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EVIL Masked as a Religion. “Bryan Loves You” reviewed! (MVD / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

All New Blu-ray release of “Bryan Loves You” on Amazon.com

Something weird is spreading across a small Arizona town.  A chapter of a new religion has influenced most of the community into believing in Bryan, a pure and pious young boy from long ago who was brutally slain by the devil.  Jonathan, a local psychotherapist receives a camera from his uncle, also a health professional, with a self-recording that warns Jonathan that Bryan zealots are a dangerous, violent cult.  Deciding to document the situation himself, Jonathan repurposes the camera to clandestinely record the widespread Bryan gatherings and even infiltrate their church where they speak in tongues and wear the scarred mask of Bryan.  As Jonathan goes deeper into the uncomfortable insanities of Bryan’s world, the more Bryan followers takes an interest in reconditioning Jonathan. 

“Bryan Loves You’s” grainy SOV pseudo-documentary lacquer not only captures the icy blank stares, the unabating drone chanting, and the brainwashed coup of an insidious cult assimilating small town America, but the Seth Landau written and directed film also homogenously captures, all too presently well, that sense of ambivalent and conspiracy dread that knots apprehension uncomfortably in the pit of the stomach.  The 2008 released “Bryan Loves You” has the story set in 1993 Arizona made out to be a historical home video and CCTV recorded account of the analyzed and dissected suppressed footage coming to light for the first time incomplete with censored last nights and specific addresses to make the pseudo-doc appear more genuine and shocking.  Filmed in and around the suburbs of Scottsdale and Phoenix, Arizona, “Bryan Loves You” is a found footage subgenre production self-produced by Mike Mahoney and Seth Landau, under the filmmaker’s Landau Motion Pictures, and marks the debut feature film of Landau’s humble career that started roughly around 2003 as a production assistant on “Arrested Development.”

For the average popcorn movie goer, “Bryan Loves You” is about obscure as they come with a no-name director and a cast with relatively no-name actors with the exception of one that might have a chance of recognition by the common Joe Schmo.  Old heads may recognize George Wendt, one of the barflies from the sitcom “Cheers” and the Saturday Night Live sketch of Super Fans, in his brief and strange scene as a patient holding a doll that speaks to him about people who talk about him.  For chin-deep genre fans, Wendt is about the biggest A-lister you can have in an indie film and what’s unusual about “Bryan Loves You” is the stacked list of iconic made-by-horror names that make up the cast list.  It’s impressive.  Landau’s connection to the late great master of horror Stuart Gordon (“Re-Animator”) opened the door to George Wendt, who starred in Gordon’s “King of the Ants,” and, likely, led to the onboarding fan favorites such as Brinke Stevens (“The Slumber Party Massacre”), Tiffany Shepis (“Tromeo and Juliet”), Lloyd Kaufmann (“The Toxic Avenger”), Daniel Roebuck (“The Devil’s Rejects”), Chuck Williams (“Demon Wind”), and Tony Todd (“Candyman”).  Now, with these many names, none of them have starring roles and few have reoccurring scenes, but they are headlined to draw attraction for “Bryan Loves You.”  Honestly, the performances are hardly worth nothing.  Steves and Kaufmann have little dialogue and are shot at weird angles that makes them hardly recognizable.  Best scenes go to Tony Todd as a hesitantly disturbed and full of fear narrator standing in an empty board room and talking directly into the camera about what we, the audience, are about to witness, even directing viewers to turn away or to be ushered out of the theater (did this get a theatrical release?) if the content becomes too shocking to behold.  Seth Landau stars as the principal lead Jonathan who can’t be taken seriously as a psychoanalyst as there is no depth to the character in those regards.  Plus, as someone who’s supposed to uphold ethical standards, Jonathan breaks quite a few HIPPA regulations and breaks into houses with a camera, filming Bryan acolytes without their consent.  “Bryan Loves You” rounds out the cast with Tori King, Candy Stanton (“Exit to Hell”), Shane Stevens (“The Graves”), Jilon VanOver (“Bad Blood”), Tom Noga (“Anonymous Killers”), Jesse Ramiawi, Jacqui Allen (“Blue Lake Butcher”) and Daniel Schweiger (“Die-ner”)

Seth Landau’s found footage cult film is a rough cut of rudimentary psychological suspense restrained by its limiting low-ceiling budget.  The acutely hard cut editing and wonky framing is enormously puzzling within the narrative’s supposed single camera source documentary structure that suddenly diffuses into being a splice between Jonathan’s camera, which he loses halfway through the story, and a bunch of randomly placed CCTV footage across all of Arizona, in which some scenes are randomly placed in the desert where no structures are seemingly present to house a camera.  Who gathered and edited all this multi-video footage together?  Or does that play into the mystery, no matter how illogical, of adding to “Bryan Loves You’” unsettling allure?  What Landau does accomplish compares closely to what directors Eduardo Sánchez and Daniel Myrick were able to profoundly achieve with their unexpected breakout found footage blockbuster, “The Blair Witch Project.”  Now, I’m not saying “Bryan Loves You” had the audience gasping power as the “The Blair Witch Project” but the air in the story still feels very uncomfortably still, like in holding your breath, because something sinister is closing in and that type of disturbing presence, coupled with the erratic demonic behavior boiled to the surface if love for the almighty Bryan is absent, is all too relatable in today’s political climate.

Though “Bryan Loves You,” MVD Visual really loves Bryan right back with a high-definition Blu-ray release, remastered and upscaled from the original master source, a digital recorded standard definition, with an approved up-conversion of 172,800 pixels to over 2 million pixels per frame to achieve full HD.  For SOV, the handheld cam footage turns out more detailed than expected with suitable tinctures that are often less vivid in the found footage genre; however, there are still varying levels of quality from lower quality posterization to better than mid-grade delineation.  Though stated as presented in a widescreen 1:78:1 aspect ratio on the MVD Marquee Collection back cover, the actual ratio is a pillarbox 1:33:1 without straying from that display. The English language dual channel stereo track also has varying fidelity levels using the inconsistency of a built-in handheld mic but the good bones behind the range and depth retain the natural auditory proportionate. A few augmented audio tracks are snuck in for effect, such as the preacher’s demon-speak and the school PA system. English subtitles are optional. With a new Blu-ray release comes all new special features with a few short film-length interviews between filmmaker Seth Landau and George Wendt (44:50 minutes), Tiffany Shepis (50:49 minutes), Daniel Roebuck (59:35 minutes), and Brinke Stevens (31:46 minutes) touching upon more than just “Bryan Loves You” but also various career moments and other media cultural topics. Also featured are two commentaries: a 2008 commentary with Landau, select cast and crew, and JoBlo critic James Oster and a new 2022 commentary with only Landau. Plus, a brand new 2022 theatrical trailer. “Bryan Loves You” draws parallels to the 1993 Waco, Texas cult led by David Koresh of the Davidian sect preaching fire and brimstone, but writer-director-product Seth Landau adds his own supernatural concoction in a trade-in of doom and gloom for mindless devotion and diabolism that turns folks into followers and flesh-hungry fiends at times. Maybe not the prime cut of the cult genre but does stand out even if you don’t really love “Bryan.”

All New Blu-ray release of “Bryan Loves You” on Amazon.com

I Would Be EVIL Too If Disturbed at “6:45” reviewed! (Well Go USA / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Now on Blu-ray “6:45” the Worst Time of Your Life!

Bobby and Jules seek to fix their broken relationship with a vacation to the island resort town of Bog Grove after a big fight about Bobby’s suspected infidelity.  The off-season island is strangely quiet with hardly any tourists roaming the shops and boardwalk.  The couple stay at the Cozy Nook bed and breakfast, owned and operated by an eccentric host, Gene, whose more personally invasive than he is hospitable, yet everything else feels like a dream for both Jules and Bobby reconnecting to what is lost between them until a hooded man slices Jules’s throat and snaps Bobby’s neck.  Next thing Bobby knows, he becomes awoken by a 6:45 am alarm and feeling relieved that the horrific moment was only a dream, but when the events exactly play out as they did in his dream and he dies again the same way only to wake up again at 6:45 am, he, and he alone, realizes he and Jules are trapped inside a time loop driving him to face a different, more grim reality.

Ah, yes.  The time loop genre.  An alternate dimension where reliving the same day over and over again without a new path of escape on the horizon had established a foundation of fear beginning with Bill Murray starring in the Harold Ramis directed comedy “Groundhog Day” and has more recently been a executed (pun intended!) delightfully in the Christopher Landon cycling slasher “Happy Death Day.”  Well, here we are again, as if we ourselves are stuck in a time loop, with another rinse and repeat picture titled “6:45” from the “Perkins’ 14” director, Craig Singer.  “6:45” will mark as screenwriter Robert Dean Klein and Singer’s fourth collaboration in their respective roles and their first feature together in 15 years following 2001’s “Dead Dogs Lie,”, 2003’s “A Good Night to Die,” and 2008’s “Dark Ride.”  The fictional locale of Bog Grove is actually multiple locations up and down the new Jersey Shore from Ocean Grove to the Seaside Heights, showcasing a few local hangouts and attractions of the upper Jersey shore of Ocean County.  “6:45” is coproduced between the director and the films’ stars Augie Duke and Michael Reed under the Birds Fly Dogs Bark Wind Blows productions.

Augie Duke must need a vacation because “6:45” makes the second getaway horror where one of Duke’s previous characters vacations at the Jersey Shore following the Cape May-shot psychological thriller “Exit 0” alongside sojourning costar Gabe Fazio.  While there are parallels between the two Jerseyan films, Singer’s very own holiday in Hell is set on repeat and poor Augie Duke has to continuously have her throat cut more than a handful of times as the romance-question Jules, but being a quietly discreet scream queen of indie film (“The Black Room,” “Hell’s Kitty,” and “Necropolis:  Legion”), the L.A. born Duke can handle a simple boxcutter to the juggler.  Opposite of Duke, playing a recovering alcoholic musician in Bobby, is an equal match for indie horror credits to his name with Michael Reed (“The Disco Exorcist,” “Exhumed,” and “Subferatu”).  Duke and Reed play nice as a happy couple on the rebound but as death and the date never ends, the strain between them grows with intensity every cycle as Reed has been the outlier in remembering every moment of his girlfriend’s death and the helplessness he feels in the inability to stop it no matter what route he tries. Creepy characters a peppered throughout just to make more peeving towards Reed tumble drying recollection of events from the Cozy Nook’s nosy nuisance of a host Gene (Armen Garo, “The Manor,” “Coda”), the drunk lesbian Brooklyn (Sasha K. Gordon), and the shadowy, silent man (Joshua Matthew Smith) who’s a representation of the incessant range and has one job of slicing throats and breaking necks. Remy Ma, Sabina Friedman-Seitz, The 45 King, Allie Marshall, and Windows, himself, from “The Thing” Thomas G. Waites co-star in the film.

“6:45” has a story that can easily wrap you up initially and have you invested in a couple burdened by their love-hate relationship. To lure you in more, that light-and-dark balance tilts more toward the latter in a dangerous askew manner and love morphs into a blinding obsession to where anything is possible, making that narrative of a volatile human chemistry cocktail needing to be told as straightforwardly as humanly possible. Singer works diligently on keeping Reed and Jules on that track of an askew reality revolving around the historical mysteries of a bruised romance that include infidelity, alcohol abuse, and even violence, but Singer keeps close to the chest in not unveiling the true nature of Bobby’s repetitive retreat on what should have been the best day the newfound happy couple’s lives after rekindling and taking next steps to marriage with an island proposal that’s seen as Bobby’s good faith effort in turning around his life for the better because of his love for Jules. Yet, out of nowhere, the established linear narrative takes an unexpected montage turn in style, blending the couple’s past, present, and future all in one Brady Bunch grid mixed with even more flashbacks and repeated scenes that tries to explain more of Bobby’s checkered, playboy background and hand over emotional stress of repeating everyday like a persistent and noisy street hawker trying desperately to hand you pamphlets. Yet, the repeated days stay sequential after Bobby’s next death and so Bobby and Jules die more than a dozen or so times, but the next title card follows in sequential order (but aren’t they also reliving the same day so wouldn’t be day 2 over and over again). “6:45” attempts unnecessary stylistic approaches to keep the story fresh because no one wants to see the same thing over and over again and that’s perhaps where Robert Dean Klein collapses in the second act that inevitably bled to a total meltdown of story in the third act in trying to connect the time of 6:45 am to an important event with an end result of just leaving us more bewildered about the reference. The gist of Bobby and Jules’ downfall is clear, but how Singer takes us there is a pothole-laden path with lots of senseless bumps along the way.

This off-season, Jersey shore, psychological thriller really casts a dark cloud over the sunny good times usually offered for vacationers. “6:45” is the shark roaming just offshore in that feeling of fearful uncertainty of what lurks about. Well Go Use Entertainment releases the Craig Singer film onto a region A Blu-ray home video, presented in a widescreen 16X9 aspect ratio, and is rated R for strong violence and gore, sexual content, nudity, and language throughout. Cinematographer Lucas Pitassi casts a fairly natural image, clearly sharp and texturally above par in Well Go Usa’s high-definition Blu-ray release. While much of the gels and abnormal lighting comes more into play at the tail end of the film, “6:45” offers a more than just a paradoxical effect on the mind but also on the sight of seeing what should be a joyfully hopping with out-of-town patrons and vividly bright with beach sun resort town turned into a cold and dreary Hell by the ocean. The English language DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 had some issues with inconsistent dialogue levels that were, at times, muffled without just cause. Perhaps, the cause was more boom placement or interference of some sort. The soundtrack by Kostas Christides has a smoother quality while creating tense atmospherics where needed and ascending into rock instrumental for those black sheep montages and flashbacks. English SDH subtitles are an available option. On the variable-trailer-esque menu, there are no bonus features nor are there any bonus scenes during or after the credits on this barebones release. The cardboard slipcover, of the repeated Blu-ray cover art, is a flat, smooth matte that nicely sheathes the snapper case. “6:45’s” thrills and chills literally emanate a no time to die mantra disillusioned by guilt and death and the only slither of hope out of purgatory is to come clean, but if it was only that simple – in life and in Craig Singer’s film.

Now on Blu-ray “6:45” the Worst Time of Your Life!

EVIL’s on the Shallow End of “Deep Space” reviewed! (Scorpion Releasing / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Deep Space” Invades Blu-ray on Amazon.com!

A government funded space craft containing a monstrous biological weapon crashes to Earth.  The organic creature is genetically coded to be a killing machine with a craving for eating it’s enemy and, now, it’s loose in the city and not responding to the scientists’ command self-destruct codes.  Tough and obstinate cop Ian McLemore and his partner, Jerry Merris, are ordered ot investigate the crash site before government agents take control of the case, even removing a pair of strange organic pods with them for further examination.  When a couple of close colleagues are shred to pieces at the hands of the creature, McLemore will stop at nothing to figure out what’s wreaking havoc in his city and blow it away.  

1988 – a weird, yet greatly satisfying transitional period of fading 80’s horror into nipping at the insanity of 90’s brazen prosthetic creature effects right before the turn of the computer generated decade.  Granted, Fred Olen Ray’s Sci-Fi horror “Deep Space,” which is ironically set on Earth, is very much an enamored 1980’s horror, but the Olen Ray film is where you can kind of see the turning of change on the horizon when the story’s ideas become too grandiose for tangibility alone, no matter how much us fans love to see practical effects over CGI.  The script, cowritten between Olen Ray and T.L. Lankford (“Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers,” “Fatal Passion”), is massive more expensive than anything the filmmaker’s had previously done and with a $2 million budget, “Deep Space” gets a giant explosion, high speed car scenes and wreckage, the iconic face and voice of Charles Napier, a Xenomorph-like creature, and a ultra-bloody chainsaw scene that could give “Evil Dead’s” Ash Williams a run for his money.  “Deep Space” is a production of Trans World Entertainment (no, not the same monikered company that sunk money into the bleeding financially physical media brick and mortar outlets like FYE, Camelot Music, or Suncoast) and shot in Los Angeles under producers Olen Ray, Alan Amiel (“Inner Sanctum”), and Herb Linsey (“Neon Maniacs”) with Yoram Pelman (“Commando Squad”) as executive producer.

At the center of the chaos is Ian McLemore, a hardnose and stubborn, harmlessly sarcastic detective who goes against the authoritative grain and cuts through bureaucratic tape to get the job done.  Playing McLemore is the unmistakable Charles Napier.  The “Rambo:  First Blood Part II” and “The Silence of the Lambs” actor, who is about as legendary as they come in supporting roles, lands his own lead man role with his own buxom beauty romantic leading lady in Ann Turkel {“Humanoids from the Deep”), as a new, but experienced, cop, Carla Sandbourn, on the L.A. force.  Experiencing Napier as an attractive male lead was a little more off-putting that initially thought.  The veteran actor, who began a career in the movie picture industry in his early 30s which was later than most of his counterparts, is hovering around early 50s in this role, middle of the ground with his physical appearance, and has a masculine square chin akin to Ron Pearlman with matching hair color to the “Hellboy” actor.  At an age gap of approx. 10 years between them at the time of filming, Napier and Turkel make their courtship appear easy; in fact, almost too easy as Turkel’s drops her shirt at the mere sight of McLemore dressed as a Scotsman blowing away at bagpipes for a gag effect in sleeping with him.  Both Napier and Sandbourn are charming enough to pull off a love affair without causing too much of a they’re so old stir.  “Serenity’s” Ron Glass plays the casual with the flow Partner Jerry Merris, “The Inglorious Bastards’” Bo Svenson is full of patience as the McLemore insubordination absorbing Captain Robertson, and the original Catwoman herself, from the Adam West “Batman” television series, Julie Newmar as a psychic who can clairvoyantly see the creature’s murderous mayhem.

The fact that “Deep Space” doesn’t take place at all in space is innately tongue in cheek to begin with, but that brand of flippancy courses through the film’s veins despite the blood splattering and semi-serious veneer, weaving between an action-horror and a horror-comedy during the entire 90-minutes.  Some of the comedy is intention, such as McLemore’s husky wit and sarcasm, but there’s also the extremely foggy campy side to this gem.  Some of these elements include the creature being hinted as a genetically mutated cockroach or the left field use of Julie Newmar’s psychic abilities that are randomly injected the storyline for the sole purpose of forewarning McLemore over the telephone rather being an intrinsic piece to stopping the creature.  The creature carnage would undoubtedly be investigated and exterminated without the psychic’s help, making her character farcical in futility.  “Deep Space” also pulls a little inspiration from “Alien,” maybe even the sequel, “Aliens,” with a toothy, long-headed, and eyeless black organism that resembles much like a Xenomorph or the Xenomorph queen and there’s also a near shot-for-shot sequence of a security guard whistling to and trying to persuade a cat to come to him while the monster rises from behind and strikes a fatal blow.  The scene is very reminiscent of Harry Dean Stanton’s death in “Alien.”  Being campy has it’s highlights but never can fully overshadow scenes that erect suspense or are saturated with gore which “Deep Space” has both with a combination of editing and piercingly sharp sound design and a rip-roaring, blood-splattering chainsaw kill that’s leaves that good metallic taste in your mouth.

There’s no escaping the blood-hungry tentacles of the “Deep Space” monster coming at you in a brand new 2018 high-definition master Blu-ray from Scorpion Releasing, leased from MGM, and distributed by Ronin Flix and MVD Visual. The hard-locked region A Blu-ray is presented in an anamorphic widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio and is rated R. Fred Olen Ray knew how to develop an eerie, twirling fog and wind atmosphere and this master crisps up that iconic trope image. Textural details and natural-appearing skin colors are delineated nicely throughout as you can make out every little blemish and hair on a shirtless Charles Napier as well as really getting into the slimy orifices of the creature and having a sense of its viscosity with a decisive sheen. Black areas are inky and dense with the right amount of grain in the overall picture and no obvious signs of image posterization, retaining the natural shadowing, along with no cropping or border enhancements. The English language DTS-HD master audio stereo finds common quality ground with a tidy dialogue track that does Napier’s resonating and recognizable jest justice. However, there is some hissing early on into the film, especially in the lab scenes in the contentious dialogue between the military general and the lead scientist. Omar Tal’s sound design proves vital to the story that relies on the screeching, the scuttling, the whooshing of tentacles, and the booming roars of the creatures, coinciding appropriately with Alan Oldfield and Robert O. Ragland’s rather run of the mill serrated and discordant electronic score. What “Deep Space” Blu-ray lacks is robust extras with only an audio commentary with director Fred Olen Ray and a scene selection index. “Deep Space” ages about as well as you expect over the last 35 years, but this Fred Olen Ray creature feature relic becomes rightfully preserved for being quintessential B-movie verve that no longer seems to exist in today’s age and also the fact that Charles Napier wears a kilt.

***Stills do not represent or were captured from the Blu-ray release

“Deep Space” Invades Blu-ray on Amazon.com!

The Best Spies Seek Thrills When Taking Down EVIL! “Deathcheaters” reviewed! (Umbrella Entertainment / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

If Anyone Can Hide from the Grim Reaper, It’s the “Deathcheaters” on Blu-ray from Umbrella Entertainment!

Vietnam War brothers-in-arms Steve Hall and Rodney Cann banded together well after the fighting was over and channeled all their pent up energy into being adrenaline junky stuntmen for movies, television series, and commercials as a living and as a lifestyle.  When the two Australians are duped and setup into a high speed chase and a daring rescue mission by one of their country’s own clandestine government agencies in a ploy to test Steve and Rod’s daredevil abilities, they pass the qualifying assessments and are offered an espionage job by agency head under the pseudonym of Mr. Culpepper who has no other incentive to provide other than the job to be the most challenging, death-defying operation to gorge on by two extreme sport enthusiasts.  Unable to resist, the stuntmen embark to a secret base on a remote island of the Philippines where they’ll dodge bullets, explosions, and over 100 guards to fight their way in and out to obtain classified documents for their country.

“Deathcheaters” became the third viewing adventure involving the actor-director combination of stuntman Grant Page and director Brian Trenchard-Smith that falls right in between “The Man from Hong Kong” and “Stunt Rock” and clearly delineates an understanding that Grant Page was a genuine fascination for Trenchard-Smith who sought to take the daring stuntman out of solely stunt role and puree him into a leading man role, showcasing Page’s hang-gliding, dune buggy, and skyscraper falls,  for the director’s second feature film released in 1976.  And, then, there’s John Hargreaves who we will dive into his there-but-not there presence later on. “Deathcheaters” is an ozploitation action-comedy that fulfilled two of Trenchard-Smith’s obsessions – stuntmen and spy films – from a story by the director and penned to script by Michael Cove and is produced by Trenchard productions alongside a conglomerate of production companies, including “Mad Max’s”  Roadshow Entertainment (a subsidiary of Village Roadshow), D.L. Taffner (“Ghost Stories”), Nine Network Australia, and the Australian Film Commission.

Undoubtedly, “Deathcheaters” stars Grant Page as the relationship unattached and cocky Rodney Cann whose only other interest besides bedding the single ladies is his enamored basset hound, Bismark.  Cann’s best friend, Steve Hall, is newly hitched to Julia who more-or-less disapproves of her husband’s risky vocation.  “Long Weekend’s” John Hargreaves plays the cheeky Steve Hall with sarcastic charm, matching his complement stunt partner and while Hargreaves has the chops to pull of the persona, the late Sydney born actor is well behind the curve when matched up with Grant Page.  Page is a stuntman playing a stuntman while Hargreaves is an actor portraying to be a stuntman and, unquestionably, that delta shows pretty radically when Page is driving the dune buggy, is descending rapidly from a tall building, or scaling a rock cliff without a harness and Hargreaves is relatively stationary.  Hargreaves has his moments but is greatly overshadowed by the veteran Page.  Before she was Brian Trenchard-Smith’s wife, “Stunt Rock’s” Margaret Gerard was John Hargreaves on screen romance who is vocal but wishy-washy on her husband’s exploits, even on the highly dangerous, international espionage mission assigned by the enigmatic Mr. Culpepper (Noel Ferrier, “Turkey Shoot”).  “Deathcheaters” round out with Judith Woodroffe, Drew Forsythe, Annie Semler, and Vincent Ball.

“Deathcheasters’ falls on the heels of the martial arts success of “The Man from Hong Kong” and is another stunt celebratory film from the ozploitation director with a penchant for large explosions and need-for-speed car chases.  All the stunts were perfectly poised in design and well executed.  Trenchard-Smith isn’t at all afraid to have the camera right in the middle of the action, strapping the 16mm camera to whatever plausible to place the audience in the action with the heroes.  As much as Trenchard-Smith goes full throttle with a tour de force, the same tricks become a little stale after, unfortunately, having previously watched “Stunt Rock” and “The Man from Hong Kong” that also featured self-set wet-gel fires, hang gliding, free falling, and among others aerobatic and dangerous acts that are seemingly in Page’s limited bag of showstopping routines.  There’s rarely anything new in “Deathcheaters” that warrant an awe response and that can be cliched, tiresome, and overall detrimental to the experience unless you’ve never seen a Trenchard-Smith film. If you’re one of those people never to have popped in one of his films, don’t expect “Deathcheaters” to be gritty, tough-as-nails, spitfire. Many of Trenchard-Smith’s earlier films, including “Deathcheaters,” sells solely on the witty, clean banter and a knack for the implied something really terrible happened to the bad guys with nothing ostentatiously explicit in the demise category. “Deathcheaters” can be wholesome, light, and aromatic of a repartee trashcan, but you get some great stunt work, explosions, and a car chase from this 1970’s Australian picture.

Like “The Man from Hong Kong” and “Stunt Work,” “Deathcheaters” too receives the Ozploitation Classics Blu-ray honor bestowed upon it from Umbrella Entertainment as spine number 10. Newly scanned in high definition 4K for the first time, John Seale’s cinematic vision has never looked better in this region free release, presented in standard widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio. The original vault materials held up nice enough to warrant a clear picture with only a few, brief blemishes. The super 16mm shot film, blown up to 35mm, often still feels ever so lightly flat in contour definition and in color; yet all the scenes look naturally aboriginal from the masters. The English language DTS-HD master audio 2.0 mono is a naturally lossy single speaker audio mix that doesn’t exact full representation of the action on screen though robust in fidelity. Dialogue perceives feebler during exterior scenes as capturing dialogue competes with the elements due to poor boom placement or just inferior equipment. Like the other releases, bonus features are nicely packed with a newly extended interviews with Brian Trenchard-Smith, Grant Page, and John Seale from the Not Quite Hollywood documentary, a new audio only interview Remembering “Deathcheaters” with executive producer Richard Brennan, new liner notes from Trenchard-Smith, a 2008 commentary with the director, executive producer, and leading lady Margaret Gerard (listed as Margaret Trenchard-Smith), Trenchard-Smith trailer reel, theatrical trailer, and a Trenchard-Smith directed bonus feature in “Dangerfreaks – The Ultimate Documentary.” The clear snapper case is housed inside a cardboard slipcover and inside the snapper’s liner is a 16-page comic book adaptation from Dark Oz, much like Umbrella accompanied with “Stunt Rock.” “Deathcheaters” shows its age but still pulls out all the stops with amazing stunt choreography and gave way to Grant Page being solidified lead man material, even with his corny one-liners, and simultaneously building upon Brian Trenchard-Smith’s early career in a niche field of being obsessed with overachieving, arrogant, and unafraid stuntmen.

If Anyone Can Hide from the Grim Reaper, It’s the “Deathcheaters” on Blu-ray from Umbrella Entertainment!

EVIL Atones with Drugs and Torture! “Xpiation” reviewed! (Unearthed Films / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Atone for Your Sins By Buying “Xpiation” on Blu-ray from Amazon!

An elegantly dressed woman thrones herself into the middle of a grungy corridor, pointing a video camera toward two unconscious men. One man lies face down on the floor while the other is gagged and bound naked to a chair. When both men awake from their slumber, the man from the floor continuously tortures the man confined the chair by beating him, slicing his face open with a knife, scraping his skin open with steel wool, bludgeoning him with a clothes iron, and hammering his scrotum all the while the mysterious woman videotapes. The woman coddles her delusional torturous goon with powerful narcotics and motherly affection to do her bidding. She also participates in a few pain inflicting activities that adds more insult to injury to the beaten to a pulp and humiliated young man hanging onto his life by a thread.

Italian gore and shock filmmaker Domiziano Cristopharo wanted to emulate the notoriously extreme and underground horror series Guinea Pig that originated in Japan and was westernized for North American audiences with their own version of American panorama of sadism. For Italy, Cristopharo set out to create his own compendium of starkly violent and gory films Cristopharo dubs the Trilogy of Death. All three films dealing with a theme of punitive suffering were produced in 2017, beginning with “Sacrifice” that written by Samuel Marolla and directed by Poison Rouge (“A Taste of Phobia”). “Sacrifice” was actually turn Cristopharo’s aspiration into reality when it was picked up by the American Guinea Pig series. The next film, “Torment,” was cowritten by Cristopharo and Likov Milotoskih and directed by Adam Ford (“XXX Dark Web”) that pulled inspiration from the infamous John Wayne Gacy murders. The third and last segment, “Xpiation, was helmed by Cristopharo himself from an Andrea Cavaletto (“Dark Waves”) script that finally placed Cristopharo personal touch upon the series he fully endorsed as creator and producer under his production company, Enchanted Architect.

The principal cast is tightly coiled around just the three individuals in the isolated corridor of a vacant, graffiti painted building.   Right away, we’re intrigued by the opening scene of a sophisticatedly dressed woman with blond hair draped over her left eye.  She’s sitting in an armchair with her exposed legs to the side.  She has forearm length black gloves, lushes red lipstick, a tightfitting low cut short skirt black dress slightly exposed by her short sleeve steel gray jacket with a matching pin hat with a clear veil over her face, a purse around her left forearm resting on her thigh, and a camera clutched in her right hand for viewing the spectacle before her.  The provocative Italian actress Chiara Pavoni is the sharply eye-catching center figure amongst the rumble she sits and the two disheveled men she videotapes. Having had roles in previous obscure horror, such as “Demonium,” “Bad Brains,” and VelvetMorgue,” Pavoni established herself as an Italian scream queen that suited her more domicile, yet underhandedly authoritative, role as the Lady in “Xpiation” that has since been a springboard for her career working with Cristopharo on a number of future projects.  We see what Cristopharo sees in the mature in age actress:  a commanding presence with range and willingness to absorb extreme content for the sake of art.  As the Lady, Pavoni orchestrates the drug-fueled violence of Simone Tolu’s character, the drug addict.   Tolu’s crazed approach to a hallucinating and aggressive, substance abusive druggie is more childlike that crosses the line into overzealous disability.  The addict is supposed to be under the Lady’s narcotic spell, bewitched by her motherly presence in feeding love to him by way of various powders, pills, and penetrating needles of unknown liquid matter and while that is certainly what’s on screen, Tolu oversteps his swiss-cheese child mind into more of just maniacal horseplay that cheapens the desired effect.  One of the easier performances in the film is from Emanuele Delia who has to sit naked in a chair, bound and gagged, and take Tolu’s manhandling beatings for most of the duration.  Delia has a handful of scenes where he’s engaged with the Lady in flashback and an existential representation finish but neither one of his three-sided role squeezes out a smidgen of dialogue, reducing his inked and pierced body to be a model of crime and punishment, or in this theme, sin and atonement.

Sin and atonement.  “Xpiation” is simply that.  A minor reconstructing toward a more panache play on the word expiation, the act of making right for wrongdoing, to home in on concluding Cristapharo’s Trilogy of Death.  “Xpiation” expresses this message in the form of vengeance in an exploitation playground of brutality where eye-for-an-eye is a steep slide toward grinding a sinner into the rubber mulch of penitence.  Cristpharo directs a straight up torture film that aims to avoid a fanciful apathetic and really divulges itself into humanizing the torturer with flashbacks of far-from-comfortable life.  Multitudes of abuse fester in the Lady’s past until it suppurates outward after one final act of transgression pushes the Lady beyond the point of enough-is-enough and every ounce of anger and hate that’s been bottled up tightly all the years is shook so hard the cap finally explodes into a meticulously premeditated plan for revenge and relief. Non-linear avant garde is Cristpharo’s go-to storytelling weapon, one that provides “Xpiation” with more layers than just surface level brutality as the director spoon feeds the audience with little bits and pieces of the Lady’s background. As he accomplished with his breakout film, “House of Flesh Mannequins,” the filmmaker is a master at commanding the pace, a maestro del ritmo!

You can now own a piece of the trinity or conclude Domiziano Cristopharo’s trilogy of death with a Blu-ray release of the last installment, “Xpiation,” as the director attempts to revive erotic-horror and institute extreme horror in his home country of Italy. Unearthed Films, a leading distributor in gore, arthouse, and horror films, releases an AVC encode full high definition, 1080p, Blu-ray in a standard widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio. Distributed by MVD Visual, I tested the Region A release on a Region B setting and was able to play the not rated film in its 73-minute entirety. Image looks consistently good and more gruesome with the closeup mauling of skin. Colors are vivid enough in the blood and in the contrast, through good lighting, of the lady’s aristocratically lush and starkly colored outfits compared to the bleak rubble that surrounds her. Often, during the flashbacks, does the coloring dull or reduce to indicate flashback. The English dubbed PCM 2.0 stereo is where most of the inconsistencies lie with an uneven dialogue track due to the forced English upon English dub, as the actors are basically whispering their lines in English, and “Sick Sock Monsters from Outer Space’s” Antony Cola’s industrial hum and brood soundtrack masks the dialogue to a muddled intelligibility. I wonder why if the plan was to always dub the film in English, why even bother with dense accents? The bonus features include a decent blooper reel that showcases a lot of the dubbed dialogue, an interview with director Domiziano Cristopharo as he goes into the construction and issues of his seeing his trilogy to fruition, a still gallery of the film, and trailers. With “Xpiation,” Cristopharo continues to amaze and impress with small bubble stories that seldomly traipse to new locations, sticking to a confinement and cruelty disposition, and still be able to build interesting, layered characters trounced in pain and dripping with blood.

Atone for Your Sins By Buying “Xpiation” on Blu-ray from Amazon!