debuting actress who had a profound supporting character career having had a role in “Napolean Dynamite” and “Three Billboards Outside Ebbing, Missouri” in recent years continues her dry humor, dark comedy run with the Henrietta role a crude, rude, and with ton of attitude poultry farmer with a no nonsense way about her and while Henrietta is a deeply sexual creature in her own right, the amorous tension lies in between Walker and Amber that have instantly become two magnets in rekindling their lost flame.  The ease of which the two characters are written to be instantly smitten is greatly construction to be an almost an unattainable relationship by introducing a child with no relationship to either one of them, a decade long gap without a ton of hurt feelings for the other’s sudden decision of career over love, and, the obvious, a large, man-eating, invisible predator repelling the two magnets apart.  Sprinkled with familiar faces, “The Invisible Raptor” rounds out with notable cult film actors, such as Richard Riehle (“Office Space,” “Hatchet”), Larry Hankin (“Armed and Dangerous,” “Home Alone”), and Sean Astin (“Encino Man,” “Lord of the Rings”) as well as a cameo appearance from Vanessa Chester who played Dr. Ian Malcolm’s daughter in “The Lost World” in another potshot at the “Jurassic Park” series.

Between the hilariously staged “Jurassic Park” callback moments and an unnerving number of gags around the butt region (raptor feces, fossilized raptor buttholes, butt jokes in general), “The Invisible Raptor” has a lot of humor that’s either smart or misses the mark, but not by much in the cogently confined venture packed full of heart, heroism, and havoc on a prehistoric, science-fiction level.  “The Invisible Raptor” may be a modern-day gory comedy-horror but that gory-horror element combined with a bit of underground covert weaponization of dinosaur has a real throwback sense to the early 90’s to early 2000’s dino-horror, such as the “Carnosaur” films, “Tammy and the T-Rex,” and, of course, “Jurassic Park.”  Dino-horror is a niche subgenre that’s rare explored unless it’s totally satirical (“The Velocipastor,” “The Jurassic Dead”) or rooted more in a lost world aspect, sporadically released throughout the decades with “Raptor Island” or the more perilous journey of “Land of the Lost,” original series and it’s more comedic feature remake.  Hermosa quickly moves out from the testing bunker lab that has been the Raptor’s home and where the scientist treat it like an adored, harmless child, a theme of attachment to harmful things we shouldn’t be attached to and gets right into the mayhem by letting it loose in only a way one could perceive a raptor would – in indiscriminating bloodshed.   Hermosa also doesn’t flinch with an invisible titular foe, one the actors have to mentally conjure up to play against in a combative or cat-and-mouse scene, with neatly composited special and visual effects of floating objects, quickly consumed severed heads, and silhouette work through blood spray, heat vision, and a shower curtain by the talented Steve Johnson (“Lord of Illusions,” “Species II”) and Dorian Cleavenger, both of who bring years of experience and both of whom have worked together for the effects of Robert Englund’s “Fear Clinic.” 

Audiences won’t see this one coming!  “The Invisible Raptor” debuts onto an AVC encoded, high-def 1080p, Blu-ray courtesy of Well Go USA Entertainment.  The single-layer BD initiates some cause for concern on the image presentation prior to viewing but the picture produced is solid and stable with no banding in the darker voids, especially in those areas since there is no Raptor to be seen mostly during the night exteriors, poorly lit underground laboratory, or in the lowly key-lit interiors, there’s more shaded and hallow space exposed in the 1.78:1 widescreen aspect ratio.  Textured details are generally adequate with a softer, smoother touch from capacity compression, coupled with a hazy warm yellow-green lighting scheme.  The more standard, non-stylistic shots have better definition to where the details on Dr. Walker’s paleontologist outfit stand out amongst the eye glazing brown-and-tan colors and in the gooey grooves of the Velociraptor fecal matter complete with yellow kernels of corn.  Visual effects are handled with not too revealed explicitly to limit noticeable computer imagery and keep all that is practical the focus.  Audio options come in two English formats – a DTS-HD 5.1 and Stereo 2.0.  The range on this mix is explosive as it is subtle right down the clicks and grunts of the assumed noises one would be led to believe a prehistorical, carnivorous raptor would make.  Dialogue renders clearly and definitively prominent amongst ensuring bedlam cacophony whenever there’s a dino-crises in a more than one people grouping; the audio compilation has been carefully layered to denote exactly what’s intended to be discerned at that moment. English and French subtitles are available. There are no encoded special features on fluid menu of this feature only release but there is a quick bonus scene at the end credits. The physical copy has only a little bit more in the way of extra content with a cardboard, tactile-titled O-slipcover sporting the current state of arranged character pyramid composite. The snap lock Blu-ray Amaray is standard with the same cover art and no tangible extras inside. Rated R for bloody violence and gore, crude sexual material, drug use, and brief graphic nudity, Well Go USA’s release is region A encoded for playback and has a runtime of nearly 2 hours at 114 minutes.

Last Rites: Though the raptor may be invisible, this release should be seen by all! “The Invisible Raptor” is a hilarious “Jurassic Park” parody with plenty of bite, plenty of fun, and plenty of non-visible computer-generated dinosaurs, especially for those who are feeling the dinosaur fatigue.

“Insivible Raptor” Tearing Onto Bluray! Buy it Here!

Snuff is the New EVIL Industry Fad! “Snuff Queen” reviewed! (Dark Arts Entertainment / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Snuff Queen” on DVD from Dark Arts Entertainment!

Snuff, a hot commodity amongst patrons of the black market and dark web provides real violence and real death for real morbid viewers.  Laws are challenged and circumvented by consent of women willing to die for money through various ways of asphyxiation in front of the camera and sold under the controversial snuffing genre.  A Ten-minute window of revival separates the actors and actresses from permanent brain damage or certain expiration.  A snuff performer interfaces with the complexity of thrills and easy money that counterbalances against relationship troubles, social stigma, and the constant threat of actually dying hanging over their heads, or more literally, pressed against their throats.  A handful of willing performances lets a documentarian illustrate their niche profession, lifestyle, and personal struggles to the world with included behind-the-scenes footage on set and in their private spaces as they put on their line mind, body, and soul have to survive.

Those who seek out snuff, even if represented in a sensationalized, fictious way to glorify gore, violence, violence against women, and a fascination, obsession need to satisfy murder lust, likely need to have their heads thoroughly scoured for the tiniest ounce of sociopathic tendencies.  Films like “Effects,” “Faces of Death,” “8MM,” “A Serbian Film,” and the like all contribute to that black desire of control of another person’s existence and getting off perversely on the sadism.  Films like Sean Russell’s “Snuff Queen” are nothing like those more aberrant productions of cruel reproductions.  The 2023 pseudo-documentary and mockumentary hybrid began in 2008 with AVN interviews with porn stars and their take the matter of snuff or overall rough sex.  Shelved for many years because no producer at the time deemed the material worth making a movie out of it, Russell is approached by Dark Arts Entertainment’s Brian Yuzna and John Penney to finish the film with new scenes based off the 2008 script but cut most of the comedy out for a darker tone.  David Navarro producers the film.

Previously shot 2008 AVN interview footage with some of the then biggest talent in the industry, such as Sasha Grey, Bree Olson, Stormy Daniels, Jenna Haze, Stoya, Faye Reagan, Jesse Jane, Belladonna, Aurora Snow, Jessica Drake, Sunny Lane, and even Larry Flynt, is cut into snippets of a montage as they comment on death and sex in various contexts.  The series of comments and quips puts into perspective individual limitations, mindsets, behaviors, and an unfiltered truth underneath the layers of makeup, fake breasts, and forged happiness in the adult entertainment industry masked in glitzy red lights, supersized sex drives, and a prospecting tease of getting laid.  As the 2008 prologue interviews ends, the 2023 interviews begin with mostly scripted talk following the daily lives of a handful of snuff performing women, 4 principal female characters to be exact.  Moxie Owens (“Girl Lost:  A Hollywood Story”) as Jane Doe, Lexie Leone (“It Don’t Bother Me at All”) as Amy Doe, Juliet Kennedy as Angela, and Lindsay Normington (“Anora”) as Audrey Doe become the diverse batch of short-listed actresses of controversial and law-bending snuff films. These core cast of women are joined by gap-filling support, ranging from gays, to blacks, to Asians, and so forth by extenuating out from just a white female dominated industry in touching cultural and race by the less promoted numbers of adult entertainment. Much of “Snuff Queen’s” inauthenticity garb comes from the acting that’s densely overplayed and exaggerated because of the less-comedic directive by shot-calling distributors and performances stand out amongst a darker theme as too watery and less potent, like off-brand prescription drugs. Ironically enough, IMDB.com gives in the title’s controversial nature by not listing the film under any of the actor’s individual credits as to say or allure “Snuff Queen” documentary as real evidence and content based. Tuesday Knight (“A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Master”), Josie Hung (“Staycation”), Gina DeFlilippo, Captain Dare, Zac Mendoza, Neill Flemming (“It Kills at Midnight”), Christopher Parker (“Spider”) and Jake Holley costar.

Much of what is laid out in “Snuff Queen,” all the provocative and debatable ethics, legality, and portentous aspects of Snuff, is all a load of crap and the director, Sean Russell, would be the first person to tell you that.  What Russell intends to convey is an allegorical emotional evaporation in adult entertainment performers and how apathetic the industry is toward the safety and responsibility for its talent who battle with low self-esteem and anger issues that either drive wedges between friend and family or ensue verbal spouts.  There’s also the treatment or being seen as just a bag of meat for the slaughter when getting the shot is important than the person taking all the risk for little reward.  Russell achieves that endgame message despite the cuts of levity humor that do squeeze through every so often but with that squeeze-in of a dark humor chuckle, coincided with a reserved approach to a documentary surrounding Snuff of all things extreme, in lies an off-putting characteristic going against the grain of the film’s black toned nature and Russell’s indelicate undercurrent theme.  “Snuff Queen” is nowhere near the shock level its required to have, especially being bestowed a taboo title, with little-no-effort in the thickness of the story’s creative girth; instead, the 2008 interviews, snipped scenes from previous controversial films, and one atypical scene at the heart of the story teases with stark nudity and blood are the only edgier content of a rather dull feature length pseudo-documentary. 

Presented in a widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio, Dark Arts Entertainment distributes the home release of “Snuff Queen” on DVD.  The MPEG2, 720p and 1080p, DVD9 has stark grade resolutions due to the 2008 recorded interviews and footage shoot 15-years later in 2023 with the former a blockier, less-pixelated digital camcorder for ease of AVN, working the crowd, person-to-person use.  Recent footage has the polished look of a high-dollar digital recording sans any artistic grading or stylistic lens.  No issues with compression codec that produces a very fine, detailed image reproduction that sinks into inky blacks and retains a natural color palette.  “Snuff Queen” is authored with a LPCM English stereo mix that’s an imitation of a hot mic of continuous dialogue, as many real, pseudo, and mock documentaries are, that renders cleanly through from one bookend to the other.  There’s also not a ton of interference other than in the 2008 interviews at the AVN with perhaps more commercial equipment or audio setup.  The onboard mic snags the milieu sounds with the raw range and depth.  English subtitles are available.  Encoded special features include a director’s commentary that goes through the first planned steps for the film and its subsequent rejections from producers back in 2008, deleted scenes, and the film’s trailer.  Physical features are stark and spartan with a convention DVD Amaray that has a mock polaroid border and the redacted eyes and mouth of a faceless, chest high naked woman that draws attention in conjunction with the title.  Dark Arts Entertainment presents the release not rated, region free, and has a runtime of 92 minutes. 

Last Rites: “Snuff Queen” might have worked 15-years ago with the old footage that contained real pornstars and real enough gore effects that could have turned this concept onto a creative machination in illusion of the truth or a clever black comedy that really pokes the porn industry in the ribs, but instead time and too many hands the creative pot has relinquished any power “Snuff Queen” may have wielded, dethroning it definitly out of shock contention.

“Snuff Queen” on DVD from Dark Arts Entertainment!

A Memory Fuels EVIL’s Sexualized Resurrection. “Scream of the Blind Dead” reviewed! (Full Moon Features / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Scream of the Blind Dead” Now on DVD!

Arriving by train to the deserted, medieval ruins of a once great 14th century town, a woman wanders aimlessly through the dilapidated structures left standing and eventually finding a peaceful resting spot on a church pew before the Holy Trinity.  Alone with her amorous thoughts for another woman, her very presence stirs the awakening a blind undead corpse out from the slumbering, Earthly tomb, the resting place of a once righteous Templar knight of a prestigious order once assigned to protect Christian values with sword and shield but disbanded and accused of occult heresy.  Being chased from dark corner to dark corner inside the ruins’ isolated, labyrinth wall, the woman narrowly escapes the relentless knight’s bloodlust blade.  She is not only frightened by the razor-sharp sword of the ghostly, ghastly figure, a dirtily shrouded, mummified corpse, but what evokes within her, her own dark, secretive past of love, murder, and vengeance, will haunt her to death.  

Director Chris Alexander has settled himself in the realm of the homage.  The Canadian filmmaker is well-known for his tribute films toward specific directors and trope styles within the creepshow genre that allow him to express his own artistic take on a classic.  “Scream of the Blind Dead” is Alexander’s latest to follow suit based off the original concept and characters by Amando de Ossorio and the Spanish director’s Blind Dead series, beginning with “Tombs of the Blind Dead” in 1972 which is the featured inspiration of Alexander’s short remake film.  The 2021 homage is penned by the “Girl with a Straight Razor” director but is also progresses forward without dialogue in what is like a music video for Ossorio’s original film, slimmed down to the principal character and one blind undead knight for much of the story.   Alexander created Delirium Films, a Full Moon sublabel to release his own productions under, conjoining the once Fangoria editor to the hip of Charles Band, as coproducer, to stretch the imagination of terror even further.  Kevin Cormier and Cheryl Singleton also coproduce the short.

You won’t see a herd of horses or a horde of blind, rotting knights on horseback in the “Scream of the Blind Dead” nor will you there be a collective degree of humans fighting for against the dead for their very lives.  Instead, two women and one knight consist of the entire cast, pared down to the two chief female characters Betty and Virginia, though they’re not explicitly named in the story, but the gist of designation is there.  Betty is played by Ali Chappell, a mainstay regular in many of Chris Alexander directorial repertoire, having roles in “Necropolis:  Legion,” “Girl with a Straight Razor,” and “It Knows Your Alone” while also being quite the scream queen in other horror projects from the 2019 anthological “The Final Ride” to last year’s “Malediction” which she debuted as a director as well.  As Betty, the short-lived role sets the dark synth soundtrack-driven tone lengthened by use of slow-motion and additional edits to build suspense and does harp back to the premise and spirt of Ossorio’s brand of Spanish horror.  Not as seasoned as Chappell in credits, the casting of Virginia goes to Stephanie Delorme, a brunette in contrast to Chappell’s blonder shade, who finds herself being chased, melodramatically I might add, by an undead knight.  Delorme’s frightful face and lumbering getaway cadence have the hallmarks of a good final victim being pursued on common horror of past, present, and future but her direction to stop and stare, almost waiting in frozen terror, is reminiscent of yore when the act of escape is negated by the sheer shock.  These are the moments audiences yell at the screen, pleading for movement, to do something other than just stand there and gape at the monster before them.  Chasing Virginia is no ordinary templar knight but a female templar knight, played by all-things-horror enthusiast, musician, and another of Alexander’s on-screen regulars Thea Faulds, under her showbiz name of Thea Munster.  Munster dons two parts connected by death as Virginia’s lover in flashback and the ghoulish knight chasing Virginia. 

“Scream of the Blind Dead” has haunting connotations of past guilt or along the lines of the soul-touching past catching up to one’s beleaguered conscious, hence why Virginia wanders the countryside in search for answers, stopping or resting along the way into a state of pain or melancholy of a memory, and comes upon a church, perhaps unintentionally to confess her darkest sins or find solace in forgiveness.  However, it wouldn’t be a horror show without some fort of graveside penance from an unearthing corpse, slowly sauntering to seek eviscerating Virginia’s regret from her exposed, beach chic-cladded abdomen.  Right before being engrossed in the standard chase fair, scenes of Virginia self-groping from fantasizing the physical touch her female lover add a layer of sensuality yet to have context other than a strong passion within Virginia, whether it’s in her heart or loins is indeterminable, but shortly after singlehandedly pleasuring herself, a female knight, with pursed mummified lips, resurrects from inside the church where Virginia rests and the slow-motion macabre begins, moving about different backdrops within the ruins and field exteriors that are basked in neon gelled key lighting that creates a smokey psychedelic, or hallucinogenic, fever dream atmosphere, a nightmare experience only fabricated in deep-seeded guilt-trips.

“Scream of the Blind Dead” short salute to Amando de Ossorio and the “Blind Dead” series is honorable enough to keep the always nitpicking fanbase from picketing. Full Moon Features distributes the MPEG2 encoded DVD5 presented in 720p resolution and a widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio. Picture quality through a lower resolution and a patchwork of sizzling vibrant neon lights scores across a refined image with fuzzy details and indiscernible outlines. On the color scale, there’s plenty of range through the assortment of abrasive key lighting that illuminates the rustic, rundown church and surrounding area of mostly greens and browns. Sound selection offers a lossy English Dolby Digital 5.1 and Stereo 2.0 that absolutely has a soundtrack that trades the tings of a fortepiano for a theremin but still digs into the familiar tones of Antón García Abril’s ominous industrial-synth score that lingers eerily with resonating vocals. Very few moments do in-frame sounds from the actresses come over, entirely all screams in what was mostly done in post with a clear separation from action. Because of the music video approach with no dialogue, the lossy format is nulled by what’s really a psychosexual visual experience. English closed captioning is available. Special features a feature-length director’s commentary with Chris Alexander, two music videos including Thea Munster with her thermin solo entitled Werewolfry and the other track Burial Ground from her band Night Chill, the official trailer, and the Delirium Films’ trailers. Full Moon’s No. 355 title comes in a standard DVD Amary with a mixed illustration and live photo cover art that befits the body of work. There are no slipcovers, inserts, or other tangible materials set next to the disc pressed with the same knight silhouette but with a buzzing blue outline. At feature length, “Scream of the Blind Dead” would have been too long with Alexander’s stylistic outlet but at a crisp 40 minutes has a greater success rate for a not rated, region free releases that mostly lambent lights and ethereally evil sans actor dialogue.

Last Rites: “Scream of the Blind Dead” is not blind to the Ossorio source material and captures the core center of the Spanish director’s picture of history crusades on the ignoble never dies while Chris Alexander twists into it a fever dream of sexual fervor, slenderized for a post-impressionist style.

“Scream of the Blind Dead” Now on DVD!