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When the Artist Becomes the Art, EVIL Takes Over Their Soul. “Stopmotion” reviewed! (Acorn Medial International / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Stopmotion” Available on Blu-ray!

Living under her arthritis-enfeebled mother’s tremendous stop motion reputation and browbeaten into being the hands of completing her overbearing mother’s last film, Ella Blake can’t find her own voice in the animated art form.  During one already tension filled morning, Ella’s mother has a stroke and falls into a comatose state.  The unfortunate opportunity opens a door for Ella to complete her mother’s final masterpiece on her own as she moves out from the traumatic memories of her home and into a vacant high-rise apartment to be left in occupied solitude, but when a curious and brash little girl finds her mother’s story mundane and offers an alternative, more grotesque story, one which insidiously fascinates with disturbing themes and grisly creativity, Ella finds herself starting afresh, listening to the yarn of a young girl’s chilling vision, whole slowly cracking under the immense pressure of completing a film worth calling her own. 

With the timesaving, cost-efficient computer-generated imagery, many once popular animation techniques have nearly become a lost art in the recent feature film pool.  Stopmotion is one of those dangerously close to extinction animation styles, which has played a pivotal part in some of the most thrilling and magical films in history, such as, but not limited to, the live-action dominion of Desmond Davis’s “Clash of the Titans,” Sam Raimi’s “Evil Dead” films, and Tim Burton’s “Beetlejuice” to the fully animated features of Henry Celick’s “Caroline,” another Burton film in “A Nightmare Before Christmas,” and Phil Tippett’s “Mad God.”  Stopmotion animator and filmmaker Robert Morgan aims to add his entry to the dwindling, yet sustaining for now, artform with his 2023, debut full-length film “Stopmotion” co-written by Morgan and Robin King (“Mnemophrenia”).  The UK film is produced by Alain de la Mata and Christopher Granier-Deferrere under the French production company Blue Light and is presented by the UK’s British Film Institute, or BFI, with IFC Films and Shudder.

In the tragic lead role of spiraling down through pressurized suffering , trying to surface and take a breath from Ella Blake’s domineering mother’s shadow, is Aisling Franciosi, an Irish actress who also had a principal role in the segmented Dracula tale of “The Last Voyage of the Demeter” released the same year.  As Ella Blake, Franciosi plays into the young woman’s meek and submissive behavior as a subservient daughter to her conceited mother (Stella Gonet, “Spencer”).  All the while on the inside, Blake’s bottled voice contains lethal doses of self-destruction, barring her indefinitely inside the mental boundaries of her psyche, and never surfacing between the already emotional scarring and the grief for mother’s authoritarian parenting as Blake herself becomes very much like the armature puppet she manipulates into position for her film, needing that command structure to follow orders.  That need to be creative is so strong within Blake she fabricates another persona splitting soul into a dissociative disorder that takes the yoke and, ultimately, control over her and her project.  And, in some distressing and grim fairytale type of way, the voice recreates a story that parallels Ella’s life with the Ash Man (effects and prosthetic-cladded actor James Swanton, “Host”) chasing down and manipulating a wax puppet version of Ella in a grotesque mirror dynamic between Ella and her mother.  Tethering Ella ever so barely to reality is flexible boyfriend Tom (Tom York) and his flaunting animation corporate head Polly (Therica Wilson-Read, “Suicide Club”) to what’s in front of her rather to the voice inside of her but their truth is far too combative for Ella to stay fastened to a much strong influencing voice that’s far too close to her.   The upcoming “The Beast Within” actress, Caoilinn Springall, rounds out the cast as the little girl of the apartment building. 

As much as I wanted to seep and soak into “Stopmotion’s” one-frame-at-a-time madness, I couldn’t help but to think I’ve seen this story before.   A sort of déjà vu encircles me and hits me squarely in the gut as I lament over the possibility of feeling the same way I felt before with another film.  Then, it struck me like a bolt of lightning that this storyline shares similarities with the 2021, Prano Bailey-Bond film, “Censor.”  Now, I’m not saying “Stopmotion” is a direct carbon copy but follows a familiar pathway, a movie industry outlier forced by life and submersed under the weight to finishing what the heroines have started only to crack in deep obsession.  On a high level, character impetuses that lead to the same conclusion are in stark contrast and Ella Blake’s descent fathoms family trauma and fixation with trying to be an individual and not just a minor component of a bigger, more impressive, machine that overshadows the necessary cog that makes the whole operate.  Coupled with surreal imagery, otherworldly stopmotion animation, and physical effects that’ll make your skin crawl, or melt like wax, “Stopmotion” enlivens an animator filmmaker’s creativity outside the personifying vocation, blending genres and animations to exact a reality bending mania.  Morgan’s fragmented segues evoke an alternate reality that skips the portions where the audiences’ minds might fill in the gaps.  There is no gap filling, only essential, contextual moments, as if Morgan is the puppeteer to his story by arranging the movements one frame at a time reflect Ella’s poignant reminders and dour moments that mold her.

“Stopmotion” animates a living hell.  The Shudder exclusive lands onto a RLJ Entertainment subsidiary UK label, Acorn Media International, Blu-ray release.  The Blu-ray is presented in a widescreen 2.35:1 aspect ratio encoded with AVC, high definition 1080p, on a BD25.  Though in spartanly stark and gritty-glum set dressings, “Stopmotion’s” grading is on the lighter side of saturation diffusion, held mostly to a shade array of reds, greens, browns, and yellows.  There is numerous isolating, low key-lit scenes concentrated on the framed charactered and engulfing them in darkness but with that, there were no notifiable issues with posterization or banding.  Depth, especially in the stop-motion portion of reality, has spatial length and dimensional delineation, a testament to Morgan’s stop motion animator’s background and experience as some examples of the craft often look flat.  The English DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 offers a lossless fidelity through the broodiness of Lola de la Mata’s compositional vocal and violin score, stringing through the surrealistic switch of cerebral crossfire.  Dialogue creates no challenges with a clear and clean presentation, range of effects heighten in animation’s Foley, and, again, depth creates that an enwreathed sound field through the back and side channels.  English subtitles are optionally available.  Special features include an interview with star Aisling Francosi, interview with writer-director Robert Morgan, and a behind-the-scenes featurette.  The Acorn Media release is rated 18 for Strong Bloody Violence and gore, has a runtime of 94 minutes, and, though not listed, played in region A playback so does seem to have at least dual-regional encoding between A and B.  The tangible Blu-ray comes in a standard Blu-ray case with a creepy, head-nesting puppet artwork.  The interior has standard appeal with just the disc inside, pressed with the same front cover art. 

Last Rites: “Stopmotion” depicts a tragic fall but not from grace in what is a more sad and sullen reality, and the escape is a freshly personified hell of one’s own making. 

“Stopmotion” Available on Blu-ray!

God Works in Miracles, Man Works in EVILs. “Immaculate” reviewed! (Neon / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Mary Didn’t Have This Much Trouble. “Immaculate” on Blu-ray!

Devout American nun, Sister Cecilia, has been appointed a position in the Italian countryside, a historical convent where terminally ill nuns live in the sisterly comfort of hospice.  Feeling blessed for the opportunity to serve and her faith remaining second to none, the young nun believes she found her true calling and takes her devotional vows in the eyes of God and Jesus Christ, amongst other young nuns in confirmation.   During her training of changing out bedpans and beheading chickens for meals, an uneasiness washes over Cecilia ever since the night of her confirmation reception and being granted to behold one of the stakes that was impaled through the hand of Christ.  As if by miracle, an explanation suddenly and terrifyingly reveals itself not only to her complete shock but the entire convent when she’s discovered to be pregnant through immaculate conception.  As weeks turns to months, Cecilia is forced to focus on baby instead of chores but there’s something dark and malevolent happening behind the convent doors that result in her unable to leave the convent grounds, fellow outspoken nuns disappear, and one sister commits suicide.  The once blessed opportunity has turned into unimaginable terror with no way out. 

Sydney Sweeney is so hot right now.  With her provocative success on HBO’s take of youth and vices in “Euphoria” and a nihilistic teenage daughter in the same premium channel’s series, “The White Lotus, the now 26-year-old Washington state-born actress has also peppered her career with horror films, even at a childish age with her first appearance, a minor role, in a comedy-horror “ZMD:  Zombies of Mass Destruction” and continuing her fresh and new vocation with notable parts directed by notable directors, such as John Carpenter’s “The Ward” and Tibor Takács “Spiders,” that would subsequently offshoot into principal leads of less heeded, moderately successful thrillers when in adulthood with “Along Came the Devil,” “Dead Ant,” and “Nocturne.”  Her latest venture is one she became personally invested in, a modern-day nunsploitation titled “Immaculate,” reteaming Sweeney with her 2021 “The Voyeurs’” writer-director Michael Mohan at the helm of their latest collaborative effort.  Mohan, however, did not write the film with feature film newcomer Andrew Lobel taking the job that would take a decade to fruition once Sweeney, who auditioned for the role when she was 17 years old, made it her passion project to see it come to life  Alongside Sweeney producing is Ben Shafer, Riccardo Neri, Michael Heimler, David Bernard, Jonathan Davino, and Teddy Schwarzman with Neon distributing the Black Bear presentation of the Fifty-Fifty Films and Middle Child Films coproduction. 

Sweeney exacts the very definition of virginal innocence, a small-town girl with a miraculous backstory that nearly cost her her life.  As a sincerely devout Catholic in Sister Cecelia, Sweeney must shape up an intake of naivety that blinds her to the subtle sinisterism amassing around her.  To do that, a medley of personalities must dupe her, sway her, disparage her, and comfort her to keep the character balanced before the blindsiding shock that surprises her with a twisted misconception and exploitation of God theme. Heading up the mix of madness is the convent’s resident priest, Father Sal Tedeschi, played by Spanish actor Álvaro Morte, indoctrinating a warm welcome as a guise for advantageous deceptiveness, but for what, we yet don’t yet know.  The alarming setup pins Cecelia to the convent grounds, surrounded by equally unconscionable characters in an insistent Cardinal Franco Meroa (Giorgio Colangeli), a benignly sweet Mother Superior (Dora Romano), and a disparaging Sister Isabelle (Giulia Heathfield Di Renzi”), and with little options of escape, or even allies within the walls, Cecelia is truly alone against a rogue Catholic sect that seeks to resurrect Christ in an unconventional and unnatural way against Canon law.  Cecelia’s arc fully embraces the change through Sweeney’s rather transfigured understanding of the religious institution Cecelia devotes her life to and, in the same breath, the nun keeps with the organization’s traditional principles of God’s will and not man’s interference and must be the righteous hand of wrath.  “Immaculate’s” cast rounds out with Benedetta Porcaroli, Giampiero Judica, Giuseppe Lo Piccolo, and Simona Tabasco, who has a “White Lotus” connection with Sydney Sweeney.

If you’re like me and avoid most trailers, reviews, or spoilers to try and keep an unbiased opinion, you may be taken aback by “Immaculate’s” gargantuan twist that goes against everything you may know and believe about the Catholic Church’s dogma and principles.  Granted, several non-Catholics likely believe the Church is corrupt and with recent years’ newsworthy scandals, those Church cynics’ fire has had a continuous stream of fueling fodder.  “Immaculate” plays into the fear, pessimism, and beyond reproach suspicion by subverting religion as a false façade and integrates unlikely, go-against-the-grain coupled themes of genetics tampering, bypassing God, murdering in His name, and even exploiting the Catholic hierarchy with slivers of patriarchal governance over a woman’s body.  We get the latter from the very first opening sequence of Cecelia having just arrived in Italy and is brought before two custom officials who remark, in Italian in order for her now to understand, that her religious vocation to be obedience, impoverished, and chaste wastes her youthful beauty. Then again, “Immaculate” is not beautiful; it’s grotesque, perverted, and shocking and at the core, a purity that’s being sullied by deranged power and evil enlightenments.  Cecelia represents a beacon of hope in a maelstrom of immorality. 

Shudderingly intense and sordidly messed up, “Immaculate” arrives onto a Neon Blu-ray home release.  Presented in a widescreen, Univisium aspect ratio of 2:00:1, the AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition, feature is housed on a single-layered 25 gigabyte disc.  Curious the reason why Neon would choose a lower capacity for such a purposefully soft and dark videographic image that creates a solemn tone inside a harsh appearance of an unpronounced period piece, perhaps set around the 1960s-1970s judging by the wardrobe, suitcases, and other set dressings.  Not also to exclude the premature notions of genetic manipulations that have made giant modernized leaps in the contemporary day-and-age.  Even with emaciated encoded, “Immaculate” looks pretty good around skin tones and textures and not a tone of compression follies to report.  With darker images on lower capacities banding and blocking rear their ugliness but there’s not a tone of that here. Saturation reduction plays into the time period and mood and the specified range of grading is kept to a modestly warm yellow, greens, and reds surfacing above ever so slightly through thick shadows of inkier, key-lit or candle-lit frames and even making a miniscule presence in daylit moments, boarding classical noir on some occasions.  The English-Italian DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio has lossless appeal that wriggles out clean atmospheric genre cues through the multiple, surrounding channels.  Creaky doors and floors, deep footsteps, cavernous echoing, all play into the ambience track’s gothic timbres.  Conversating dialogue mounts a clear fixed positioning that sharp and clean through Sweeney’s character’s slight Midwestern intonation to the heavily and broad Italian accents from native vernacular to second language English speakers.  A descriptive English 2.0 audio track is also available as well as optional English and Spanish subtitles for the primary track.  One reason “Immaculate” is on a BD25 is because of the only bonus feature available is a feature length commentary track with director Michael Mohan.  The physical side of the Neon release includes a slipcover with the same tones mentioned above with a pious looking Sydney Sweeney in habit and also covered stoically in blood from the collar down.  The backside of the slipcover scarcely has technical information which is pleasant to see the limited real estate being used for something else other than the nuts and bolts that should remain on the Blu-ray’s Amaray case.  Its slightly reminiscent of the way certain boutique labels design their limited slips.  However, what’s not reminiscent of boutique design is the same slipcover front and back image is used for the Blu-ray case too.  Inside is sparse with only the disc with a simple yet effective black background, red titled pressing.  Rated R for Strong and Bloody Violent Content Grisly Images, Nudity, and Some Language, the Neon release has a runtime of 89 minutes and is encoded for region A playback.

Last Rites: “Immaculate” is blessed be the fruit of present-day Nunsploitation themed with power trips that attempt to bypass God and the laws of nature. The finale powerfully depicts and deciphers the principles of one’s firm held faith under God’s will, and perhaps wrath, in its ugliest form.

Mary Didn’t Have This Much Trouble. “Immaculate” on Blu-ray!

A Gang’s EVIL Ransom Elicits the Wrath of “Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs” reviewed! (Neon Eagle Video / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs” is Number One on Our Must Have Lists!

When undercover officer Rei lets her overwhelming emotions kill a suspect on an assignment, her displeased colleagues lock her into a cell, unable to decide her fate with fear of public outcry of police brutality that would blemish the department and force leadership regsinations.  When a prime minister candidate’s daughter is kidnapped by a ruthless gang of rapists and murderers and brought to a cathouse for sale, the brothel madam believes the young woman is better exploited by issuing a large ransom for her safe return.  Unwilling to face public scandal, the politician and a rigid yet loyal investigator of the clandestine Zero Division rig up a covert plan to eliminate every person involved with the kidnapping by offering a murderous deal to Rei in exchange for her freedom.  Rei’s able to infiltrate the gang’s inner circle only to see the plan devolve into chaos and blood between the gang and corrupt authorities.   

Japan doesn’t make films like “Zero Woman:  Red Handcuffs” anymore!  The violent Toei company pinkusploitation production, released in 1974, played a major role in unifying the sexual appetites of Japan’s pink pornos with the rough-and-tumble violence of exploitation action films.  The rising of Nikkatsu Roman Pornos forced the hand of the Toei Company to expand their portfolio, creating such as combinational conquest over salivating grindhouse cinema patrons that the radical subgenre deserved a new sublet coinage labeled pinky violence.  Toei company man Yukio Noda, a staple yakuza filmmaker for the company, helms the visuals translated from a script penned by “Female Prisoner #701:  Scorpion” writers Fumio Kônami and Hirô Matsuda.  Loosely based off the manga written by Tooru Shinohara (who also penned the manga of “Female Prison Scorpion series”), “Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs” stitches its own blood soaked and sexually provocative clothing that would later continue “Zero Woman’s” adventures throughout the years with more films.

Cladded in a chic long red coat, black boats strapped up just below the knee, and wielding an extra-long connector chain pair of red handcuffs, Rei is the anti-heroine of our manga fantasies.  Miki Sugimoto works deep into that fantasy vision as Rei, Division Zero’s lady cop who will do anything and everything, clothed or undressed, to get the job done, even with extreme prejudice.  A frequent delinquent girl portrayer for Toei Company’s gritty bad girl gang pink pictures (try saying that five times fast), Sugimoto’s filmography include the “Girl Boss” series, “Terrifying Girls’ High School:  Women’s Violent Classroom, and “Criminal Woman:  Killing Melody,” and so Sugimoto already had established this foundational layer for Rei as a fortitude of badassery and now tacking on another layer of a moral high ground, justified only by seeing her word through to the end.  Rei is up against a gang of five – four street thugs led by the recent prison released Nagumo (Eiji Go,” The Executioner”) and one lesbian brothel madam (Yôko Mihara, “Sex & Fury”) – as she agrees to a back-against-the-wall deal and slyly subverts the gang by helping Nagumo during a faux ransom sting operation.  Along with Sugimoto’s stoicism, the Toei porn actress retains her promiscuous allure, one where she doesn’t have to do anything to be seductive but just be herself, working not only toward the favor of her character, who continuously is taken advantage of sexually without shame, but also keeping the integrity of the Toei élan for Japanese sleaze.  “Harakiri’s” Tetsurô “Tiger” Tanba resides to the general’s overlooking hill as the prime minister candidate who sends his battlefield colonel in Hideo Murota (“Rape and Death of a Housewife”) to be the Zero Woman’s handler.  Their scheme quickly devolves as their plan evolve when the operation goes slower than expected and the gang’s leader Nagumo begins feel the pressure of paranoia and starts to unhinge, especially around his ruffian acolytes played by Seiji Endô, Rokkô Toura, Iwao Dan, Kôji Fujiyama, and Ichirô Araki as Saburo the mysteriously quiet, aviator-waring knifeman who in himself is an interesting character.  Cast fills in with the Japanese speaking Westerner Ralph Jesser in a wild opening sequence that results in a gunshot to the groin!  

Like most pinky films, “Zero Woman:  Red Handcuff’s” incorporates an X-rated sexual violence but unlike most pinky films, the pinky violence subgenre omits the softer side of sensuality, creating more of a nihilistic viewpoint toward sex of taking what you want, when you want it, and aggressively at that.  Yukio Noda picture contains hostile lesbianism, gang rape, and pressurized perversions that take control thematically in pinky violence.  The corrosive context that has a guilty pleasure pull in most patriarchal dominated cultures and fleapit cinemagoers goes hand-in-hand with the over-the-top violence conjoined at the hip of cause-and-effect.  Usually, the narrative goes an ugly rape equals hard-fought revenge; in Noda’s film, the cause is the kidnapping, and subsequent deflowering of a power politician’s little girl leas to the Zero Woman effect of silencing with corporal punishment that circumvents the law.  Stylish like a spaghetti western and brutally violent, “Zero Woman:  Red Handcuffs” is a meanspirited, out-for-blood, femme fatale engendered on the verge of the pinkusploitation genesis.

Neon Eagle Video, a collaborative boutique label effort between Cauldron Films and Mondo Macabro’s Jared Auner, releases “Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs” onto a new Blu-ray, restored in 4K from the 35mm print. The transfer is AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition, onto a BD50 and shown in the widescreen aspect ratio of 2.35:1. A relatively clean 50-year-old print hardly displays any age wear, if any at all. Scarcely marred by blue vertical emulsion scratches in only a single scene, the print retains and is stored with care to diffuse the range of color and to effectuate as much detail as possible in textures and skin while without taking away from Noda’s underbelly surrealism. The lower contrast infuses a pulpy layer to create softer shadows, but contouring manages to stick an outline thanks to key Rembrandt lighting precision, akin to Hammer Horror with a splash of Kensington gore. The uncompressed Japanese DTS-HD MA 2.0 mono peaks with the best possible optical audio. While not much in the way of depth creation, there’s plenty of range in the Foley, even if it’s artificially abstract and illogical compared to shotgun microphone captured audio. The ADR synch is one of the best inlaid post-recordings with visuals that renders hardly any feedback or unnatural noises on the audio layer. English subtitles are burned into the only available Japanese language picture on the release. Special features include a feature length audio commentary by author and producer for Vinegar Syndrome Samm Deighan, Sex + Violence = Pink Violence TokyoScope author Patrick Macias analyzes “Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs,” and an image gallery. Graphic designer Justin Coffee produces a new, rich-in-red, and taletelling composite illustration of what kind of film to expect on the front cover art of the clear Amaray Blu-ray. The reverse cover houses another illustration, one pulled from the feature’s original poster line. The BD is pressed with more Coffee fiery and red-laced artwork. This particular copy reviewed is not the limited edition set with accompanying slipcover and neither copy contains insert material. The region A playback release comes unrated and has a runtime of 88 minutes.

Last Rites: “Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs” is a fine introductory film into the world of Pinky Violence, a starting line for those perverse-thirsty for the unification of sex and violence in Japanese cinema. Neon Eagle Video delivers excellences with their restored print, second to none in its picture and audio quality that will provide a sterling experience.

“Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs” is Number One on Our Must Have Lists!

The Bishop and Castle seek to Checkmate EVIL! “Sabotage” reviewed! (MVD Visual: Rewind Collection / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Sabotage” on MVD Visual’s Rewind Collection Blu-ray!

Former Navy Seal Michael Bishop was nearly killed on a gone awry Bosnia mission at the hands of former special forces soldier turned mercenary Jason Sherwood.  Three years and one court martial later, Bishop’s recently hired as a bodyguard for a wealthy businessman and his wife until a successful assassination on the businessman leaves Bishop as the prime suspect in the eyes of Special FBI Agent Louise Castle and his former Bosnia commander Nicholas Tollander now a spook with the CIA.  As Bishop strives to prove his innocence with the help of single mother Castle, looking to impress and rise in the agency to support her daughter, he’s determined to uncover an elaborate conspiracy that involves the FBI, CIA, and the man that put seven holes into him in Bosnia, Jason Sherwood, who enjoys the playful art of mercenary work.  The deep-rooted plot that exploited Bishop as a scapegoat to eliminate gunrunners plays out like a game of chess and each move is deadlier than the next. 

“Sabotage” is the 1996 independent, Canadian cloak-and-dagger thriller from “The Gate” and “I, Madman” director Tibor Takács and cowritten between Rick Filon (“The Redemption: Kickboxer 5”) and Michael Stokes (“Jungleground”).  “Sabotage’s” inspiration pulls from the simple, strategic game of chess where all the pieces, moves, and players are witnessed in plain sight in what is a tactical tornado of interagency spydom and the innocent are only the pawns in the middle, sacrificed to be a part of the puzzle to strike the monarchy behind the shadows on behalf of the across adversaries.  The Andy Emilio (“Shadow Builder”) produced and Ash R. Shan (“Lion Heart”) and Paul Wynn (“Tiger Claws III”) executively produced feature, shot in Toronto Canada (which also doubles for Bosnia in certain brushy areas), is a production of Applecreek Productions and presented by Imperial Entertainment. 

Working off another script from Rick Filon, the previous being “The Redemption : Kickboxer 5,” and hot off his humanoid cheetah role in John Frankenheimer’s “The Island of Dr. Moreau” remake, opposite Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer, the mixed martial artist Mark Dacascos plays the setup and scorned Michael Bishop, disgraced by his own military organizations, and reduced to being a bodyguard for an unscrupulous businessman.  Despite being soft spoken, Dacascos has great charisma on screen that mixes greatly with his eclectic array of martial art fighting styles, such as Muay Thai and Kung Fu.  Dacascos is a shoe in for leading man material, which also includes his swarthy good looks, and does fill the shoes of being a blacklisted former Navy Seal now on the hunt for who burned him in a botched Bosnia mission years earlier.  However, Bishop’s early motivation speaks more toward his character than his need for revenge as Bishop is not aware that it was his former attempted murderer James Sherwood, played by the towering and formidable Tony Todd (“Candyman”), who whacked his client.  Bishop becomes obsessed with the case which speaks to his loyalty and his completist mentality to see something through.  Overshadowing the leading man is Sherwood as Tony Todd instincts with this character is to be a merciless and cutting with his smooth handiwork and jibe remarks, all the while doing the horrible things with a sociopathic smile on his face.  Opposite Dacascos, in a semi-love interest role, is the pre-“Matrix” Carrie Anne Moss as Special Agent Castle who has more complexity of character than Dacascos and Todd combined.  Castle is a struggling single-mother trying to make headway in her governmental career but hits a snag when her morality is checked as she must either stay the course and go along with corruption to obtain security for her daughter or do the righteous thing and unsnarl dishonestly at the highest level with extreme prejudice for her sake of her daughter’s life.  Between the three principal leads, Castle’s arc is the steepest and more stirring with internal conflict, a testament to Moss’s performance.  Graham Greene (“Antlers”), James Purcell (“Bloodwork”), John Neville (“Urban Legend”), Heidi von Palleske (“Dead Ringers”), and Richard Coulter make up the rest of the cast.

“Sabotage” is a down-the-rabbit hole spooktacular 90s thriller, and I don’t mean spooky as in scary.  What I’m referring to is the characters’ covert agencies, such as the spooks of the Counter-Intelligent Agencies, and far-reaching operations that meddle and deconstruct a what should be a tidy organizational design with pot-stirring double-crossing, even triple-crossing, narrative paths that can be a strain to keep straight.  The film’s prelude and core story span 3 years apart and connect while there’s a simultaneous backdrop narrative that’s also connects but only exclusively in exposition.  Audiences will have to hamster wheel their mental gears to connect the dots and keep up with the pacing in this ever-evolving plotline that keeps the action caffeinated with a winding, hard-target center.  Takács also stylizes “Sabotage” with bullet-tracking special effects, high impact shelling, and an indulgence of explosive blood squibs that elevates the independent picture to an upper-class of B movie and gives the feature an edge of fun and entertainment that dichotomizes it from the more slapdash action films of the mid-90s where sex-appeal played more of a role than any other kind of actual action. 

Number 60 on the spine of MVD Visual’s Rewind Collection Blu-ray, Tibor Takács’s “Sabotage” breathes new life into the crisscrossing, projectile-pursuing, scacchic espionage extraordinaire. The AVC encoded BD50 provides a 1080p high-def resolution presented in an anamorphic widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio. A well-suffused and maintained print results in an excellent detailing of pixels and a punchy-noir grading. Details on the 2K scan print are historically omitted here, like with many in the Rewind Collection catalogue, but “Sabotage” doesn’t feign to be a product of enhanced visual replication with an organically pleasing form with minimal grain and only one noted frame containing age or damage wear. The uncompressed English language LPCM 2.0 stereo has abundance of vitality, discerning the layers through the dual channel funnel. Range of melee fire power has individualized zenith occurrences rendered at the right synchronization and depth makes the distinction of foreground and background dialogue, ambience, and the sort. Speaking of dialogue (pun intended), the uncompressed encoding keeps faithful fidelity, an ample and adequate of clearly expressed conversations without ever sounding muddled or lost in the skirmish. Optional English subtitles are included. Special features are little light for a Rewind Collection bannered release but what’s available packs a wallop with two new interviews with stars Tony Todd and Mark Dacascos on Zoom, or whichever face time platform is being used, going through their recollection and thoughts of “Sabotage” from nearly three decades ago. A Mark Dacascos trailer reel rounds out the special feature content. The rigid slipcover contains the reprint of the original “Sabotage” poster in a mockup of a VHS case; however, this particular Rewind Collection cover composition has less flair to sell the VHS facsimile. Inside cover art of the clear Blu-ray Amaray case contains the same poster sheet but is reversible with a less-is-more one sheet. In the insert section is a folded mini-poster of the primary cover art and, opposite, the BD50 is pressed with a plastic-patterned, VHS-tape motif. The region free Blu-ray comes unrated and has a 99-minute runtime.

Last Rites: Overall, a gratifying A/V and physical presentation of a mid-90’s, mid-level action-thriller encompassing a showcase of Mark Dacascos’s leading man chops as well as a different side to Tony Todd that isn’t encapsulated in the supernatural during the height of his career.

“Sabotage” on MVD Visual’s Rewind Collection Blu-ray!

Invisible As They May Be, Their EVIL is Palpable. “Imaginary” reviewed! (Lionsgate / 2-Disc Blu-ray and DVD Combo)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Chauncy Wants You To Be his Friend! “Imaginary” on Blu-ray DVD/Combo set!

Jessica purchases her family home, moving in with her new husband and stepchildren where she reminisced being happy once as a child up until her father’s mental breakdown forced her to move out of the house and live with her grandmother.  Returning to her childhood home might have suppressed most of memory but has also spurred a few good recollections she aims to share with the conflicting attitudes of her stepdaughters, the angsty, teenager Taylor and her little sister, Alice, who suffers from a traumatic past.  When Alice discovers a stuffed bear in the basement and conjures up an imagery friend named Chauncy, Jessica feels content knowing Alice is coping with a new friend outside intense therapy sessions but when Chauncy’s seeming innocent scavenger hunt turns to hurt Alice, all the forgotten, difficult memories of her past surface and Chauncy is more than an Alice’s imaginary friend but spurned entity seeking to reconnect to Jessica, feed off her unique creativity, and keep her always in the Never Ever world of imagination.

At least once during our childhood, we all had an imagery friend to lean on, to play with, to cope with difficult situations.  For me, my imagery friend was an 8-foot white teddy bear I would snuggle into its lap and read my adventurous stage one or two books to.  For Lionsgate and Blumhouse, their imagery friend is much, much more sinister!  “Imaginary’s” dark twist on the juvenile fantasy is the brainchild of writer-director Jeff Wadlow, the filmmaker behind 2018’s “Truth or Dare” and 2020’s “Fantasy Island.”   The Charlottesville, Virginia native seemingly has thing for spinning games and fantasies into crooked, ill-fated variants.  “Princess and the Frog” writers Greg Erb and Jason Oremland cowrite the script with Wadlow, adding their experiencing in writing children stories for Wadlow’s eviscerating of childhood joy.  Lionsgate Films and Blumehouse Productions distributor the Tower of Babble Entertainment film with Jason Blum, Sean Albertson, Paige Pemberton, Paul Uddo, Jennifer Scudder Trent, and Jeff Wadlow producing.

In the crosshairs of a targeting imaginary friend is Jessica, a successful children’s book author on the outside of trying to assimilate herself into a new family while, at the same time, struggling to understand her nightmares and troubled childhood past.  DeWanda Wise (“Jurassic World:  Dominion”) stars the struggling, but good-natured stepmother Jessica who’s married to “The Walking Dead’s” Jesus, I mean Tom Payne.  Taegen Burns and Pyper Braun play Payne’s sibling daughters in their respective roles of Taylor and Alice as they make their horror film debut.  Detrimental to “Imaginary’s” silkiness of a happy couple is the artificial interactions between Wise and Payne who appear to be just going through conventional motions of a very awkwardly scripted and painfully garish couple.  When Payne departs the entire climatic acts for his character’s musical tour, other characters begin to flourish more naturally from between Wise, Burns, and Braun who become entwined into a certain teddy bear’s revengeful plan and this fountains a pleasant range of character arcs with overcoming fears, building character emotions, and settling the tension between them within the context of a common foe narrative.  One crucial, tell-all character goes critically by the wayside because, at the very last possible moment, Betty Buckley (“Carrie”) as the longtime neighbor Gloria becomes a deluge of exposition and she’s only introduced in full much later into the story because the writers had no idea how to integrate her earlier and make the information Gloria sits make sense until desperate moments arise.  Buckley, though monotone at times, makes for a good crazy lady.  “Imaginary’s” cast fills out with Veronica Falcón (“The Wind of Fear”), Samuel Salary, Matthew Sato, and Alix Angelis (“The Cleansing Hour”).

Audiences will need to expand their imaginations to get immersed into “Imaginary’s” interdimensional, child creativity-eating plot that careens through the specifics and details.  “Imaginary” suggests children have this invisible pal that snake tongues into their ears, feeding them childish ploys and harrying shame to get them to do what they want, and, inevitably, suck them into the Never Ever world through a checklist bizarre ritual.  The story suggests a globally subversive circle of these entities have been explains that every culture has a take on the imaginary friend concept and even throws into the dialogue other children having disappeared shortly after speaking of the Never Ever but the shorted change of the widespread disappearances background and the fact that crazy old, neighbor lady Gloria somehow surmised a pile of information on the subject, self-published knowledgeability on the ritual, being, and even the Newer End world, provides threadbare, credulous support for the storyline.  Stylistic and visually, “Imaginary” endorses its own title with tactile manifestations of the entity’s power.  Men in nightmare costumes is always preferable over overly silky-smooth and impalpable computer-generated monsters and the work done by the effects crew greatly engenders childish fears with an overgrown, toothy, scary teddy bear and a topsy-turvy world that are magical yet foreboding. 

Snuggle up with your Teddybear and get ready to be scared in “Imaginary” on a 2-Disc DVD and Blu-ray set from Lionsgate Films. The AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition, BD50, presenting the film in a 2.39:1 widescreen aspect ratio, is a solid showing of image integrity with crafty cinematography from James McMillan (“Twisted Metal“) that avoids the seams of the monster suits, keeping them in a considerable degree of low-level shadows, and using odd angles to make contradictory scenes flush in the Never Ever. Yet, despite the max storage capacity of a 50-gigabyte disc, compression banding still rears its ugly between gradient tones contrasting dark and lit scenes; problematic areas are not entirely throughout the picture but intermittently spotty to say the least. The DVD9 is MPEG-2 encoded with an upscaled 1080p. The English language option is a three-dimensional Dolby Atmos surround sound and if Dolby Atmos was going to be used for anything feature, “Imaginary” would be that feature with tons of range and depth mechanicals to float audio into the spatial fields above and below. When Never Ever doesn’t formulate a logical structure and up is down and down is up, Atmos caters and evolves to the fluid environment, emitting pinpoint ambience to be shaped to the size of television room. Dialogue comes over clean and clear, established in the forefront amongst the other audio layers. Spanish and French 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound are also available audio options with English, Spanish, and French subtitles to select from. Special features include a feature length audio commentary by director, and cowriter and producer, Jeff Wadlow with producer-actress DeWanda Wise. Also, encoded into one long featurette, are four medium-short mini-featurettes of Meet Your New Imaginary Friends of getting to know the characters of “Imaginary,” Frills and Thrills of taking a child’s joyous creativity and twisting it into a creature-laden nightmare, Crafting the Beast of Imaginary is a look at the tangible creations of “Imaginary’s” monsters, and Bringing Nightmares to Life looks at how the Never Ever is constructed and shot to get the illusion of an upside down interior slice of another dimension. Sheathed inside a glinty, nearly lenticular, cardboard slipcover is the traditional Blu-ray Amary, both with the innocently, ominously looking Chauncy bear on the front cover. In the interior, each side houses a respective format within a push lock. A digital copy does come with the release within the insert clasps. “Imaginary” is a PG-13 horror (are they trying to appeal to kids?) with a runtime of 104-minutes and a region A playback.

Last Rites: I Imagine “Imaginary” could have gone over ten times as smoothly and more coherent with a longer runtime time to flush out more characters and a better designed narrative. Instead, pacing is quickened to race through unpacking more complex themes: childhood abuse, childhood trauma, the division of the original and regluing of a new nuclear family, family history of mental illness, the concept of imaginary friends, and so forth. The result is a less than desirable bastardization of an imaginary friend that leaves us high and dry for more context and substance than just a puppeteered scare bear.

Chauncy Wants You To Be his Friend! “Imaginary” on Blu-ray DVD/Combo set!