Tag Archives: 2020

EVIL Fillets Family Strife. “Broil” reviewed! (Well Go USA Entertainment / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Chance Sinclair is a rebellious 17-year-old closeted lesbian and Catholic student.  After a couple of school related incidents she didn’t instigate, Chance’s parents send her to live with her despotic grandfather, August Sinclair, despite her parents’ reluctance.  August rules with an iron-fist not only with his grandchildren, but with his entire family of powerful elitists who have a dark secret – they’re actually soul harvesting demons preying on the malintents around the world and is headed by August.   When Chance’s parents want out of the family business and reclaim their daughter from August’s authoritative grip, they hire a culinary prodigy with a skill for assassinations for a grand dinner that’ll have the whole family in attendance.  Chance is ignorant of her family’s history and the balance of power is not the only stake served on the menu, but also Chance’s very soul hangs in the very midst of the Sinclair’s family game night of internal carnage. 

Like a Gothic storybook enclosed with deception, murder, and unhallowed demons at their last supper, “Broil” is a going to hell in a handbasket supernatural feast and an unholy coming-to-age sophomore feature from by the upcoming “Cosmic Sin” writer-director Edward Drake and co-written alongside Piper Mars.  The 2020 Canadian murder-for-hire thriller vies against the stylish similarities of the “Twilight” saga with well-groomed, well-off, and sophisticated groups of strangers bound as family from supernatural circumstances, but distills itself out the frivolous teeny-bop pulp and teen heartthrobs for a modestly R-rated cutthroat kindred melodrama by the netherworld’s most notorious soul-suckers, shot in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada.  “Broil” Is produced by “Cabin Fever 2:  Spring Fever” executive producer, Corey Large, and first time producer Kashif Pasta with 308 Entertainment (“It Follows”) and Good Complex serving as production companies. 

“Broil” doesn’t denote a lead character at the heart of this story, but pinpoints principles along a chaptered structure, signifying their importance by following them with an objective point of view.  The whole setup begins with the granddaughter, Chance Sinclair, who a bit rough around the edge and doesn’t play with her schoolmates, especially having an affinity for the same sex while being a student in a Catholic school, but that factoid doesn’t blossom into thing though be noted a couple of times.  Instead, Chance, played by Avery Konrad in her first principle character role, struggles with her teenage angst and hormones like any more adolescent, but she finds her educational woes pale in comparison under her family’s archaic secret ruled by the patriarchal domination of August Sinclair, a ruthless enforcer and head of the family business brought to an autocratic fruition by Irish actor Timothy V. Murphy (“Snowpiercer” television series). While Chance and August strongly convey a presence in the first act, Jonathan Lipnicki reins in the latter acts in an unexpressed spectrum performance of Sydney “The Chef” Lawson, a calculating killer taking out the transgressional trash informed by a mentor and father-like man named Freddie Jones, “Jason vs. Freddy’s” Lochlyn Munro, who may or may not have ulterior motives in exploiting The Chef’s gift for murder. Lipnicki’s work is a culinary delight in as much as The Chef’s actually culinary expertise, braising the character to eventually be the mainstay character. There are other exigent roles that seem important, but are only keystones that hold more principles roles from crumbling, such as Chance’s parents, June (Annette Reilly “Chilling Adventures of Sabrina”) and December (Nels Lannarson “The Cabin in the Woods”) Sinclair, who initiate the murder-for-hire spark that set things in motion. Rounding out “Broil” is Corey Large, Megan Peta Hill, Abby Ross, Jenna Berman, Phoebe Miu, Alyson Bath, David Hennessey, John Cassini, and Kyra Zagorsky.

Playing out in chapters, “Broil” feels like a murder-mystery adapted from a on fleek novel written by a panache author from Switzerland, but from what I’ve researched, “Broil” is an original narrative only to be segmented to amass refined character details and redirect turn of events as they unfold. However, the chaptering aspect veers the narrative off course, careening “Broil” more toward edit oblivion that doesn’t layer the foundation properly causing as much confusion as the inhuman characters trying to decide whether the Sinclairs are either vampires, demons, witches, or some kind of incubus-succubus blend for a better part of the film. A theme that doesn’t withstand the pressures of Drake’s zigzag directional layout is the unholy atmosphere the Sinclair’s protrude into the world. Chance, who is ignorant of her lineage and of what she really is, turns crosses upside down, turns crucifix necklaces ablaze, and her family sends her unusual gifts like parceled decorated daggers as seen on sacrificial stones, but the satanic tropes cease to do little more than be hints bound to expose the Sinclair’s true selves and really nothing to do with Satan himself, leaving much of the Sinclair powers left unexplained, like their lightning speed and pulsating purple glow that illuminates in patches under the skin (another “Twilight” element?). The acting is palpable, even if it’s melodramatic and under a slew of unlikeable characters, and the story does throw a few notable curve balls, some wickedly diabolical knuckle curves involving eating a child, to intrigue an inch by inch progression of the story. “Broil” unsheathes moments of Gothic schadenfreude, but the moments are fleeting, too short and far in between, to swimmingly bask in the horror of demonic soul snatchers in the throes of a murderous coup d’état.

A delicacy unlike anything you’ve ever experienced, “Broil” is served onto a Blu-ray release as the plat de jour distributed by Well Go USA Entertainment. The unrated film is region A coded and presented in high-definition, 1080p, of a 16:9 widescreen format. Details on the image render very soft, undiscerning outlines that infuse where a person ends and the background begins, but as the lighting choices change from flared hues to more hard lighting, profiles are to take more shape. Director of photography Wai Sun Cheng, making his introduction into feature films, keeps the focus primary in the foreground, obscuring the backdrop just enough to make it still perceivable and mixes well in the extreme close ups with wide angled shots to not be a one trick cinematographer. The English language 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio has severe troubles with Hugh Wielenga’s score tremendously overpowers everything else with a profound overlap. The composition is so unbalanced and loud that the resonating LFE completely drowns out the dialogue at times. “Broil” does not contain any feature specific special features other than a static menu containing upcoming previews of other Well Go USA films. Despite the title and the infernal nature, “Broil” is a dish served too cold with an unsavory plot of a young woman’s coming of age tribulations in midst of family squabbles and treachery that Edward Drake couldn’t quite fuse together.

Pre-order “Broil” at Amazon.com

A Lake Swimming With EVIL Off of “Mermaid Isle” reviewed! (WWMM and MVDVisual / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on


On a nearby island with an infamous past, four friends come to dock on the island from a pleasure craft cruise to explore the adjacent and serene lake surrounded by woods. What was supposed to be a fun, relaxing, and romantic getaway turns frantic when one of them accidently falls into the lake and is bitten by a mysterious unseen creature in knee high water. With a storm brewing and the bite affects worsening, the group takes shelter inside a seemingly abandoned lakeside cabin receiving an unwelcome and surprise greeting from an old woman who immediately wants to kill the injured party, but is bitten during the small skirmish and kills herself in total fear. Bewildered, the group remains in refuge from the storm, sleeping through the worst winds and rain only to wake up to find the injured and one other friend missing. Their search brings them back to the lake where they discover once bitten, there’s no saving you as the lake is a breeding ground for vicious, blood hungry mermaids, spreading their transformative contagion with a single bite. As the survivors contemplate next steps, the old woman’s delinquent adult son returns home to find mother dead and sets out to kill her murder.

Popping my mermaid horror cherry with the Jason Mills’ ravenous take on the mythical half-human, half-aquatic creature feature, “Mermaid Isle,” released in 2020. The writer-director debuted his first genre feature back in 2009 with an attic dwelling creature terrorizing an unsuspecting and already fragile and distraught family in “Above Us Lives Evil,” also more commonly known as “They Came from the Attic,” but it wasn’t until 2015 when “Above Us Evil Lives” came across our critical lap and was reviewed rather favorably for the filmmaker’s first credited venture with the following excerpt observing Mills as a “promising” director with “attributes that can contribute to the horror community” through the “strategical” use of knitting visual FX work with practical prosthetics to supply an effective heinous attic monster on a penny pinching purse string. Over a decade later, Mills continued his successful ability to turn around project after project of independent b-horror that includes the markings of spiraling madness with “The Changing of Ben Moore,” a joint home and alien invasion thriller with “Alone We Are Not,” and even tackling the mysterious and carnage-laden mythical sasquatch in “Bigfoot Country.” The director’s latest sea-faring fiends maintain the basic principle features of a fabled mermaid: an alluring, half-naked maiden on the top half with a marine flipper-tail at the bottom. Yet, “Mermaid Isle” explores the darker side of the mermaid mythology with a schlocky, self-funding of the plagued island concept with his own production company, Millspictures Studios.

“Mermaid Isle” is very character dependent to push the story along and toward the secluded residing lake since the story concept doesn’t involve any victims to be wound up stranded, buoying in the water, and surrounded by deadly and infectious mermaids creating a filthy amount of dire circumstances of harrowing survival. Instead, we doggie paddle along with bland, monotonous, and uninteresting characters played by bland, monotonous, and uninteresting actors riding the only wave of substance of the lead character (Mark Reinhardt) being rejected upon his proposal to his short term girlfriend (Kristina Soroff). The other two in the group, an assertive goth (“Bigfoot Country’s” Kiana Passmore) and tagalong friend (Samuel Buchanon), offer little to warrant their survival as they’re targeted for either mermaid chum or to be marked for warped evolution. The young cast never click together as on screen friends or form a frantic group with a correlating enemy, but rather seem underwhelmed by the lake inhabited by evil mermaids being the source of their dilemma. There was much more interested in the double sided danger foreboding around the old woman (Elinor Walker) and her bad new son (Dan Martinez), whose mysterious ruffian background surfaces to the top as he’s eager to turn his newfangled life of a straighten arrow path is squashed back into the miscreant he was once was by hunting down those responsible for his mother’s death, but that also fizzles into oblivion. Hope for the character emerges when he declares, “time to do some bitch fishing,” as an oath to, once again, contain the mermaid contagion from spreading by some noble crusade of, oh, I don’t know, spear fishing the hell out of the creatures or taking a dive into the depths of the unknown and do a little hand-to-flipper combat. Sadly, “Mermaid Isle” continues to miss chances rewarding viewers with potential much needed plights. The film rounds out with Liam Tait, Austin Richards, and Garnet Campbell in some unresolved, barely associating epilogue set four months later.

“Mermaid Isle” struggles to come up for air as an exalting mermaid horror, especially being released in 2020 amongst a sea of competing indie interests. Yet, Mill’s story spans over three and half decades beginning with a backstory, told through the words of newspaper clippings from 1983, honing in around a prefacing story of a father and son being murdered by a mermaid bitten daughter and transforms to ravage portion of the family. While the news clipping claim hoax, the mother, the old woman, who we visit in the story later at the cabin, is shuttled off by authorities to a psychiatric ward because of her rant and ravings about killer mermaids. While the slightly crafty, yet also chintzy soaked way to setup the film is engrossing enough to keep us interested at the start, the small budget stiffens any kind of any remotely rudimentary devices to then mingle man versus unnatural nature in a project too big for the budget’s britches. Further reaffirmations assume the assigning of multiple hats amongst the crew and cast, including Kiana Passmore is also the first assistant director, Garnet Campbell is the line producer, and the Mills and the Passmore families extending their services as credited Crafty and Location scouts. The story logical capsizes the moment the movie is popped into the player. For instance, the movie is entitled “Mermaid Isle,” but the Island is adjacent to a river and on the other side of that river is a lake so the premise really has nothing to do with the island, but rather a lake. The DVD back cover mentions the four friends attempting to conjure (spelled conjueron the back cover); yet, there’s none of that conjuring jazz and nothing to affix the detached epilogue to the rest of the film, as previous stated. Lastly, the DVD front cover has more gore, more skin, and even a shark in the water. Low and behold, none of those enamors exists. I will say this about “Mermaid Isle,” the mermaid itself looks convincing, obscured enough around the seams and the physical fish tale to pull off an effective mermaid creature with pitch black eyes and a face flush with hunger.

If feeling adventurous, jump into the deadly waters of Jason Mills’ “Mermaid Isle” on DVD courtesy of World Wide Multimedia Entertainment, an affiliate of Alchemy Works, and MVDVisual. The not rated, 80 minute feature, is presented in a widescreen presentation, 1.66:1 aspect ratio, and the overall video image quality is not too terrible, but lacks breadth of color, compressing the details of the woods, the rocky lake shore, the old cabin, and the snow-covered trees more favorably than would have expected. Some aliasing during more actiony sequences in the water with the mermaid swimming. The English language 5.1 surround sound mix is a complete lackluster in regards to dialogue. The muffled vocals are nearly indiscernible levels for more than half the dialogue track and heavily overshadowed by ambient mix and, a bright spot on the release, the Thomas Beckman viola that almost feels too Renaissance to be paired with “Mermaid Isle.” Aside from a static menu with chapters, there were no special features included. Having no point of refence having never seen “The Lure,” “She Creature,” or even “The Mermaid: Lake of the Dead,” “Mermaid Isle” sinks the aquatic humanoid subgenre deep into Davy Jones locker for greenhorn viewers, but bares intrigue at times with the idea of a menacingly unfathomable creature stirring in the blue waters, sloshing up enough to give you the creeps and not bother with the movie itself.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wWcq9bQGb6I]

“Mermaid Isle” available on DVD. Click the poster.

Subscribe to EVIL’s Vlog! “Followed” reviewed! (Global View Entertainment / Digital Screener)

Posted by Steven Lewis on


Unable to entertain that ghosts actually exist and to be one of the best social media influencers he can be on the world wide web, influencer “DropTheMike” vlogs locations’ ghastly back stories that are now presumably haunted by the very souls the locations consumed. When offered a once in a lifetime opportunity, worth a small fortune in the sum of a quarter of a million dollars and set start up his family with his recently pregnant fiancé, “DropTheMike” quickly challenges his followers to scout out the next paranormal investigation on the cusp of Halloween in 2016. With the results in, an overwhelming number of responses held one of the most notoriously haunted hotels in America, The Lennox, as his and his video crew’s next targeted exploration from the tops of the roof to the dank, dark basement. Ecstatic and eager in a pool of mixed emotions amongst his crew, “DropTheMike” pushes forward despite the forewarning counsel from a hotel historian and his friends, booking rooms for a three day stay that turns horribly frightening when the social media influencer’s greed for followers and fortune provokes the damned souls and the spirit of an infamous serial killer who once hacked up his victims in the very same room “DropTheMike” is staying in.

Us bloggers always try to use our social media platform powers to not only gain internet popularity amongst the ever growing, or continuously exploding, tsunami of 24/7 news, reviews, and inspirational muses for instant, impactful transmission to billions of users, but also to express the things we, the bloggers/vloggers, express what we’re passionate about. Sometimes, what we’re blindly passionate about undertaking can haunt and consume our very being, and also destroy our souls and that’s the epitomic baseline for Antoine Le’s 2020 supernatural cyber-horror “Followed” that’ll feed into select drive-in theaters Friday the 19th. “Followed” is Le’s debut full-length feature film penned by the self-help screenwriting guru, Todd Klick. Shot on location in Los Angeles, Le and his crew use a number of different hotels give the illusion of being inside the fictitious Hotel Lennox, including Hayward Manor Hotel for the lobby scenes and Hotel Normandie for the interior rooms, re-working the rest digitally to effectively pull off the faux location without issue. Branded Pictures Entertainment and Le’s own co-founded Viscape Arts, along with co-producers Greg Berlant and Matthew Ryan Brewbaker, server as the production studios that pushes cyber-horror virtually toward to the forefront of found footage and dark web terror.

In front of the camera, the main attraction, the host with the most is “DropTheMike,” played enthusiastically by Matthew Solomon in his sophomore feature film and handling the pressures of a demanding social influencer position with pizazz to generate subscriptions with the utmost vigor. Personally, I’m familiar with too many influencers that cast a pendulum energy to the akin of a zany children’s educator personality known as Blippie. Google Blippie and have you’ll be able to paint a picture of a less morbid version of “DropTheMike” but with the same kind of body and facial expressions. Solomon’s counterpart is Tim Drier as Mike’s director of photography, Chris. Reversed within the confines of his Christian faith, Chris has serious reservations about The Lennox stunt, opposing Mike at every plea for him to shoot what could be the influencer’s biggest achievement and turning point of his mediocre career. If it wasn’t for being sweet on Danni, a fellow DP, Chris would snuff out any venture into the what Mike thinks is the one big publicity stunt. Played by “The Incantation’s” Sam Valentine, Danni’s a bit of an instigator or, perhaps, shares Mike’s agnostic views on the spirt world, but communes with the film crew in order to reach out to her former fling in Chris and see what materializes from the questions that have been plaguing her. The story primarily focuses on the trio and their friendship dynamics, but there are interesting key support roles that provide a well timed and deserving boost to keep “Followed” grippingly tense and violently rough-hewn toward the path of the malevolent specter plane, including performances by Caitlin Grace, Kelsey Griswold, Christopher Ross Martin (“American Horror Story: 1984), and veteran actor of “Deer Hunter” and “Carnisaur 2,” John Savage.

What makes “Followed” different from other cyber-horror genre films, such as “Unfriended,” “iLived,” or “Like.Share.Follow?” Cyber-horror looks a lot different now than 20 years ago when the genre viewed the mechanics of machine was bedeviling autonomy and people were slave to the machine in one way or another. “Death Machine,” “Lawnmower Man,” and “Evil Speak” are the quintessential ghost in the machine with each plot platters different variations of to subordinate mankind. Now, these films might seem low-tech and more tangible instead of the trying to grasp the idea of cyberspace. Aside from the dark web snuff premises, cyber-horror nowadays, such as “Followed,” is bound by the original influencer, the devil, who has strewn his watermark through the many conduits of streaming services, infecting at will the dark powers to beguile and besiege the barrier of rationality, and deconstruct human morality to the most primitive and primary sin. “Followed” doesn’t break the mold of cyber-horror, but exploits the mold to the max to deliver a terrifying hotel with a ghastly black past. Based perhaps on a number of personal grim accounts and then chained together like an all-in-one anthology, “Followed” jazzes up with the second act with myths, visions, and theories between the rather ordinary bookend beginning and end, always stepping up evil’s game to the point where you never know what to expect and that’s what’s enjoyable about the found footage aspect because nothing is certain, especially when each floor has a history of violence.

Book your reservation to hell and subscribe to the nerve-racking black magic of Antoine Le’s “Followed” hitting the drive-in theaters on June 19th, insidiously expanding into more drive-in theaters on June 26, and eventually landing onto VOD later summer 2020 courtesy of the new kid on the film distributor block, Global View Entertainment. Since “Followed” was viewed as a digital screener, the video and audio aspects will not be critiqued, but the official specs include a presentation in a widescreen format, aspect ratio 1.85:1 with an English language 5.1 surround sound audio mix inside a 96 minute runtime. “Followed” is a visual feast that apply a number of different kind of filming techniques from handheld, spy cams, and security footage and brush the hue spectrum from the ominously vibrant reds to the forlorn splay of sterile metal and steel. With tactics that include a pluralistic phantom ecosystem all living together at the Lennox Hotel, the varied soundscapes and ambient bytes spookily outfit the multi-headed apparition commune existing just on the threshold of the reality plane and seeping in when poked, like a sleeping bear with a stick. There were no bonus material included or any additional scenes during or after the credits. “Followed” is a cherub of the cyber-horror junkets before it’s time that indulges itself into the destructive and careless path of a social influencer, ignoring the sinister forces amongst the other things, like personal property, public safety, or personal safety, real influences tend to disregard when climbing the social media latter to the 15 minutes of fame of internet stardom.

Find a Drive-In near you by clicking on “Followed” official website : https://followedhorrormovie.com/

[youutube=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VduFOTzm8DI]

Vampire + Psychopath = Evil in “Blood Widow” reviewed! (Indican Pictures / Screener)

Posted by Steven Lewis on


A serial killer with severe mother and father issues stabs to death beautiful young women in urban Arizona. Two detectives are hot on his trail, but when they begin to find his victims with nonidentical wound patterns, including bite marks on their necks, the detectives are thrown into a loop of ancient supernatural proportions. Another pair of seekers, vampires whom have lived for centuries, track down the same serial killer for one very specific reason – his blood. The blood is a certain and rare hemoglobin type needed to resuscitate their dying breed, but with the killer’s instability rendering him volatile and dangerous, turning him into one of the powerful undead becomes risky business for humans and vampires alike.

With the backdrop of the city of Tucson, Arizona comes an off plumb detective-crime thriller smack dab in the middle of a vampiric rebirthing with Brendan Guy Murphy’s unconventional modern vampire tale, “Blood Widow.” Directed by Murphy and co-written by Dominic Ross (who had a main role in the Ron Jeremy starring’s “Blood Moon Rising,” “Blood Widow,” which is also known as “Viuda de Sangre,” is Murphy’s first venture into full length feature films. The veteran actor has starred in such films such as “The Minstrel Killer” and the unbeknownst to all, 2012 follow up to Dennis Hopper’s “Easy Rider,” “Easy Rider 2: The Ride Home,” but to his directorial credits, only a couple of short films are listed, testing Murphy’s hand at the proverbial helm of a multi-branched story with hard-nosed detectives, deranged killers, and a desperate vampire faction. “Blood Widow” is a production of Brendan Guy Murphy’s Tucson based production company, MurphySpeaking Films.

Murphy steps into the villainous shoes of Keller, the disturbed serial killer with mommy and daddy issues who remains elusive from two of Arizona’s finest detectives, played by James Craven, who has been virtually cinematically silent since the early 2000’s, and Dallas Thomas. Keller troubling backstory is briefly visual in the aftermath of his rage resulting in his terribly abusive and estranged parents. Murphy and Ross poorly incorporate the effects of Keller’s horrendous maltreatment into his transformed character; a battering character flaw untapped for persona turmoil that ultimately subsides to Keller’s newfound powers that give him nearly unstoppable bloodthirst and debauchery. Craven’s detective Valentine and the original vampire duo, Lilith (debut performance by Melissa Aguirre Fernandez) and Slight (Hector Ayala), also suffered from feebly storylines that involves a cocktail of Craven’s alcoholism and on-the-job trauma and Lilith and Slight’s early 20th century bond during the violent prejudicial times of vampire inquisitions in New Mexico. Each backstory is only merely, and half-heartedly, touched upon to give just a morsel of the full character that can never entirely arc to either redemption and falter. Aside from that, performances all around are solid enough to be enthusiastic charged. James Craven is chin deep into being a defiant detective with an obsession for capturing a killer who has become an elusive and terrifying figment of subconscious stress and haunting visions. Audiences can, again only briefly, be pulled into detective Valentine’s grim existence, provided by Craven’s unsullied efforts. Cisiany Oliver (“Jessicka Rabid”) and Abdul Salaam El Razzac (“Terminator 2: Judgement Day”) co-star.

I keep returning to the title, over and over again, puzzled in trying to explain or articulate why the film is titled as “Blood Widow.” Nothing apparent and explicit comes to the presentation forefront or to the bio-gears of my mind that would make the first instance of vampire activity with Lilith, I assume, a widow. Lilith’s brief backstory confides no pain of loss or grief and the little evidence that supports the possible catalyst front might have inkling hints at her sexual orientation, a prejudice witch hunt which would result in bearing bereavement, even if it’s 80+ years strong. Lilith has an arbitrary flashback that exhibits the brutal staking of another woman in her group of suspected vampires in broad daylight, one of the select unconventional vampire motifs revamped for “Blood Widow,” and though Lilith and the rest in her group were denying every aspect of the claim, their elongated fangs were in clear view and didn’t necessarily assist in their defense. The slain woman could have been a possible lover perhaps, paralleling a symbolic labeled perversion of lesbianism, but the fact that all suspects were women is the only clue toward that theory. Again, this is all objective and circumstantial on my part, but I can’t pinpoint another reason for such a title. Lack of connection comes to be a reoccurring theme in “Blood Widow” that fails to materialize more contextual value toward the scenes, titles, and characters for beneficial storytelling and less inscrutable acts.

Ultimate power is laced in the blood, but what if that power is used for evil? That’s what the Indican Pictures’s distributed “Blood Widow” sinks it’s teeth into with a digital platform release and the promise of a DVD home video release soon again. Unfortunately, I was provided with a DVD-R screener, so the video and audio technical aspects will not be critiqued for this review, but the dialogue audio mix is in English and Spanish with English subtitles. Some bonus features were included, such as outtakes and the trailer. “Blood Widow” has a premise of a promising, independent contemporary vampire hook, but without enriching mythos and some sort of connective coherency, “Blood Widow” wobbles through the approach to an unsatisfactory finale.

Watch “Blood Widow” on Prime Video!

Shady Organizations Flush Out EVIL in “The Witch: Subversion” reviewed! (Well Go USA Entertainment / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on


High school teenager Ko Ja-yoon lives with her adopted parents on a struggling cow farm. Ja-yoon‘s amnesia struggles with recollecting her past, she’s plagued with severe headaches, and suffers to retain any strength in her body. When her best friend persuades her to enter a popular singing contest, Ja-yoon’s nationally televisions performance triggers a covert agency to seek her out, dispatching Korean-American hitmen with supernatural abilities and local hit squad agents to track her down to either capture her alive or kill her. As the devious factions close in on her, placing her family in great danger, her past begins to unravel, revealing a troubling truth regarding who she really is and what she’s capable of effectuating.

Not to be confused as a sequel to Robert Eggers’ critically acclaimed, Americana gothic folklore tale “The Witch” from 2016, Park Hoon-jung’s “The Witch: Part 1 – The Subversion” diverges itself as the tenebrous action-mystery of a two-part film series from South Korea. Entitled “Manyeo” in the native Korean tongue, “The Witch” refers to a moniker bestowed upon the agency acquired children provided with genetically enhanced brains to open up their full, existential potential of God-like violence shrouded in the murky shadows and cutthroat conspiracies. “I Saw The Devil” writer Park also pens the script for his produced 2018 film that resupplies the darkness of a detective noir into another fantasy thriller furnished with a bloody veneer of a R-rated superhero movie. Gold Moon Film and A Peppermint and Company co-produce the Warner Bros. Pictures distributed picture.

Starring as the titular character, Koo Ja-yoon as The Witch, is South Korean actress Kim Da-mi making her introductory debut that’s considerably demanding for the early 20’s actress to tackle with little-to-none prior experience in “Avengers” level action, but that’s where the subversion sets in when Kim undermines with a body frail tool performance, throwing pity bait to sucker in the bigger fish, and then opening her ranges to play on the opposite side of the spectrum in a slim, but killer, authoritative absolute suit. Ja-yoon’s American counterparts are equally as intriguing with Korean-Canadian actor, Choi Woo-shik (“Train to Busan”) leading the pack of vicious and powerful mercenaries. Choi’s monstrous 2019 lineup of award-winning (“Parasite”) and action-packed (“The Divine Fury“) films set “The Witch” up for inherent success in a now powerful and versatile recognized Korean film market. Upstaging has a strong aurora inside Korean filmmaking as every scene invokes an intense stare, an action of grandeur, and dialogue – every actor has lots and lots of dialogue – and so, bold performances stand out from the remaining cast list who includes Jo Min-soo (“The Cursed“) as the prideful genetics doctor, K-pop’s 2Eyes band member Daeun as the cut from the same cloth American-Korean super villain, Go Min-se as Ja-yoon’s bestie, and Park Hee-soon as the curious Mr. Choi with a vendetta against all who are enhanced.

“The Witch: Part 1 – Subversion” is over two hours of grand chess and superhuman stratagem culminating at a writ large do-or-die finale. Even with a 125 minute runtime, Park Hoon-jung has to inertly cram a whole lot of story into a seemingly abundance and bountiful timeframe. As the staggering conspicuous tension builds and characters evolve into an elucidated light, scenes start stepping into confounding placement that bedevil slightly the storyline. If you’re able to piecemeal together the puzzle and able to follow casually, Park is able to eventually reel captivation back from surmountable follies of structure with flashbacks and, in this case, a generous amount of exposition to get viewers on track once again. The prodigious action rivals the Marvel movies of today with complimenting cannonade and psychokinesis while ushering in a heroine tapped from same vein as “Hannah” or “Lucy” into the Korean moving pictures.

Warner Bros Pictures and Well Go USA Entertainment entertain us with GMO action in “The Witch: Part 1 – Subversion” on a single format Blu-ray home video release presented in a widescreen, 16:9 aspect ratio, on a region A, BD25 disc. What I really like about Well Go USA releases are the consistencies of arrangements. The brightly lit, natural landscapes are vivid, floaty, and serene as if all of life is an idyllic safe haven for visual leisure. The black, almost gun metal black, of the nighttime segments render a more sinister and unfavorable approach to arms and danger likely ahead. Some posterization occurs during these moments, but little-to-no ill effect to the scenes themselves. Some of the chunkiness to the visual effects stem from combative action of the genetically altered, fighting against the slower normals with their high caliber, fully-automatic rifles and, also, against themselves, but these battles are interspersed to not violate audiences corneas to beyond the max extent of the natural law. The Korean language DTS-HD Master Audio mix offers a wide range of varied leveled action, from the mundane ambience of rural and urban life to the precision of activity during the more upbeat commotion of fight sequences and gunplay in tighter quarters. Dialogue placement renders nicely and is prominent while the option English subtitles captures beautifully with well synced and timed captioning. Bonus features three trailers which are two international trailers and one U.S. trailer. If Part 2 is anything like “Subversion,” the game of deceit will continue to unfold surprises one after another and beguile with the mysteries surrounding “The Witch’s” genetically invasive backstory that’s inherently pervading throughout, leaving an agape of wonderment, intrigue, and thrills.

Currently on Sale! Buy “The Witch: Part 1 – Subversion” on Blu-ray!