Tag Archives: Anchor Bay Entertainment

A Man Looking for Answers Finds EVIL in Tijuana Instead! “Cursed in Baja” reviewed! (Anchor Bay Entertainment / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Jeff Daniel Phillips’s “Cursed in Baja” on Blu-ray!

Ex-narcotics cop Pierlli is now a formerly incarcerated, rehabilitated man after suffering a mental breakdown from discovering the love of his life dead during a drug-fueled, kidnapping ordeal that sent him spiraling rogue.  Listless under medication and dragging his feet through the motions of a low paying maintenance man and janitorial job, Pierlli is contacted by his lover’s wealthy, depressed and dying parents to investigate and track down the disappearance of their grandson.  Reluctant to fall back into psychological swirl of pandemonium, he agrees to the case that leads him to Mexico despite the grandfather’s warnings of unsavory unlawful dealings with criminals .  After a few interviews with the grandson’s known associates, gathered by previous detectives who have since disappeared, he’s able to locate the now young man, living in cohabitation with a peculiar pair of outlying summoners who sacrifice the unwelcomed to a native beast of the land, a vicious chupacabra.

Out from under the cinematic and musical thumb the Rob Zombie rockabilly show, Jeff Daniel Phillips emerges with a project his shocking rocking collaborator and friend is not attached to in any way, shape, or form.  “Curse in Baja” is Phillips’s sophomore feature-length film in over a decade since the 2009 jailhouse thriller “Convict,” starring Kevin Durand, and too like his debut film, Phillips also provides the screenplay for the 2024 film that’s described as crime noir meets surrealist horror from Los Angeles to Tijuana.  “Curse in Baja” is a Camp Lee and Indigo Vision production with Kent Isaacs coproducing with Phillips as well as having a role and the revitalized Anchor Bay Entertainment execs Brian Katz and Thomas Zambeck supplying financials in support to release the movie on home video, co-presented with Traverse Terror, a company we’ve seen light of recently and covered films with “Bag of Lies” being the most recent.

Phillips not only produces, writes, and directs, he also stars as the troubled Pierlli, opening up his introduction in a non-linear fashion under a character self-describing, self-loathing voiceover narration revolving around the woman he fell for, hinting at her forlorn fate, his own transgressions stemmed for lost, and how belittled his once formidable self has become after being released from prison.  Inner monologuing picks up here-and-there where narrative leaves off in a quasi-glint of personal elucidation about the characters and situations he finds himself amid, troubleshooting his own inners demons that could destroy him if he goes down the rabbit hole of grief again.  Yet, besides Pierlli’s vague thoughts and descriptions, characters brought not the fold have a prefabrication establishment that’s already patched them into narrative blanket and, for audiences, understanding these characters and see where they piece into the noir pie becomes very dense and chewy, tough to work out their role because much of the backstory is loaded into the chamber before viewers can digest everything mentioned in Pierlli’s opening narration of elongated events.  Jim Storm (“Trilogy of Terror”) and Constance Forslund (John Carpenter’s “Village of the Damned”) are tragic-saturated grandparents who will do anything to find their grandson, but their subtle persona richness filled with terminal illness, alcoholism, grief stricken, and a sordid past is greatly deprecated by little involvement in the rest of the story and their unexplained bad history in the network of how things came to be how they are now.  Instead, their retained lawyer (Mark Fite) has more skin and dialogue in the game of tracking down the grandson, played by the front man Finnegan Seeker Bell of alternative rock band Love Ghost in another character that’s spotty being sensical.  Kent Isaacs as a chupacabra keeper, Jacqueline Wright as a dancing evoker of the beast, Jacely Fuentes as a double dipping girlfriend, and Jose Conejo Martin as a Mexican music mogul and hardcore gangster, too, had shapelessness around defining themselves in character to serve what is a fever dream of past guilt and present lore clashing into a surreal tailspin from Pierlli’s visceral viewpoint.  The only character I could truly make sense and understand is “Re-Animator’s” Barbara Crampton’s short-stint warden role. 

I get “Cursed in Baja” is an indie production with nearly a zero-dollar budget and limited, on-hand advantages.  I get Jeff Daniel Phillips has a knack for the obscure, the off-putting, and the odd.  I get horror is subjective and you make what you get out of it.  With all that being said, “Cursed in Baja” doesn’t speak to me on a level I can fully appreciate, understand, or decipher through the opaque narrative stuck in its own adrift design.  Aspects of the nonlinear course and often repeating multiple same scenes doesn’t beat one down into following along but there’s also a rhythm that does denote Pierlli’s neurosis.  Though chaotic at times, Marc Cohen’s editing captures Pierlli’s agitational anarchy that plagues his nightmares and splits his reality seemingly down the middle of an already drug-and-crime fuel Mexicali affair the ex-con and lawman tries desperate not to repeat, but like any good sage person will tell you, we’re all given the opportunity to repeat dooming ourselves and relive past mistakes.  That’s Pierlli’s Pandora’x box and his Achillies heel, no matter how much he attempts to deflect himself out of the physically crippling investigation, he must sally forth again to find answers for the love he let down.  If he doesn’t, that do-nothing stagnation will ultimately destroy him faster.  I’m sure there are merits to Phillips’ first feature in over a decade, but “Curse in Baja” is all over the place, missing key interlocking points of the nomadic concepts to cement better coherency when switching gears between genres.

Anchor Bay’s third film of the first three releases released by the revitalized company by Brian Katz and Thomas Zambeck, “Cursed in Baja” receives exclusive at-home video rights with an AVC encoded, high-definition 1080p, BD25. The single layer is all this story requires with low-impact, mostly psychological thriller that relies heavily on Marc Cahon’s overlapping fade in-fade out and rough-cut, around-again editing to shoulder the burden of entertaining with Pierlli’s meandering mental melancholy. The compressed image quality provides no qualms for a standard, under-bedazzled indie production in widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio. Color saturation varies depending on toggling contrast levels, likely a result of the when-we-can shoot scenes methodology of low budget films. Blacks are not as deep as desired but there’s no signs of artefacts in the void and that suppresses any of kind of resentment toward a lighter shade of the grayscales darker side. The audio comes with an English Dolby Digital 5.1 surround mix. Though lossy, the format retains consistency in a rather heavily vague gumshoe of exposition with not too much crime centric and chupacabra chomping bytes to make or break the fidelity. Dialogue is clean in voiceover as well as in-scene with a favorable soundscape under Vaaal’s eclectic clouded haunt of industrial and discordant string. English subtitles are optional. Special features are limited to feature length commentary by Jeff Daniel Phillips and a making-of featurette with Phillips walking through a shooting location and discussing his ventured process. The Amaray case sports a grindhouse cover art character compilation with no other physical attributes included. The 80-minute, unrated feature is encoded with region free playback.

Last Rites: Jeff Daniel Phillips’s personal stick-and-glue “Cursed in Baja” works to a point off of the auteur’s ambition and who’s in his back pocket network of talented friends eager to lend their niche or locations to create noir delirium a la mode.

Jeff Daniel Phillips’s “Cursed in Baja” on Blu-ray!

All You Need to Protect You From Everything is a Pile of EVIL Socks! “Crust” reviewed! (Anchor Bay / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Sean Whalen’s Debut “Crust” Now on Blu-ray!

Vegas Winters is a famous washed-up child actor now working at a laundry mat. Depressed from having been exploited during his career years, Vegas’s problems continue as an unkempt, middle-aged man still enamored with an ex-girlfriend who can’t stand the sight of his growth impotency and the news of his show’s revival that stirs up the past’s unwelcomed hubbub. Day-in and day-out, Vegas does the laundry mat rounds, collecting lost socks for his own personal use, whether be for blowing his nose, cleaning a blood lip, or masturbating into for his daydreaming fantasies, until one day the poor schlub is beyond humiliated and sheds a tear into his pile of used and unwanted collection of socks that turns the heap into his own personal protector he calls Crust. Murdering all who emotionally hurt or threaten Vegas, Crust becomes his best pal who has to vie with Vegas’s drunkard business partner and friend as well as his newfound girlfriend who’s infatuated with him.

Sean Whalen is one of the more underappreciated side characters in the last 30 years.  You know the face, but you may not know his extensive filmography.  Most of us horror fanatics adore Whalen in what was likely one of East coast born actor’s most notable roles from early in his career as the wall-crawling, good-hearted, inbred child named Roach from Wes Craven’s “The People Under the Stairs.”  From that film in 1991 to today, Whalen has run the genre gamut as a supporting actor in “Tammy and the T-Rex,” “Waterworld,” Rob Zombie’s “Halloween II,” as well as Zombie’s “3 From Hell” and a slew of other films, made-for-TV movies, and popping up in television series, including the U.S. version of CBS’s Ghosts pilot which I’m still sorely peeved he no longer continued the basement-dwelling, leprosy ghost role.  Now, we’re seeing a whole new side to our favorite side actor who steps into the lead principal role and, also, writes-and-directs his first feature length film with the 2024 comedy-horror “Crust.”  The indie film is cowritten with Jim Wald and is a production between Mezek Films, Moonless Media & Entertainment, Wicked Monkey Pictures, Stag Mountain Films, and the LLC, Crustsock Productions, supported by a crowdfunding campaign that generated nearly 100K dollars from over 600 backers.

A personal project for Whalen, “Crust” came to fruition as an allegorical metaphor for his own depression after a divorce and he plays Vegas Winters, a former child actor who left the industry after the success of his show due to those around him mistreating him or forgetting about him once the show success wore off.  Gloomy-faced, disheveled, and suppressively lethargic and explosively frantic when called for, Vegas is the epitome of depression while co-running a bland laundry with an alcoholic Russ, played by another horror-friendly, long-time supporting actor in Daniel Roebuck (“Final Destination,” “Terrifier 3”).  Audiences will feel for Vegas and his ultimate wish to be left alone as he sends his blood, sweat, tears, and amongst other bodily fluids, into the leftover socks of strangers, but audiences will also be delighted in his return to fervor materialized by a spur-of-the-moment, quirky laundry mat dance routine with his newfound cute-and-cuddly, stiff-sock creature, Crust. Like Daniel, Nila is too entangled in Vegas’s sticky-sock situation as his from-afar admirer turned quickly cemented girlfriend, played by Rebekah Kennedy (“Two Witches,” “Traumatika”), and there ensues the conflict when friend and girlfriend don’t know where they place or stand alongside a sock-monster. Roebuck and Kennedy manage to fiddle the strings of being the irresolute and concerned while not being a total antagonist to Vegas, who himself might not be 100% the hero of the story. “Crust” rounds the big hitting cast with “Sleepaway Camp’s” Felissa Rose and “Ferris Bueller’s Day Off’s” Alan Ruck along with William Gabriel Grier, Charles Chudabala, Ricky Dean Logan, Shawntay Dalon, and Zoe Unkovich.

Divided into laundry themed chapters, “Crust” is all about the depression and the stagnation that it entails. The creature Crust is that imaginary hope or need fabricated to pull one out of its depths and talons as a protector and a friendly companion to retreat into when the world around is threatening with a difficulty level of hard. Vegas is bombarded with down-in-the-dumps missiles being reminded of an unpleasant past, an ex that continues to belittle him, and an escape from reality that soon becomes an invasion of privacy. Whalen’s decision to shoot in black and white is a conscious one that eliminates colorful distractions to keep story focus around the characters, driving down the narrative nail into Vegas’s episodic progress that deepens to deprecating d, depths, and to keep blemishes with Crust’s marionette-ways to a bare minimum. That’s not to express that Crust is a mealy patchwork of loose socks and back felt for eyes. Crust construction might be simple in design but effective in applied personification with emotional swings, eyebrow moods, and hand gestures despite the obvious movement limitations that require multiple shots and cuts at different angles to sell its tearful autonomy and aggressive nature to protect. Remember, “Crust” is a comedy-horror with emphasis on comedy and while Whalen’s directorial debut comedy is fettered by a lighter shade of black, there’s a waving playfulness about it, such as Whalen and Crust’s spontaneous choreography, that provides a wake from the satirical black humor and completely submerge the story in surrealism with laughs and heart-wrenching moments.

One of the first, and hopefully many to come, titles a part of the initial Anchor Bay Entertainment revival by Umbrelic Entertainment cofounders Thomas Zambeck and Brian Katz, “Crust” hits the Blu-ray market with distribution assistance from MVD Visual.  The AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition, BD25 has the work cut out for it with the black-and-white presentation that allows for a better decoding bitrate, hovering around easily a high-20 Mbps.  Monochromic anamorphic widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio exhibits cleanly, clearly, and classically in a consistent contrast that balances situational light and shadow where appropriately.  Textures are dullened without color but the picture is crisp without showing fuzziness or compressed without blocky or bandy issue.  Not listed on the back cover, my player detects an English Dolby Digital Stereo 2.0 track.  More talkative than taking action, “Crust” delivers a fine digitally recorded dialogue track through a lossy Dolby compression that while isn’t as an exact replica, it is clear. Yet, dialogue’s separated from the pack, isolated from the caricature ambience of a laundry mat that has settles on a single wash or dryer sound, the exaggerated sounds of exterior paparazzi, and minor action sounds reach the upper audio layer hemisphere, diffusing into virtually the same foreground plane as dialogue rather medium-to-near range background in what is more of a production stemmed, Foley incorporated audio design.  Blu-ray’s bonus features include a Sean Whalen feature length audio commentary track, a Los Angeles premiere Q&A with Sean Whalen, Rebekah Kennedy, Daniel Roebuck, Felissa Rose, and William Gabriel Grier along with Crust puppeteer, Lisa Hinds, and two short comedies about Dorothy post-Wizard of Oz by many, many tragic years of alcoholism, sex, and delusional state of poor Dorothy, written and played by Whalen in “Dorothy:  50 Years Later” and “Dorothy 2:  The Bump and Run.”  Anchor Bay’s releases standard fair within a traditional Amaray case with the image of Whalen, or rather Vegas, the sock-monster Crust, and a trail of speckled blood in a back-and-white laundry mat with no tangible inserts and the same image pressed on the disc but digitally rearranged.  The region free release has a runtime of 102 minutes and is not rated.

Last Rites: Depression sucks, but “Crust” doesn’t in its sticky sardonic theme told simply in genericisms and broad grayscale strokes. Whelan’s first feature is first rate farce with fantastic puppet work and a Whelan, himself, best at self-deprecating his image for what’s good of the story, which is a morsel of his own.

Sean Whalen’s Debut “Crust” Now on Blu-ray!

Evil Hate Trumps Good Love! “The Hatred” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on


In 1968, former Nazi occult officer, Samuel Sears, runs a strict farm in rural America, restricting his only daughter Alice from the corruption of the outside world with an infinite workload, and Alice violently rebels against her tyrannical father, Samuel kills her with rage. Hidden deep in the dark basement of his plantation home, a powerful Nazi-occupied amulet, charged by fear and hate, feed on his rage and fear and curses him to do the unspeakable. In the present day, four college girlfriends retreat to a friend of the family’s recently purchased foreclosure farm house, the abandoned and forgotten Sears farm, for a relaxing weekend getaway, but after night of drinks and games, the amulet reignites an ominous and dark cloud, reviving long forgotten, evil spirits who search for an endless quantity of fear and hate and will stop at nothing to swallow the souls of each and everyone inside the Sears’ estate home.

“The Hatred” is the 2017 haunting thriller from writer-director and Brooklyn native Michael Kehoe and produced by long time “Halloween” franchise producer Malek Akkad. Kehoe tells the story in two parts with the first delving in the Sears family, getting a first hand look at the hardworking German mennonite character that is Samuel Sears whose a former war time Nazi that’s settled down and raised a family in America’s backcountry. From what can be gathered about Samuel Sears, the farmer protects his past identity and isn’t ashamed of yet, but rather proud of his accomplishments alongside the Führer. All of the attributes of a proud countryman come suddenly alive when he receives a mysterious package containing the amulet, a photo of him in full Nazi dress standing with Adolf Hitler, and a signed letter personally acknowledged by the Nazi leader himself offering him the amulet as a gift for his fine work during the War and that ultimately becomes his downfall, pitting him against his family. The second part of the film tells a more uncharismatic story of four young girls staying at the Sears farm in present day. One of the girls, Regan, just finished college and is about to start a new job and what’s her ideal getaway with her girlfriends? An old (haunted) farmhouse.

“Wishmaster” himself, Andrew Divoff, gives “The Hatred” much more life despite his joyless character Samuel by somehow giving the former Nazi, now American farmer personality traits that are haunting in an unforgettable performance during the first act. The same can not be said about the four girls – Regan (Sarah Davenport), Layan (Gabrielle Bourne), Samantha (Bayley Corman), and Betaine (Alisha Wainwright). There’s no comparison as Samuel is a superiorly written and finely performed character than those he stalks beyond the afterlife. The gaggle of women offer no substance in the face of adversity or just plain ole progression of their character. Numerous times does Regan’s sick grandmother have scenes and Regan passively forgets about her poor grandmother’s health or Samantha’s uncanny interesting in history that really goes no further than the random facts that she spews. Regan and Betaine seem to have this close knit relationship, yet it founders and is suddenly cut short when all hell breaks loose. There are no personal connections established, offering little-to-no worth to their lives when Samuel comes calling for their souls, and leaves “The Hatred” in the take-it or leave-it column in the second and third act. Darby Walker, Nina Siemaszko, and Shae Smolik complete the cast.

Kehoe does display intense, nail-biting visuals with the materialized embodiment of fear and hate as well as sly editing with a scene involving Shae Smolik’s Irene, a little girl whose friends with Regan, who asks Regan to check under her bed, for supposed shadowy figure. When Regan pulls back the skirt to look, she sees another Irene putting a finger to her mouth, hushing Regan, and saying, “that’s not me,” as she points upward toward Regan’s impending doom. The heart-stopping moment will tear eyes away from the screen in anticipation of what Regan will see atop of Irene’s bed. However, that’s the sad truth in the extent of Kehoe’s story; a story riddled with plot holes and underdeveloped subtexts in which one in particular pertains to the aforementioned subplot of Regan’s ill stricken grandmother that goes undercooked when attempted to connect with the supernatural portal that of the Sears farm home. Characters disappear to never be seen again, character motivations go unexplained, and backstories are like a hazy dream and the entire ensemble is a mismatched, muddled mess in a premise that should have continued with the motif of the Nazi infiltration into America and less about scaring the wit out of witless girls with the creepiness of an alternate dimension seeping out of an unholy amulet.

The Lionsgate Films’ “The Hatred” is presented by Anchor Bay Entertainment on Blu-ray and UltraViolet home video in a 2.40:1 aspect ratio from an encoded AVC 1080p transfer that’s sleek and well lit, especially capture Samuel’s earthly and grim nature. The overall atmosphere doesn’t particular hone in a horror palette design, but offers realistic ventures into brightly lit areas of dark scenes. Details are fine in more of the natural aspects of the film whereas the CGI goes soft at times, but still very well detailed. The English language Dolby TrueHD 5.1 keeps Kehoe’s film buoyant with a leveled mix through and through with clear fidelity and good, if not great, surround sound output. Instilled with conventional horror schemes, burdened with design flaws, and unfocused in it’s inability to pin down an narrative identity, Malek Akkad and Michael Kehoe’s spook house feature “The Hatred” requires much tender loving care to uplift this unkempt cliche horror into a coherent thriller.

“The Hatred” on Blu-ray+UltraViolet!

Good. Evil. I’m the Guy with the Gun. “Ash vs Evil Dead” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Ash National 3D Combo Packshots
Ash is back! The chainsaw for a hand, fouled mouth, Deadite destroying retail stock boy returns to face Evil with his boomstick once again after the last monstrous incident some 30 years ago. Trying to stay under the radar and not make waves amongst the ignorant living, Ash has sunk low into the drunken and fat state of barely living until he accidentally reads from the pages of the Necronomicon during a night of irresponsible reefer madness. Now, evil forces thrust Ash into an impossible position to which he’s unable to remove himself from and with the help of his enthusiastic co-worker Pablo, a loyal immigrant sidekick, and the pessimistic Kelly, the orphaned daughter of Deadite victims, Ash and his gun-toting, ass-kicking haphazardness crew will take the terrifying show on the road, tracking down a way to destroy this Evil and the Necronomicon before it swallows the world and release a demonic wrath that’s never been seen before!

Many horror fans thought the day would never come. A number of us believed the rumors were a myth, a hoax, or a bamboozling viral campaign set forth to stir up fandom and the water cooler conversation. Then, a trailer was released and Starz! brought “Evil Dead” back to audiences’ who wanted to relive the the havoc Kandarian demons, to an audience who wanted to expand more upon the mythology of Sam Raimi’s epic hero, and delivered to an audience who don’t even know who Bruce Campbell, the legend, is and why he’s important to the horror community.

“Ash vs Evil Dead” blends seamlessly into the series’ saga, pitting once again our chainsaw wielding hero against a body-possessing force that’s more vicious and blood thirsty than ever. Any and every soul is up for the shredding and ripping grabs when Kandarian demons are concerned while also new, unseen variations of Kandarian demons make a fashionably late appearance. This time around is slightly different than before as, unlike Ash and his unlucky bunch caught in evil’s clutches, Ash has willing assistance in Pablo and Kelly to form a battle trio and take on this evil head on. Ray Santiago (Pablo) and Dana DeLorenzo (Kelly) are a fresh contrast to an aging Bruce Campbell, but Campbell pizzaz and rudimentary quick-wit dialogue manages to steal the scenes. Campbell, Staniago, and DeLorenzo are joined by a fourth; an actress reuniting with Bruce Campbell from long ago in her own fantastical series “Xena: Warrior Princess.” None other than Xena herself Lucy Lawless dons a mysterious Ruby Knowby who holds a deeper understanding of Necronomicon.

Sam Raimi also makes his grand and spectaculr return to his rightful spawn. Raimi, Campbell, and long time Evil Dead collaborator Robert Tapert’s production company Renaissance Pictures, along with Starz!, are the chief production companies on the television series that was originally meant to be the third sequel installment of the “Evil Dead” franchise. However, the zany-comical horror writing and directorial style that only Sam Raimi can deliver was reproduced for the first episode of season one to recreate the devilish “Three Stooges” slapstick atmosphere bred for a brooding, yet hysterical, Starz original series. A handful of directors take the helm of nine more episodes after Raimi, with one of the “Xena: Warrior Princess” directors Rick Jacobson being the most recognizable name among the list, and once the story expands further into the season, a loss of slapstick buffoonery that trademarks Raimi so very well is lost, but doesn’t slow down the blood spattering carnage.

Starz! and Anchor Bay Entertainment’s 2-disc Blu-ray edition of “Ash vs Evil Dead” season one is available today at your local or online retailer! Presented in a HD 1080p widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio with an English Dolby TrueHD 7.1 and a Spanish Dolby Surround 2.0 mix, the 10-episode, 294 minute runtime, unlimited goriness will soak into your funny bones right before shattering them into axe-cleaved pieces! Special features include an audio commentary on all episodes, Inside the World of Ash featurette, How to Kill a Deadite featurette, and the Best of Ash featurette. Plus, the release comes with a lenticular slip cover. Bring on “Ash vs Evil Dead” season two! Hail to the King, Baby!

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