Tag Archives: Cannibals

The Mayflower Brought the Thanks of EVIL Long Ago! “The Last Thanksgiving” reviewed! (Scream Team Releasing / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Gobble Up and Chow Down on “The Last Thanksgiving” on Blu-ray!

Lisa-Marie Taft is known for being uncompromisingly difficult to be around with her snarky comments and negative attitude.  She’s especially coarse when she has to spend her Thanksgiving holiday working tables at the restaurant, one of the only places open on Thanksgiving.  Stuck with the equally as enthusiastic coworkers, Lisa-Marie can’t go home and snog with her boyfriend when one lonely customer decides to show up right before they were given the blessing to leave.  The situation at the restaurant goes from irritable to fatal when a family of cannibals with ancestry Pilgrim ties raids the open business to keep with their yearly tradition of cooking a thankful feast out of “thankless” people.  For 400 years, the tradition has been upheld and sought through, but they’ve never went up against anyone like Lisa-Marie Taft before. 

Are we ready for some Thanksgiving leftovers yet?  The time to give thanks to all our family and friends holiday has come and gone and many fans have exhausted through the extremely short list of Thanksgiving themed horror films, such as “Thankskilling,” “Thankskilling 3” and “Blood Rage” to be the most likely few viewed this past holiday week.  Well, have you ever heard of 2020’s “The Last Thanksgiving” from writer-director Erick Lorinc?  If you haven’t, then put back on your watching stretchy pants to gobble up another feast of cranberries and carnage as this slasher is from a group of University of Miami grads shooting on the streets and in the rural fall foliage of Chattanooga, Tennessee and in the Derry’s Family Restaurant in Hollywood, Florida with some of the shots being done over the actual Thanksgiving break for, you know, immersive authentic fall and giving thanks atmospheric quality.  “The Last Thanksgiving” is a Peak Jerry Production and is the first full-length feature film from Lorinc and produced by Annissa Omran with Sydney Gold serve as associate producer.

In the role of the snooty, snarky Lisa-Marie is fellow University of Miami grad Samantha Ferrand who plays the not-so-nice version of Halloween’s Laurie Strode with a complete disdain for her responsibly burdening parents and, well, basically any form of adult authority.  Even Lisa-Marie’s softy boss receives talkback and huff and puffs from what Lorinc pens as a self-centered brat.  As Lisa-Marie goes to war against the world, including her gothic waitress counterpart Trudie (Gabriela Spampinato) in a witty top dog positioning back-and-forth at times, she’s goes up against the Brimstone family who have a long-standing cannibalistic Thanksgiving tradition of following their Pilgrim relative’s footsteps, Abigail Brimstone (played dually by Alex Love and Gosta Utarefson).  The Brimstone family tradition has been enacted for over 400 years by each generation and this generation is no different with the commune living of two sisters and two brothers, who also may or may not be sleeping with other.  Yikes! Matthew McClure and Tristan Petashnick become the masterminding main face of the Brimstone clan as brother and sister, Kurt and Cordelia, while Laura Finley and Michael Vitovich come top up as the grunt work muscle as Maggie and as the Leatherface-esque Trip, a tall, quiet, and mask-wearing brother that takes a note from classic slasher icons with walking chase downs and brutal kills. Together, the Brimstone family is not terribly cliche at all and are backed by strong, singular performances that stand out like rightful, lip-smacking wolves against the restaurant sheep trying to survive the holiday on the backs of each other. These particular group of individuals are the perfect side dishes to the smorgasbord of sanguinary grub with a Backstage audition casting of Robert Richards Jr., Brandon Holzer, Madelin Marchant, Tametria Harris, Bobby Eddy, Nicholas Punales, Francisco D Gonzalez, and scream queen icon, Linnea Quigley (“Night of the Demons”) as the one, lonely restaurant patron in the wrong place, at the wrong time.

We’ve established that performances are strong, but what about the story?  Does it salivate interest and keep your attention from start to finish?  Is enough Thanksgiving incorporated material live up to the niche theme?  Certainly campy with dark, puritanical humor that stresses the importance giving thanks and being with family and friends on the holiday, “The Last Thanksgiving” unquestionably  expresses itself as a film that fits inside the theme’s parameters while also not taking itself too seriously, which has been routinely par for the course for these types of Turkey Day films.  Lorinc’s story concept stretches the gamut by briefly sending audiences back in time to when Pilgrims had the first Thanksgiving with the local Native American.  With the quasi-flash back story depicting Abigail Brimstone, who was in need of more food for the first feast because the Native Americans would be joining them at the table, chopping and mincing the postmortem remains of a handful of Native Americans to robust her menu, the Brimstone family quickly becomes understood after the first two acts of just chalking them up to your everyday cannibal, but the Lorinc takes the simple and satisfactory explanation, one that’s easily understandable and works as a cause, to a complicated and incongruous supernatural area with a 400-year old Abigail Brimstone still very much alive, and still looking good after four centuries, to procreate with one of each year’s male victims to keep the family craving and carving that human flesh turkey.   Cleaved in half heads, a jawless leftover, and a basement full of acidic gravy should be gobbled up in this traditional holiday horror film, “The Last Thanksgiving!”

Scream Team Releasing releases “The Last Thanksgiving” on a AVC encoded Blu-ray home video with a 1.77:1 aspect ratio and presented 1080p high definition. For a fall holiday feature, we’re treated to some fall coloring of brown and red of the Chattanooga wooded areas and the detailing in the textures of sweaters, scarfs, and pilgrim hats to bring out the right festive feelings of a fall, but the image grading reins backs a tad that doesn’t showcase the true beauty of fading foliage. For an indie crew working with university equipment, contrast levels appear balanced to enrich the shadows where needed and lit-up appropriate locations helps delineate scenes of trepidation clearly. There were no evident issues with compression on the 50GB Blu-ray pressing. The English language 5.1 surround stereo mix is the sole mix on the release and this is the part of the A/V package where “The Last Thanksgiving” can’t stuff it all into that the big bird cavity. Dialogue is clear but is more pallid to the ears and when decibels reach a certain height, the audio output starts to break down slightly to a crackle. Optional English subtitles are available. Bonus features include an audio commentary, The Long Pilgrimage an in-depth making of featurette with the University of Miami grad cast and crew, “Thanksgiving” 1978 short film which has scenes spliced into the feature film, gag reel, Talking Turkey: Late Night Discussion, auditions, photo gallery, teaser, and official trailer. The blue snapper case has shoddy front cover art that doesn’t provide the best first impression, but the backside has more retro appeal and the cover art is reversible with still image on the inside with the film’s splayed on top. The Scream Teaming Releasing Blu-ray comes region free, unrated, and has a runtime of 70 minutes. “The Last Thanksgiving” is a great addition to the boutique Thanksgiving horror movie table that will certainly be a yearly staple in every family fright night viewing tradition.

Gobble Up and Chow Down on “The Last Thanksgiving” on Blu-ray!

Enter the Patron Saint of EVIL Cannibalism! “The Spanish Chainsaw Massacre” reviewed! (Wild Eye Releasing / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“The Spanish Chainsaw Massacre” now on DVD!  

A degenerate heavy metal rock band and their pressurized manager are cast off on their very first ever music tour by their financing dictatorial mogul eager to recoup his investment as quickly as possible.  While en route, their van breaks down at the edge of a small town who welcome them with open armed hospitality, warm accommodations, and a hot meal with the promise of a day turnaround on fixing their van for free.  The next day proves to be a joyous occasion for the villagers celebrating their patron saint and little does the band know they’re an unwittingly big part of the ceremony as every villager is a ruthless cannibal ready to devour to the bone their haplessly stranded guests. 

About as vile and gross as they come, “The Spanish Chainsaw Massacre” is a Spanish-bred, slop-house, comedy-horror that plucked from the horror history timeline an unfaithful and a stretch comparison to a portion of the iconic title from the 1974 “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre.”  Writer-director Manolito Motosierra helms nothing remotely familiar to the Tobe Hooper classic, there’s barely the sweet exhaust coughing sound of a chainsaw ripping and shredding through Motosierra’s actual film, but “The Corpse Grinders 3” director has brought one well-known component to his film, lots of crazy long pig action!  Originally titled more appropriately as “Carnivoros” – Carnivores –  in Spain, the 2013 release only saw a U.S. release date merely 5 years ago in 2017 with supplementary prologue footage from Scorpio Film Releasing’s Richard Griffin and his entourage that bares big breasts as well as the only big chainsaw under its unaffiliated storyline of a woman double-double crossing two men to get away with $30K only to find herself inside a seedy hotel room and the unsuspecting starlet of her very own snuff film.  Though I usually adore Griffin and Michael Thurber, who usually has a role in a Griffin release in some random capacity, the opening fits like a square peg being jammed into triangle hole, accumulating confusion more than making sense.  “The Spanish Chainsaw Massacre” is a Fantastika Team and Olga Underground production presented by Tyrannosaurus Entertainment. 

If you can get past all the fart and poop jokes, the band known as “The Metal Cocks” are the epitome of well-received degeneracy in their unromantic, polyamorous pansexual quickies, blatant addictive vices, and an overall uncouth behavior and appearances in a mockery of hair metal bands from the 80s.  Dani Mesado as Rasputin, Óscar Gilbert Escarabajal as Petete, Torete playing himself as Torete, El Capitan Almendra as Bull, and Nereida López Vilaplana as Penny Pussy are Las Pollas del Metal – The Metal Cocks – taking on a rocking tour de force against insatiable backwoods cannibals of Spain.  If you think the band is depraved, wait until you see the villagers’ madness for meat foul up the screen with a mangled dick scene (someone call the expert Felissa Rose!), an intestine eating contest straight from the gut, and the recipe with baking instructions for a popular diarrhea shake.  With viciously varicolored characters like the Spanish whore (“Vampire:  Hounds of Horror’s” Yolanda Berneguer), the unsanitary naked food prepping cook known as The Chef (“Fucking Bastard’s Tam Sempere Miro), and the murderous simpleton Guti (Michael Rodriguez) among others, a motley macabre bunch of crazed cannibals have systematic knowledge of separating and conquering their dinner, each involved in a role important to the façade that plays to the prey’s vulnerability before digging into their food with both hands clawing.  Everything and everyone are over-the-top and that really defines the line between the cold simmering terror family of Texas massacre and the wild family of maniacs of the Spanish massacre; though the idiom says everything is bigger in Texas, Spain certainly has the most peculiar of películas between the two territories.  “The Spanish Chainsaw Massacre” rounds out with Hilario Blas, Miriam Larragay, Ezequiel Campos-Zeta, Raul Dario Gandoy, Richardo Pastor, José Luís Tolosa, Mayama Lia, and Yolanda Diaz Dengra.

Gore aplenty!  “The Spanish Chainsaw Massacre” bathes in troughs of blood as well as other human body fluids that make your eyes sink deeper into the back of your head while your eyes lids slowly act like shutters trying to protect the vision and mind pure of only the blood and not anything else.  That task is a lost cause of impossibility as Motosierra lathers a thick, slick of sick onto every frame, leaving no grotesque rock unturned before and after the victims’ final curtain call.  Yet, in the end, what Motorsierra constructs is the Looney-Toons of descendental cannibalism that’s full of maniacal laughter and delusional actions with no rhyme or reason to determine causality.  The celebrated patron saint seems to require the villagers, or strongly encourages them, to act a fool, to put on a show, and to treat human meat as a delicacy to plunder.  Neither The Metal Cocks nor the villagers receive a proper introduction, backstory, or arc in what is basically a show up and be present for gratuitous slaughter in a variety of random pockets that not all necessarily have to do with the band.  In some scenes, an old military man is tied to a tree, sitting down, and being tossed firecrackers at this crotch while a clown eggs on the kids with frenzied laughter and, in another scene, two adolescent boys are tied to a tree standing and sliced across the belly so they’re intestines can be used for a food race.  Where these characters came from is never touched upon or explained but understood that they’re a part of the festivities toward the patron saint.  Like what AC/DC once said – if you want blood, you’ve got it! – with “The Spanish Chainsaw Massacre” having gallons of it. 

“The Spanish Chainsaw Massacre” is a DVD re-release for the indie distributor, Wild Eye Releasing, as spine number 54 on the company’s Raw & Extreme sublabel.  The DVD, distributed by MVD Visual, presents the 70 minute, 56 minutes of actual feature with 14 minutes of Richard Griffin’s snuff film preface, unrated film in a widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio.  I really like this transfer from Wild Eye because of the sole fact of virtually no compressions issues obviously present and that’s not just because of the lack of bonus feature, which is common amongst most of Wild Eye’s library, on the DVD’s limited capacity.  Previous studies on other single feature releases proved Wild Eye to be a mixed bag regarding quality.  With “The Spanish Chainsaw Massacre,” the image quality is highly detailed and lush in black areas and in texture that makes Motosierra’s stomach-churning content that much more stomach-churning. The warm color palette of yellows and reds provides an exaggerated tint of a rural Spanish village.  In contrary to the DVD back cover, the feature’s native language is not English but rather a Spanish 2.0 stereo track.  Much of the dialogue track is all yelling synched well with the English subtitles that are not entirely accurate.  The subtitles are extremely abridged and loosely translated.  A robust metal soundtrack plays into the whole metal brand, but the other tracks lack depth as all outputs, much like the characters on screen, are upfront and loud; yet the compression handling sustains an agreeable fidelity with little no popping or screeching within or on the tail end.  Bonus features include promo videos and the official trailer with a stretch into a credits gag reel of sorts with candid and shooting mistakes in crediting the cast and there’s also an end credit scene that setups the cannibal family’s return with a Christmas themed sequel.  However, 9 years has passed and don’t think Motorsierra is working on any drafts at the moment.  The snap case comes with reversible DVD cover art with a touched up-front cover not pulled from the film itself while the inside has a blown-up bloody aftermath still of the narrative’s first victim with a dislodged lower jaw and a hunk missing from her face.  Ultra-indulgent with biofluid glop, “The Spanish Chainsaw Massacre” is a ruthless, toothless puta de madre of a film if you can get past the stink of butt humor.

“The Spanish Chainsaw Massacre” now on DVD!  

Evil Aliens, Zombies, Vampires, Cannibals, and a Nun with Guns! “Savage Creatures” reviewed! (ITN Distribution / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on


On God-fearing land, two young women drifters are shown compassion and hospitality by a religiously devout mother and son offering hot food, a shower, and a bed for the night. Their seemingly infallible generosity turns to violent deviancy as concealed motives of their cannibalism catches the women off guard that inevitably places the unsuspecting women literally on the chopping block, but the drifters are no ordinary, helpless prey but rather ancient vampires, wandering from one small town to the next, struggling to exist. Just when the bloodsuckers think the ordeal is over, a worldwide invasion of soul-sucking aliens aim to cleanse Earth of all inhabitants, turning those attacked by the beings into flesh-hungry crazies. Trapped inside the cannibals’ house, the vampires must save their human food source from completely being eradicated by an aggressive alien race with a conduit to possibly the Holy Father himself.

Talk about a full monty horror movie that has nearly everything but the kitchen sink! “Savage Creatures” is the 2020 released ambitious action-horror written and directed by Richard Lowry (“President Evil”) that serves up a platter of creativity ingenuity on a micro-budget while still outputting savagery, creatures, and an entertaining good time from start to finish. Lowry embodies inspired resourcefulness that reminisces the economically efficient horror credits of long time indie filmmaking entrepreneur Brett Piper (“Queen Crab”) and though serving as the filmmaker with many hats, composer, editor, director of photography, and visual effects, he also incorporates his own pleasurable schlocky devices as he shoots in the rocky rural regions of Pine Valley, Utah complete with isolated roads and mountainous views. The epically scaled “Savage Creatures” is a creature feature accomplished feat, try saying that ten times fast!

The two vampiric drifters, Rose and Ursula, serve as the story’s centralized characters played by Kelly Brook and Victoria Steadman respectively. Both actresses have worked with Lowry previously on his 2018 Armageddon-esque action-comedy, “Apocalypse Rising,” and familiar with his budgetary style, able to alleviate the pangs of severe funding limitations with some fundamentally respectable performances. Rose and Ursula are not only lovers, but lovers with a cavalier premise on life stemmed from the centuries of human evolving groundwork, shedding a light on questions that should be asked and pondered on in every day modern vampire story. The dynamic between Brook and Steadman strike the nerve sincerely with causal conversation, pressing upon their inevitable doom in between blowing off zombies heads and fragging flying aliens with crossbows as if they’re exacting some self-decompression through violence. Though Brook and Steadman are good and stable throughout, vet actor Greg Travis lands a the lauded performance of Father Cooper, a fanatical Irish priest on the run from the zombie horde. The “Humanoids from the Deep” and “Mortuary” actor goes full blown dogmatic with his theory of God being fed up with humanity and pulls off the extremely righteous and holy neurotic priest as an overboard affable character whose has to trust a couple of godless feminist vampires during apocalyptic mayhem. Rounding out the cast is Ryan Quinn Adams (“Before the Dark”), Cean Okada (“Bubba Ho-Tep”), and Kannon Smith as Sister Gigi, a mute nun with guns.

From the very beginning, “Savage Creatures” maintains a fiendish tempo of anti-heros and butchery. Even the soundtrack, though a relentless boor of stock action selection, plainly works to “Savage Creatures'” advantage one scene after another inside the scope of the sharp, periphery sublet moments to keep up with the breakneck pace. Lowdry’s sees little-to-no expositional sagging in the middle or on the bookends and diverts away from any hankering for a character story or background to fluff up worth-wild characters. With the exception of Rose and Ursula, who complain like boomers conversing upon reminiscing about the past on how easy times once were centuries ago to get away with murder before technology became an inconvenience, much of the cannibals, the priests and nun, and even the flying devil ay like aliens backstories don’t bubble to the surface. While typically these off the cuff details usually roll my eyes back into my skull to scour my brain for the minor moments in which I might have mistakenly missed something about a character backstory or just produce a hefty sigh of longing for more personal information on why this character does what they do, I found “Savage Creatures” uniquely isn’t symptomizing a distress of forgoing persona tell-all; instead, plays uncharacteristically to the obverse tune of an entertaining racket of head splitting, limb chopping, and with a hint of rampant gun akimbo.

Buyer beware! Don’t trust the cretinous DVD cover from ITN Distribution of appears to be Julian Sands from “Warlock” raging angrily with milky white eyes and standing over Cthulhu tentacles surrounding him in the foreground and silhouettes of bats are hovering over in front of a savior-esque crown moon in the background. Instead, trust your gut (or this review!) and see “Savage Creatures” on DVD home video presented in an anamorphic widescreen, 2.35:1 aspect ratio. Pine Valley, Utah never looked so picturesque in a clean transfer. The natural colors feel a bit faded and not as sharp that perhaps assists in blended Lowdry’s composited effects and practical creature design. The cabin night sequence has some noticeable banding, but isn’t a game changer. The English language Dolby Digital audio track is par for the course, running clean and clear dialogue, and satisfying a range of sounds. Depth’s tricky with Lowdry’s compositions that don’t hem neatly, especially when Rose and Ursula crossbow down aliens from a distance, the same cry of pain is utilized for each darted creatures, and the running stock soundtrack flutters in front and behind the gun play at times. DVD bonus material include a director commentary, behind-the-scenes with the actresses and crew, and a VFX breakdown, which I thought was neat to see how Lowdry layered his effects on a budget. Not listed as a bonus feature is the gag reel during the end credits. “Savage Creatures” enters 2020 as an all out brawl designed as a battle royal but with little bankroll; yet, director Richard Lowdry beats the odds, pinning out a win as the scathed champion of his latest apocalyptic caper!

“Savage Creatures” battle it out on DVD!

The Evil Doctor is in! “Doctor Butcher M.D. (Medical Deviant)” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on

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New York City hospitals are being terrorized by a crazed maniac or maniacs stealing the body parts of the deceased and local authorities are discovering the half eaten remains of torn apart bodies in the streets. When a medical orderly is caught in the act of cannibalism by nearly devouring a corpse’s heart and then commits suicide by diving out high rise window, the Doctor’s assistant and leading anthropologist Lori Ridgeway recognizes the tattooed symbol of Kito on the orderly chest, a symbol from a long forgotten tribe in the Moluccas Islands. Worshipping a cannibal God, the primitive tribe still practices the form of anthropophagy. Lori’s colleague, Dr. Peter Chandler, has been placed on a research team to root out New York City’s recent cannibal problem and when the Kito symbol clues him and his team of a possible lead, an expedition team forms to travel to the Moluccas Islands in search of the existence of inhabitants. Dr. Chandler rendezvous with a long time acquaintance, Dr. Obrero, whom has lived on the islands for years. When Dr. Obrero arranges a boat and his right hand man to accompany the expedition, Dr. Peter Chandler and team step foot into a hellish nightmare, bloodied with unspeakable and aggressive cannibal acts. Just when nothing could be worse than flesh hungry cannibals, hideously disfigured zombies frighten even the primitive locals. The island holds a dark secret and Dr. Chandler aims to unveil it no matter the cost!
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Finally! The definitive 2-disc edition of Aquarius Releasing’s “Doctor Butcher, M.D.” aka the Italian cut “Zombie Holocaust,” from the Flora and Fulva Film production companies, has been released and, oh, how glorious the Severin Films release is with a super sleek Blu-ray reversible cover art – “Doctor Butcher, M.D.” title as the main cover and “Zombie Holocaust” title on the reverse side – and the high definition gore that hasn’t been gooier and oozier than ever and all in thanks to the upscaled 1080p full HD resolution transfer. Uncut with eye-gouging effects, eviscerated and mangled bodies, and packed with a slew of medical terrors and oddities, the Marino Girolami’s directed video nasty from 1980 just might get itself banned once again by the international censorship boards.
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The schlock runs thick through a plot that’s eerie similar to Lucio Fulci’s Zombie (aka Zombie 2) with many of the locations and sets repurposed for the Girolami picture involving exotic land cannibalism, a mad scientist, and, you guessed it, zombies. Yet, “Doctor Butcher M.D.” rightfully receives being a detached entity, an “Annabelle” to “The Conjuring” of sorts, even when both films star Scotland-born leading man Ian McCulloch. With uncanny and grisly disemboweling special effects that turn a stomach inside out and give you a reason to make use of that barf bag provided by Severin Films as a bonus insert, some death effects didn’t go quite as planned such as, in example, when the cannibal orderly dives out a multistory window and the stunt-dummy loses an arm when crashing onto the floor. The next scene has the actor, with arm intact, lying in a pool of blood. Another scene involving Doctor Butcher and his cranium saw nearly doesn’t sell the effect when the saw itself isn’t spinning at all during close ups of a cranium cap removal. However, none of these miscues matter as the rest of the special effects trumps any other gore film of this decade.
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The American bought rights to “Zombie Holocaust” were destined to be re-edited as the film had to bulk up on Americanized tastes, slightly targeting specific, well versatile audiences of New York City’s infamously sleazy and exploitive 42nd Street, which is now defunct. The additional and pointless scenes that were intercut from a scrapped Roy Frumkes’ horror anthology, “Tales That Will Tear Your Heart Out, at the beginning of the film didn’t transition seamlessly enough to cause an unfavorable reaction, but only added on to the powerful zombie train that spawned from George A. Romero and the Living Dead films. The antics of Terry Levene, an American producer and 42nd Street icon, led to guerilla marketing, an overlapping score from the late “Blood Sisters'” composer Walter Sear, and the superbly cut trailers had guaranteed butts in the seats at Levene’s, amongst others’, circuit theaters. Plus, the T&A from cult Italian actress Alexandra Delli Colli might have had something to do with putting butts in seats as well.
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The story hadn’t changed much between the alternate film versions of the Romano Scandariato screenplay and the story itself is wound looser than a turn of a century Gary Busey. Thin motivations drive characters to do the stupidest things possible such as go on an expedition to a cannibal island, go to a cannibal island without state of the art weaponry and more bodies than a modern day NFL football roster, or go straying away from the safety of your group to stroll through the island’s bush alone. The obviousness is aggravating to say at the least, but omit the blatant stupidity of the characters and no one would die a horrible and gruesome death that fastens our morbid tastes to the screen. The story’s spontaneous and adventurous nature appeases thrills of a long-lost culture on an island of hell that’s ready to be explored and re-discovered and ready to taste fresh blood and organs once again.
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Severin Films have outdone any previous release of the reconfigured “Doctor Butcher, M.D.” and the original “Zombie Holocaust” when discussing the video presentation. The 1080p performs at a high bitrate with a vibrant display of natural colors that diminish much of the natural grain and negative damage and exhibits finely tuned and leveled darker tones from the original 35 mm negative; a HD presentation that, and this goes without saying, naturally outperforms the the transfer from Shriek Show’s “Zombie Holocaust” DVD release in the early 2000s. The English DTS-HD Master 2.0 audio mix on “Doctor Butcher, M.D.” performs greatly without many given distortions or loss of audio while the “Zombie Holocaust” on disc two has the same DTS-HD Master option, but also gives an alternative with a linear PCM Italian only audio mix without subtitles. Walter Sear’s Stateside score and Nico Fidenco Italiano score tribute their respective nations clearly through the mastered audio mixes with Fidenco’s score surfacing here and there on the Aquarius Releasing edit. Severin Films provides an impressive list of new bonus material on each disc, with the first disc having insightful interviews with Aquarius Releasing’s Terry Levene, editor Jim Markovic, filmmaker and documentarian Roy Frumkes, “Temple of Schlok’s” Chris Poggiali, Gore Gazette editor and Butcher Mobile rider Rick Sullivan, and Gary Hertz all discussing their involvement “Doctor Butcher M.D.” and their ties to 42nd Street. The second disc focuses more on “Zombie Holocaust,” interviewing male lead Ian McCulloch and McCulloch sings “Down by the River” in another segment, FX masters Rosario Prestopino and Maurizio Trani, actress Susan Buchanan, and a look at New York City then and now piece where “Zombie Holocaust” shot certain scenes.

Buy the 2-disc Definitive edition of “Doctor Butcher M.D.” from Severin Films today!

Syfy’s “Z Nation” S1Ep3 ‘Philly Feast’

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Living in the Philadelphia area, the “Philly Feast” episode was quite the treat to see the “City of Brotherly Love” be taken over by the undead. Once again, Syfy and The Asylum grotesquely explode every bit and piece of body part in this episode never letting dismembered zombie appendages get old.

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Z-Nation writers didn’t wait too long to bring in the cannibal group. Every apocalyptic show has a cannibal group. Z-Nation just happens to reveal them in episode three under the ruling thump of Tobias Campbell played by Rick Rivera (happy National Hispanic Heritage Month, Rick). Now, I love me some good cannibal groups because they’re always the wild card, but this group lacked pizzaz and notoriety. Pisay Pao’s Cassandra character couldn’t quite play up Tobias’s long pig enthusiasts. However, the ending result of the full on assault on Tobias’s camp was well executed in a ‘classical’ fashion. Cassadnra’s backstory now looks to be wrapped up tight and we won’t have to explore that anymore in the foreseeable future, but I still feel she has more to hide or she has more up her sleeve with her new found friends in Addie and Warren.

The scene with the Liberty Bell had me rolling with laughter and giddy with the sight of zombie bashing mayhem. Z-Nation continues to make the implausible plausible and yet somehow make it look totally believable with the ridiculous zombie fraggings and though I do like all the characters, Nat Zang’s 10K has to be one of the standouts. His sniper character is the hardest the kill and I’d like him to reach his goal of 10,000 kills.

Can’t wait for next week’s episode!