Does Evil Go Incognito? “Sheep Skin” Review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on May 30, 2016

A four person punk rock band, known as The Dick-Punchers, kidnap an egotistical businessman named Todd because they suspect the white collar professional to be a vicious, man-eating werewolf. Confined to a chair in an abandoned warehouse, Todd is interrogated, threatened, and tortured to reveal his true beastly self, but as the night drags on, the band’s evidence weakens against Todd and tensions boil to a flare as the band’s leader, Schafer, starts to question their suspicions and motives. Doubts divide the band’s handling of the overwrought situation, especially when Todd’s wife tracks her husband’s phone to his exact location, hoping to catch him in an unfaithful act, but ends up becoming entangled in his internment.

Crafting a werewolf film on a microscopic budget is a daunting and difficult task to accomplish and having the resulting finish to be mediocre is a good achievement for any filmmaker whether working in the independent market or in the Hollywood limelight. Writer-director Kurtis Spieler found a conduit through the immensely barbed brier patch for his 2013 indie horror film “Sheep Skin” and came out relatively unscathed by the pricks. The ambitious werewolf flick was developed on the heels of his Spieler’s 2007 short film of the same title with actor Laurence Mullaney reprising his role of the kidnapped businessman, or maybe a werewolf in plain sight, Todd and with Nicholas Papazoglou returning as producer. With a little more backing behind Spieler’s Invasive Image production company, the director was able to recreate his short to a feature film on a reported $25,000 budget.

The budget amount surely gives a bit of hesitation when going into a viewing of “Sheep Skin,” but by cutting down location costs and maintaining afloat with the equipment already obtained, Spieler puts his heart and soul into the cast of gifted actors and a talented crew and into a story that’s nail-bitingly entertaining without the possibility of a werewolf ever making an appearance on screen. Along side the return of Laurence Mullaney, the relatively unknown Michael Schantz, who had a role in the Alistair Pitt episode of NBC’s popular espionage drama series “The Blacklist,” portrays Schafer, the vengeance seeking leader of The Dick-Punchers. Schantz’s rendition of the character is undeniably acute to the rampant emotions and stakes of kidnapping and holding Todd. Schafer’s band member and girlfriend, Dylan, portrayed by Ria Burns-Wilder finds an unwavering loyalty in her man. The two wild cards, Clive and Marcus, filled in fittingly by Zach Gillette and Bryan Manley Davis. Gillette and Davis play characters that contrast each other very strongly with Clive being more of a bruiser and a hot head looking forward to roid-rage mayhem while Marcus nervously questions his friends’ intentions if the situation goes south. Jamie Lyn Bagley is an It’s Bloggin’ Evil favorite (see our reviews for “Flesh for the Inferno,” “Sins of Dracula,” “Frankenstein’s Hungry Dead,” and “Future Justice“) and the upcoming scream queen becomes the last puzzle piece to a dynamic cast as Todd’s mistrusting wife.

The kidnapping portion of the story starts from the get-go, nabbing Todd as soon as he attempts to leave the office. After all introductions are completed and the plot is set, the pace slows down toward an uneventful position with characters vacillating. Schafer holds many sidebar conversations with his crew, as a good captain should always do, but makes for tedious anticipation instead of white knuckling action. The deceleration of content during this time doesn’t necessarily bore down the story as the characters react rightfully so due in part to Spieler intentionally incorporating doubt into The Dick-Punchers’ plan and when the snowball starts to roll downhill and the strain starts to disintegrate their plan and, ultimately, their friendship, “Sheep Skin” is a juggernaut of confined bloodletting.

Unearthed Films and MVDVisual courtesy releases Kurtis Speiler’s film onto DVD with a widescreen 2.35:1 aspect ratio that soaks in a noir style filter for a mysterious-horror atmosphere. The DVD offers an alternate black and white version of the film that’s preferable as the dark filter kept the image devoid of natural colors. Digital noise overtakes the brighter coloring in which DNR could have reduced the effect for a cleaner finish. The noise also affected the Dolby Digital 2.0 audio with a low lying hum throughout the background of the entire duration. Dialogue tracks levels vary heavily during calmer or character enclosed scenes while the soundtrack booms out LFE during abrupt moments. The DVD has a solid cache of extras including director’s commentary, deleted scene with director introduction, behind the scenes look at the making of “Sheep Skin,” the original short film, The Dick-Punchers music video, and the theatrical trailer. “Sheep Skin” isn’t an archaic werewolf tale, but a fresh suspenseful spin on lycanthrope mythos.

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Mountain Hag Gets Evil! “Girl in Woods” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on May 29, 2016

Vividly haunted by the nightmares of her childhood, Grace Walker struggles with recouping from the brutal suicidal death of her father that has plagued her into adulthood. Her boyfriend Jim plans a romantic getaway for just the two them in the remote region of the Smokey Mountains. After a horrific accident fatally strikes down Jim, Grace is alone and lost in the thicket without her coping medication and without a basic knowledge of survival skills. Battling with starvation, unequipped with survival supplies, and besieged with a mental breakdown, Grace combats against her inner and outer demons in order to stay alive.

Eight years have passed since writer-director Jeremy Benson’s last film, the carnal exploitive “Live Animals,” and the filmmaker comes back strong with the upcoming deeply psychological horror “Girl in Woods.” While the title seems unoriginally simple, the character Grace is anything but simple; however, primitive is a more suitable description of both title and character in the end. Benson sets up the character by writing Grace as a woodsy no-nothing on the brink of insanity. As Grace hikes behind Jim, whose carrying a rifle, she’s complaining about the possible dangers of bears and snakes while attempting to use her pink incased cellphone in a kill signal area to gossip about Jim’s engagement proposal the night before. Immediately, Benson places an unstable, and the creature of comfort, Grace into panic and peril, the starting line of her laundry list of troubles. From then on, the director relentlessly pounds Grace with hallucinations set within the Tennessee backwoods, torturing her from the mind with mental deterioration stemmed by hunger and onset psychosis to her body with physical pain from a deep gash wound in her hand.

And who is this actress to which Benson mercilessly puts through the meat grinder? Veteran actress Juliet Reeves (“Automaton Transfusion”) fills Grace’s disturbed shoes with a formidable solo performance for much of the duration. The then 36 year old actress was pregnant with her second child during various filming shoots. The father of the child is with none other than her co-star, now husband, Jeremy London (“Alien Opponent”) who portrays Jim. Reeves is able to maintain a convincing lunatic lost in the woods despite the non-liner storyline where dream sequences and, supposedly, flashbacks intercut to build upon Grace’s tragic and unfortunate background. Reeves commits herself to the stages of psychosis, slowly transforming from a manageable, calm medicated state to severely severing all ties from external reality. Even when performing with her angel and devil conscious in the form of herself, Reeves doesn’t flinch, fashioning a frightening internal dynamic that’s damn realistic.

“Girl in Woods” ultimately becomes a collaboration between the subgenres of psychological horror and man versus nature. Benson’s story explores the possibilities of what might happen if a mental case like Grace is put into a dire predicament and the non-linear narrative simultaneously attempts to display how Grace is destined to be molded. Interestingly enough as a tidbit of analytical comparisons, “Girl in Woods” marginally parallels with a few popular scenes from the 1987 John McTiernan film “Predator.” When Mac, played by Bill Duke, chases down the extraterrestrial game hunter, he notes to Carl Weather’s Dillion, whispering, “I see you” toward the cloaked alien, which feels similar to when Grace spots the forest “demon” and chases after it, yelling, “I saw you” over and over. Other scenes sport the same similar inkling from Grace whittling makeshift weapons to going full blown guerilla attack commando on the “demon,” who oddly enough also makes similar vocal gutturals like the Predator.

As far as production value is concerned, “Girl in Woods” has an ambitious approach with a infinitely engulfing forest that lurks like an antagonistic villain and an in-your-face motif of self-inflicted suicides that’s extremely graphic and hard to absorb with the brain-splattering, wrist-slashing overdose potency. The CGI is kept at a minimum, but have one hell of a nasty bite that spurs the heart to a sudden pounding. The practical effects reign supreme over CGI and within the confines of a warped mind, the possibilities are endless and Benson exploits the potentials. Overall, fine performances by the rest of the cast: Jeremy London, John Still (“Live Animals”), Lee Perkins (Slime City Massacre), and the stunning Charisma Carpenter (“Angel” television series) as Grace’s mother.

Produced by GIW in association with Yield Entertainment and distributed by Candy Factory Films, “Girl in Woods” is an upcoming film you don’t want to skip over. Jeremy Benson has the talented eye of capture beauty within the horror and has the talented pen to wield craziness on paper. I’m not at liberty to critique the audio and video quality as I was provided an online screener, but “Girl in Woods” is being released on iTunes, VOD, DirectTV, Cable, Dish, Amazon Instant, Google Play, and Vudu so there are plenty of formats to choose from on June 3^rd.

A Playgirl Versus the Evils of Lesbian Cults and Snooty Thieves! “Christina” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on May 28, 2016

The following review is NSFW…

Christina Von Belle is a youthful playgirl heiress who travels through the exotic locations of Europe modeling and making love to the men of the world. Her jet-setting life screeches to a full and sudden stop when a vicious and merciless faction of lesbian guerillas, led by their determined leader Rosa who seeks to inspire young women to live a life of liberated homosexuality, kidnaps Christina for a high dollar ransom because paying for the liberation cause is quite pricey. Christina will be put through multitudes of depravity seductions to pursue the heiress that woman does not need man. As the ecstasy of her captures becomes more and more difficult to defend against, Christina jumps into action, escaping when the chance presents itself, and finds herself leaping into the arms of smugglers and thieves who seek to also use Christina’s title for a wealthy pay out. Christina’s only weapon, her only means of freedom, is her young, sensual flesh that puts everybody, even lesbian commandoes and high society smugglers, under her sultry spell.

One of Francisco Lara Polop’s (under the moniker credit of Poco Lara) last known feature films and penned by the legendary schlock writer Harry Alan Towers (under the moniker credit of Peter Welbeck), “Christina” expos a mingling cast of B-movie stars and starlets such as “Return of the Living Dead’s” Jewel Shepard. Before Shepard was a blue-haired, punk-rocking goth chick ready to be munched on by brain eating zombies, the native New Yorker stripped bare as a promiscuous woman meandering quickly through hordes of wealth and a legion of similar status men. For much of Poco Lara’s film, Jewel Shepard is damn near naked the entire time, exposing her perky breasts whenever the opportunity presents itself. The same whip-it-out concept can be attributed for nearly the rest of the female cast: Josephine Jacqueline Jones (“Black Venus”), Pepita Full James (“The Story of O 2”), Helen Devon, and Anne-Marie Jensen. The male performer counterpart understandably lacks in comparison, but rounds out nicely with Ian Sera (Pieces), Emilio Linder (Monster Dog), Tony Isbert (Tragic Ceremony), and Emilian Redondo (Black Venus).

Christina’s sexual adventures turned passionate plights purposefully lays the groundwork in attempting to pave a similar path toward the highly popular French series “Emmanuelle,” its sequential films, and it’s cheaply produced spin-offs which simply focused around the erotic escapades of a young woman seeking to enhance her sexual experience. Also akin to the “Emmanuelle” series is the fact that “Christina” is an adaptation from a series of sexually charged books printed by Playboy Press. Yet, “Christina” failed to peak interest in spawning sequel additions, despite the high production value that includes exotically breathtaking locations in France and Spain and also the impressive car, dirt bike, and horse chases. To further be pro-“Christina,” the gratuitous nudity explodes onto nearly every single scene with Jewel Shepard’s tight and slender physique causing most tongues to go limp from gawkers’ mouths, secreting saliva with hound dog anticipation for more.

Though prevalent nudity thrills, the sex scenes lack that certain special something. The longevity of the scenes seem as transient as the Christina character, leaving more of the sexual intercourse to the far reaches of the implied sector than trying to push the envelope. The lesbian moments with Josephine Jacqueline Jones and Helen Devon cut briskly away to a dream sequence where Christina faints from the intensity of her captor’s advances and in these dreams, she’s metaphorically assessing her experience with black glove cladded hands rolling cars and tanks around the curvatures of her breasts and teasing the pubic edges of her nether regions. Another dilution of “Christina” is the stunts. While I mentioned the chase sequences were a refreshing surprise for soft core erotica, the hand-to-hand combat nullifies that pleasantry. The lesbian mercenaries fight each other, literally ripping the clothes from their hard bodies, to award themselves the pleasure of guarding, and seducing, Christina while Christina fights her way to escape from their enlisted clutches; yet, the choreography is horrendously slow and bad, resulting in more of an awkward contest rather than a test of might. I will say that the actresses did, in fact, do their own stunt work.

Intervision Picture Corp. and CAV Distribution release a region free, re-mastered Blu-ray edition of “Christina” in a spellbinding Hi-definition 1080p resolution. The widescreen 16×9 presentation only adds to the HD transfer without forcing to strain the image framing and clarity. Clearly more vivid than any of the film’s at-home distributed predecessors, Intervision Picture Corp.’s improvement bares ample of detail, pops the natural coloring, and balances the blacks amongst the original print damage from minor grain to centering scratches. A few times a grey-to-blue toned sepia interludes during more closeup scenes, but the vast exteriors of locations, and for most of the film as well, share in the wealth of the image upgrade. The Dolby Digital English 2.0 mix has varying levels that, at times, sporadically lower the dialogue which might have stemmed from misplaced mic setups. No hissing or pops detected, resulting in clear and spotless finish on the tracks that smooths out the dialogue and sports a rather snazzy synth Ted Scotto soundtrack, especially during more action packed moments. Finally, no extras are included with this release.

Overall, a solid piece of lost skin-er-iffic treasure dug up for display by Intervision Picture Corp. Never in my lifetime would I have guessed that Casey from the “Return of the Living Dead” would be fully nude, nearly full time, in a unique sexploitation gem entitled simply “Christina.” The Poco Lara directed soft core film might be based off the popular sleaze reads and trashy sex novels of the same name, but ultimately “Christina” just couldn’t gain any steam powered momentum on film as it so rightfully did in bedroom fantasies, leaving the kinky-lust and the misadventures of our heroine permanently in black and white of its literature bound kin.

Want a part of Christina? Own the Blu-ray of this rare film! Purchase by clicking the Amazon link image above!

Evil is a Long Trip Home. “Earthrise” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on May 26, 2016

Earth has become an uninhabitable wasteland. The human race have resettled and colonized on the red planet of Mars. Years have past and the younger generation has never had the experience of living on Earth. Every year, a select few, those who pass multitudes of tests and reach the age of 30 years, will join the Revive Program and will travel through space on a seven day journey to Earth in order to aid in the planet’s rehabilitation of their once ancestry home. The journey between Mars and Earth is this story, a story of psychological perplexity between three travelers who get to go home for the first time.

“Earthrise” is the creation of writer-director-producer Glenn Payne, tackling the production limits of a space film in an independent market. Payne and his production team effectively generate the illusion of being a single speck in a vast universe without getting overly galactic (i.e. “Moon”) and widely interstellar (i.e. “Interstellar”). Yes, “Earthrise” embodies a minuscule budget that’s certainly evident, but the ambitiousness to recreate the innards of a spaceship without being too blatantly cheap gives creativity credit to the crew. The brief transitional moments outside the ship are about as good as money can afford, but still don’t quite cut the mustard with some big Hollywood blockbusters or even larger independent films.

Along with much of the crew, Payne’s experience mainly stems from a variety of short films with “Earthrise” being his latest full length feature out of a total of four. The three actors who portray the focus-centered characters also mostly come from a short film background. Meaghin Burke (“Trick or Treat” short), Casey Dillard (“Blackout” short), and Meaghin’s husband, Greg Earnest (also from “Trick or Treat”), portray the three protagonist Dawn, Vivian, and Marshall, voyaging to Earth. Within a non-linear story, their tensions cut through finely as an unexplained terror has overtaken, not only their flight to Earth, but their minds that visualize apparitions of people and creatures that shouldn’t be there. Giant spiders, man-eating alligators, alarming amounts of blood – just some of the psychological tensions testing the characters. Is it a form of space dementia? Or the inability to grasp leaving your home, your family, to live on another planet and not having the ability to contact anyone from home for a year, per the Revive Program’s policy? Or is it something else? “Earthrise” domes the answer fairly well until the end.

The sequence of events surround a near catastrophe involving a sudden meteor collision. One side of the collision tells the story prior to their insanely dangerous visions, building upon their backgrounds and delivering their soon obtained new found hope, while the other side explores their descent into madness and, eventually, the two stories meet in the middle with the major calamity. Contrasting the two sides defines, in a good light, director Glenn Payne’s editing style while still able to clearly convey the crews plight. Mise-en-scene clues were used to differentiate the catalyst, such as Marshall’s head wound or Vivian’s limp, but these details were minor enough to not pose an extravagance in order to make clear the outer edges of the story.

The 2014 sci-fi thriller is presented by Indie Rights Movies and MVD in a widescreen 2.35:1 aspect ratio. The details are richly sharp, drenched in a metal tone to create a ship’s inner hull racing through space atmosphere. The dual channel Dolby Digital mix is clear and balanced and purposefully isolating to get inside the loneliness of the great big infinite. Accompanying the 100 minute runtime, a couple extras include the film’s trailer and a commentary. Sci-fi on a budget, “Earthrise” is enjoyably subtle, sleekly structured, and soaked with heart and soul. Many will not be attracted to “Earthrise” and it’s slow-to-build momentum, leaving only true film aficionados and appreciators to find Payne’s work entertaining.

Join the Ranks to Stop Pollution Evil! “Doomwatch” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on May 21, 2016

The Doomwatch organization was created to investigate and stop the approaching environmental harmful effects of destructive pollution. Doomwatch sends Dr. Del Shaw to the fishing village island of Balfe where only one year ago an oil tanker sank off the island’s coast, leaving behind a devastated waterfront of oil waste that annihilated a chunk coastal life. Upon Dr. Shaw’s arrival, a strange sensation of unwelcomeness overwhelms him in the close knit fishing village. Shaw’s one day visit stretches to a longer stay when his curiosity about the village’s secrets gnaw at his conscious. Though what Shaw unearths is a direct result of man-made pollution, his discovery reveals a much more frightening mutation, transforming the quiet and isolated fishing village into a violent and turmoil lot of locals.

The 1972 feature film “Doomwatch” was born out of the brief lived and sorely lost British television series of the same name from 1970 to 1972. Surely a familiar shelf life and fleeting path of another placed on the back burner sci-fi great, a little series known as “Alien Nation,” in which did the exact reverse strategy and spawned from a hit movie starring James Caan and Mandy Patinkin. However, “Doomwatch” sought a more practical and realistic approach that attempted to warn the public of the dangers of monumental pollution and instill a self conserving fear into the residents of Earth. The scenario is also on a smaller scale from other similar plots such as an example of one would be the 1950s testing of the hydrogen bomb that had consequently overdeveloped and mutated an oversized, fire-breathing lizard you may know as “Godzilla.”

“Doomwatch” isn’t full-throttle horror and doesn’t quite even board the chills and thrills train. Instead, the Peter Sasdy directed film plays out more toward a science fiction mystery that lingers and hangs on the story’s catalytic moment. Prior to the “Doomwatch” film, Sasdy did partake in directing notable horror features for Hammer Films production such as “Taste the Blood of Dracula,” “Countess Dracula,” and “Hands of the Ripper,” but Sasdy made his start in television with over a decade amount of experience working on the smaller screen. Sasdy did have some help in amongst two writers who previously had long-running experience writing for the “Doomwatch” series. Kit Pedler and Gerry Davis saw fit to put their two cent input, but the film’s script was finalized and streamlined from the relatively unknown writer of that time Clive Exton who went on to pen “Red Sonja” starring Arnold Schwarzenegger.

I feel like Peter Sasdy safely cradled “Doomwatch” for the public with the content being alarmingly prophetic. For a director who exposed colorful amounts of blood and fantastical and villainous inhuman creatures to the world, Sasdy had disappointingly failed to shock audiences with potential world wide devastation. “Doomwatch” could be deemed more of a workplace educational video required in the protecting of the environment and to become ISO certified. Poor Ian Bannen tried his damnedest to sell his performance as the Doomwatch’s over-caring Dr. Del Shaw, but Bannen’s character, for the most part of the film, just yelled his case (or the village’s case rather) to an unsympathetic and ignorant written fishing village that, in my opinion, deserved to wither and die out due to their lack of wanting to be cured of digesting hormone chemicals and also from the years of inbreeding that would have eventually sprouted genetic mutation as well. The “Doomwatch” cast rounds out with leading lady Judy Geeson, Percy herbert, George Sanders, and Jean Trend.

UK located Screenbound distributes a newly restored DVD version that’s region free with a runtime of 85 minutes. However, the copy I received is a screener disc and can’t be necessarily critiqued for the audio and video quality. If I had to answer the three important story related questions about the film’s character, the answers would be the following: Entertaining? To a degree. Horrifying? Not really. Thought provoking about the welfare of Earth? Not as powerful as intended. The PG rated Peter Sasdy directed pre-apocalyptic call to arms film “Doomwatch” flashes no teeth for a long-haul fight against global defilement, even though the writers attempted to portray the disfiguring results of others’ mindless ignorance.