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Beckerland Fosters Deranged EVIL Upon POWs! “Opposing Force” reviewed! (Scorpion Releasing / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Opposing Foce” now in Control of Blu-ray Home Video!  

Air Force Lieutenant Casey has initiative, determination, and something to prove being the first woman to be approved for a special and notorious evasion and escape course on a remote U.S. base Philippine island.  The course simulates downed Air Force pilots behind enemy lines where they either have to evade capture or escape as POWs without divulging U.S. secrets.  The simulating is meant to break down the individual physically and mentally through psychological and physical torture that nearly blurs the regulation guidelines of the United States military, but has been proven to be an effective training to withstand the most brutal of POW conditions despite the course’s infamous reputation.  Casey joins the ranks of participants, a young group of eager male officers and one experienced Major Logan looking to requalifying for action, and are dropped into the simulated enemy combat zone controlled by General Becker, a calculating commanding officer who has succumb to his opposing force role.  Becker’s unconventional and illegal tactics exploit Casey’s gender in the name of training her, but his knowingly criminal activity puts the rest of the trainees in danger and it’s up to the Logan and Casey to stop him and his opposing force in an all hell breaks loose war.

POW exploitation has been missing in modern day cinema.  A subgenre that is a dark, degrading note of unscrupulous and vengeful action has been exclusive to the 1980s for far too long, barely being reprised throughout the proceeding decades.  Not to be restricted to the popularization films of Chuck Norris of the “Missing in Action” franchise or of Sylvester Stallone’s Rambo II and III, these camp from Hell films run the money and production gamut, pulling inspiration on conflict wars before the decade, such as Korea, Cambodia, and even as far as World War II.  For mainstream, the jungle entices with harrowing heroism that glorifies determined, strong-arming patriotism while showcasing America’s enemies as Geneva Convention ignoring villains who deserve every ounce of blow’em up, shoot’em up at the hands of escaped captees or an elite team, or a one-man, rescue mission.  Nazis saw more action in the low-budget Eurotrash market with sexploitative women-in-prison camps ran by the sleazy, inhumane, and experimenting Gestapo mostly.  American filmmaker Eric Karson, director of Jean-Claude Van Damme actioners “Black Eagle” and Lionheart,” moves away from the Muscles from Brussels and into Tom Skerritt’s mustache behind bamboo bars in the 1986, American-versus-America military-thriller “Opposing Force.”  Penned by Linda J. Cowgill, under the pen name of Gil Cowan in what’s likely a name change spurred by sexism in the industry, originally titled the script as “Hell Camp” but took the name “Opposing Force” based off the antagonistic enemy labeled as OPFOR right on their chest.  “Opposing Force” is coproduced by “Skinner” and “Final Mission” producer Tamar E. Glaser and “Sometimes They Come Back… for More” producer Daniel Zelik Bert under the theatrical distributors of Orion Pictures. 

We already know Tom Skerritt’s world-renowned mustache is in the movie and is the star of the show, but Tom Skerritt is in there as well as the man behind the stache as the seasoned boot Major Logan.  The “Alien” and “Contact” actor become the patriarchal figure to a bunch of figurative sons in younger course participants and overprotective of one figurative daughter in Lt. Casey in a wildly uncharacteristic situation brazenly exploited in unconventional mainstream means in the uncomfortable skin of Lisa Eichhorn (“Deus”).  What Lt. Casey goes through is more on familiar ground with the low-budget sleaze of women-in-prison grindhouse and while it’s certainly jarring and unexpected, It’s a welcoming chance for an upper tiered independent film with big names attached.  A couple of the other big names attached are Anthony Zerbe (“The Omega Man”) and Richard Roundtree (“Shaft”) as Commander Becker and his staff sergeant Stafford.  Becker and Logan mirror each other as veterans that have graded into either being corrupted by power or to be righteous in doing what’s right.  Yet, but Zerbe and Skerritt play into what the experienced actors know best, their trademark stoicism.  Tack on Eichhorn’s equally endurable fortitude and a three way standoff erects a monumental solemn stalemate of relatively the same attitudes until the last straw breaks the proverbial camel’s back and war erupts.  Roundtree at least develops Stafford’s internal conflict when the job bites at his conscious, becoming the connection needing convincing of Becker’s crossing over to the darker side of power like a Sithlord in public face disguise.  The narrative physicality aspects piece together a grueling atmosphere that each actor undertakes appropriately by their determined military rank, but as eloquently as Lt. Casey puts it to the aging Major Logan, “You got a limp and I got tits; these aren’t great things ot have in the military,” sets up themselves as misfits-to-heroes that were being crapped on all their careers for their antithetical military image.  “Opposing Force” rounds out the cast with a bunch of moaning male air force participants in the middle of it all with performances from Paul Joynt (“Echos”), Robert Wightman (“Impulse”), George Cheung (“Rambo:  First Blood Part II”), and John Considine (“Circle of Power”).

Influenced by the U.S. Military’s real life training program known as S.E.R.E. (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape.), Cowgill uses the program to formulate “Opposing Force’s” principle groundwork in setting up the jungle POW scenario on a remote island that goes through the motions of no chance of a rescue and aid of any kind.  Participants are throw into a survivalist gauntlet that turns surprisingly rough aggressive when physical and mental tortures are instilled upon those thinking the training would be a walk in the park.  This particular training simulation is unique to the OPFOR team with an aging officer looking to requalify for combat and the first woman to ever be accepted into the course due to a loophole, throwing new challenges to an embedded far too long commander who can easily break a man’s spirit but tiptoes around the possibilities of what to do with a woman until his insidious power and authority blurs right from wrong and takes the torturous tactics and enhanced interrogation techniques too far, beyond the limits of what’s necessary and beyond the limits of human decency all in the name of reinforce training.  The grueling torture and bush action is palpable enough to contrast the naked, sweaty, and battered bodies with the M1A1 bursts and munition explosions galore.  Only one aspect adds an out of place measure in the narrative and that is of the rest of the POW contingent and their seemingly wishy-washy decision on whether to escape, stay put, or join in the fight against Becker and his live-round shooting island battalion; the group disperses into the jungle only to fade from the climatic third act Major Logan, Lt. Casey, and Botts defending their lives against a treacherous throng and their wicked commanding warden.  Their disappearance doesn’t allow for closure for the acts against them during the entire ordeal and becomes a fizzling distraction.  Another distraction is the severely cut ending that freeze frames on Eichhorn’s final act with her voiceover exposition post-battle in what feels sorely rushed to complete.  The Blu-ray bonus features has an extended ending that’s more completist approach in wrapping up the story sutibly.  For a POW film, “Opposing Force” is an archetype of its originating decade that sates the subgenre’s need to pit an overreaching and ruthless camp head against the resiliency and determinate of the America fighting spirit. 

A re-release from the 2019 Scorpion Releasing Blu-ray comes “Opposing Force” reprising a presence on online retail shelves.  The AVC encoded, high-definition, BD25 is presented in 1080p resolution with a widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio.  Identical to the earlier Blu-ray 4 years prior, the image quality is freshened up quite a bit from the likely 35 mm print source into a detail-laden HD transfer that offers a lush jungle-scape to be in juxtaposition against the camp from within its center, a large guerilla compound bathed in browns and greens make for good POW-themed pageantry.  Skin tones and individual features flesh out nicely, adding detailed levels of salubrious status over the course of the day-to-day detainment. The English language DTS-HD master audio 2.0 leans toward a softer dialogue mix that, for the majority, is discernible despite favoring “Opposing Force’s” selling points: large explosions, pepper potshots, and militant vehicles running rampant around and above the island terrain. Dialogue’s clear enough to emerge without much hinderance with enough depth to provide a sense of position and the audio layer is remarkably clean with no hissing, popping, or static. English subtitles are an available option. Special features include an audio commentary with director Eric Karson, the trailer, and that extended ending I mentioned, and noted preferred, earlier in the review. The traditional Blu-ray snapper casing includes a rendition of the alternate titled “Hell Camp” poster with a more titillating illustrative lookalike of Lt. Casey in shredded rags and ride-up shorts with hands tied above her head and looking over her shoulder. The warm yellow with a hint of white stirs in an element of jungle heat ramped up by also providing the cage accommodations in the background to let it be known you’re about to watch an exploitation POW film. Locked on a region A playback, “Opposing Force” has a runtime of 98 minutes and is rated R. Eric Karson manages to find a place amongst a serrating subgenre that takes an ostentatious, yet not entirely fictious look, at prisoners of war with his “Opposing Force” actioner that goes to convey that not every unethical and malintent camp leader is a foreigner; evil can also be domestically grown.

“Opposing Foce” now in Control of Blu-ray Home Video!  

Cicadas’ EVIL Song Will Test Your Sanity! “The Sound of Summer” reviewed! (Unearthed Films / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

If You Can’t Take The Heat, Watch “The Sound of Summer” instead!  

A coffee shop employee is over the Summer’s relentless heat.  She’s also over Summer’s Cicada call of vibrational chorusing when the winged insects glide their tymbals across their abdomens to attract the season’s female sex.  In working one shift, a strange local man patrons her shop, bringing in his Cicada nets and enclosures, feeding his snared insects right in the middle of his hot coffee break.  Revolted by who she dubs The Cicada Man, and by cicadas themselves, insidious nightmare dreams and an intense itching sensation drives the girl into scratching and terrified fit.  The obsession to scratch the itch wears out spots on her skin to the point of creating open wounds to excavate the bugs she believes have burrowed their way into her body because a dream of The Cicada Man planting them inside her.  Reality begins to crumble  and delusions set in as her and The Cicada man have unfinished business that begin a downward spiral of Summertime insanity. 

The Summer season isn’t for everybody.  The oppressive heat, the swarming insects, the uncomfortable stickiness of sweat-inducing humidity, and the very essence of an overwhelming nature that can be engulfing toward a devolved transfiguration.  That’s the premise behind the 2022 Japanese extreme shock and gore horror “The Sound of Summer,” the first feature length film by a United Kingdom-born writer-director known only as Guy (aka Guy Fragments) who has lived and worked in Japanese since 2016.  Influenced prolifically by Japanese underground filmmaker Shozin Fukui (“Rubber’s Love,” “964 Pinocchio”), Guy follows Fukui’s extreme experimental horror with his own tastes and experiences built into the framework of what becomes an antithetical liking to the widely popular season that usually provides outdoor fun and sun.  In “The Sound of Summer,” the sun is the enemy and the cicadas are the siren song humming foot soldiers that infest the mind.  The body horror is a production of the director’s indie production company Sculpting Fragments, the same company used to produce the Guy’s shorts, “The Rope Maiden” and “Difficulty Breathing.”

“The Sound of Summer” runs a cast of nameless characters and at the center of the cicada madness, we’re individually tailgating one of the two women who work at the coffee shop.   Kaori Hoshino enacts the young woman’s displeasure for the Summer with constant vocal grouchiness of the heat and her visible disgust and detest of the surrounding cacophonous cicada chirping.  Hoshino works lathering loathsome into the character’s routine as a single working woman, living alone, with a daily schedule.  There’s never ostentatious gesticulation that overplays her hot hating hand.  Intermittent with seemingly mundane tasks provides a more down to earth and normal person, juxtaposed greatly with more contrast in the later extremely disturbed version of herself.  Her delusional disorder stalks her in the physical form of The Cicada Man, a rather odd, older man involved in what she considers to be childish bug-catching activities, and his presence, or maybe just the image of him, invades her mental space coinciding with everything else she dislikes about the Summertime.  The Cicada Man becomes the epitome of everything she finds repulsive yet every element of his being and the Summer sink underneath her skin, in a literal figurative combination.  In the metamorphizing macabre role of The Cicada Man is Shinya Hankawa who also has a tangent sub-story of feeding his precious insects, as well as himself, blood from the sickle opened young women he has hidden away in a derelict building.  This expresses The Cicada Man as morosely deranged but the narrative has up until now been latched onto the young woman from the coffee shop, which begs the question, is this how the young woman perceives The Cicada Man, even as far as labeling him with a slasher-esque moniker to further demonize him into being a part of a culmination toward her worst nightmare?  “The Sound of Summer’s” cast comprises of Kiyomi Kametani, Shiori Kawai, Kuromi Kirishima, Keita Kusaka, and Yuina Nagai.

Like renowned painters Edvard Munch or Vincent van Gogh, a madness quality lies within every stroke of Guy’s ‘The Sound of Summer.”  Guy pulls inspiration from his own experiences of a moderately pleasant English Summer being eradicated by the same season in Japan and it’s Hellish temperatures become a reconfiguration of the psyche when the once comfortable becomes oppressed by the uncomfortable surroundings of sensory overload.  A cultural physical representation of the season in Japan is the cicada, like the recognizable and sought after Cherry Blossoms of the insect world.  Guy uses the spellbinding cicada song with a fear-inducing frequency that vessels in psychological harm or delusional parasitosis with a visual goad of an enigmatic old man having them as pets that mixes the brain’s signals into a freefall into madness.  Yet, the audience is never outrightly explained what’s happening to the young coffee shop barista as a limited number of The Cicada Man’s spliced in scenes chauffeur in a more supernatural and macabre side separate from the woman’s narrative preponderance.  Are we supposed to be inside the barista’s disordered brain that’s going mad or is The Cicada Man offshoot sub-narrative an inside look at his bizarre insect consumed little world that slowly seeps under the Barista’s skin?   “The Sound of Summer” might be open for one’s own personal interpretation, but it’s clear in message as an anti-Summer film, an anti-bug film, and an anti-sane film with a prosthetic effects edge and a hyper-sensitive gore impact that’ll leave you scratching the most insignificant itch – just in case.

Ring in the approaching Summer season with “The Sound of Summer” on Blu-ray from extreme horror label Unearthed Films.  The AVC encoded single layer BD25 presents the film in a 1080p, high-definition resolution with a widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio.  Image quality is relatively stable throughout with spot areas of compression concern, such as splotching, around the darker, grittier scenes inside The Cicada Man’s rundown squat.  Details maintain their sharpness as we receive some gooey bits and pieces of unidentifiable flesh and muscular tissue.  Plus, the prosthetic applications display a coarse texture comes through the decoding well, despite a jumpy Mbps.  Guy’s approach to the cinematography takes a steady devolutionary downfall from the brightly lit and sterile to the darkly embracing and infested as if the two contrasting elements are linked by the psychological supporting wall between safety and danger, easily to crumble under natural pressures with the simple prod of gentle persuasion.  The Japanese language PCM 2.0 track distributes a fine dual channel mix that favors the sound design with cicada chorusing and the constant scratching and open wound tissue removal churning out an audible force of discord.  Dialogue is the other suitable track that’s remains clear, clean and in the forefront of the action, soundtrack, and robust sound design.  No signs of hissing, popping, or strength with the digital recording.  The optional English subtitles synch well with error free translation.  Extras include a behind-the-scenes that’s more of a blooper reel of the cast and crew making faces and messing around during principal photography, the Tokyo live-stream premiere after screening interview with director Guy and cyberpunk horror director Shozin Fukui, the Japanese premier with director and cast, and the film’s trailer.  Front cover is a grainy look at The Cicada Man in full metamorphic bloom slipped into a traditional Blu-ray snapper case with a disc art pressed with the illustrative, flesh-wounded flesh of the young victim.  The Unearthed Films release is not rated, has gore-friendly pacing at 75 minutes, and is locked with region A coding.  Special effects by “Versus’s” Susumu Nakatani and an original soundtrack by the Singaporean electronic-experimenter, Microchip Terror, “The Sound of Summer” buzzes with body horror boudoir in Guy’s directorial feature length extremity. 

If You Can’t Take The Heat, Watch “The Sound of Summer” instead!