EVIL is a Game Invented by Child and Ran by Clones! “Terminus” reviewed! (Blu-ray / MVDVisual Rewind Collection)

“Terminus” is a Win for the Rewind Collection! Buy it Here!

Super genius boy Mati programs an artificial intelligence RV known as Monster to trek through adversarial armed forces infested territory in a long-haul driving competition to reach Terminus where the winner will receive their weight in gold.  The Doctor, a mad cloning scientist who created the child, aims to subvert the government with Mati’s and the rest of his “unborn” clones under the malicious intentions of his superior named Sir.  When the lone driver Gus, an American woman competing in the game, is imprisoned and subsequently murdered by a ruthless Major after Monster unusual malfunction, Gus is able to pass along the Monster’s accessibility password to her inmate and lover Stump, a compassionate, for-the-people rebel against the military cruelty.  For his love for Gus and to do what’s right, Stump reluctantly joins Monster and a slaved orphan girl to finish the game while the boy genius Mati observes innocently from Terminus, but Doctor and Sir have other plans to use their clones and Monster to subvert government control.  

As you can tell from the synopsis alone, the French-German coproduced, science fiction dystopian actioner “Terminus” makes about as much sense as jumping out of an airplane without a parachute – an exhilarating ride without any understanding from a safety cushion.  Director Pierre-William Glenn, who was born at the height of Nazi-occupied France in 1943, helms the dystopian, futuristic picture from a script cowritten between Alain Gillot, Glenn and Patrice Duvic’s modifications, and Wallace Potts addition of English dialogue.  Glenn, whose main profession is a cinematographer, with a prior 1987 select filmography including “Death Watch,” “The Murdered Young Girl,” and “Wheel of Ashes,” removes his eye from the camera viewfinder to being incorporated into all aspects of the production for one of his first feature length films.  Anne François produces the film that was shot much in the landscapes and studios of Bavaria and Hungary under the European coalition of production companies of Initial Groupe, Les Films du Cheval de Fer, Films A2, CBL Films, and Cat Productions.

The script calls for and delivers color characters in a science fictional scope of subversive intentions, mad science, lone wolves, flawed good guys, mysterious pasts, unjustified brutality, and other varietal traits that run the gamut in this wild and untamed neo-revenge and sense of duty narrative.  For Pierre-William Glenn, he likes to color outside the lines, shading layers with precise measure to flesh out their nature, such as with Stump, a bleeding heart, anti-violence, maverick unwilling to see the impoverished and innocent violated by authoritative rule, played by French rock-n-roll singer and actor Johnny Hallyday.  Stump’s story stretches from how he lost his hand to his reasoning for joining the fight for Terminus unlike his companion Gus embodied by a notable American actress, “Indiana Jones and the Lost Ark’s” Karen Allen.  Gus’s is specifically pointed out as American, perhaps only in the U.S. cut, but her background or reason why she plays the game is ultimately lost or never provided in the cryptic conversations she has with stump during their incarceration intimacies.  We don’t even know why Gus is finitely taken out of the game by the callous Major (Dominique Valera) by either the eluding to the Major’s men gang-raping her or just severing her legs.  Again, very cryptic.  Allen co-headlines with the then up-and-coming “Das Boot” breakout star and Berlin, Germany born Jürgen Prochnow donning three roles, beginning with the head villain and red kimono-cladded Sir and his two clowns, the boy-genius creating “Doctor” and his more brutish field task rabbit Little Brother.  “Robocop 2’s” Gabriel Damon plays whiz kid Mati, designer of the game and of Monster whose being manipulated by Sir as a guinea pig for a super army of super smart clones like himself.  Julie Glenn, daughter of director Pierre-William Glen, brings up the rear as slave girl Princess.  While Julie is no princess Leia joining the rebellion, the young actress is kept mostly quiet without much dialogue to give the gradually important character silent with only a couple of defining narrative moments that save the day.  

“Terminus” has the componential makings of a surreal science fiction fantasy with a “Mad Max” tarpaulin overtop a “Flight of the Navigator” dominant core involving an A.I. Monster truck as a sanctioned, and calculating, entity guiding a path through the onslaught of roll caged government vehicles that drive about as good as Stormtroopers shoot.  Clones are at the precipice of usurpation and the international game of drive hard and fast becomes a ploy for the genetic deception, but Glenn can never really harness that energy at the heart of “Terminus’s” well-built special effects, fascinating characters, set locations and production designs that evoke a failed, if not futile, future.  The oppression angle loosely holds the yoke while Sir and his clones barely scratch the surface of being the true villains lurking in the shadows.  Instead, much of “Terminus” is contained around Stump and Monster’s fostering trust and solidifying the key connection between Mati and Princess and what they mean to a semisoft society.  “Terminus” is terribly lighthearted despite the story’s ugliness which is fleeting at best and audiences will not be confident in what they’re watching that have been intended for general audiences or restricted to an age limit as it all depends on which version, either U.S. or European, is viewed. 

Landing as the 66th release on the MVD Rewind Collection sublabel, “Terminus” provides two varying versions on a new Blu-ray release.  The AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition, BD50 is a collaborative release between MVDVisual and Multicom with a spectacular visual palette from a 2K scan of the original 35mm negative.  There are two cuts of the film both presented in different aspect ratios based on country.  The European Director’s Cut exhibits in the Eurpeaon 1.661 and incorporates back into the story all the edited violence and expands upon scenes with more context and accents by a whole 32 minutes, clocking in a total runtime of 115 minutes, comparatively to the U.S. version’s severely cut 83 minutes and is scene re-edited sequences.  The European Director’s Cut is slightly more compressed horizontally whereas for US audiences is more vertically but there’s no overall image loss other than the cuts themselves.  Grain appears and appeases healthily with little-to-no damage on a softer, lower contrast that brightens details but retains good textural value, especially around facial and skin features with equally organic tones.  Both cuts come with a LPCM 2.0 Stereo mix; however, the Euroean Director’s Cut is strictly French with optional English subtitles while the US Version is English with optional English subtitles.  Fun fact:  Both cuts are of the same film but two different shoots as because due to financial obligations and marketing, production had to principal shoot the same scenes in two different languages and thus is why if it looks like Karen Allen’s mouth appears to be saying the French words, she is actually speaking French.  However, both dialogues are a product of ADR so there’s some dyssynchronous between image and dialogue.  Even Monster’s voice is changed radically between the two films with a more computerized squeaky female (or child) voice in the Euro-cut and a hip-hop and slang crafted male voice that’s less robotic.  Both features handle the Stereo about as well as any front-loaded sound output could but a little more power in this track could go a long way with the explosions, crashes, and visual effect audio bytes being less emphasized and underfoot of the dialogue differences.  Encoded special features include a new video interview with Jürgen Prochnow on the film and growing up in the German/US industries, a new We All Descent – The Making-of Terminus featurette that sees interviews with Pierre-William Glenn’s now adult children Vincent Glenn and Julie Glenn, the latter had the role of Princess in the story, and archival, French dialogued, English-subtitled interviews with the director.  A photo gallery and the original theatrical trailer round out the extras.  The MVD Rewind Collections continues to provide the never-old, always-awesome faux retro encasement with a cardboard o-slipcover with artificial poster wear imagery of an illustrative composition of Johnny Hallyday, Jürgen Prochnow, and Karen Allen and a VHS sticker as the cherry on top.  The reverse cover of the primary, inside the clear Amaray case, has more colorfully alternative and little more kid friendly cover art and the disc is pressed with the plastic grooves of a VHS tape.  An unlikely reviewed PG rated release has region free capabilities to be played across the globe. 

Last Rites: Neither cut of “Terminus” outlines a clear-cut picture, but that ambivalence dotes cult and spurs disarray in parallel function that urges more from a story that wanes to the very end. At least the new MVD release is exceptional!

“Terminus” is a Win for the Rewind Collection! Buy it Here!

You’re Not Going Crazy. EVIL Has Snuck in Its Egg! “Cuckoo” reviewed! (Neon / Blu-ray)

Fresh Horror for the Taking! “Cuckoo” Available on Amazon!

Moving to the Bavarian Mountains can be breathtaking, relaxingly scenic, and peacefully remote.  For Gretchen, however, the involuntary move comes shortly after the death of her mother, and she’s forced to leave the U.S. with her father, stepmother, and half-sister to now live at the base of the German Bavarians where an isolated vacation resort is overseen by Herr König who has hired Gretchen’s father to architecturally design an extension to the resort’s vast campus.  Reluctant to make the best of an undesirable situation, Gretchen attempts to run away with another woman and go back to America but on the way, an accident lands Gretchen in the nearby hospital and the odd, omnipresent and oppressive sensation that has surrounded her upon her arrival begins to unravel around Herr König and the resort grounds.  Disorientating visions and sounds, entranced female guests vomiting in the hotel, and an aggressively cloaked women pursing her in the shadows, a battered and bruised Gretchen can’t convince her family of the oddities around her or the ones that have plagued her mute half-sister without warning like a flash flood but with the help of a police detective, the only other person who believes her, the two investigate the strange threat that’s closing in on Gretchen’s family.

For fans of the 2018 under-the-radar, mighty mite demonic possession film “Luz,” director Tilman Singer helms another inimitable horror that’s literally for the birds.  “Cuckoo” is Singer’s this year’s released production in which he penned the script.  His sophomore feature-length film, a plotted preservation of a quickly diminishing deadly, infiltrating species, keeps in line with his Germanic heritage by filming on site at the base of the Bavarian Mountains around the North Rhine-Westphalia region of Germany.  “Cuckoo” is a production of Neon, Fiction Park, and Waypoint Entertainment, spearheaded by producers Thor Bradwell (“Saint Clare”), Emily Cheung, Maria Tsigka, Josh Rosenbaum, Ken Kao (“Rampart”), Markus Halberschmidt, and Ben Rimmer (“Midsommar”).

Having established himself as a refined and charming British actor in the widely popular BBC series “Downton Abbey,” Dan Stevens has slowly but surely infiltrated himself in what Lydia Deetz might describe as strange and unusual films.  Shortly after the untimely demise of the Matthew Crawley character, the principal love interest to Lady Mary (for those who know, know), Stevens jumped right into the Adam Wingard thriller “The Guest” where the then slightly over 30-year-old actor proves himself capable of portraying so much more than a stiff socialite.  As resort owner, nature preservationist, and the overall prototype of Zen in Herr König, Stevens displays another side of his deranged splits while showcasing his perfection of the German language.  Opposite Herr König in the teen heroine role is the rising star from “The Hunger Games:  The Ballad of Songbirds & Snakes” and the provocative HBO series “Euphoria,” Hunter Schafer.  As Gretchen, Schafer instills a grappling of grief for a mother she was not ready to let go, institutes steadfast judgements about her father’s new family, and impresses a level of loneliness when having to move away from familiar America to the foreign and alienating grounds of Eastern Europe which all evoke the epitome of teenage angst who can’t see beyond her music, her longing for home, and her new family aversion to see that all those negative, destructive traits innately push her away from what’s important, her family.  Herr König embodies Gretchen’s impediment to move forward while another, Henry the detective (Jan Bluthardt, “Luz”), is stitched to ground Gretchen as the past representation of events you can’t change and the anger it has over you.  Jessica Henwick (“Love and Monsters”), Marton Csokas (“Evilenko”), Greta Fernández (“Embers”), Proschat Madani, Kalin Morrow, Astrid Bergès-Frisbey (“Pirates of the Caribbean:  On Stranger Tides”), and the introduction of Mila Lieu as the mute Alma rounds out the cast.

There are no Coco Puffs to go for here in what will be Tilman Singer’s signature breakthrough hit in the cult genre.  “Cuckoo’s” unique spin on the certain genus of the titular bird is next to none as it radicalizes extreme measures to save a mimicking, infiltrating, surrogate-forcing species from extinction.  The story, which takes on the play God and find out narrative, is a perfect prefect of cutting your nose off despite your face in both the sensationalized horror element and in the rite of passage of teenager squabbles that oxymoronically favors a contrasting parallel.  “Cuckoo” falls into area of weirdness that could be an episode of the “Twilight Zone” in its earthbound peculiarity hidden from public view for decades, if not centuries, blending the once unforeseen man and animal into one and trying to keep that unity intact no matter what the natural process of survival decrees; the story goes between the shadows into its lockbox of nature’s little dirty secrets left in the dark recesses of the forgotten closet and what’s found there is unnatural, wrong, and perhaps even prehistoric.  “Cuckoo” might be too weird.  Understandably, audiences may find “Cuckoo’s” birdy thriller too intractable and maybe too, too far-fetched for a horror film that tiptoes around political hot topics, such as with the violation of women’s bodies and the pregnancy genetics that ensues.  Yet, that controversial conversation starter inside a soupy mixture of on-your-toes tension and the solid acting from Schafer, Stevens, Bluthardt, Bergès-Frisbey, Lieu, Henwick, Csokas, and Morrow develop a much needed off-the-wall and cacophonous-stirring horror that offers a new breed of horror.

The unbelievably scary ordeal arrives onto Neon’s standard Blu-ray set with an AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition resolution, BD50, presented in the anamorphic widescreen aspect ratio 2.39:1 CinemaScope.  Graded with a lower contrast, “Cuckoo’s” antiquated, perhaps wall-to-wall 70’s or 80’s veneer, elevates the finish with bolder conventional colors, enriching wood paneling, gaudy wallpaper, and the like to pop out rather than blend in.  Textures are retained in finer fabrics but appear to be lost on much of the skin surfaces with the revolving door of lighting.  Cinematographer Paul Faltz’s play on light, shadow, and depth creates tension, mood, and a lasting impression.  The lossless English (and some German, which isn’t listed) language DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix provides favorable fidelity, especially when a partial of the film’s story revolves around immersive sound – Gretchen’s music, vibrating vocal sirens, Herr König’s recorder tune, etc.  Depth and range hit on the exact spatial amalgam, diffusing nicely and dynamically into the back and rear channels when scenes play out to a chase or civilly devolve into gunfire.  The second, accompanying audio option is an English Descriptive Audio 2.0 mix that provides same quantity without much of the immersive quality.  English and Spanish subtitles are optionally available.  Bonus features include the making-of “Cuckoo” with snippet interviews and behind-the-scenes look, a video diary series, on-set interviews with actor Hunter Schafer, costume designer Frauke Firl, and production designer Dario Mendez Acosta, a handful of deleted scenes, and a teaser and theatrical trailer.  Neon’s hard-encoded region A, standard Blu-ray comes in the traditional blue Amaray case with the poster art as primary cover design.  Disc is pressed with a black background and “Cuckoo” in red font.  There are no inserts or other tangible features.  The R-rated film, for violence, bloody images, language, and brief teen drug use, has a runtime of 102 minutes.

Last Rites: “Cuckoo’s” a devouringly devilish and deranged nightmare discording from the pattern to breach onto a new form of terror.

Fresh Horror for the Taking! “Cuckoo” Available on Amazon!