Never Trust a Script Written by an Egotistically EVIL “Scream Queen” reviewed! (Visual Vengeance / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on January 6, 2024

This Chainsaw’s Made for Cutting! “Scream Queen” on Blu-ray!

Malicia Tombs, an acclaimed horror actress known for B-movies and bad attitude, bursts into a wreckage of flames when her car sudden explodes after storming off the set of her new movie, “Scream Queen,” in which she wrote and starred as the titular character. Part of the cast and crew were devastated by the accident that had cut their own career short while others were relieved the egotistical Tombs had perished despite publicly feigning grief over the loss of a genre fan-favorite. Months later, the small cast and crew receive a mysterious invitation to gather at a creepy mansion butlered by Runyon. When their host is unveiled as to be a very much alive Malicia Tombs, she offers them a lucrative sum of money to finish the film they’ve started but with a new script. As the guests read through the new treatment, the cast and crew realize their present moments read just as their being played out in the script, even their deaths.

If there was ever a single face deserving the representative distinction within an overpopulated categorized scream queen genus, Linnea Quigley would be that green-eyed, blonde-topped, beautiful face with an infectious smile. Quigley worked with an array of filmmakers, ranging from some of the most renowned cult films of all times amidst reams of horror movies for nearly half a century (yes, we’re feeling old now) to the most independent of the independents films never having really receive the proper exhibition format or audience attention. To what would be a delight to Quigley’s fanbase, one of those obscure features is Brad Sykes’ “Scream Queen,” a late 90’s filmed, 2002-released, SOV, U.S. slasher written-and-directed by the “Camp Blood” and low-budget filmmaker with Quigley in mind to play the scream queen character Malicia Tombs, now available, officially, on Blu-ray. “Scream Queen” is the first major project for Brad Sykes in a collaborating effort in not only as a director but also as a co-producer alongside David Sterling of Sterling Entertainment.

“The Return of the Living Dead” and “Night of the Demons” Quigley puts on another memorable and wickedly fiendish performance as the haughty genre scream queen Malicia Tombs who superiority has gone to her head as she embraces her designation to an exact mania, displayed early on when her character’s character attempts to choke-kill another actress despite the numbered scene not being a death scene and Malicia harps on wanting to continue with the resembling act of murder. As much as Malicia Tombs embraces the killer instinct inside of her, Linnea Quigley very much embraces Malicia Tombs without having to take her top off and despite having less screen time than her costars. While Quigley fades in and out of the linear story, the narrative progresses with livelihood hardships of the now out-of-work cast and crew who relied heavily on that small film to boost their acting and filmmaking careers. That crop of characters falls short tipping into their expectations, aspirations, and even their relations to be just slasher fodder for the mysterious maniac roaming the house. Jenni (Emilie Jo Tisdale,” Escape from Hell”) and Devon (Nova Sheppard) are inferred romantic roommates who sell clothes on the side of the street to make ends meet post failed film but don’t have surmountable direction to either be a full-fledged couple to sympathize or seem terribly concerned about opening their own clothing shop other than what would be a bad decision to reside at the mansion overnight. Again, no sympathy there either. The special effects goof Squib (Bryan Cooper churns chuckles relentlessly by relating more to his crafted effects dummy more than people, marking him conclusively comedy relief as well as fated for death that, like in life, no one takes him seriously when he shows up gruesomely mutilated. The other principal actress across from Tombs is Christine (Nicole West, “Dimension in Fear”), a buxom blonde tired of secretary work succumbing to lead man flirtations in a dark and scary house where every shadowy corner is lodged with threat. The pair fall into that horror character cliché of have sex, will die, quickly downgrading their pre-professional relationship into nothing more than dark house desire. Director Eric Orloff (Jarrod Robbins, “Evil Sister 2”), a presumed spin on the Awful Dr. Orloff and perhaps hints at his motives, seems to be stuck in angsty avoidance and melancholy stemmed by what could have been with Scream Queen but that also peters to a gross negligence end of an arc waste. Rounding out the cast are a couple of special bit parts played by prolific Full Moon Entertainment and overall horror movie screenwriter C. Courtney Joyner (“Puppet Masters III,” “From A Whisper to Scream”) as a televised homicide detective and Kurt Levee in a quasi-return of his character Runnion from “Evil Sister” but alternatively spelled “Runyon” in “Scream Queen.”

Though obviously and definitely not the first to do this, “Scream Queen” humors metacinema measures built upon horror tropes and spherical plot points that redirects the story back upon itself for a killer effect. The feature has no issues making and poking fun at itself within a campy context albeit the usually grave apprehensions of a true scary slasher movie that’s less campy of which a scream queen is born – think Jamie Lee Curtis in “Halloween” or Neve Campbell in “Scream.” Bryan Cooper not only portrayed the foolish effects guy persona but also actually did a lot of the gore gags for the film, achieving very detailed inlaid gore prosthetics for a smalltime picture with an axe embedded into a chest and a mangled face to name a few. The story itself feels a bit rough and ready as it slips into supernatural obscurity and, as aforementioned, character setups flounder to a stagnation, killing instantly the miniscule arcs that were structured prior to their mansion gathering in what becomes a slapdash of serial offing that wraps up the story post-haste without much cat-and-mouse tension. With that said, “Scream Queen’s” unpolished plot had once mirrored its fallowed physical release until recently but now witnessing its birth out of twilight has been multitudinous worth the wait.

Another of Linnea Quigley’s lost films has been resurrected from the format graveyard by Visual Vengeance with a new Blu-ray release of “Scream Queen.” The Wild Eye Releasing sublabel release comes with an AVC encoded, high definition interlaced scanned and director approved 1080i transfer from the 480p tape elements on BD50 capacity and comes also with the qualitative joys of a standard definition shot on video experience. SOV tape upconversion can never completely eradicate the imperfections associated with tape and we also know this going in courtesy of Visual Vengeance’s standard practice of a fair warning before the film, but the overall “Scream Queen” presentation passes as clear content despite some minor tracking blips, 1.33:1 aspect ratio, original lower resolution, and scan line visibility, which is smoothed out nicely by the 1080i conversion. Exteriors and brightly lit scenes take on more shape compared to darker and low-lit areas that become like a void in standard DEF, which also hits the natural grading into a washed-out drab. The English Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo labors to maintain some form of auricular strength but often nearly goes dark to where certain Linnea Quigley monologues periodically go silent for a few seconds, so the dialogue isn’t entirely clear but when it is, it’s relatively clean. There’s no hardiness pop in the audio track, staying suppressed throughout, and having little-to-no range or depth to the compile contexture. Some electro-interference throughout but nothing to be bothered by considering the grade of the SOV. Optional English subtitles are available. Special features include a commentary with writer-director Brad Sykes, a new behind-the-scenes documentary Once Upon A Time Horrowood that’s mostly Brad Sykes going through the stages of making “Scream Queen” and his recollections of his first big time produced film, a new interview with star Linnea Quigley, a new interview with one of the three various editors Mark Polonia (director of “Splatter Farm”), an original full-length feature producer’s cut of “Scream Queen,” a behind-the-scenes image gallery, Linnea Quigley image gallery, snippets from the original script, original trailer, and other Visual Vengeance distribution trailers. Along with the hearty software special features, hardware physical features include a six-page trifold with behind-the-scenes color photos notes by Weng’s Chop Magazine’s Tony Strauss and beautifully illustrated with dripping blood, a chainsaw, and Linnea Quigley on the front cover, a folded up mini color poster of a scantily-leathered Linnea holding one of the film’s murderous weapons, retro stickers, and your very own Four Star Video plastic rental card. All of this great stuff is stuffed inside a clear Blu-ray Amary case with a pressed disc art of a bloody illustrated Linnea sawing some unknown guy’s face off. The same illustrated graces the front cover in an expanded form and under a different hue. If you don’t like it, which I would be hard-pressed if you don’t, the reverse side contains one of the original cover arts with, again, a scantily-leathered Linnea holding that murderous weapon. The entire package is sheathed inside a rigid O-slipcover with an extended view of that chainsaw scoring with a bloody spray the eyeball from some guy’s face. The 13th Visual Vengeance release comes region free, unrated, and has a runtime of 78-minutes. Lost vintage now found and digitally revived to give us even more Linnea Quigley than we knew we needed with a meta-film shows initiative and fit special effects but swerves off trajectory into a more-of-the-same pathway.

This Chainsaw’s Made for Cutting! “Scream Queen” on Blu-ray!

The EVIL Peruvian Whistle of Death! “Face of the Devil” reviewed (MVD Visual / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on July 28, 2021

Deep inside the Amazon jungle of Peru, seven friends getaway from university life by staying at a remote riverside resort. No cell service. No nearby towns. The resort shelters an idyllic retreat for those looking to escape the mundane routine of the real world, but the jungle is also home to an indigenous evil entity, some may even label it the Devil. Better known among the locals as el tunche, the trickster spirit prays on innocence and the naïve, psychologically tormenting with a foreboding whistle indicating it’s nearby presence. With no help in sight and nowhere to hide, the jungle comes alive with an ear-piercing whistle that seeks to swallow the seven vacationers to their doom.

To some extent, horror lives and dies by permanency of myth and legends, cultivating inspiration from ancient, as well as new, mythical beasts and spirits and spin them into entertainment macrocosm or, perhaps, even to just simply to share the rarity of knowledge and heritage surrounding the tales. If in American mountaintop forests bigfoot roams inconspicuously around populated areas, breeding enigma and scaring children around campfire stories, then in South American, el tunche does much of the same instillations for the Peruvians who inhabit their legendary fiend, preying on delinquent youths, in the dense jungle. Outside of Peru or maybe even South America, el tunche is not globally known, but for one Peruvian film from 2014, local lore becomes broaden beyond confining borders and creeps right into our home video media players. Director Frank Pérez-Garland helms the maligning mythos with “La Care del Diablo,” aka “Face of the Devil,” from a Vanessa Saba screenplay set in the ominous jungles of Peru plagued by a wandering and whistling evil spirit searching for those lost among the tall trees and foliage. Peruvian based Star Films and La Soga Producciones spearheads the production located on set of an ecolodge in the uncommercialized area of Tarapoto just North of Lima and serving as producers are Gustavo Sanchez (“The Green Inferno”) and Varun Kumar Kapur.

“Face of the Devil” is a hyper localized narrative that’s fully contained inside the jungles of Peru as well as a casting all Peruvian actors with zero other nationalities appropriating roles for a mythological tall tale extension that rightfully needs to be expressed by native filmmakers. As such, you won’t recognize a face amongst the cast unless you’re eyeballs deep into South American cinema. The film opens with a dream sequence of a young girl staring at her towering mother’s weird, unholy behavior that ends with her mother, played by writer Saba, quickly reaching out for child and abruptly awakens from the dream is Lucero (Vania Accinelli). Lucero’s nightmares become an important reoccurrence, like an omen, that doesn’t seem to upset the college freshman despite the nightly fright, but other aspects upset her father to the point where he yells at her for wanting to go on a trip with her friends, signifying a quick trip into unspoken complications sanctioning Lucero’s mother death that worries the same fate may also fall upon his daughter. Before we know it, a reluctantly agreed to Lucero is river boating with her six friends: couple Mateo (Nicolás Galindo) and Fabiola (Maria Fernanda Valera), Camila (Alexa Centurion), Paola (Carla Arriola), Pablo (Guillermo Castañeda), and new boyfriend Gabriel (Sergio Gjurinovic). The friends are seemingly full of life, love, and fun but the dynamic turns only slightly complex with love triangles that only go as far as being the butt of the weekend’s jokes. The characters do very little in the story, splashing around in what seems to be an unreasonable number of ecolodge pools for most of the time while playing spin the bottle, truth or dare, skinny dip, or just make fun of each other because, as a trope bylaw, that is what college-age kids do to spark tensions and cause divisions, and I find the characters and their portrayers to be uninspired to do or be more that invokes the frisky wrath of el tunche. Javier Valdez and Ismael Contrearas bookend the cast of characters as two polarizing stances on dealing with otherworldly spirits by either being cautions and frightened as Valdez is with Lucero’s papa or embrace the spirits for self-purpose as it is with Contreras who plays the resort owner.

“Face of the Devil” has all the properties of an European-fried and campy-peppered supernatural kill tally, drawing elements from the jungle cannibal subgenre sans the cannibals and the teen slashers sans the slasher. Instead, el tunche is an all but forgotten myth lost over time through the generations until “Face of the Devil” calls to mind the cautionary dangers of cultural wise tales for naïve and disrespectful youth who wind up on the deadly end of el tunche’s mean streak. Saba’s script incorporates more than just your average urban legend come to life tale with a Diablo-sized pretext to why el tunche all of the sudden decides to besiege upon this particular group of vacationers. Per the legend, el tunche gobbles up those lost in the jungle thicket, but Saba and Pérez-Garland’s religious context direction, including the motifs of the trinity cross and bodily possession, has the good-natured Lucero, infected by her mother’s randomized demonical occurrence, be the proximity key to el tunche’s unleashing. Good versus evil also becomes strongly painted in the latter half of the narrative and is affixed to the lore’s distinctive construct. The further Lucero is led from a path of spotless geniality, from her overprotective father, the more she experiences nightmares and the closer she is coming face-to-face with the malevolent forest entity feeding off her tarnished past. Sadly, “Face of the Devil” weans off from nurturing el tunche into a singular idea with the entity depicted as, but limited to, an invisible presence, a black oil spill in the water, a pulsating yellow glow, or as Anna Gonsalves says in “Predator,” the jungle came alive and took them. Even the current DVD release represents el tunche as a Lovecraftian-like creature with tentacles coiling out of the jungle river water and enclosing around a bikini-cladded sex symbol with a tattooed vagina – provocative! Yet, inaccurate. There are no tentacles and no woman with vagina ink. “Face of the Devil” struggles with character motivations, sending boyfriends off into the woods without tools or guidance to find help, leaving the story to fend for itself solely on a slap-dashed gory ending that’s a little too late in salvaging the ferocity of one of Peru’s most mythical phantasmas.

Like aforementioned, the DVD cover is a tad misleading, enticing with sex and tentacles topped with DEVIL in a big red font. Now, you can go in eyes wide open with your own copy of “Face of the Devil” distributed by MVD Visual in collaboration with Jinga Films and Danse Macabre. The single layer, single sided, region free DVD5 is 77 minutes presented in a widescreen 1.78”1 aspect ratio. Reason behind discerning the storage format to be a DVD5 is evident in the compression issues that clutters the picture with artifacts, leaving highly noticeable splotches to shake details to the core. There’s also the use of the vapid gray tint insipidly squashing any color and life from the lush green jungle Pérez-Garland finds himself extremely lucky shooting inside. Watching “Face of the Devil” felt cinematography akin to an episode of “The Handsmaid Tale” or “The Walking Dead” where a bland overlay masks more than just brightness and beauty of natural hues and light. The Spanish audio mixes have two lossy options – a 5.1 surround and a 2.0 stereo. Switching between the two, the 5.1 obviously has a little more robust soundtrack during the cacophony of jungle augury. Snakes hissing, bat clicks, the comprehensive soundbites of other animals in audio vibrational flight combined with the intense whistle, like a diluted train whistle, has ambient staying power to be the most effective element to el tunche’s death harbinger presence. Dialogue is less robust but prevalent and the English subtitles synch well without error. As far as special features, nothing beyond that of the static menu and there are also no bonus scenes during or after the credits. The opening title card credit sequence is about as artistic as the film allows itself to be only to then dwindling into pedestrian territory. Set in the Peruvian jungle deemed to be a major waste of location perfection as much of “Face of the Devil” buoys chiefly poolside with the cheap Dollar Store adhesive tape barely coupling a connection between local legend and the Devil in this wet behind the ears teenager-in-danger yarn.

“Face of the Devil” available on DVD at Amazon.com

Evil Rollerblades Over Your Neck! “Murderdrome” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on September 23, 2016

Cherry Skye and her all girl roller derby team, The Alamos, find themselves gravely threatened by a summoned vengeful demon named Mamma Skate, the best and brutalist skater from the MurderDrome rink 20 years ago who was viciously murdered ritualistically by a Satanic-obsessed rival. Called back from Hell by a mystical charm necklace once in her possession, Mamma Skate rollerblades through the night, cleaving her way through the roughest of roller derby girls, and seeking to possess the soul of charm’s current owner, Cherry Skye, so she may live once again!

In 2013, Australian director Daniel Armstrong had a vision. A vision that includes skimpy-cladded, brazenly jagged roller derby girls, a resurrected she-demon wielding a butcher’s cleaver, and a helluva lot of rock-n-roll! A joint effort between Strongman Pictures and a slow drip of miscellaneous funding constructs that very exact vision, originally not conceived to have been a feature length film. Writing along side Trent Schwarz and Louise Monnington, who also had a co-starring role, Armstrong’s rockabilly ozploitation is a blood diamond in the Australian under bush with kangaroo pouches full of ocker comedy and skater mayhem. However, Armstrong’s terrorizing roller-demon imagery sat on the edge of being nonexistent and his film suffers the associated consequences of financial hardships and production problems. “MurderDrome” has a vibe more akin to a music video with interjections of storyline in between various psychobilly laid tracks that’s perhaps a pure result of the film’s financial inability to fill the void, but the style’s unique outline contends strongly in independent or abstract cinema outlets. Aside from the atypical structure, “MurderDrome,” granted, has some sloppy and choppy editing that disrupt not only the opening credits, but also waters down a death scene or two and affects character motivations.

Australian accents are thick coming from an indigenous talent of actors led by Amber Sajben, a downright heaven-sent leading lady starring as Cherry Skye. With her cutesy pig tails, high-knee fish stockings, and an acute fascination with always popping bits of food in her mouth, her contrast with the dialogue-stricken antagonist and steel, chain, and blade attired roller-demon badass Momma Skate, portrayed by Be-On The-Rocks (Yes, you read that right), redefines the old phrase a game of cat-and-mouse that doesn’t quite fit the overall artistic style. When a group of rough and tough roller derby girls who elbow check others for the fun of the sport, some fight should commence without being said; instead, the characters who proudly carry the names Cherry Skye, Psych, Thrusty, Trans Em, Princess Bitchface, and Hell Grazer option to scurry without giving a second thought to bucking up to a sole skating murderess. Armstrong subsides more toward a comedy route peppered with a resilience attitude toward the situation with co-writer Louise Monnington leading the charge in her character’s crude humor, especially having Pysch, her character, note descriptively what exactly is ‘duck butter.’ Urban Dictionary has you covered if you care to look up the term. The cast rounds out with Kat Anderson, Rachael Blackwood, Jake Brown, Anthony Cincotta, Gerry Mahoney, Max Marchione, Daisy Mastermann, Dayna Seville, and Laura Soall.

Plot integrity is flimsy at best striking influentially at the development of certain characters, most importantly with villain Momma Skate. Her conjuring doesn’t go through the comprehensive ringer as the demoness just appears without establishing a connection with the charm necklace bringing her demonic lankiness above ground. Max Marchione’s The Janitor bares some importance that whizzes like air out of a rapidly deflating balloon as we learn less-by-less about this character throughout the duration of the film. The Janitor’s key mentoring role wavers, resulting in just one more confusion aspect into the blend. Remaining character developments are fairly cut and dry sans forgetting their eclectic attire, electrifying neon makeup, radical hairstyles, and overall lifestyles, but expansions upon the roles could have been more favorable for the Aussie production.

Camp Motion Pictures and Alternative Cinema skate the “MurderDrome” DVD right onto the North American market rink, providing the film’s first region one release. Extras are abundant with music videos from The Dark Shadows and other bands, a gag-reel, and a behind-the-scenes special effects featurette. The 72-minute feature is presented in a widescreen 16×9 aspect ratio that’s a bit hazy at times on the grayscale, but adds charm to the bargain bin brimstone fire and smoke computerized effects that truly defines Armstrong’s slasher as a campy ozploitation with Italian Giallo undertones and a supernatural core. “MurderDrome” rocks, literally, with great pyschobilly tracks from The Jacks, The Sin & Tonics, and The Dark Shadows to name a few of the head banging headliners on the soundtrack in the confines of a cavity heavy plot for a film more suitable as a music video than a feature flick. In the end, “MurderDrome” provides an endearing look upon horror even with all the obvious flaws, but renders some nice moments of searing barbarity overshadowing, just slightly, some of the misfires. Lastly, if you like girls in skates, who never take them off at any point, then “MurderDrome” is right for you!