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Down the Path of Darkness is EVIL. “The Long Dark Trail” reviewed! (Cleopatra Entertainment / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“The Long Dark Trail” on Blu-ray at Amazon.com

Set in the idyllic boondocks of Northwestern Pennsylvania, two young brothers plan to escape the abusive grasp of an alcoholic father in search for a better life.  Without a plan and nowhere to go, they go around the small town to collect money from the odd jobs the brothers worked in preparation for their abscond.  While doing so, they come upon information about their mother, who abandoned them at a younger age, that sparks an desire to track her down in hopes that once she’ll lay eyes on them, she’ll want to rekindle the relationship with her two sons, but the trek deeper into the northern woods would be long and arduous through abandoned aqueducts, pine forests, and numinous burial stones belonging to an inimical cult of women controlled by a sadistic leader.  It is the cult where their mother left them to reside and it is there where they are headed on their haunting journey in hopes for a better life.

Tackling impoverished, ill-treated youth haunted by their past and uncertain about their future, directors Kevin Ignatius and Nick Psinakis write-and-direct “The Long Dark Trail” as a tale of resiliency for two close brothers relying on each other to climb out from a pit of despair.  Ignatius and Psinakis have collaborated previously together as writer-director and cowriter-actor in the misfortunate happenings comedy “My Best Friend’s Famous.”  The 2022 drama-thriller marks the first feature film for the filmmakers who explore coming-of-age through trial by fire, or by the supernatural psychological manipulation of enchanted rocks and by the coarse portents of a blood sacrificing cult.  Shot in Ignatius’s birthplace home of Warren County, PA, the two New York filmmakers shoot the low-budget venture under their independent production company, Four Eighteen Films, in association with El Jean Productions and with associate producers Michael Kraetzer (“The Slaughterhouse Killer”) and Nicholas Onetti (“Francesca”) of Black Mandala presenting the film.

“The Long Dark Trail’s” story follows two brothers played by real-life brothers, Brady and Carter O’Donnell, debuting in their first feature film.  You can tell the brothers don’t have a ton of acting experience as their dialogue is very mechanical and their movements are bit stiff and hesitant, but since the narrative revolves around their characters, antisocially bred by the abusive father’s impropriety, being socially awkward on screen, even between each other despite their off-screen brotherhood, doesn’t necessarily feel far-fetched.   “The Long Dark Trail” isn’t a heavy on the dialogue narrative, leaving much of the plot to unfold with the brothers’ wondering the forest grounds, natural and unnatural visual imagery, and the hypnotic folksy score.  From start to finish, Brady and Carter carry the entire storyline from start-to-finish with intermittent spliced in scenes of hooded cult acolytes doing obscure and violent things in what looks to be the upstairs of a vacant barn or with the earlier scenes of the boys visiting and conversing with a purpose with Mr. Barrow as he rambles on about his veteran war stories while the boys take full advantage of his porch sitting to steal food form his cupboards; a role undertook by Kevin Ignatius’s father, Paul “Doc” Ignatius.  The O’Donnell siblings shepherd much of the trail journey’s harrowing phantasms to the best of their ability but are also not limited to being just reactionary to the spooky woods.  Practical makeup effects and some visual compositions are chartered for divisive inducing dynamics in order to drive a wedge between the brothers’ already contentiousness of wanting to traverse a dark corner of God’s country to see a mother that has already forsaken them once.  Trina Campbell plays the indoctrinated mother now embedded into an outskirt cult led by Paul Psinakis’s version of a cult leader in Zeke.  Psinakis has the maniacal wild eyes and brooding aura demarcating him as a clear cut bad guy with a bunch of vary-in-age women in tow but the cult is not very clearly defined as a whole or with a purpose and when the boys stumble into their isolated camp, near that aforesaid barn full of now chopped up body parts and hunting game skulls, the exposition to follow is not presented and the real sense of danger is only palpable from Zeke and Zeke alone. 

While cast and story struggle to make ends meet with relative clarity, what Ignatius and Psinaki do really well in fashioning for effect is depicting the rural folk horror elements of vast natural landscapes that can turn looming and inescapable.  As a resident of Southeastern Pennsylvania, convenience and concrete genetically makeup my quasi suburban-urban scenery, but I can appreciate the opposite side of the state with greenery up to your neck and beyond, the solitude of a different way of life, and how one could also appreciate how menacingly engulfing that can all feel as well.  We’re also not completely stuck to the forest setting as the directors’ use riverbeds and lakeshores, sprawling grasslands, and the quaint town structures to enlarge the presence of a smaller shoot.  Kevin Ignatius isn’t just the co-director of “The Long Dark Trail,” he’s also the film’s composer, another aspect of highlight, amongst other hat wearing titles.  The catchy and mesmeric folk/bluegrass score is a real tribute to Ignatius’s musical background, having formed a band, Das Tapes, with brother Mark, by adding a layering combination of vocal sounds and banjo strumming.  The latter banjo reminisces a little bit of “Deliverance” but with an elongated cadence integrated into the brothers’ long road tour, becoming a mainstay importance to the overall lingering feel of backwater chills.  Where “The Long Dark Trail” fumbles is at the heart of project – the story.  Never really tying the elements all together, the narrative often feels abstract and unhinged in a series of randomized events between the cursed rocks, vivid hallucinations, the boys’ trauma, the women stuck in a cult of a madman, and the message on blood ties.  Was the father’s verbal and physical abuse the root cause of psychological and family brokenness?  Are the brothers’ bond and endurance being tested on the trial trail toward their last form of hope, their abandoning mother?  “The Long Dark Trail” is in a long, dark well of questions without any return of answers in a conclusion that can’t be roughly swallowed along the course of an exceptionally scored and formidable atmospheric thriller. 

“The Long Dark Trail” path leads to at home Blu-ray release from Cleopatra Entertainment, the film banner of Cleopatra Records, and MVD Visual.  The AVC encoded BD25 provides high-def resolution in 1080p of a widescreen presentation.  The Cleopatra Blu-ray does not list the aspect ratio and IMDB.com lists the film at 2.39:1 which is accurate in accordance to the release.  A combination blend of natural and lowkey lighting doesn’t appear to present too many issues with the format storage.  A few signs of pixilation in deeper negative spaces cease to only a handful of decoded moments stark contrast.  For a digital recorded film that’s churning out an average of 25Mpbs, par for the course for Hi-Def, the details don’t display to the fullest sharp potential but are certainly on the edge of so.  You can get better visuals from the brightly lit of primarily color contrasting scenes for a film that’s remains in natural grading.  Also not listed on the Blu-ray back cover is the audio specifications, but according to my player, the release comes with an English Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound and an English LPCM stereo. The five-point multi-channel audio mix studs the soundtrack with piquant notes, harmonies, and twanging banjo chords. Dialogue is pleasantly defined through the robust soundtrack and the ambience has a nice range of rustle and depth. I’m quite surprised by this Cleopatra Entertainment release that doesn’t come with a second disc, a CD, of the soundtrack, likely due to the score not produced by the parent record label. English subtitles are optionally available. The bonus features include blooper outtakes and behind the scenes footage, an image slideshow, and the original trailer. The back cover also notes an interview with the director, but what’s on the disc is a featurette surrounding artist R.L. Black’s graphic novel artwork for the film and for the forthcoming comic based off the film. There is no interview with the director. The rest of the bonus material rounds out with Cleopatra Entertainment trailers of “The Ghosts of Monday,” “Frost,” “A Taste of Blood,” “Escape from Area 51,” Baphomet,” and “Scavenger.” The film is housed in a traditional Blu-ray snapper with a rough and ready composite of a skull looking to swallow the bicycling boys on the dark path with a dark lit moon overhead; a missed opportunity in my opinion as there’s a better poster out there for the film, a more graphic poster, of one brother’s bloody head split down the middle and opening for the other’s brothers face to show. The Blu-ray is region free, unrated, and has well-paced runtime of 78-minutes. Likely not to please by or understand by most, “The Long Dark Trail’s” coming-of-age narrative wrangles with what’s most important for a folk horror film of its kind – either to be an apparatus for breathtaking countryside imagery or of trauma that is tense-laden and tearing families to pieces – and unfortunately, the feature couldn’t be both.

“The Long Dark Trail” on Blu-ray at Amazon.com

An Experiment Backfiring with EVIL Payback. “Moonchild” reviewed! (Visual Vengeance / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Moonchild” now on Blu-ray from Visual Vengeance!

An Inhuman government body of a dystopian future experiments with genetic splicing to create the ultimate weapon, known as Project Moonchild, against the human rebellion. That weapon, Jacob Stryker, is unaware of his newly encoded abilities when he escapes one of their holding labs to rescue his captive son from the very same apathetic regime. Stryker teams up with a group of human rebels and uncover by mistake Stryker’s hidden super solider talent of turning into an unstoppable beast – a werewolf. Hellbent on taking down his son’s brainwashing captives by any means necessary and to do it before an intestinal bomb explodes within 72 hours, Stryker convinces the rebels to assist him and now they have an ace in the pocket as they traverse in search for Stryker’s boy, encountering android and mutant bounty hunters, cannibalistic human survivors, and a surfeit of governmental soldiers hot on his tail, but when the werewolf comes out, Project Moonchild is out to seek and destroy those son-stealing son-a-of-bitches by ripping them to shreds.

Director Todd Sheets has long been considered one of the kings of SOV. The “Zombie Rampage” and “Clownado” Kansas City filmmaker writes and directs “Moonchild,” the 1994 direct-to-video, post-societal, lycanthropy actioner is Sheets’ attempt in splintering himself away from the gore. The American Prince of Gore and the Master of Splatter accomplishes the lessened bloodletting and liquid innards coming outwards werewolf feature with a dystopian rescuer that pits what remains of a separatist human society on a verge of collapse to go on a quest to cure a dividing mutation affliction and to go up against the malign immortals of killers and assassins constructed with nuts and bolts and sawblades on a super independent budget. The ambitious project comes with car chases, a large cast, and a hairy beast that fights for family! Executive producer Greg Petrak returns to Todd Sheets’ side after “Bloodthirsty Cannibal Demons” and is a production of Sheets’ very own Extreme Entertainment, a now 34-year standing product company based out of Kansas City, Missouri. Feel old yet?

Playing the lab rat, the werewolf, and the integral hero, Jacob Stryker, to the story is Auggi Alvarez (“Zombie Bloodbath”) as a widowed father who will stop at nothing to save his son Caleb (Stefan Hilt) in the hands of iron-hearted inhuman leader, Lothos (Harry Rose). Alvarez, like much of the rest of the cast, fall into a monotonal expositional black hole that can make “Moonchild” a slog between the excitement. While fleeing captivity, Stryker runs into Rocky (Julie King, “Zombie Bloodbath 2”), Talon (Dave Miller, “Violent New Breed”), and Athena (Kathleen McSweeney, “Violent New Breed), a band of underground resistant fighters who are desperate enough to overthrow the authoritarian ruling class that’s comprised of henchmen with duct tape masks and are skippered by a mustache wearing an unadorned samurai kabuto helmet – catching a tad resemblance to Mel Brooks’ Lord Helmet of “Space Balls.” If you have noticed already, the cast is an entourage of Todd Sheets regulars, a small niche of actors and actress with close ties to the Master of Splatter and have reoccurring roles in most the director’s early 90s indie gems. That trend continues with Carol Barta (“Prehistoric Bimbos in Armeggedon City”) as the bounty hunter, Medusa. Looking more like your next-door neighbor grandmother, Medusa is viper-tongued assassin with an unforgettable cackle and a throaty super ability that’ll inject nightmares for nights to come. Barta’s performance is one of those cliched it’s so bad, its good acts that you have to see to believe. Cathy Metz, Kyrie King, Rebecca Rose, Jody Rovick, and Mike Hellman round out the cast.

Character names drenched with Greek mythology inspiration and a contemporary take on the werewolf canon, “Moonchild” is an interesting and unorthodox story to say at least. Todd Sheets had obviously perfected the limited capabilities of S-VHS shooting or was confident enough to build in a lengthy car chase into a project that didn’t rely on disgusting audiences with blood and guts, but rather actionable thrills and singular characters of the post-apocalypse with only a smidgen of horror. You see, the werewolf doesn’t make too many appearances on screen, only surfacing from beneath Jacob Stryker’s human skin twice in total. The wolfish transformation is shoddy but for the budget, there is an appreciation for the amazing looking effect as well as the other practical effects throughout the feature. “Moonchild’s” pacing can be concernedly plodding to make sure the exposition covers aspect of Stryker’s intentions, slowing down the film to the point sluggishness. It doesn’t help that the scripted word-for-word, automaton performances are not tonally textured with droning dialogue that can’t captivate and contributes to the fatigue at times. Though “Moonchild” is an evolving project for Sheets with conviction in his ability to produce, there are still some editing continuity blunders that downgrade the overall result. Upward closeup shots of Julie King as she looks down when supposedly holding a rifle on Auggi Alvarez show her hand mock holding a rifle as it comes into the frame and then the next cut is the actress actually holding a rifle. Another scene involving King has her smash in the head of a traitor on a concrete floor and the next shot is of her running down the hallway away from where the body should be but wasn’t. The corpse had vanished. Howlers, pun intended, like these conspicuous examples are what depreciate an already discounted movie, curbing any kind of recognition for Todd Sheets going outside his blood and guts comfort zone.

As one of Visual Vengeance’s SOV cult-horror titles, we come to expect temperamental image and sound quality from the Wild Eye Releasing banner due to the consumer grade S-VHS equipment and the novicey of the filmmakers as, and mostly related to the former, Visual Vengeance warns of prior to the start of every feature so thus far, but the 50GB, MPEG-4 encoded, 2-disc Blu-ray set, that presents the feature in 1080p of the 1.33:1 aspect ratio, is the best technical-looking SOV to date for the company. Hardly any tracking issues, artefact issues, and any tape distortion of any kind and while still lacking premium quality as we all expect today, nothing is taken away from “Moonchild’s” original SD master transfer that is a director supervised. The single soundtrack audio option is an English analogue 1.0 mono mix and the dialogue as well as the score come over nicely despite a less punchy channel output. There’s a steady, feature length electrical interference from start-to-finish that is no surprise and is not terribly audio intrusive. Depth suffers mostly with the type of equipment that doesn’t filter and level out ambient noise, but the range of sound is pleasant with the added clip tracks. English subtitles are option. The bonus features include two new audio commentaries – director Todd Sheets and star Auggi Alverz and Todd Shoots and Visual Vengeance. Other bonus features include the alternate VHS cut, Wolf Moon Rising documentary, archival behind-the-scenes cast and crew interviews featurette, the original VHS trailer, deleted ending, the Todd Sheets’ directed music video Burn the Church by the now defunct Kansas City-based, goth metal band Descension, short film “Sanguinary Desires,” trailer for Todd Sheets “Bonehill Road,” and other Visual Vengeance trailers.” The phyical release comes with a 2nd disc, a bonus audio CD of the movie soundtrack, reversible cover art featuring original VHS cover on the inside, new art on the clear cased Blu-ray snapper, and original art on the cardboard slipcover by The Dude Designs aka Thomas Hodge. Inside the snapper lining are four-page liner notes by Matt Desiderio, folded mini poster of the snapper front cover, and the standard VHS throwback sticker sheet. “Moonchild” on a Visual Vengeance Blu-ray comes unrated, region free, and with a runtime of 87-minutes. Todd Sheets is a maniacal moviemaking machine with “Moonchild” being released a decade after the gorehound began and there’s plenty of admirable spirit and effects in the Kansas City werewolf in dystopia tale, but one can’t shrug off the oversights and the exasperating exposition that goes way off trail the turbulent path of indie filmmaking.

“Moonchild” now on Blu-ray from Visual Vengeance!

Hypothermia is EVIL’s Coldest Best Friend. “Frost” reviewed! (Cleopatra Entertainment and MVD Visual / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Get the Bluray and Soundtrack for “Frost!”

Seeking to reconnect with her estranged father, Grant, after five years, pregnant Abby drives up the mountainous rural cabin.    Though not the warmest welcome she was expecting with the sudden pregnancy announcement dropped into her father’s lap, the two manage to find common ground and connect again while reliving memories of Abby’s mother.  Their threadbare bond sparks an impromptu finishing trip to the local creek and as the begin to open up a little more with each other, their car accidently runs off the road and declines down a gradual mountain decline before becoming wedged in a thicket of tree branches.   Abby, stuck in the passenger seat facing a steep cliffside dropoff, is trapped and injured.  As Grant goes for help up the mountain, a severe storm rolls in bringing harsh weather and freezing temperatures down upon Abby who desperately tries to keep warm and prays to not go into early labor before emergency rescue can come to her aid. 

Snowy winter thrillers can be harrowingly exciting as much of the plot is fused with the icy and treacherous environment that make lives at stake higher. The snow and the ice become threatening characters and when combined with, at times, a more conventional and concentrated story antagonists, foreseeing path for survival can often feel frigidly impossible. There’s little room for error, there’s little room for warmth, but there’s always an unpredictable heap of bone-chilling snow as far as the eye can see and the elements are only but nature’s natural attributes man has yet to confidently conquer. “Frost” plays into mother nature’s strength when squalling down below freezing wind and snow upon a woman trapped in her own car. The 2022 released, Brandon Slagle (“Attack of the Unknown”) directed “Frost” goes for the jugular in a woman versus nature survival suspenser penned by frequent Slagle aide-de-camp Robert Thompson. The “Aftermath” and “Crossbreed” screenwriter adapts “Frost” from a story by “From Jennifer” writer-director James Cullen Bressack. Shot during the winter in the San Bernardino mountains, “Frost” is produced by the film’s star Devanny Pinn and Cleopatra Music’s Vice President Tim Tasui under the bankroll and production support of Bressack’s JCB Pictures, Inc., Snow Leopard Entertainment, Sandaled Kid Productions, Multiverse Cinema, and Cleopatra Entertainment founders Brian and Yvonne Perera along with Pinn’s co-star Vernon Wells and The Asylum’s Jarrett Furst serving as associate producers.

“Frost” fits into the solo survivalist subgenre category and only characterizes with three actors and a trained wolf. At the tip of the cast spear is independent film producer and broad-brush horror actress and filmmaker Devanny Pinn (“Nude Nuns with Big Guns,” “The Dawn”) in the principal role of Abby, a woman seeking to rekindle her relationship with her reclusive father living in the mountains because of her pregnancy. Genre legend actor Vernon Wells (“Innerspace, “Commando”) opposites Pinn as Abby’s estranged father who’s happy to see his daughter but feels initially threatened by the pregnancy announcement. Understanding the dynamic between Abby and her father was easy as we’ve seen this type of teetering relationship before from a slightly rebellious, new age child returning home to find familiarity with a widowed and waning parent. Pinn and Wells pull off the several stages of reconnecting from the heated exchanges to the sappy moments of loss to the unexpected joy the two characters can bring out of each other, but what’s more difficult to comprehend is the source material. What causes the father and daughter to divide in the first place and how does that division’s role play out in the perilous predicament of an isolating car crash during a severe winter storm? For the sake of critique, one could say that their dissolving disputable divisiveness ends in irony as if the cosmos ultimately pulls them a part in a fitful storm of rage. Wells does what he can to make the initial crash scene comforting while exuding a positive outcome, but the veteran actor appears blank to severity, especially as a woodsman father soon to be a grandfather. Much of “Frost’s” edge of your seat trepidation is shouldered upon Devanny Pinn to take reins of providing the emotional embattlement against the unforgiving weather elements and animal food chain. Armed with nothing more than the dwindling car’s battery to provide heat and a charged lighter as well as whatever lures and first aid accompaniments in her father’s tacklebox, a rather lightly dressed, nearly to term pregnant Abby is pinned to her seat, backed to the edge of a cliff, and must face the cold and wolves until her father retrieves a rescue party. Pinn does what she can to fill in a quivering battle between life and death with a story that’s heavily reliant on a cigarette outlet to ward off a snarling wolf and can burn through seat belts in a single charge. That’s independent move magic for you, folks!

Any kind of solo act surrounding a single location, remote at that, with no other actor or other mobile organic object to feed off and bounce off its energy is a difficult task to undertake, especially on a hyper cost-efficient production.  Slagle’s “Frost” is certainly not immune to the difficulties and the filmmakers, and his crew and cast are well aware of the challenges to make the survival thriller engaging despite fluffing and padding the story with filler clichés and needless setup.  The production and location value are comparatively impressive against the limitations of the budget with a practical and computer-generated encroaching tundra of snow, ice, and wind that can insidiously invade a cold snap into the viewers bones, creating that intended atmospheric of a hell freezing over complete with the teeth of a hungry wolf, a biting rime, and deadly falling icicles.  More obvious than what perhaps Slagle and creative team realize is that “Frost” relies terribly on the shocking climatic scene, a scene so unimaginable and so appalling that it hits all the right gut-checking spots, but the setup to the scene and all the trials and trepidation Abby has to endure doesn’t quite mesh with a well-rounded plight that usually cradles an emotional pull string for the viewer to continuously root for and support those in the thick of the predicament.   Honestly, that heaviness for empathy never provides the emotional weight toward the character and never sparks that flame of hope to keep us warm and fuzzy on the inside to then quickly be extinguished by merciless mother nature. There’s also the plausibility of survival and the way that survival instinct is applied that makes “Frost” too far-fetched to be a strong contender in the subgenre. At near subzero temps, Hypothermia can set in in under an hour. In “Frost,” three days of severe snowstorm pummeling has past, segued by scene time stamps, before Abby becomes a popsicle and is delusional. I’m pretty sure with almost nothing to eat and very little warmth, Abby would have expired in under 48 hours. Yet, the 72-hour mark becomes the most chilling, literally and figuratively, in “Frost’s” invigorating third act snack that’s more abominable than it is nutritional!

Cleopatra Entertainment, the cinematic subsidiary of Cleopatra Records delivers a 2-disc Blu-ray set for Brandon Slagle’s icy thriller “Frost.” Presented in a widescreen 2.35:1 aspect ratio, the 91-minute film has a crisp, lively picture compressed without much to complain about. Banding issues are held to barely any and the details don’t whiteout during the wintery whiteout, leaving key delineations to be present in bold contrasts, especially during the severe snowstorm scenes. Foliage looks thick and green before for the storm with a lot of good textural details on the impaling branches that perforate the car and Abby. The English language 5.1 surround mix conveys the problematic sound design issues that have been consistently found in many of Cleopatra’s releases. Mostly in regard to the dialogue tracks, the dialogue tracks pick up static and other minute ambient noise during microtonal intervals, creating an unwelcoming and stark contrast with a dialogue mix that cuts obviously cuts in and out between character speak and isn’t simultaneous with the score. However, much like with other Cleopatra releases, the score is production and distributor company’s best trademark with a full album including music from various artists, such as L. Shankar, Big Electric Cat, Terry Reid, Rick Wakeman, and amongst others. The 2nd disc, an audio CD, contains the 15-song soundtrack. Other physical noteworthy aspects of the release include the double-sided cover art – one filmic and the other CD listing with both include different variations of the front cover as well as a translucent Blu-ray snapper cast that adds to the snowy theme. Software bonus features include only the theatrical trailer and a still gallery slideshow. Exposure to “Frost” is deep freezing frills for most of the picture but if able to withstand the coldshoulder of cliches, the mare peaks with a blood-filled and tasty horrific morsel that makes the frippery first half worth the wait.

Get the Bluray and Soundtrack for “Frost!”

New Evil from Rob Zombie! Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor!

Posted by Steven Lewis on

I’ve been waiting and waiting for a new Rob Zombie album. Even though White Zombie will be the greatest of his career, I really did fall in love with Hillbilly Deluxe. The Sinister Urge, Educated Horses and Hillbilly Deluxe II did it’s job, but just didn’t have the umpfff that HIllbilly Deluxe had brought to his solo career. Don’t get me wrong as I still rocked out, but I’m waiting for that spark again. Today we get a glimpse into the track list of Zombie’s third junior solo album Venomous Rat Regeneration Vendor.

1. Teenage Nosferatu Pussy
2. Dead City radio And The New Gods Of Supertown
3. Revelation Revolution
4. Theme For The Rat Vendor
5. Gong Gang Gong De Do Gong De Laga Raga
6. Rock And Roll (in a black hole)
7. Behold! The Pretty Filthy Creatures
8. White Trash Freaks
9. We’re An American Band
10. Lucifer Rising
11. The Girl Who Loved The Monsters
12. Trade In Your Guns For A Coffi

robzombie junior