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Business and Pleasured are Ruined by EVIL’s Obsession! “Tulpa: Demon of Desire” reviewed! (MVDVisual / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Tulpa: Demon of Desire” Now on DVD!

Lisa Boeri is a career-driven businesswoman successful in locking down deals and achieving financial gains in a fast-paced, no-holds barred global market as she slaves away from dawn to dusk at the office, but when the sun goes down, Lisa releases the stresses of occupational hazards and her thirst for carnal desires at an exclusive, hidden-away nightclub where sexual fantasies range from BDSM to orgies while esoteric mystic and club owner Kiran trains her to release her Tulpa, an inner being of sensual self-exploration and freedom, through ecstasy elevating drugs.  When Lisa comes across printed news reports of her club sexual partners being brutally murdered by a serial killer, she must warn Kiran and her last partner before another body makes the press but Kiran isn’t too keen on making public private identifying information that goes against club rules and Lisa must do whatever it takes to investigate who and why would want to murder her intimate encounters. 

“Tulpa:  Demon of Desire” is a contemporary giallo from “Shadow” and “The Well” director Federico Zampaglione attempting his hand at the sordid Italian genre that has come to cult infamy over the past few decades with a regained revival and following on physical media.  Zampaglione co-wrote the script with father, Domenico Zampaglione, and Giacomo Gensini, the writing collective’s second collaboration behind the 2009 thriller “Shadow.”  Also known in Italian as “Tulpa:  perdizioni mortali,” the 2012 erotic giallo is a glow up of the everyday modern giallo that doesn’t try as hard as other productions that lean strictly toward being an homage to notable films and directors, “Nightmare Symphony” comes to mind as a compliment to Lucio Fulci’s “Cat in the Brain,” aka “Nightmare Concern” with a fairly identical storyline, rather than be self-serving toward its own identity within the subgenre context.  The producer behind Tinto Brass’s “Cheeky” and Zampaglione’s “Shadow,” Massimo Ferrero, returns to produce “Tulpa:  Demon of Desure” under his studio company Blu Cinematografica and IDF, Italian Dreams Factory.

At the center of a murder’s relentless focus is conservative promiscuous lead character, Lisa Boeri, played by Claudia Gerini who has had roles in Mel Gibson’s “Passion of the Christ” and Chad Stanhelski’s “John Wick:  Chapter 2” as well as reteaming with Zampaglione for his last film “The Well.”  Gerini’s versatility proves its worth in “Tulpa” as Boeri’s required to be business professional and quick witted and then is contrasted against her carnal rendezvous that’s no longer has in control of herself.  There’s a freedom from the business shackles that takes place but when her night world comes crashing down in a heap of bodies, Boeri finds herself unable to focus on anything else other than the lives of her anonymous sleeping partners.  Club owner Kiran (Nuot Arquint, “Shadow”) is a bit of an odd bohemian duck with his psychosomatic holistic spirituality and the biochemical, psychedelic drugs he pours into his clients’ drinks.  The rest of the Italian cast are a series of rotating characters that, unfortunately, don’t flesh out enough to warrant when becoming intertwined into a killer’s web with to note Ivan Franek (“T.M.A.”) as the last sex-partner to be a killer’s crosshairs and Boeri has to save, Frederica Vincenti as Beori’s envious coworker out for her colleague’s scandal, and Michela Cescon (“I Am the Abyss”) as Boeri’s best friend outside of work and play as well as Pierpaolo Lovino, Michele Placido (“The Pyjama Girl Case”), Giorgia Sinicorni (“Canepazzo”), and Piero Maggio (“The Vatican Exorcisms”) rounding out the rest of supporting company.

Zampaglione’s giallo attempt is coursed with suspense with a masked, gloved killer targeting a beautifully flawed woman complicated by her own sexual exploration and reach inside a world that’s viewed as taboo as it is tantalizing with sexual delight.  The director fashions Boeri’s alternative and secretive lifestyle as a self-harming vice, much the same way as illegal drugs or excessive alcohol, done in the shadows and hidden from friends and family.  There’s a moment in the midst of Boeri’s desperation search for her last partner’s name where an adversarial colleague learns of her sex club nightlife and aims to expose her, turning her private venture public through means of blackmail.  Eventually, more than one type of obsession over Boeri comes into play and the bodies pile up because of the unhealthy nature of the meddlesome and malevolent.  Though taut when tension bred from a killer whose maniacal plan involves and extends to a torturous and gruesome end against those hovering in Beori personal bubble, a couple of key catalysts are not cleared very well.  One of the individual obsessions over Boeri falters right at the end with a quick cut that doesn’t allow breathing room for comprehension of what went down and, perhaps one of the more complexing and important outliers that strays off the narrative from off the straight and narrow, a supernatural sign of power, perhaps the Tulpa force in practice, that gives the story a taste of Lucio Fulci giallo, such as “The Psychic.”  Yet this revelation of an ability receives lukewarm reception that cases the story’s drive into a wait-a-minute of mystical puzzlement. 

“Tulpa:  Demon of Desire” arrives onto DVD from MVDVisual in association with Danse Macabre and Jinja Films.  The upscaled from 720 to 1080p MPEG-2 encoded DVD9 is presented in a widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio.  Bathed in warmer tones of yellow, green, and red that often blend into a confluence of orange, Guiseep Maio’s noir dark veneer engages a sordid world of sophisticated sleaze and maniacal murder, creating a side-by-side dualism of Boeri’s day-and-night lifestyles.  Details are soft for this upscaled DVD as if the format slightly shimmers to keep focus on textures and delineations, the vibrant gel coloring for eliciting illicit behaviors doesn’t help either, but the release manages to produce a discernible image without the strain of compression issues and still convey Zampaglione’s visual aesthetic of a darker, viscus blood, heated shades of fervor, and a higher contrast to intensify shadows.  The English and Italian PCM 5.1 Surround Sound mix caters to the score and dialogue layers rather than creating worlds with ambience audio.  Though the dialogue is not listed as Italian on the DVD backside, there is a sizeable chunk of the dialogue in Italian with English subtitles, but the feature is mostly in a heavily accented English language.  The overall dialogue is clean without interference other than the accents and is prominently positioned, but still integrated in, amongst the other layers with a timed Francesco Zampaglione (last name incorrectly misspelled on the DVD back cover with missing the I in Zampaglione) and Andrea Moscianese exotically haunting score that works to not overpower the dialogue and plays into the sex-club and giallo themes  English subtitles appear to have no flaws and are paced well.  For a side note, I would suggest using the English subtitles to get through the Italian accents that can be challenging at times with certain actors.  Special features include a “Tulpa” behind-the-scenes featurette that interviews cast and crew, the official trailer, and two trailers for two other Federico Zampaglione productions – “Shadow” and “The Wall.”   The MVDVisual DVD release is a perfect example of less is more with a black background with a contrasting silver and intrinsically cracking Venetian mask and white logo with a blood-tipped spear.  The standard, region free, rated R release comes with no other physical or encoded attributes in its 84-minute runtime.

Last Rites: Honestly, a kill-focus blood overtakes the slim waist of sex in what’s supposed to be a blend of both motifs as the title suggests in”Tulpa: Demon of Desire,” but this modern-day giallo from those who did the niche subgenre the best, the Italians, is still worth viewing calories.

“Tulpa: Demon of Desire” Now on DVD!

EVIL Sinks Its Teeth into the Reach of the Worldwide Web! (Full Moon Features / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Death Streamer” Now on Blu-ray!

A trio of struggling horror video podcasters stumble across a dark web stream while content mining for their derelict house of God set macabre show Church of Chills.  When they stumble upon a bloodcurdling ritual of drugging women and man vampirically ripping out and feasting on their necks, the footage is all too real based on their research and investigation into the underground live streams that rack up thousands of views and subscribers.  Eager to piggyback off the streams’ success, the Church of Chills reveals the callous, artery puncturing content to the world.  The live streaming ancient vampire master, seeking sacrifices to bring the end of days upon the world, is none too happy with the intruders doxing his content that has amassed a large following and warns them with omnipotent power, sending the three into flight or fight for their very lives and the for the sake of the world.

As the famous chorus line from the legendary rock-n-roll band AC/DC once sang, If you want nudity, you got it!  Or was it blood?  Either way, Charles Band’s “Death Streamer” you get plenty of both!  The new tech, modernized vampire lurks from out of the classic, gothic shadows and becomes the next inspirational concept from the longtime, distinguished founder and filmmaker of Full Moon Entertainment and the “Trancers” and “Head of the Family” director, Charles Band.  The 2024 feature is written from Band’s concept into story detail and dialogue by Neal Marshall Stevens, the screenwriter behind “Thir13en Ghosts” remake “Hellraiser:  Deader” and who has since become a Full Moon staff writer with credits going from touching the “Puppet Master” franchise with “Blade:  The Iron Cross” to new content with “AIMEE:  The Visitor,” penned under Stevens’ pseudonym of Roger Baron as so too with “Death Streamer.”  Full Moon Entertainment’s Charles Band and Nakai Nelson produce their latest with a budget aid alley-oop by a crowdfunding campaign.

“Death Streamers” core cast has small but mighty with Aaron Michael McDaniel debuting in his feature film role as Alex Jarvis, the egocentric host of Church of Chills, and his two beautiful assistants in Emma Massalone as Edwins and Kaitlin Moore as Juniper struggling in a power dynamic over who has creative control over the show while staying financially afloat being unhoused living inside test in a defunct house of God.  Convincing audiences the trio of being adept and meticulous with computers and a video podcast is a hard sell when they live in popup tents and rariely leave the church grounds without much background other than short spats of the show’s brief history, but nonetheless, the three M’s – McDaniel, Massalone, and Moore – make their character emotions and pangs work to the story’s advantage rarther than have it feel like a detrimental free for all for the spotlight.  Creeping into that bright circle is the dark heart of vampire streamer Arturo Valenor, played Sean Ohlman.  The sex club proprietor, operating in the underground markets, drugs beauties with his own blood, rips their clothes off, and has his way sucking the lifeforce from their tender necks.  This dark web act is unearthed by the Church of Chills team and becomes the focal point for them to piggyback and drive-up subscribers with real life macabre only to be discovered and threatened by Valenor’s ever-present powers. Ohlman makes for a good hip vampire but doesn’t exact that gothic depravity of a classic bloodsucker in Valenor’s more erotically inclined sacrifices.  Only in the very showdown end do all four principals find themselves in the same scene together, previous working separately across the worldwide dark web or through Valenor’s giant floating eyes of foreboding.  Yes, floating giant eyes is pretty trippy and old school.  The rest cast constitutes as one half of Valenor’s vampiric acolytes with Chili Jean as the blood serving barkeep and Travis Stoner as the gimp-masked muscle and the other half half-naked Valenor victims in Llana Barron, Piper Parks, and it wouldn’t be a Full Moon Feature without an adult actress making an appearance with Maddy May going fully nude.

“Death Streamer” follows the same formula Full Moon has been following the last few years by pulling inspiration from the latest and greatest, perhaps even from the ugliest, flavor of the month cultural impact item has to offer.  2020 saw the release of “Corona Zombies” to bank off the pandemic, also from 2020 was “Barbie & Kendra Save the Tiger King” spun from the popular Netflix documentary of the same “Tiger King” title surrounding convicted felon Joe Exotic, “AIMEE:  The Visitor” featured sensationally the dangers of A.I. during the artificial intelligence concern of rise, especially amongst the arts industry, and, lastly, a slew of video content infused storylines as TikTok, Facebook Live, X Live, and many other platforms become an overconsumption of media with “Bad Influencer,” “Attack of the 50ft Camgirl,” and “Subscriber” being a few examples.  “Death Streamer” fits in the latter category as well by following a what seems to be an endless horizon of streaming content from music, to vidcasts, to live feeds in today’s highly consumable media world where everybody, and their brother, has streams to be viral.  “Death Streamer” using today’s tech to try and modernize the mythos of one of man’s longstanding lores, vampires.  Charles Band’s two-prong locations keep costs of the crowdfunded dollars down while pushing much of the cashflow toward effects, both practical with off-screen trickery and blood spurts, and compositional VFX that sees large floating eyes and thousands of chirping bats, as well as getting essentially all the female actresses at least to a bare-chested level with even one using her holy cross chest tattoo, nested right between her mammaries, as the final nail in the coffin for one unlucky, or maybe very luck, vampire with a death by a gratuitous emblematic exposure.  Hands down, “Death Streamer” has the best kill scene I’ve seen this year!

Be a subscriber to the end of the world with Full Moon Feature’s “Death Streamer” now available on Blu-ray. The AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition, BD25 seems adequate for the presentation flushed with warm red, blue, and green color filters. Details are sparse depending on the artistic alleyway inside Valenor’s club or inside his POV camera-specs, brighter the gels, lesser the finer points to the textures. The church setting, or the Church of Chills HQ, puts together a better angled lighting and a starker contrast by way of deeper shadows. Insignificant compression issues despite the single layer format but we’re not receiving the cleanest, most refined, looking picture image that’s presented in a 2.35:1 aspect ratio. Two English encoded audio outputs are both Dolby Digital compressed with a 5.1 surround sound mix and a dual channel 2.0 stereo. Not the strongest or dynamic reproduction of the original, raw audio as it suppresses the action and removes the multiple channel pathways, rendering over mostly in the front channels in what the listing is more 5.1 in name only. Dialogue comes over clean and clearly enough without a spark of obstruction and is layered above the environment as well as what’s usually an overpowering Full Moon carnivalesque or Gothic score. English closed captioned subtitles are available. Special features include a behind-the-scenes of the regularly archived and accompanying Videozone specials, the “Death Streamer” premiere held in Los Angele was cast, crew, and a few select Full Moon friends, such as Barbara Crampton, with a Charles Band pre-movie few words, and a lineup of Full Moon trailers. The standard release of the Blu-ray Amaray has a pulpy illustrative cover art of a bloodied mouth Valenor and his two acolytes splayed in red, blues, and purple. The region free release comes not rated and has a just above an hour runtime of 72 minutes.

Last Rites: As the vampire canon expands with age, new grooves are etched into the classical monster’s lineage tree and “Death Streamer” is a cyber-ghoul knot ready to leave its influential mark only to have its fangs nulled down and overshadowed by the all-powerful naked female figure in another fair-weather Full Moon Feature.

“Death Streamer” Now on Blu-ray!

Scarf Michael and the Fiddler’s Power that Draws Upon EVIL! “The Outcasts” reviewed! (Deaf Crocodile / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“The Outcasts” on Blu-ray Now Available Here!

Ireland 1810 – a small farming village sustains a livelihood off their crops, marital successors, and superstitious belief.  Widower Hugh O’Donnell and his three teenage-adult daughters find themselves in the midst of all three mechanisms with his eldest daughter forced to live with him into widowed spinsterhood, a middle daughter’s secretive betrothal to a neighboring farmer boy despite Hugh’s disdain for the family, and Maura, the youngest daughter, who acts strange and fearful making her an easy target for ridicule.  When the village crop faces blight, bad luck ensues many of the surrounding farmers, and a sudden, expected snow fall threatens harvests and income, Maura is accused of conspiring with witchcraft of a wraith fiddler known as Scarf Michael whose music invokes visions and creates mischief.  Nearly crucified by the fearful villagers, most of whom derided for her aberrating strangeness, Maura is saved by Scarf Michael to be taught his outlier ways that could lead the young woman to never return home again.

Through themes of folkloric belief, societal class structures, family, marriages, mental illness and how it’s ostracized in an early 1800s setting, “The Outcasts” is a cold, hard, and solemn look at daily affairs of a 19th century, poor Irish seaside village, fenced in with the unusual conducts of Maura whose mind is more curious and vastly hungry for knowledge than her peers’ and that creates an escapism component to try and be equal, or perhaps get even with, those that look down upon her.   English writer-director Robert Wynne-Simmons tackles his debut feature-length film with great understanding of tradition and human fear, elemental human nature bred from the uneducated and localized myth seen in his original devilish script from 1971’s “The Blood on Satan’s Claw” by director Piers Haggard.  “The Blood on Satan’s Claw” was certainly far better suited for success with Haggard’s additional scenes of brackish deviltry aesthetics, plenty of full-frontal nudity, and visible vibrant and rich blood.  “The Outcast” is a return to the slow born of an eventual decline and degradation of not just Maura but her family and her village.   “The Outcast” is part of an Irish production conglomerate of companies, including Arts Council of Ireland, The Irish Film Board, and the Toymyax Company with Tony Dollard producing.

Mary Ryan is the centerpiece of the fantastical and fraught tale because of her teenage character’s childlike innocence that’s deemed unusual, weird, and, eventually, in bed with a spiteful spirit, labelling her character, Maura, as a cursing occultist.  Ryan, who would go on to have minor roles in “Rawhead Rex” and “The Courier,” brings a balance of beauty and blamelessness to Maura’s undesired disposition, one that allows her no friends and is even on the edge of displeasure from her older sister Breda (Brenda Scallon) and father Hugh (Don Foley) whom both found love and lost them over a rough course of untimely death.  There’s still obvious love between them, but Maura likely reminds them of mother, especially from Hugh, and sees a same early grave fate for the youngest and adrift daughter.  Middle Daughter Janey resides on the opposite side of the spectrum with unconditional love and support for Maura only to be intertwined with her own serendipitous affairs with local farm boy Eanon (Máirtín Jaimsie), finding themselves rushed into proper marriage when Janey comes home expecting.  And while Maura made faultless inconsequential ripples through the family and the village, she was initially not on the forefront of everybody’s concern as Janey and Eanon became a jovial celebration that sought the joining of two well-known families and farms until Scarf Michael reappeared to play his fiddle.  Mick Lally fiddles as the musical wraith casting his violin strokes against those essentially bullying Maura with trickery that led to subsequent fears and accusations of agricultural assassination and magical maligned mischief that turn the rural villagers away from Janey and Eanon’s blessed marriage to an acute decline of rationality that put Maura in the crosshairs of suspected supernatural conjuring.  Scarf Michael’s intentions are not to whisk Maura away into what she sees and believes is as blissful freedom from those nasty looks and mocking that surround her as well as Michael’s tenderness to which she falls in love for the first time, like a child growing into adulthood.  “The Outcasts” round out with Tom Jordan, Cyril Cusack, Gillian Hackett, Brendan Ellis, Hilary Reynolds, Donal O’Kelly, James Shanahan, and Paul Bennett.

Not ever story about the loss of innocence from growing up is portrayed in a good light.  Maura wants to hurry grow up and be free of her childish qualities without realizing the consequences.  Falling in love with Scarf Michael proves to be perhaps folly of Maura who gives into the dream, or fantasy, of a man who quickly enters her life and charms her with the mystical fiddle.  By the end, indications of Scarf Michael nothing more than a rake leaves a sour and sad aftertaste that shutters Maura from the rest of her family as she willing joins him on the other side, practically begging him to free her from an unforgiving reality.  Perhaps Maura was also led to believe in no other choice, condemned to a watery grave, the same fate that befell Scarf Michael, by her fearful village peers and elders.  Robert Wynne-Simmons is often playing devil’s advocate by building up Scarf Michael as a savior and a romantic, but Maura drinks the Celtic Kool-Aid because, frankly, she knows no better and received no beneficial direction from those who surround her, leaving the alluring fiddler to warn her of the choices she desires.  Wynne-Simmons and Seamus Corcoran’s soft-and-dreamy fairytale indulges a bit of surrealism through soft-lighting, soft focus, and crude yet effective editing tricks to create a specter’s intermittent visibility amongst other slight of sight practical effects. 

If ever a time to be totally physical media inclusive toward all the obscure outliers, now is the time with “The Outcasts” arriving onto a newly restored 2K transfer for the first ever Blu-ray in the U.S. courtesy of Deaf Crocodile.  Presented in an European widescreen 1.66:1 aspect ratio, the AVC encoded, 1080p high definition, BD50, plus the restoration efforts conducted by the Irish Film Institute – Film Archive, retains that airy softness of a daydream inlaid to suggest a surrealism surrogation but the story is rooted in reality, the reality of early 1800s Ireland to be exact, and so this impoverish, austere, and salt of the Earth land and it’s people are often absorbed by superstition belief that’s awfully real for them but to the audiences, it’s bordering the illogical.  Details are generally soft but the upgrade increases the contours and create a nice layer of depth between foreground and background, bathed in the muted and ascetic green, brown, and tan color scheme of a traditional period piece wardrobe and materials, leaving behind any ounce of hue pop to not spoil the intended grading that lives and dies by somewhere between the RGB and the average grayscale, but there are times of an eerie dressed lighting of added backlit blues and bright whites to secure a fantasy, or spooky, flare.  The fidelity reproduction on the Irish-English DTS-HD mono track diffuses distinct aspects through the single channel without any vague overtaking.  The brogue English did, at least for me, require the optional English subtitles to be turned on for my untrained ear to decipher certain antiquated period terminology and the strong Irish accents that would drown out an entire sentence; this is not an issue concerning the quality of the audio track as it’s nicely achieved without any damage to note or crackling, hissing, or other obstructions to interfere.  The dialogue is also fairly robust and prominent.  Steve Conney’s lyrical and guitar score enchants with traditional Irish folk and is ascertains the mix of commonplace and otherworldly mood Wynne-Simmons seeks to create.  Bonus content includes a new video interview with writer-director Robert Wynne-Simmons, a new video interview with composer Steve Conney, producer and film professor Rod Stoneman, former head of The Irish Film Board, and physical media expert Ryan Verrill provide a video essay, and concludes with five Robert Wynne-Simmons’ short films:  “L’Eredita di Diavolo,” “The Greatest All-Star Advertial of All Time,” “Bomb Disposal,” “The Scrolls,” and “The Judgement of Albion – Prophesies of William Blake”  These shorts include appearances/cameos by Charlton Heston, Sammy Davis Jr. and Peter O’Toole to name a few.  The clear Blu-ray Amaray has an appearance that’s about a stark as the film’s aesthetic with a gray coverart composition of celebration fiddlers in their straw masks overtop an isolated Maura.  An insert advert with a QR code offers to access transcribed bonus content.  The disc is pressed with the same front cover image and the reverse side of the primary cover has a still from the film.  The unrated release has a runtime of 105 minutes and is hard-locked with region A encoding.

Last Rites: An obscure gem of Irish cinema, a folklore and social explication of “The Outcasts” outlives antiquation with a new Blu-ray release from obscure aficionados Deaf Crocodile!

“The Outcasts” on Blu-ray Now Available Here!

A Young Man Has to Become Someone Else to Exact Revenge on EVIL! “The Adventurers” (Eureka Entertainment / Special Limited-Edition Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Limited Edition “The Adventurers” Now on Blu-ray from Eureka Entertainment!

A Cambodian boy’s family is brutally murdered by the family friend and covert colleague Ray Lui, in front of him.  Alone and distraught, Wai Lok-yan is taken under the wing of his Uncle Shang, a CIA operative living in Thailand, and grows up to be a military fighter pilot still haunted by the violent death of his family.  When a newspaper headline names the now wealthy-by-gun-smuggling Ray Lui is to attend a public event, Wai Lok-yan is hellbent to kill Ray Lui at any cost, despite his career and his life, but a horribly failed assassination attempt puts his life in danger.  Uncle Shang strikes a deal with the CIA, who also want Ray Liu dead, to allow Wai Lok-yan in the United Staes in exchange to be an undercover operative named Mandy Chan, a gang boss seeking to kidnap Liu’s estranged daughter Crystal to get closer to the murderous arms smuggler.  However, what Wai Lok-yan didn’t expect in his mission was to fall in love.

The 1995 Ringo Lam gun action-thriller “The Adventurers” starring Andy Lau is in no way related to the 2017 Stephen Fung gun action-thriller “The Adventurers” also starring Andy Lau.  I just wanted to get that out there and over with.  Moving on.  Ringo Lam, director of the Jean-Claude Van Damme films “Maximum Risk,” “Replicant,” and “In Hell,” cowrites what is known in Hong Kong as a heroic bloodshed feature with “Supercop 2’s” Sandy Shaw and Kwong-Yam Yip.  Heroic bloodshed is a popular subgenre stemmed and coined from the 1980s that surrounded themes of duty, honor, and violent gunplay while embroiled in a web of drama and plot complexities that make it seem almost impossible for the hero to come out alive.  The internationally filmed production, spearheaded between China Star Entertainment and Win’s Entertainment Ltd., is produced by “Black Mask’s” Tiffany Chan and Charles Heung.

As stated earlier, Andy Lau stars as the protagonist lead playing a dueled dual life as the orphaned Woai Lok-yan seeking vengeance through the pseudonym of Mandy Chan, criminal boss infiltrating as a spy and assassin against his family’s murderer Ray Lui, played by the longstanding actor Paul Chun (“In the Line of Duty III,” “Hong Kong 1941”).  The “Internal Affairs,” Hong Kong action star Lau seizes and harbors his character’s plotted difficult choice:  to do whatever it takes to get within arm’s length trust of the man who killed his family versus falling gradually in love with that same murderer’s innocent daughter.  There’s plenty of back and forth for Lau to engage in both footsteps that teeter a line between duty, responsibility, and the heart but one side does swallow the other and in a negative way as the romance with love interest Crystal (Chien-Lien Wu, “Beyond Hypothermia”) is sorely underplayed against the Ray Lui mission and a competing love interest in Lui’s arm candy flavor of the month Mona, played by Rosamund Kwan (“The Head Hunter”).  Mona’s desperation to leave or kill Ray Lui, and subsequently be with Wai Lok-yan, is to the point of letting the mission and the love between Mandy and Crystal burn to the ground and that greatly built up and infringes upon the lack of genuine connection provided to give Mandy and Crystal a sympathetic understanding, especially when Ringo Lam’s storytelling isn’t scene successive and time is basically nonexistent.  Less detrimental to story, Mona’s subplot also does take a bite out of the whole operative mission itself, as it creates more complexities for Mandy when a gun smuggler’s woman wants out and will reluctantly do anything to achieve that goal, even backstab the Mandy who she wants to be with.  As the zippy story hits all the highlights, one downside aspect is also zipping through interesting supporting roles from David Chiang (“Murder Plot”), Ben Ngai-Cheung Ng (“The Eternal Evil of Asia”), Victor Wong (“Big Trouble in Little China,” “Tremors”), George Cheung (“Robocop 2”), Van Darkholme, Ron Yuan (“Godzilla 2000”), Phillip Ko (“Cannibal Curse”) and Andy Tse (“Naked Ambition”).

A powerfully engaging opening, heighted for full empathetic effect and visceral distress, of little Wai Lok-yan’s family being mercilessly slaughtered right before his eyes immediately has audiences on his side, especially when the boy, whose no more than 6-8 years old, bawls and collapses right into the arms of Uncle Shang shortly after the bloody aftermath.  What ensues is a flash forward to years later with Wai Lok-yan, now a grown man and a Thai fighter pilot, haunted by his past when his family’s killer Ray Lui surfaces in the paper.  At this point is where the story begins to snowball downhill, gaining speed at an inconceivable rate and growing bigger and bigger by the scene.  The action is pleasingly palatable with excellent gunplay and hand-to-hand fight choreographies that’s squib-tastically bloody and hard-hitting.  Where the story struggles typically reside, perhaps on a more subjective level, is the pacing that’s aimed to fly through the Wai Lok-yan/Mandy Chan timeline at a breakneck speed in order to capture the loops and hoops the hero has to jump through to reach Ray Lui but the way he infiltrates the public ceremony to assassinate Ray Lui, being integrated into the San Francisco Asian street gang, and even his sudden marriage to Crystal without the imprinting buildup of romance shocks the critical thinking system, tricking the brain into a stagnant state by time lapsing forward not in days or in weeks but in months or in years of time passed without the ease of a better transition to work into the time and space in-between.  Also, “The Adventurers” severe lack the motorized mayhem in the land, air, and sea, and despite the film’s select advert one sheets of Wai Lok-yan in full fighter pilot gear and his soaring adult introduction, hurts the image the film portrays that’s more grounded in melee combat or in a barrage of bullets with only bookend combat jet and helicopter sequences and a brief car chase in the middle that impress just above the par bar. 

UK label Eureka Entertainment brings to North American shelves, and audiences, a special, limited-edition Blu-ray edition of “The Adventurers,” stored onto an AVC encoded, high-resolution, 1080p, BD50.  Visual aspects on the Eureka’s brand new 2k restoration release is impeccable with a clear delineation, a sharp detail-driven style, and a clean, desaturated color scheme that’s hard, gritty, and muted, catering extensively to the intense violence and fast-paced action themes of the heroic bloodshed subgenre film.  Lam’s Dutch angles are dramatically harnessed in the Hi-Def scan with additional pixels emphasizing every element in the frame that makes the scene that more dramatic and a concentrated actioner in the anamorphic widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio.  Even the jetfighters are clearer and distinct with the camera and object movements that render the plane as a fighter plane rather than the vague blur that maybe is a plane or could be bird.  There are three Cantonese audio tracks, including a restored LPCM stereo, a restored DTS-HD MA 5.1, and the original unrestored stereo.  The unrestored stereo is quite indelicate with plenty of flawed rudiments that have a hard time sustaining with “The Adventurer’s” range.  The restored stereo is an efficient, effective, and adequate exaltation of the original audio track but A/V enthusiast will definitely be pleased with the surround sound DTS-HD 5.1 that completely is immersive where it counts, such as the bookend aerials and channel diffused gunplay that brings the action’ to your ears rather than your ears trying to capture the action.  The 5.1 absolutely feels more robust without being artificially broached.  Newly translated English subtitles are optionally available for an inhouse dialogue that’s clear and present at all times throughout the story.  Special features include a new audio commentary by film critic David West, a new interview with Asian Journal’s editor-in-chief Gary Bettinson Two Adventurers, unearthed archive interview with writer and producer Sandy Shaw, and the theatrical trailer.  What’ makes Eureka Entertainment’s release a limited edition is the cardboard O-card slipcase overtop the clear Blu-ray Amaray case with new artwork by Time Tomorrow, which is a composition of stills bathed in yellow and shadowed in black.  The Amaray has the more egregiously misleading original poster art of the protagonist in jetfighter attire and the New York City’s twin towers in the background for the pre 9/11 film; however, Andy Lau is only briefly in the gear during his adult character’s introduction and his character does not end up in New York City, but rather San Francisco.  A collector’s 19-page booklet resides in the insert section with color photos, more misleading promotional stills, an essay by Hong Kong cinema scholar Aaron Han Joon Magnan-Park from the University of Hong Kong, film credits list, Blu-ray credits list, and tips and tricks for viewing the film properly according to your cinema setup settings.  The release is not rated, has a runtime of 110 minutes, and is encoded with a region A and B playback.

Last Rites: Eureka Entertainment brings Andy Lau back into the spotlight with a slick new transfer for “The Adventurers,” action-packed revenge bottled to be less romantic and more fervid in nature.

Limited Edition “The Adventurers” Now on Blu-ray from Eureka Entertainment!

Babysitter Wanted….by EVIL! “The House of the Devil” reviewed! (Second Sight Films / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

University student Samantha is strapped for cash when trying to express her independence from an invasive and inconsiderate college roommate by renting a house.  In need of quick money to put down the first month’s rent by upcoming Monday, Samatha answers a babysitting billboard ad that leads her to an isolated house outside city limits on a night when the moon is going to be fully eclipsed.  Misled by her employers, the Ulmans, that the care job is not for a child, but rather Mrs. Ulman’s elderly mother and in her desperation, Samantha accepts the odd job for the money needed to secure her new home.  Alone in a dark old house, Samantha’s nerves quickly tingle and recoil at every sound and strange occurrence, quickly coming to realize the Ulmans may be lying to her more than she knows, especially behind the locked rooms where satanic secrets reside and she’s the key to their black practices during the occultation. 

Perhaps one of the hottest directors in the horror genre today with his “X” trilogy, within the trilogy is also “Pearl” and “MaXXXine,” Ti West has been a consistent genre filmmaker since his first feature “The Roost” two decades ago.  Yet, before the “X” trilogy, the year was 2009 when West caught the attention of horror fans with his 198’s inspired and veneered satanic panic film, “The House of the Devil.”  Shot in Connecticut, primarily in an older woman’s gothic Victorian style home, West wanted to bring back the alone babysitter and old dark house theme from decade the story is set, shooting entirely on 16mm that, too, provides that grainy image and darker aesthetic through each frame of the stock.  Initially called just “The House” in initial script treatments, Ti West’s completed film is a production of Larry Fessenden’s Glass Eye Pix (“The Last Winter”) in association with RingTheJing Entertainment and Construtovision with MPI Media Group (“Henry:  Portrait of a Serial Killer” presenting and is produced by Fessenden, Josh Braun (“Creep”), Derek Curl (“Stake Land”), Roger Kass (“A History of Violence”), and Peter Phok (“X”).

In her western, button-up plaid shirt and high-rise mom jeans, Jocelin Donahue (“Doctor Sleep,” “The Burrowers”) epitomized the look of young college girl of the 1980s and with her dialogue and her eclectic 2-minute dance session through the Ulman house proved she has the speech and movements that resemble the timeframe as well.  Donahue is extremely good of taking her character, Samantha Hughes, from a panic scale of one straight up to panic scale of ten in this slow burn, tension-building thriller that isn’t a rollercoaster ride of the next attention deficient disorder event but rather a steady increase of anxiety and anticipation that nags in the back of one’s mind.  Donahue has good reason to be as frightened as she appears on screen with the towering presence of the ever something’s-terribly-off-about-this-character portrayal by “Manhunter’s” Tom Noonan and the malicious grim of a steely wolf under a pearly sheep’s wool from “Night of the Comet’s” Mary Woronov as a pair of satanists.  Noonan and Woronov don’t have immense screentime and are behaviorally underused in the interactions with their babysitter Samantha as West intended target is for Samantha to dynamically degrade within the shadows and creaks of a creepy old house rather have characters be the foremost formidable, focused fear.  In the peripherals is Samatha’s wealthy and vocally blunt friend Megan (Greta Gerwig and, yes, the same Greta Gerwig who wrong and directed that “Barbie” movie) who provides that calling of rationality toward a strange situation only to find herself too wrapped up in her friend’s choices rather than seeing the danger that’s in front of her and there’s also fellow Satan cultist Victor (AJ Bowen, “You’re Next”) who is more or less the son in this Ulman trio of terror.  The cast rounds out with Heather Robb (“The Roost”) as Samantha’s inconsiderate roommate and the genre actor Dee Wallace (“Cujo”) in a small cameo role of the Landlady who, refreshingly, isn’t part of the core plot to burden the actress as an accelerant to pulse the heart of the story faster.

Ti West really did harness and recreate the dark, solemn energy of the alone babysitter and/or the old dark house subgenres that propelled films such as “When a Stranger Calls,” “Black Christmas,” and even “Halloween” into the cult favorite cosmos.  These particular horror categories are obviously nothing new to diehard fans but they have unfortunately been, for a lack of a better term, forgotten, conjured up only in stored memory banks of those old enough, like me, to have lived consciously through the 70s and 80s and, maybe because of West, audiences starting to see a revival of sorts with modern day retrograding to relive the golden age of the slasher renaissance, popularized by hardcore and gory scares with films like “All Hallows Eve” and the “Terrifier” trilogy,.  Yet, “The House of the Devil” is not an overly gory and squirmy disgusting feature as West meticulously structures the narrative to be evidently tense in an uncomfortable, unfamiliar environmental setting of an antiquated house owned by equally antiquated, and frankly weird, bunch in Tom Noonan and Mary Woronov and West guides audiences step-by-step very slowly up to craggy edge before pushing us violently into the infernal grips of satanists and the demons that seek a female vessel for, whom we presume will be, their unholy lord and destructor.  The third act rips ferociously in contrast to earlier acts in a spiral fit of rite and sacrifice that incorporates more characters, more blood, and a cynical ending that requires no more exposition, no more scenes, and no further explanation in its wayward wake. 

Second Sight Films delivers Satan to us with a new UK Blu-ray release.  The AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition, BD50 is jam-packed with bonus content and a more than satisfactory A/V package.  Presented in a widescreen aspect ratio of 1.78:1, the colorist reproduction leans into that of an 80s horror with a diffused, mid-level saturation of frame cells on 16mm stock, bestowing the image quality with more noticeable grain elements because of its smaller size blown up.  The seemingly white fleck-riddled darker areas or clustering grain experience may discourage audiences of a broad digital generation but for those who know, know how great “The House of the Devil” aesthetically looks as a whole, complete with era appropriate wardrobe and set dressings.  Textures and details do come through despite the stock naturalities but they’re not terribly overpowering or as substantially present an a mostly tan or brown color scheme in a lower contrast.  The English language DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio offers superb audio reproduction and spatial dissemination, especially through the wood-laden house to where the strain creaks of wood floors and doors offer a side and back-channel chill.  There’s plenty of front loaded, two channel action between the dialogue and the rest of the meium-to-close range shots with a range of diegetic effects – i.e. gunshots, telephone rings, and other actionable movements within the frame – and non-diegetic effects that include demonic whisper through moveless lips and, of course, those creaky noises amongst the empty house.  Dialogue is clean, clear, and prominent throughout.  There are English subtitles optionally available for selection.  Second Sight films did a ton of legwork here for special features, conducting and encoding new interviews with director Ti West The Right Vibe, actress Jocelin Donahue Satanic Panic, actor AJ Bowen Slowing Down is Death, producer Peter Phok A Level of Ambition, producer Larry Fessenden An Enduring Title, director of photography Eliot Rockett It All Feels Appropriate, and composer Jeff Grace Hiding the Seams, sound designer Graham Reznick Writing Through Sound.  There are also a pair of audio commentaries with 1) writer-director Ti West and actress Jocelin Donahue and 2) West with producers Larry Fessenden and Peter Phok along with sound designer Graham Reznick and the rounds out with a making-of featurette, deleted scenes, and original trailer.  Since we’re reviewing the standard Blu-ray release from Second Sights, this version does not call with all the physical bells and whistles associated with the limited, rigid slipbox releases that contain lobby cards and booklet, usually.  Instead, the standard release is a streamlined, green-hued Blu-ray Amaray with uncredited illustrated artwork of Donahue’s character overtop of the titular house with the dark and spooky moon in the background.  Instead, is just the disc pressed with the same front cover image of the house sans Donahue and the moon.  The UK certified 18 release contains strong violence and gore, is hard encoded B for regional playback, and has a runtime of 95 minutes.

Last Rites: The 80’s knock back with Ti West’s satanic panic inspired alone babysitter thriller with a sleek new Blu-ray, overflowing with new retrospective interviews, from Second Sight Films!