A Corrupted Nation, Operated by EVIL Drug Lords, Are No Match for “McBain” reviewed! (Synapse Films / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on August 8, 2023

“McBain” Explodes onto Blu-ray from Synapse!

Vietnam War has officially ended, and U.S. troops evacuate the worn torn country almost immediately until Robert Santos and his squadron happen upon a Vietcong-controlled POW camp still operating under the merciless thumb of North Vietnamese soldiers either unaware of the news that war is over or are blatantly disregarding defeat to deface the enemy. During the trouncing of opposition in a fury of firearms and explosions, Santos saves POW Robert McBain seconds before being stabbed in the back by the enemy. McBain pledges a debt to Santos for saving his life. Eighteen years later, the now Colombian revolutionary Santos, in fighting for his countrymen’s freedom and end of suffering, is killed by an iniquitous President controlled by a narcotic cartel. Santos’s wife travels to America to find McBain where the former soldier regroups Santos’s old platoon to avenge their brother in arms as well as to free the struggling people of Colombia from dictatorship and tyranny.

Director James Glickenhaus, known for his handful of thrifty, R-rated, action thrillers with some of the biggest names of the 1980s, including Jackie Chan, Sam Elliott, and Peter Weller, had previously not helmed a picture with a budget more than $5-10 million. That is until he met “McBain,” a fictional, titular character Glickenhaus created and wrote the screenplay for in his first feature at the turn of the decade. The 1991 film tripled in budget compared to the filmmaker’s previous films, aimed high for a larger scale that took the retribution guts of the story to multiple locations from around the New York metropolitan area to the surrounding waters of the Philippine islands that doubled for politically despotic Colombia in South America and multiple, sizeable explosions around every scene corner. “McBain” also hired an esteemed actor to bear the weight of the title that would contest the very robust budget against “The King of New York’s” star power, paid for by Glickenhaus’s own production banner, Shapiro-Glickenhaus Productions with executive producers Leonard Shaprio (“Black Roses”) and Alan M. Solomon (“Moontrap”) and producer J. Boyce Harman Jr.

“The King of New York,” if you haven’t clued in on the hint by now, is Christopher Walken playing a former Vietnam veteran turned NYC steel worker fulfilling his promise to repay a life debt to fellow former soldier Roberto Santos (Chick Vennera, “Last Rites”). Walken, in at least my eyes, has always been a one note kind of character and as McBain, that note remains true here as well. Don’t get me wrong about Walken’s feature-after-feature character continuity as the acclaimed actor has his cool-cat idiosyncratic inflections and pompadour hairdo. There’s also a relaxed swagger about the now 80-year-old actor that remains recognizable from his earlier work to all the way to today. Usually, we do not see Walken paired up with a love interest and “McBain” is no different in a side-by-side with “Running Man” and “Predator 2” actress Maria Conchita Alonso as Christina, sister of Robert Santos. The two are more servants of doing what’s right, connected by singular retribution, to provide justice for a mass of people drowning in injustice because of a small group of corrupt and dangerous empowerment. McBain and Christina rarely share the screen together in a strategic mix of accomplishing their own parts of the mission: McBain rallies sympathetic mercenaries to obtain money and gear while Christina rallies her people to rise up and raze the crooked administration. Walken makes the ordeal look like a stroll in the park with lofty assurance to take down an entire country’s military power juxtaposed against Alonso soulful, teary-eyed pursuance in the eyes of Christina that’s more compassionate and real, especially with Alonso’s investment as a Cuban born actress who may know a thing or two about dictatorships. McBain mercenaries are not a ragtag bunch but the former military unit that saved him from POW Hell along with Santos, but they are more of a ragtag, mixed lot cast of actors amassed to be characters ready to leave their professions and livelihoods for a South American throwdown. Michael Ironside (“Scanners,” “Starship Troopers”), Steve James (“The Warriors”), Thomas Waites (“The Thing”), and Jay Patterson (“Hard Rain”) see to it that those mercenary warriors are committed beyond a shadow of a doubt and, no, Michael Ironside does not lose a limb in this film. A rather bland McBain is backed by a rather highly skill set of commandos, such as post-Vietnam billionaires with long-reaching tech and a war pilot who is also now a surgeon, and this creates some depth complexity between a former POW turned steel worker McBain and those who saved him and came out better in life than the titular character. “McBain’s” explosive action rounds out with roles from Forrest Compton, Hector Ubarry (“Crocodile Dundee II”), Nigel Redding, Victor Argo (“True Romance”), Michael Joseph Desare, and Luis Guzman (“Innocent Blood”).

Explosive would be one of the words I would use to describe “McBain” to someone who hasn’t seen the film. Another word I would use would be rudimental. “McBain” struggles to provide opposition for our band of solicitous to the cause heroes who steamroll over the entire Colombia army and air force with little-to-no resistance or demise unless it was their own decision. What basically unfolds is a much more expensive version of the A-Team with high powered gear and a will to flatten just about anything that lays in their path, making “McBain” shallow like an extended television episode rather than a saga of epic explosive proportions. The one good aspect about Glickenhaus’s production is the pyrotechnics are ridiculously off the charts with a nonstop stop bombardment of military armament, combat vehicles, and personal convoys strapped with a weaponry assortment of M50’s, incendiaries, and stingers to light up every scene with miniature mushroom clouds glow with the heat of orange, yellow, and black. “McBain” might as well have titled “McSplosion” with all the hellfire that lit up the budget. Unfortunately, “McBain” doesn’t yield any other megaton fringe benefits from the acting to the story that seemed to have been caught in hoopla of the collateral damaging combustion, like an Andy Sidaris actioner but without the equalizing T&A to extinguish the bad by igniting another kind of pants fire.

Synapse Films delivers another high-quality product with the new 2K transfer of “McBain” on an AVC encoded, 1080p, Blu-ray. Presented from its OAR of 1.85:1 to a high-definition 1.78:1 widescreen aspect ratio, Synapse’s Blu-ray release clearly has a pristine transfer to work from, likely the reason why there’s no mention of restoration printed on the back cover. No significant signs of damage, age wear, or unnecessary augments on the 35mm print. No notifiable compression issues on the information decoding that averages around the high 30s on a sizeable BD50. A varied color palette has a renewed, clean, and stable appeal, pleasing to absorb and delineate objects within the primaries as well as patterns and sundry hues that separate into a range of objects and locations. Specified new is the English DTS-HD MA 5.1 surround soundtrack created this release. Accompanying also is the original theatrical LPCM 2.0 stereo mix. The DTS-HD mix has superior strength to maximize the explosions across the cross-media channels. There’s also an unobstructed dialogue track that prominent but maintains the varying degree of depth during bullet buzzing skirmishes and the flaming tailed rockets. Transmissions and comms hold the range to the appropriate subdued amount and, even more so, when the enemies engage each other in aerial combat. Exclusive to the release are newly translated, optional English subtitles. Bonus content underperforms on this particular Synapse title with only an audio commentary with director James Glickenhaus and film historian Chris Poggioli as well as the original theatrical trailer. Physical content comes home in a green, standard-sized Blu-ray snapper case with one of the more illustratively warm “McBain” poster arts on the single-sided cover art. Inside, a multi-page advert catalogue is included for your browsing pleasure and the disc art is rendered with the front cover art. “McBain” is rated-R, has a 104-minute runtime, and the release has a region free playback. “McBain” promises a retreat back into action for those missing action after the war is long over, but though there is a lot of bang, there isn’t a lot of buck with a seldomly challenging fight that practically makes McBain an invincibly dull crusader.

“McBain” Explodes onto Blu-ray from Synapse!

After Death is When Things Get Really EVIL! “One Dark Night” reviewed! (MVD Visual / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on August 22, 2021

Good girl Julie wants to join a The Sisters, a small high school club ran by three girls, one of who is the ex of Julie’s boyfriend. Out to prove to herself and to The Sisters she’s willing to go the distance being fun and reckless, Julie subjects herself to The Sisters’ initiations, even the more cruel ones set by her boyfriend’s spiteful ex. When the last initiation involves staying locked in overnight at a mausoleum, The Sisters will go beyond the limits in trying to scare her out of pledging, but the death of a bio-energy telekinetic practitioner with a cryptic occult past is freshly stowed away in one of the mausoleum’s coffin crypts and in death, he is more powerful and dangerous than when alive. Trapped, Julie and The Sisters are terrorized by his power as he seeks to transfer his malevolent energy into one their bodily vessels.

A PG rating back in the pre-1990 was also an abstract concept. “Clash of the Titans.” “It’s Alive.” “Jaws. “ “Prophecy” (the one with the spirit bear, not the Christopher Walken film). These are a handful of titles that were MPAA rated PG approved, but contained nudity, bloody kills, and not to forget to mention some terrifying visuals that’d make anyone piss their pants. “One Dark Knight” also fits into that category as the 1982 teen horror from “Friday the 13^th Part VI: Jason Lives!” director Tom McLoughlin set his sights toward a R-rating with the mindset that his detailed scenes of decay and rotting corpses and a face blistering the flesh to the skull would surely be slapped with the 17 years or older rating. Low and behold, the ratings board thought otherwise, surprising McLoughlin and his co-writer Michael Hawes (“Family Reunion”) with a parental guidance rating that my 7 and 4 year old could sit in on without me fearing theater security or, even worse, the mind control hypnosis and repetitive nurturing elements of today’s movies and shows that don’t make a lick of common sense or brandish any artistic heart. McLoughlin’s ‘One Dark Night” has plenty of heart and plenty of floating dead bodies in this Comworld International Pictures production with “Out of the Dark” director Michael Schroeder producing and Thomas P. Johnson as executive producer.

Before hitting the sequel and remake circuit with “Psycho II” and “Body Snatchers,” Meg Tilly broke onto the scene as “One Dark Night’s” leading lady as the amiable Julie whose looking to shake her good girl image. The little sister of “Seed of Chucky” and “Bound” star Jennifer Tilly takes the role by the reins by undulating her fear and determination to do what The Sisters initiate her into completing. The Sisters is comprised of renowned voice actress and “Pee-wee’s Big Adventure” costar Elizabeth Daily, Leslie Speights, and lead by Robin Evans as Carol, the spiteful and venomous ex-girlfriend of Julie’s now jock boyfriend (and Christopher Reeves lookalike in my opinion) in David Mason Daniels. You know what they say about love triangles they? They always lead to psychopathic, telekinetic psychics reeking havoc in a mortuary. Luckily for Tilly, Speight, Daily, Evans, and Daniels, psychopathic, telekinetic psychics are not real and neither is the person who plays the Karl Rhamarevich aka Raymar character! You see, the opening is the post-death scene of Raymar whose lying dead under a coroner’s white sheet along with six beautiful women stuffed into a corner closet in his oddly tatterdemalion apartment. The next time we see Raymar is in his casket, wide open, wide eyed with blue lightning summoning to animate the dead from the mortuary crypts; yet, Raymar is played by a dummy in the film created by Tom and Ellis Burman (“Star Trek” franchise in various capacity and “Scrooged”) and Bob Williams (“The Terminator”) who mold Raymar after the contours of Christopher Walken – second time Walken has popped up in this review! The more interesting casted parts, whose characters don’t do diddly squat in the film, is Adam West (“Batman”) as Raymar’s daughter (Melissa Newman) level-headed husband and The Predator himself, the late Kevin Peter Hall, in a minor appearance before becoming the man behind that one ugly son of a bitch mandible mask. You also actually get to see how tall Hall was in his prime.

“One Dark Night” flirts with being this strange horror that blends teen suspense and shenanigans with gothic horror with pseudo-science deviltry sushi wrapped into a Euro-horror roll. I kind of love it. I’m one of those horror fans who avoid trailers like the plague and try not to read synopses on the back cover, going into every viewing with complete ignorance, total unbias, and good attitude. I didn’t even know Meg Tilly was in “One Dark Night” for Christ sake! As the 90 minute runtime ticks down, I’m curious to where McLoughlin starts to take this film that doesn’t seem to quite get into the horror portion of Raymar’s show-stopping comeback. McLoughlin and Hawes hype up the love triangle with Carol’s bitter acrimony and Julie’s adolescent need to not be a one-note complexion all the while Steve desperately needs Carol to cease and desist any and all torturous hazing attempts, but there’s still this itty-bitty connection still tethered between the two that also causes Steve to two-time his new, more benevolent, girlfriend. In the end, I can confidently say that Steve is a good dude, a guy who double downs on a girl like Julie who can’t seem to get it through her thick skull that she doesn’t need to prove anything to three dimwits with sheeny club bomber jackets. I can tell you who isn’t a stand up guy – Raymar. Kudos to McLoughlin and his crew for creating one evil son of a bitch villain without there ever being a palpable proverbial man behind the mask to bounce off a projection of fear and contention. The evil Raymar practice was so intensely evil it was beyond our dimensional comprehension and broke the mold of death with the abilities to animating the dead among other things. “One Dark Night’s” slow start leads to a not to be forgotten survival terror against an army of the harnessed dead.

Raymar isn’t the only thing brought back from the dead, but also “One Dark Night” as MVD Visual, under the MVD Rewind Collection, strike a deal with Code Red to utilize their OOP transfer and bonus materials for a new re-release Blu-ray hitting retail shelves this Tuesday, August 24th! The 1080p high definition transfer is presented in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio speckled nicely with natural, pleasant looking reel grain. Like the Code Red special edition release, plenty of details shine through the delicate rendering that can be image wispy at times. Loads of superficial damage – frame scratches, edge flare ups, rough editing cuts, smudges – can’t go unnoticed, but these blemishes don’t hinder much as the scenes are more transitional during the setup to the big mortuary finale. What differs from Code Red’s DTS-HD 2.0 mix is thee English language LPCM 2.0 mono mix that still lightly treads with subdued effect, much like the Code Red release. Dialogue can sound muffled with popping landing just under the surface and bubbling up during dialogue scenes. Still, the audio track stands it’s ground by clearly rendering every dialogue, effect, and soundtrack without question. English subtitles are also available. You want bonus features? You got’em! Interviews with director Tom McLoughlin, actress Elizabeth Daily, actress Nancy Mott, cinematographer Hal Trussell, production designer Craig Stearns, producer Michael Schroeder, and special effects crew member Paul Clemens are all individualized for maximum recollection tidbits and factoids. There’s also audio commentaries by McLoughlin and Schroeder as well as McLoughlin and co-writer Michael Hawes. Plus, we also graced with McLoughlin’s director’s cut, a standard definition, unfinished, work print version in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio that shows the director’s true take on the narrative before producers ultimately decided to go another route…behind his back nonetheless. Behind-the-scenes footage, Paul Clemens photo gallery, and original theatrical trailer round out the disc bonus content while the physical release comes with a retro-take card board slipcover, reversible cover art, and a collectible mini poster inside the case liner. If you’re a fan of Euro-horror, “One Dark Night” embodies the very soul of the Lucio Fulci and Michele Saovi supernatural archetype sewn seamlessly into an inescapable and hopeless dance with the gnarly energies of the stoic dead.

Pre-order “One Dark Night” on Blu-ray at Amazon.com!

The EVILs of Drugs, Addiction, and Art in “Bliss” reviewed!

Posted by Steven Lewis on January 29, 2020

Dezzy Donahue, a struggling Los Angeles artist, lives life ferociously with hard drugs and heavy drinking despite the cautionary advice of her quasi-boyfriend, Clive. Her current masterpiece falls behind on schedule and she hits a formidable creative block that results in being fired by her managing agent and with cash quickly dwindling, Dezzy’s losing the battle for inspiration that turns to an increasing narcotic intake surging through her system where any and all substances are fair game to explore. When she snorts a line of Diablo, a blissful, out of body experience drug, she finds herself in a rapturous three way with friend Courtney and her on-off side piece Ronnie that leave her with a post-high, post-sex altering inner body inexperience of opening the flood gates on her creativity to draw again as well as pang her with an insatiable need for a fix when no longer riding the high. Soon, Dezzy discovers the Diablo might not have been the drug that lit the fire inside her when a strong craving for blood becomes an inescapable addiction and a means to finally finish her greatest triumph work of art.

An audio/visual besieging rabbit hole shiplapped with braided beleaguering addiction and vampiric pathology in the stimulating aggressive, Joe Begos written and directed visceral horror, “Bliss,” set in the sordid Los Angeles metal scene. The “Almost Human” and “The Mind’s Eye” filmmaker hypnotizes on a stroboscope wave with his latest take on the vampire mythos with a drug-fueled, warmongering hell on a canvas tale of sex, drugs, and diabolical fiend cravings. Produced by Channel 83 Film, as are all of Bego’s works, “Bliss” is the director’s next notch up on the crazy, unrestrained belt that’s already garnished and weaponized with razor wire and three-inch cone spikes and while the story itself isn’t fashioned for originality, the way Joe Bego’s exfoliates the overripe garbage of rehashed formulaic filmmaking from the excessively strained eyeballs, sheepish with mawkish and dull stories, will be a new design to treasure as cult status.

Where’s “Bliss’s” 2019 nomination for best actress in a lead role!? Dora Madison seizes the performance of Dezzy Donahue by storm inside a role of careless abandonment that coils into viperous mode and lashes out with a deadly strike of unconventional fangs. Madison embraces the exotic Joe Begos route covered in blood, paranoia, and a sleazy shade of florescent neon and runs a willingness to express his mesmerizing vision with body cam harnesses. “Bliss” quickly establishes a hard-hitting tenor and Madison, whose credits include “The Loft,” “Night of the Babysitter,” and in the next upcoming Begos release, “VFW,” exacts a fortified layer of extreme sovereign, a do-what-I-want policy with a zero complaint department attitude, while stowing away what little hope and compassion Dezzy has in the forgotten corners of her plainspoken mind until the moment is too late to turn back. The story solely follows Dezzy’s perception of events as she encounters and reencounters characters before and after needing a junkie’s fix, an exaggerated play on an abusers volatile relationships. The cast affixed to roles of Dezzy’s vexing fix are Tru Collins, Rhys Wakefield (“The Purge”), Jeremy Gardner (“The Mind’s Eye”), Graham Skipper (“Carnage Park”), Chris McKenna (“King of the Ants”), Rachel Avery, Abraham Benrubi (“Wristcutters: A Love Story”), and that lovable “Cheers” regular, George Wendt.

At this point in the review, an overabundance of praise for Joe Begos’ “Bliss” has been logged by this reviewer, who is obviously a fan of the film, but more can be unquestionably explored. From previous reviews and comments I’ve come across regarding “Bliss,” a minority have displayed a disdain for the indistinct theme of drug withdraws and vampirism that resembles Abel Ferrera’s 1995 film “The Addiction,” but instead of being set in shadowy alleys of New York’s urban jungle, Bego’s relocates to the wayward esse of L.A. life. Perhaps Begos was inspired by Ferrera’s undiluted struggle and violence that makes “Bliss” a clone to “The Addiction’s” chief thread, but the film’s are artistically polar opposites. “The Addiction’s” black and white photography and slow-burn air tunes more into the story of the Shakespearian tragedy variety, especially when Christopher Walken provides lengthy life stance and coping monologues to establish his eternal dominance over Lili Taylor. “Bliss” proclaims a stimulus trip from the very beginning with a favorable thrashing metal soundtrack and an psychedelic filmic presence that comes with an opening epileptic warning. Both films compliment the figurative comparison for a fix in their own poetic ways and would make a fantastic double feature release or double bill midnight movie.

If this writeup has a jonesing affect, “Bliss” is cut and lined ready for blipping on an Umbrella Entertainment DVD home video presented by Dark Sky Films. The Channel 83 Films production is presented in a widescreen, 2.35:1 aspect ratio, being shot with a ARRI/ZEISS Super Speed Lenses, as credited on IMDB, that would explain the sharp image and stark contrasts on the colors. The visual perception of the seemingly humming-on-your-eyeballs neon lighting barely lets you experience the film in natural lightening during night scenes and only in the daytime that resembles the little normalcy left of Dezzy’s life, fade away with natural light the more she succumbs to blood cravings. “Bliss” feels and acts out like a 90’s film, slightly grainy for grindhouse seduction by way of shooting of actual film stock (35mm!), and forgoes the bubbly shine of perfection, coinciding damningly with Dezzy’s inner circle of sleaze, grime, and gore. The English language Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound has a lot of kick and energy with a prevailing metal and punk/post-punk soundtrack feature Doomriders, Deth Crux, and Electric Wizard just to name drop a few. Dialogue is clean with an appropriate depth in the midsts of hard partying and live bands. Range is a little harder to discern since the soundtrack really is overpowering and dialogue sops up the remaining amount of audio track space, but when opted, the ripping of flesh and breaking of bones doesn’t disappoint. No subtitles are offered. Like many of Umbrella Entertainment’s standard releases, the single sided, singer layer DVD has no static menu or special features to offer other than the 80 minute runtime feature. “Bliss” is one coked-out, blood hungry hell of a vampire tangent from the norm that rectifies the optic and audible sanctuary for shock brilliancy to flesh out the Machiavellian in all of us.

[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5KdXU-n7qSg]

You want it, You need it, You desire it! Own “Bliss” today!

Tell, Don’t Ask, Evil to Go Away! “The Addiction” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on July 8, 2018

NYU Philosophy doctoral hopeful, Kathleen Conklin, has a run-in with a woman on the night streets of New York City, attacking her into a secluded dark enclave, and biting her on the neck after Kathleen is unable to comply with the woman’s bizarre instructions of ordering her to go away. The incident instills fear into Kathleen that quickly turns to a painful vampirism transformation that involves aversion to sunlight, self-antipathy, and a craving for blood. She continues to her studies that evolve into a deeper analytical parallelism of her newly acquired immortality, the results of it, and the human aspect that’s affected by it while along the way, feeding and turning friends, colleagues, and strangers into her brood of own image. Kathleen happens upon Peina, a vampire like herself, that has claimed to conquer his own addiction to blood and can even mirror himself as human, such as eating normal food and jogging. The agonizing withdrawal with Peina drops a slither of a notion into Kathleen that her gargantuan thirst for blood will overdose her soul to pure evil and she has to come to terms with her immortal being on the life she wants to live.

Abel Ferrara’s “The Addiction” has such anti-Hollywood tenacity that the black and white aurora of the 1995 noir vampire film goes against the more conventional grain that is Ferrara’s body of work, but still maintains a healthy amount of the director’s trademarks and his dispositional motifs to give the feature enough claim to clearly become his imprint of a screw you onto the big money motion pictures. The “Driller Killer” and “Bad Lieutenant” director orchestrates a film from without the complications of a union, with producers breathing down his neck to do this or that, and on such a minuscule budget; the vampires here are not transforming in bats, their eyes do not glow in the dark, and they even don’t have jugular piercing canines. Nicholas St. John’s script was written to portray monsters as just people with a severe addiction this particular drug of choice – the blood. The symbolism is so potent that’s hardly symbolism as the main character literally injects a syringe full of blood into the crook of her arm to get a fix.

Ravished without hesitation, Lili Taylor seizes Kathleen Conklin as if Taylor herself was addicted to the character, overtaking the character to an enlightened savagery of an academic disciple on the cusp of achieving stress-inducing doctoral status. Through the studious muck and death of mankind’s prior carnage, the “The Haunting” star goes for the full throttle transformation in the blink of a bite and never blatantly displays the hesitation of her former mortal self until the tide turns to whether stay blood thirsty or to live with the embattlement of struggling addiction. Kathleen crosses paths with Peina whose been undertaken by a classic Walken, Christopher Walken that is, and the New York City born “Communion” star had a big year in horror as “The Prophecy” was released the same year – 1995. Though Peina is crucial to Kathleen’s ultimate survival, the character has little screen time and Walken nails the performance with credence and gusto as some sort of subversive mentor to the young vampire protégé. The cast rounds out with Edie Falco, Paul Calderon (“Fear the Walking Dead”), Fredro Starr, and “The Hand That Rocks the Cradle’s” Annabella Sciorra as Casanova, the female nightstalker who takes a bite out of Kathleen and initiates the carnage.

Ferrara’s choice for black and white isn’t all surprising. At the time, numerous notable directors were doing the very exact concept in the 1990s, examples being Steven Speilberg’s award winning “Schindler’s List” in 1993 and Tim Burton’s dark comedy biopic “Ed Wood” with Johnny Depp in 1994, but Ferrara had a conceptually aesthetic noir appearance that created distance between the rest and established a solid black and white film that renders being akin to, perhaps, George Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead.” Not only did Ferrara’s film fit in the scheme of the 90’s fad, but extended “The Addiction’s” disturbing dramatic value and horror sensationalism in which color would have for sure diluted the story due in part to the pocket change budget. Taylor, Walken, and Sciorra very much believed in the project and that belief brought their characters to the formidable forefront to where a color picture didn’t really matter in the end.

Arrow Films presents “The Addiction” onto Blu-ray home video and is distributed by MVD Visual. The Blu-ray has been newly restored 4K scan of the original camera negative and approved by director Abel Ferrara and director of photography Ken Kelsch. The high definition 1080p widescreen, 1.85:1, picture has a clean palate and despite the lack of the color palette, the black and white has virtually little-to-no blotching or DNR, leaving a flawless image. The English 5.1 DTE-HD MA and 2.0 LPCM soundtracks, with optional English subtitles, is well-balanced, at least in the 5.1 DTE-HD Master Audio. Dialogue in the forefront with a brooding and jarring score by composer Joe Delia has great distinction and range, but there’s a curious lack of ambiance that focuses more on direct action of characters. NYC should be booming with surrounding noise; yet the direction Ferrara takes with reduced ambiance is risky, but exquisitely done to add a more personal touch to Kathleen Conklin’s struggle. Bonus material includes an audio commentary by Abel Ferrara, moderated by critic and biographer Brad Stevens. There also includes a new documentary, entitled Talking with the Vampires, directed by Abel Ferrara that features new interviews with composer Joe Delia, Ken Kelsch, Christopher Walken, Lili Taylor, and Ferrara himself. A new interview with Abel Ferrera going into the background of the film’s construction and the era of filmmaking, a new appreciation by Brad Stevens, an achival piece from the time of production, original trailer, and a reversible sleeve featuring original and newly commissioned artwork by Peter Strain. A supremely inclusive Blu-ray release by Arrow Films and MVD Visual of Abel Ferrara’s grittiest work of his gritty catalogue and the very spartan vampire film has an outlook of what future vampire films should aspire to with great beneficial expectations.