Category Archives: Trailers

It is what it is.

Biding Time Can Be Dystopianlly EVIL and Claustrophobic. “Tin Can” reviewed! (Dread / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Tin Can” on Sale Now at Amazon.com!

A viral fungus pandemic has plagued the world.  Fret, a parasitologist, has worked toward a cure to stop the spread of a virus that grows Clavaria-like basidiocarps from inside out the body that’ll eventually enclose the victim to death in an organic cocoon.  Before Fret can develop and distribute the recently discovered global cure for the virus, she awakes in a confined metal container constructed to suspend life duration for those who contracted the illness.  Confused and disoriented, Fret learns she’s not alone as others awake around her and able to talk with through the containers, including your infected husband John.  Unaffected by the virus and believed to be encapsulated in error, Fret works desperately on an escape from her well-intended prison in order to save humanity before it’s too late.   

By now, most of us can relate to a pandemic-driven storyline because, well, you know, COVID.  The 2020 sci-fi body horror “Tin Can” is no exception despite having been filmed prior to all the pandemic induced deaths and lockdowns.  Perhaps premise creator and director Seth A. Smith had a little foresight into coming events that inspired the Canadian project co-written with Darcy Spidle.  “Tin Can” is the fourth pen-to-paper collaboration between Smith and Spidle who previously completed two feature films (“Lowlife,” 2010 / “The Crescent,” 2017) and one short (“The Brym,” 2016) along with “The Willows,” the duo’s fourth feature film and revolving once again around preternatural events, that is currently in pre-production. For “Tin Can,” Smith and Spidle entangle a science fictional, dystopian, Hell in a handbasket world with selfish motives that outweigh saving the world. Seth A. Smith’s Nova Scotia based production company, Cut/Off/Tail Pictures, develops the story produced by company producer Nancy Ulrich and financially backed by the executive producing team of Michael Baker, Marc Savoie, Tim Lidster, and Rob Cotterill (“Possessor”).

“Tin Can” might evoke a sense that one main character will be the focus point for the entire storyline, such as with “Buried” that stays put on the singular person trapped in this very tight, very claustrophobic-inducing soda can. Yet, that is not such the case with “Tin Can” that does circle around a centerpiece character in Fret (Anna Hopkins, “V/H/S/94”) but the cure-all scientist waking up in a life-extending canister while on the edge of saving mankind isn’t alone. Surrounding Fret are strangers, colleagues, and even her husband, some of whom, such as her husband, are suffering the protruding fungal fairy fingers of the virus. Anna Hopkins fields a hefty, difficult role after an initially a humble beginning as a scientist that more so-or-less feels the pangs of a low rent indie, but as Hopkins’ Fret transcends time by waking up weeks (or maybe months…years?) later, her environment becomes frantically imprisoning. The tight confines of the titular object with medical tubes dangling from the ceiling, a Tracheostomy tube down the throat, a malfunction video screen, and mysterious bars that light up one-by-one set a stronger stage for the actress to be put up against and Hopkins nails the mindset of a woman vehement and determined with escape to not only save her own life but the life of billions across the planet. In the cans beside Fret, providing Hopkins with more serve-and-volley fuel, is her husband John (Simon Mutabazi) inflicted by disease but becomes more than just a victim, Wayne (Michael Ironside, “Starship Troopers”) who I couldn’t really grasp as a component in the story as he’s like a project financier in the tin can project to save his own skin from being reskinned by fungus, Darcy (Amy Trefry) as a colleague-friend of John and Fret, Whistler (Tim Dunn, “The ABCs of Death”) who is the most interesting and weird doomsayer of the bunch, and a fist banging mute (Sara Campbell) also inflicted. For much the back-and-forth in the cannister talk, the dynamic is more of a talking head roundtable of initial discussions of popping open a small air vent so they sce outside their enclosed cell and eventually lead to more depth and deception that narrows the story with the what, when, why, and how.

“Tin Can” aspires to be a chaptered three-act conundrum. I don’t mean that in a negative perspective. What Smith brings into existence is a polished independent film of Cronenberg-esque and has ensuing weirdness act-after-act only paralleled by the double-crossing exoneration or a retaliating impugn of keeping one alive after being severely scorned. The first act plays out like the world of today, a devastating pandemic that has ravaged the human population. The second act unsheathes the mystery of waking up inside the tin can device with people she knows and is eager to discharge herself from a capsule that’s supposed to sustain her life. Then, the third act rolls in, the third and final chapter, and time has officially been corrupted as we know it with a futuristic beings suited in various colored alloys. Alloys are definitely a theme beginning with title “Tin Can.” Fret discovers a cure for the diseases by commingling it with an alloy and each containment artificer is suited in a different metal and are credited as Copper, Gold, Silver, etc. What Smith could be suggesting is the element that could cure us could also incapacitate or, even worse, transfigure our existence with a lifesaving, yet life altering, solution to the extreme. Cinematographer Kevin Fraser industrializes the look of “Tin Can’s” existential view and is a glorious rusty bucket of a cheerless life. If Smith wanted to convey a life of nihility and automaton, Fraser nailed down the oxidation state. “Tin Can’s” a cold hard look at the cost of saving the world that, in the end, might not be worth saving.

A part of the Dread Central at home release line, “Tin Can” arrives onto a high-definition Blu-ray distributed by Epic Pictures and MVD Visual. The region free Blu-ray is presented in a throwback 3:2 with letterboxing and has a color reduction implemented to give it that demoded depiction. Image looks amazing without an inkling of any kind of compression issues especially with many of the scenes shot in darker and bleaker circumstances. Fraser delivers some awe-inspiring, creative angles that produce a how-did-they-do-that response to get a 360-degree single take of Anna Hopkins in the cannister or the rotation of a limp body on a large wheel door. The Dolby Digital 5.1 English audio mix has solid sound design as more than half of the picture is off the principals talking through their metallic cylinder containers that created a muffled depth and low range flickering in the backorder, the mechanized hum mixed with scraping metal, does wonders to sell the dystopian effect that borders steampunk. No inherent or noticeable flaws in the final product. English subtitles are available. Special features include a commentary with Seith A. Smith, The Last Bell Doe Toll – the making of “Tin Can'” exhibits the construction and creation of the displaced subsequent future, how to achieve a few of those crazy Kevin Fraser shots, and provide cast and crew interview insights, and the bonus content rounds out with two music videos – The Last Bell Does Toll and ZAUM – The Enlightenment (Part I). “Tin Can” runs at 104 minutes and is not rated. “Tin Can” is ingenious on a level many will not fully understand and, frankly, I barely can tether my impression and have it make sense, but there’s a unique ore core to this science fictional, ill-fated fantasy that can be so odd at times you can’t help but not look away.

“Tin Can” on Sale Now at Amazon.com!

Starve EVIL With Unseen Faith. “A Banquet” reviewed! (Second Sight / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

After the long-term care of her terminally ill suffering husband, he suddenly commits suicide right in front of her and right in front of their oldest daughter who just came home.  Holly must now pull it together for her two teenage daughters, Betsey and Isabelle.  Drowning in debt to maintain a wealth front of normalcy, Holly puts on the facade to juggle life’s adversities to order to keep the family above water, but when Betsey is overcome by an apocalyptic vision that intermittently possesses her behavior, Holly’s unsure of how to cope as any threats of committing Betsey for treatment is rebutted by talks of suicide.   Betsey goes into deep trances, deep sleeps, and won’t eat despite not losing any weight and as imaginations run wild of what’s driving her unusual behavior, Holly must contend to survive and triumph not only in her daughter’s wellbeing but in all of the seemingly insurmountable problems threatening to tumble down and crush her spirit.

If you’re a fan of elevated horror then Ruth Paxton’s debut dysfunctional family drama horror, “A Banquet,” will tickle your thinking pickle.  While some would argue there is no need for elevated horror in the genre, sometimes exercising the old thinker can be immensely stimulating as well as scary in the same breath.  The 2021 psychological thriller-horror hailing from the United Kingdom was one of the first productions shot in the thick of government issued pandemic lockdowns that tossed the moviemaking job market into a frenzy, scary void of uncertainly and, what seemed like, an eternal limbo, similar to what “A Banquet” offers in its multifarious themes and interpretations that involve faith and religion, family hierarchy, and postural image.  With many departmental crews and cast out of a job and unable to find work during forced lockdowns, “A Banquet” became a beacon of hope and a chance to indulge a passion no matter how little it paid.  “A Banquet” is penned by Justin Bull (“Merge”) and was secured by first time producer Leonora Darby with Nik Bower (“Replicas”), James Harris (47 Meters Down”), Mark Lane “Cockneys vs Zombies”), and Laure Vaysse (“A Dark Place”) co-producing the conglomerated production from HanWay Films, Riverstone Pictures, Tea Shop Productions, and Reliance Entertainment Productions 8 LTD.

“A Banquet” surrounds around a nuclear family minus the patriarch who immediately removed from the picture within the first five-minute opener in a powerful scene of weary difficulty, distressing pain, and a harsh untethering of a burden that begins the inklings of the uncanny to come. Enter mother Holly (Sienne Guillory, Paul W.S. Anderson’s “Resident Evil” franchise) and her two daughters, Betsey (Jessica Alexander) and Isabelle (Ruby Stokes), into the frame weeks, maybe months later, and resided to the loss. Playing the center of concern is the raven-haired Jessica Alexander in what is one of her first feature film performances and it’s a doozy.  As Betsey, a mild-manner older teenage girl at the forefront of adulthood, Alexander earns the chance to showcase herself in a variety of ways with a role that transcends from a docile daughter to a variable vessel of unknown origin that’s haunting and unpredictable as you can never tell what’s taken control over Betsey is naturally good or evil.  Alexander even gets to dip her toes into, or rather dig her fingers into, gross and horrifying practical effects with brilliant results.  Opposite Alexander in the role of the mother, Holly, is Sienna Guillory, a beguiling veteran actress now in the throes of maintaining the routine and keeping appearances aggregated up to snuff.  Guillory exudes a bottled-up pressure that’s so immense it can be translate right off the screen and into the viewer.  There’s plenty of tension in the story but most of it is concentrated right on Guillory’s embodiment of a mother treading desperately in deep waters.  A maelstrom of frustration, fear, loathing, and neglect eviscerate Holly open to shoulder her family’s bleeding and she claws frantically, with poise, to cauterize the fissure.  Isabelle is a fascinating and almost unintentionally forgotten character that is meant to evoke that effect as the neglected younger sister.  While we’re constantly orbiting Holly and Betsey’s, we lose track of Ruby Stokes’s Isabelle yet the upcoming star for Netflix’s “Lockwood and Co.” Stokes paints a potent psychological picture of Isabelle being on the backburner.  Raw and tragic, Stokes subtly pushes Isabelle, who initially is the more cavalier and disobedient of the two sisters, to strive for attention in her own way whether be that longing glance into the stands when her mother isn’t paying her mind during figuring skating instruction or wanting to reluctantly engage in alcohol and sex just to outlet that notice me energy elsewhere.  Concluding this bloodline of women is the more draconian matriarch, Grandmother June, with an uncompromising and plain-spoken fascia erected by Lindsay Duncan (“Body Parts”).  Duncan’s fine snide performance compounds the pressure on Holly and is a cold bucket of ice water to her granddaughters when speaking her mind, telling them simply stop pretending, and remind them of their mother’s own historical mental problems in a matter-of-fact tone.  Between the four, there’s individualistic dominance over each of their domain without an ounce of withdraw or relief until the bitter end and that dreadful dynamic sets the tone for the “A Banquet” austere veneer and tone.

“A Banquet” is a lot to unbox and chew on in this women-driven created film.  Open for a many number of interpretations, based on one own’s spiritual outlook or personal opinions, Ruth Paxton tees up a broader theme of centrical growth of stepping outside another’s shadow.  The message can be applied to Holly and her two daughters as each one of them attempts to move forward or past a routine of some form of contempt.  Isabelle is trying to get out of her sister’s shadow, Holly bristles against her overbearing mother, and Betsey is being supernaturally guided through a symbolically painful transition of growing up into an adult as if the process came naturally. Blunt defiant moments shine Betsey’s overall separation from mother’s control, such as threatening to kill herself if her mother institutionalizes her or in during the number of elaborately prepped dinners that Holly slave over are just pushed aside and untouched by Betsey. Those dinners, in themselves, are a sign of privileged with fine dining right at their fingertips with no sign of hot dogs or sloppy joes in sight. Holly strives to maintain that sense of luxury, which is another form of control but, in this case, is Holly’s mother June whose elitist fundamentals enslave Holly to live up to the hype. Systematically, each member of the family, working up the ladder from youngest to oldest, breaks the inherent status quo. What Betsey undergoes is mystically charged after she emerges from the woods a changed woman and what might seem like a possession of sorts, we don’t exactly know if the extent of what inhabits her is wicked or actually good as the pendulum sways constantly between being enlightened and being cursed. There’s plenty of allusions toward a religious experience with encouragement of faith and rapture talk that not only spooks Holly but also makes her the primary subject of Betsey’s claim to save. When the time does come, and Betsey passes through a substitutionary atonement, the end scene shows Holly being embraced by a candescent light that illuminates from within her. Is it being saved or is it something else? Ruth Paxton smashes her first feature with an elevated deconstruction of a family obliviously rotting at the core and attacks the film with dispirited ambiance sewn to dread.

Feast your eyes on the new limited-edition Blu-ray set of Ruth Paxton’s “A Banquet” from Second Sight films. The region B, PAL encoded UK boxset presents the film in 1080p widescreen 2.39:1 aspect ratio with a frame rate of 23-24 fps. David Liddel’s deep and encroaching cinematography of somber is highly effective in dulling out any kind of hope that might try to sneak in and with Liddel’s close-to-mid shots of macro-sized foods of all fresh and decaying varieties and in the middle of the more volatile struggles between mother and daughter opens up “A Banquet” to a plethora scene being uncomfortable moments. Details are sharp and colors are about as rich as Liddel can make them inside a grey-covered world. The English language set comes with two audio options: a DTS-HD 5.1 and a LPCM 2.0 stereo. DTS is clearly more robust through the various channels with a well-balanced mix. Other than a few outlier moments in the forest that disperse the dialogue in a naggingly boxy echo that doesn’t fit the environment, dialogue is discerningly clean and clear of obstructions and damage, as if there would be any on a digital record. Optional English subtitles are also available. Bonus material includes an interview with director Ruth Paxton Deformity of the Flesh on creating her first film during the height of the pandemic, an interview with star Jessica Alexander Improvised Exorcism in which she discusses her experience soup-to-nuts from hiring to completion, an interview with producer Leonora Darby Producing a Feast who notes about the difficulties of being a first-time producer in pandemic time, an interview with cinematographer David Liddel Dark Edges on how he creates “A Banquet’s” gloomy aura and creative shooting angles, the Q&A from Glasgow Film Festival with Paxton, Alexander, and Sienna Guillory, and a making of featurette. The limited-edition physical boxset is a sturdy vessel of beauty with a rigid slipcase with new artwork by Jen Davies, a 56-page soft cover picture and essay book with thoughtful examinations by novelist Alexandra Heller-Nicholas (“1000 Women in Horror”), film critic and writer Jennie Kermode, and Heather Wixsn, the managing editor of the Daily Dead. The contents round out with 6 collectable art cards. The film has a runtime of 97 minutes and is certified 15 for strong threat, language, suicide, self-harm, and drug misuse. “A Banquet” is lavishly cataclysmic as a divinely damning dish of a broken, dysfunctional family made to order by first time director Ruth Paxton with more to say.

Four Kids to Stop EVIL From Wiping Out The Rest of Mankind. “The Walking Dead: World Beyond” final Season reviewed! (Acorn Media International / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

The last time we saw the four Colony Campus travelers trekking across country, Hope and Huck were helicoptering back to the Civic Republic Military, Iris and Felix find Will to learn their home has been wiped out, Silas sacrifices himself up to the CRM for his friends to get away, and Elton discovers Percy alive but severely injured after uncovering Huck’s deceit.  Separated and deeply rooted into their own difficulties and dilemmas, the long-term goal is to survive and find each other again while unearthing clarity around the CRM’s true top-secret military operations – wiping out neighboring alliance colonies with lethal gas.  Hope reunites with her father to assist in how to quickly eradicate the dead but the advancement in their works comes across CRM immoral hurdles that force the group into radical action against the most powerful and well-organized military faction known to what remains of mankind. 

“The Walking Dead” spinoff series, “World Beyond,” comes to a close on the two-season arc that aims to die up bits and pieces of connective elements into the ever-expanding universe that is “The Walking Dead.” Showrunners Scott Gimple and Matthew Negrete return to season two with a drive to give fans a broader sense of the enigmatic Civic Republic Military (aka CRM), to supplement a main series character’s hand in the fate of the human race, and to take continue to reach across the domestic planes to show that there’s more than just Georgia-Virginia heat and TexMex dead and drama. Gimple and Negrete’s “World Beyond” is the little brother of the series two predecessors but offers same amount of drama under a blanket of undead gore. Friendships will be tested, moralities will be checked, and the dead will still walk in this ancillary limited series that runs from 2020 to 2021, totaling 20 episodes. David Alpert, Brian Bockrath, Maya Goldsmith, Gale Anne Hurd, Ben Sokolowski, and also across the TWD universe and graphic novelist co-creator Robert Kirkman return to season two as executive producers under the presentation of American Movie Classics (AMC) with Idiot Box, Circle of Confusion, Skybound Entertainment, and Valhalla Entertainment serving as production studios.

Season one regulars Aliyah Royale, Alexa Mansour, Hal Crumpston, Nicholas Cantu, Nico Tortorella, and Annet Mahendru return to see their characters through the waves of the flesh-biting undead and the unbridled, unchecked power trips to the bitter end. Performances from season one into season two two retain individual natural orders of progression within the slogging imbroglio surrounding one ultimate thematic goal – to survive without sacrifice. From the regular cast, Aliyah Royale, Alexa Mansour, and Nico Tortortella step up in the rapid-fire series of blistering complexions based on the known and unknown facts of the environments or colonies that influence them. Tortorella actually showcases some of his fighting choreography unlike what we’ve experienced in the first season, making his Felix character that much more bad ass. Hal Crumpston, Nicholas Cantu, and Annet Mahendru don’t necessarily provide inedible takes of their equally thrust in turmoil characters but also don’t take their themselves to the next level. I still find Huck, played by Mahendru, to be average in a key role of double-edged duplicity. Plus, that forced deep Southern accent doesn’t do Huck justice, forged to contend with her military trained and tough cozenage. Crumpton remains flatlined with Silas’ two-toned solo-pot of emotions and Nicholas Cantu, who I consider the philosophical voice of reason for the group, isn’t provided enough screen time substance in season two to make an impact as his personal tribulations, such as learning Hope killed his mother during day one of zombie fallout, are dropped with barely a mention. New series regulars come aboard stemmed from their provisional season one stints. Joe Holt becomes more involved as Iris and Hope’s scientist father, Ted Sutherland reoccurs as Percy being found injured and is nursed back to health to seek revenge on Huck as well as become Iris’s love interest, Jelani Alladin returns with a fulltime status as Felix’s partner and has more of security role pivotal to the rebellious efforts against the CRM, and Julia Ormond returns as Huck’s mother and as Lt. Colonel Kubleck aimed to do what must be done in order to achieve mankind’s longevity. The new regulars, with the addition of new newcomer Maxmillian Osinski, breathe new life and new complexities of a narrative’s David and Goliath’s approach with added poignant distress as well as subdued hope. The cast rounds out with Natalie Gold, Anna Khaja, Will Meyers, Madelyn Kientz, Robert Palmer Watkins, Gissette Valentin, and “The Walking Dead” crossover Pollyanne McIntosh as Jadis filling in as a CRM head honcho with a new and approved queerish haircut.

The second season promises a whole new set of perils through the world of the undead and, to be more specific, “World Beyond” pivots the focus from the dead to the cruelty of man, keeping up with the “TWD” universe’s majority themes of staggering scruples and survival barbarity.  “World Beyond” trades decaying dentures for military might as Hope, Iris, Elton, Silas, Felix and Huck exhaust their trek to a divisive end after season one’s from West to East’s coming-of-age, growing-in-ghouls expedition that leads them to step outside their comfort zones and into the real world from the safety of the Campus Colony.  We learn early in season one that going back home is not an option as the Campus Colony has been wiped off the map by the CRM, but that hidden truth runs deep into the new season’s storyline and becomes this paradox notion that causes division amongst the principal characters.  Much of the belief the CRM committed genocide is founded on gut-feelings and hunches, as Iris continues to arduously state and even going as far as killing one of the CRM soldiers without proof of ice-cold facts of CRM’s hand in murdering the close-knit survivalist friends back at the Campus Colony.  On the subject of killing, one of the initial gripes by “World Beyond” was that the first season was gory-lite and lacked a concerning amount of undead rapaciousness for flesh.  The same can be said for the second season that saw little bite from the zombie contingent and, instead, focused more of the dynamics of conflicting groups trying to get the upper hand on each other, but also mirroring the layout of season one, gore and that inherent blood-n-guts cornerstone that, as we all know, makes audiences return show-after-show, season-after season to the “TWD” behemoth.  The latter episodes feature a crimson blood-splattering display of head shots, throat rips, and eviscerations that can sate fans toward forgiveness on being reserved in grisly gaudiness.

If you can’t get enough “The Walking Dead” or “Fear of the Walking Dead” then “The Walking Dead: World Beyond” can help fill that void with a short-lived arc in other parts of the dead-riddled planet and the final season comes to Blu-ray home video with a 3-disc, 10-episode set from Acorn Media International. The PAL encoded UK set is presented in an unmatted 1.78:1 aspect ratio which comes standard for U.S. television programming. Picture image comes from the HD AMC premiere and the noticeable dull details and banding in the digital compression codec. The quality won’t cause eyestrains or be a breaking eyesore as many viewers will notice little difference between television and the Blu-ray data output. The English Dolby Digital 5.1 surround mix has no flaws in the digital recording that provides a high bit clarity on each isolating channel and funneling them into one well-blended mix. Range and depth are on point and come through in a tumultuous world of gunfire and that recognizable growling dead. Optional English subtitles are available. With a runtime of 439 minutes and certified 15 or over, “World Beyond” has plenty of content and violence to salivate over but just in case you crave more, bonus features include the Comic-Con@Home 2021 Panel hosted by “Talking Dead’s” Chris Hardwick and includes showrunners Scott Gimple and Matthew Negrette as well as cast members Aliyah Royale, Alexa Monsour, Annet Mahendru, Jelani Alladin, Joe Holt, Hal Crumpston, Nico Tortorella, and Nicolas Cantu in the Hollywood Square-like Zoom panel. “World Beyond” scratches “The Walking Dead” itch for more with a Martial Law look and lockdown theme of military oppression over what remains of the civilian population, an aspect we haven’t seen extensively before in the franchise and slips into the timeline as a needed gap-fill, stretching over a new place and new set of people.

When the Heart Loses is When EVIL Invades the Head! “The Twin” reviewed! (Acorn Media International / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

After the tragic car accident that claims the life of their son Nathan, grieving Rachel and Anthony move from New York City to a sublime region of Finland, a place where Anthony’s lineage lies and where he spent time as a child. Nathan’s twin brother, Elliot, is frequently overprotected by his mother after the loss. When Elliot begins to exhibit troubling signs in his behavior that links to his deceased twin brother, Rachel grasps out for explanations, looking for a rational and irrational answer that could contribute to such erraticism in her son. One possibility, paved by a local outsider with her own personal demons, is the Finnish community is beholden to a supreme darkness that seeks to possess the child from the beyond. With nowhere to turn for help, Rachel relies of her motherly instinct to protect her child at all costs and from all malice from all forms. but what the evil that plagues Rachel and Elliot might be closer to her than she realizes.

Identical twins are already at about a 10 on the creep factor scale. Margot Kidder in the dual psychotic role of Brian De Palma’s “Sisters”, the unnerving Jeremy Iron performance of manipulation and cruelty in David Cronenberg’s “Dead Ringer,” and even those Grady twin sisters from Stanley Kubrick’s “The Shining” are an eerie extract overlooking the fact that two people can look so exactly alike. The biological phenomena goes against what proclaims us to be human in the first place – our individuality – and to be regularly utilized as a factor of the strange and unusual in a horror film just fills the cup up with a whole bunch of, and I quote Jordan Peele, nope! Finnish writer-director Taneli Mustonen is the next filmmaker to implement the oddity of identical siblings in his latest horror-thriller entitled simply “The Twin.” Co-written with Aleksi Hyvärinen, “The Twin” is the sophomore horror feature behind 2016’s “Lake Bodom” to emerge from the writers who have found cadence writing, producing, and directing comedies. Spun from Mustonen and Hyvärinen’s production company, Don Films, Don as in the title of respect, along with collegial line producer Mika Pajunen. Responsible for funding “The Twin” are returning “Lake Bodom” executive producers Fabian Westerhoff, Joris van Wijk, and Toni Valla with Shudder’s Emily Gotto acquiring distribution rights with financial backing.

Like most films about twins, the 2022 released twists and turns of a back-and-forth intrapersonal thriller uses one person to Eddie Murphy the roles. That person in “The Twin” is the pintsized Tristan Ruggeri who made his television debut as young Geralt in the hit Netflix book-adapted dark fantasy series “The Witcher.” Unlike most films about twins, Ruggeri really only has to play one but teeter the personality of the other in a symbolic showing of painful sorrow manifested to sorely miss what’s essentially your exact self. Imagine you’re a twin of a deceased sibling and you look at yourself and see your brother or sister. Rugger’s able to capture that emotional payload at such a young age despite being rigid as many child actors typically unfold early in career. Much of the story is seen through the eyes of Rachel, a distraught mother coping with the tragic loss, and the audience experience darkening, supernatural plot that’s unravelling a Satanist cult’s clandestine desires to bedevil her now only son Elliot.  “Warm Bodies” and “Lights Out” star Teresa Palmer plays the now the mature and safeguarding motherly role in the grand horror scheme alongside fellow “Discovery of Witches” costar Steven Cree (“Terminator:  Dark Fate’) playing her novelist husband, Anthony. For “The Twin” to actually work for the viewer to understand on a sympathetic level, you need to feel the love between them and finding love between Palmer and Cree is about as loveless as a platonic relationship. Aside from sharing a bed and a child, the romance and amorous has been removed from play, but that of frigid factor could have very well been intentional for the story. The principal casting concludes with Barbara Marten (“The Turning”) and the town eccentric, a foreigner who Rachel relates to and latches on to when the crisis with Elliot worsens.

“The Twin” is small principal cast with big background actors that menacingly swallow nonconformers alien in nature to their surroundings. Foggy atmospherics, looming, creaky wooden house, and the dissociative difficulties that put Rachet through a tizzy compound the fear and the affliction of anxiety that turns everything close to you against you in a heap of isolation. All the dead silence and surreal nightmares build tension effectively, keeping the audience on the edge for that peak moment. Mustonen and Hyvärinen throw in a capacious curveball that lets characters wander and explore then develop and action against before pulling the rug from under our one-directional firm footing for a twist. That twist, however, is a play fake we’ve seen before in recent years with the armor of horror shielding the true trepidation. When the peeling begins and the revealing shows us more complicated layers beneath the rotten onion, the once randomized vectors formulate a picture and within the systematic process of slowly uncoiling initial perceptions and believed facts, the story takes on a whole new meaning and, sometimes, even begs the question if what we just watched is still a horror picture after all? “The Twin” very much fits into this goose chase genre but fits like a size two times too small. The path Rachel follows is a yellow brick road to Oz. Oz being the satanic cult is scheming kid-snatch in place of the Beast more vigorous. Mounds upon mounds of hearsay, circumstantial evidence, and even a factoid or two lead the film by the nose to an unwittingly demise of its importance to the story as a whole once all the cards are laid out before us. “The Twin” then goes into heavy exposition to try and explain much of what Rachel experiences and it really felt like a bunch of hot air, a passive attempt to briefly summarize the last 109 minutes without really telling us much about anything. There’s still lots of questions concerning Anthony’s wealth, background, and mental fortitude. Questions also arise about the story’s hook that suddenly drives the characters to make radical changes in a blink of an opening montage eye. “The Twin” has shuddering moments of stillness suspense and a disorienting subcurrent that severs safety at every turn but flirts with unoriginality too much for exhilaration in an all-been-done-before dogleg…with twins.

Acorn Media continues to be the leading UK home video rights distributor for exclusive Shudder releases as “The Twin” makes it’s Blu-ray debut in the region. The PAL encoded region 2 Blu-ray is presented in 1080p high definition with a 2.40:1 aspect ratio. Retaining mostly in gray and blue hue to convey melancholia to the fullest extent possible, the picture quality doesn’t retain a terrific amount of detail. Textures are often softer during gel-night scenes with no well-defined lines and when compared to day-lit scenes, the details are starkly steelier. The English language Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound caters to a sound design that can differentiate between the bumps in the night as well as the stock-still silence that strikes at the nerves. Dialogue amplitude is on the softer side but very clean and very clear to comprehend. English subtitles have optional availability. Special features include a making-of featurette with cast interviews spliced in. The standard Acorn physical releases for Shudder remain the same for “The Twin” with a common blue case snapper with one-way cover art of uninspired creation. The film is certified 15 for strong horror, threat, bloody images, and violence. As far as doppelgänger bearing horror, “The Twin” is nowhere near identical to others but as for its fraternal individuality, there’s little unique about the Taneli Mustonen picture involving paranoia and primal maternal instinct.

Become Wrapped Up in EVIL with “The Shroud” reviewed! (SRS Cinema / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“The Shroud” now available on DVD from SRS Cinema!

Centuries before, an evil witch is brutally tortured and killed while covered in a white shroud. In present day, a nun, part of a special sect vowed to never let the unholiness of the shroud deviltries be unearthed from the forgotten rubble of a divine stupa, is raped by two men wearing masks. With the help of a hired obtainer, the nun will stop at nothing to get her hands on, even at the defiance of her brother’s advice, but the shroud’s a bewitching mistress and its power are intoxicating. Breaking her piety pact with God and her sworn duty to protect man from wickedness, the nun succumbs to the sin that drips from the shroud’s blood-soaked fabric and exploits its personification powers of evil doings by not only exacting revenge on her attackers, sending the shroud to assassinate her attackers without an ounce of mercy, but also converting her devout habit to a shameless, promiscuous one of immorality.

A made-in-Italia possession film about a killer burial garment and a nun with big guns giving out the last rites. What could go wrong? The immediate impression arises a lot of interest in this 2022 released inanimate killer object flick from writer-director Fabrizio Spurio. As Spurio’s third feature in the horror genre, “The Shroud” envelopes the 50-year-old, Rome-born director’s first ambitious single story length venture behind the more episodic anthology, “Innesti,” and the more obscure “Vanity,” that taps into the willingness participation to do anything for stardom. “The Shroud” embarks into a more religious and supernatural discourse that clashes the sin and the sinner with a blurry line of empowerment. Made with pennies, or rather made on the Italian centismos on the Euro, “The Shroud,” or “Sindome,” is a production of the Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci inspired Goreproduction company, cofounded by Spurio with Francesco Lagonigro tacked on as a fulltime collaborator in shooting low-budget, independent, free-thinking cinema of underground horror.

The last time I saw the sultry lead Italian actress and extreme indie horror luminary, Chiara Pavoni, was in the avant garde “Xpiation” helmed by one of, if not the dominant, underground horror filmmaker, Domiziano Cristopharo.  In her motherly-voyeuristic role, Pavoni radiated with dark, sphinxlike desire in her well-dressed, pin-up sex-symbol performance of longing and control.  Pavoni doesn’t stray far from that archetype with her latest role in Spurio’s “The Shroud” as she plays a woman of virtue, a nun to be more exact, who has quickly turned lubricious and vindictive after her being raped.  Pavoni is certainly bodacious on screen as she adorns tight-fitting outfits that barely contain her snugly-packed large chest, exposing a Mariana Trench deep cleavage in a Spirit Halloween sexy nun getup for much of her role’s sordid side.  As a thespian performer, Pavoni has the subtle moves of a temptress who knows what she wants but dialogue deliveries are something left to be desired as the “Demonium” actress goes through the motions of plain speak as does much of the other cast, including the Goreproduction producer costar Francesco Lagonigro. Lagonigro plays her object obtainer who, by the seducing forces of the shroud, turns into her sex-slave or gothic lackey as visions of death please feed him the sensation of guilty pleasures. Lagonigro’s version of a factotum is about as cheesy as they come with a glaring lowered brow and white and black face paint to embellish something that looks nowhere near sinisterism. If we’re supposed to take Lagonigro’s maniacal manservant role seriously than Spurio, and Lagonigro for that matter, misses the mark badly in a poorly sized up rendition of a Renfield like stooge. “The Shroud” rounds out the cast with many miniscule, nearly nonspeaking roles with Paolo Di Gialluca (“7 Sins”), Andrea Pucci, Allesandro Massari, Giuseppe Andreozzi, Sara Lagonigro, Monica Rondino, and Andrea Pacilli and Samuele Lagonigro who composed the score for the film under the moniker, Sam and Andy.

As you can see, “The Shroud” is a family production for the Lagonigros who won’t hesitate to pitch in to make Francesco’s lewd and crude extreme horror on a bar tab’s worth. Conceptually, “The Shroud’s” an appealing idea of religious hypocrisy and the natural human desire to be immoral. Rules are meant to be broken as Spurio seizes control the very one thing a woman should have control over – her body. By introducing rape by two masked men, Spurio rips away that control and for a nun who whole schtick is to abide by God by maintaining purity in keeping her holy temple intact, she must seethe with humiliation in front of her Lord and inevitable turn away from him because there is nothing left unadulterated to give. She has sinned, whether intentional or not, and so the tainted nun must keep on sinning in various ways: lust, revenge, and murder. Despite being on a budget, Spurio’s ability to liven up a plain white tablecloth is what making movies is all about as the shroud lives and breathes on screen, moving in an agile manner, and becomes a physical presence that can gore a man through. Sleight of hand scene reversals bestows the shroud with a life of its own, creating a slithering dolman of death that looks great in the humble presentation. That kind of DIY special effects translates the same across the slender 76-minute with practical gore gags that rest above mediocracy, and I can say that with a straight face. “The Shroud” will have very few claims to cult fame with a slew of sloppiness that takes the zero-dollar expenditure and makes it appear even cheaper than pocket change. There’s even a scene where the director is clearly reflected into the frame, not even an attempt to hide or review for need to reshoot.

“The Shroud” is warm and cozy when it’s not trying to kill you! SRS Cinema, a leading purveying of underground cinema, releases Fabrizio Spurio’s “The Shroud” on DVD as part of the company’s extreme and unrated nightmare fuel label. Distributed through MVD Visual, the region free DVD5 is presented in an unmatted widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio with a commercial grade quality of a standard definition camcorder that maxes out on the higher side of output of a 720p resolution and so the final result looks fairly okay for DVD. For much of the natural lighting, the high contrast works extremely well, creating deep shadows that make the film feel richer than its actual value, but the details and textures are often soft and bleary, washing out any kind of tactile material. Luminescence of green and blue gels as well as double overlays are used to symbolize nightmares and shroud vision are more headache inducing than a stylish solution when mingled with an industrial engine rumble or high-pitched and stretched vocal score with some piano keys tossed in to mix it up. The Italian language dual-channel stereo is a lossy, unbridled catchall. As much as the audio is purely soundtrack, there is still an insurmountable of sounds being captured by the camcorder mic that softens the desired prominent audiles, such as dialogue which becomes trapped in a cavernous state of echos and various levels of pitch inconsistences. The subtitles on the SRS DVD appear to be translated by a person with English as not their primary language as a tone of grammatical errors, punctuation mistakes, and absolutely zero capitalization tarnish an already low-rent feature. If you can work your way through the strangely designed menu options to the bonus features, you’ll find included raw take bloopers, photo gallery, music videos starring Chiara Povani and Francesco Lagonigro, and SRS trailers. The physical package is perhaps the best part of “The Shroud” with a true-to-form beautifully dark illustration of the most memorable character faces to exhibit in the film, crafted and designed by Avery Guerro. “The Shroud” is an estimable underground piece of the extreme horror art pie but slacks in unnecessary places and becomes an exemplar of a shoddy and careless production that ultimately hurts the overall value of its genus.

“The Shroud” now available on DVD from SRS Cinema!