Tag Archives: Cleopatra Records

A New Drug, A New Promised Cure, a Result of EVIL Side Effects! “Mirror Life: Modern Zombies” reviewed! (Cleopatra Entertainment / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Mirror Life” on DVD from Cleopatra Entertainment!

An experimental drug known as Dumitor has the promise to cure all known ailments but while the animal testing proved encouraging, scientists Donovan and Taylor need to prove their miracle formulation on people.  The formulation creates a mirror reversal of the right-handed nucleotides and the left-handed amino proteins in the biological DNA sequence that could contrary the effects of chronic sickness.  Halfway through the experiment trial, Dumitor appears to be working until one of the participants comes down with hallucinations stemmed by an overload of endorphins resulting in violent behavior.  A failed lockdown and execution of all infected puts the world on the precipice of a pandemic and video journalist Tracy aims to find out what happened to her cousin, one of Dumitor’s trial members, who has mysteriously disappeared.  As Tracy gets closer to the truth, the pandemic spreads, the violence spreads, and the coverup to debunk accusations and prominent names out of the media has turned to desperate aggressive measures by Dumitor’s benefactors.

Based on the actual scientific and controversial theory called Mirror Life and transposed as the basis for the 2025, American horror-thriller, “Mirror Life,” the movie, depicts the cinema sensationalized effects from the synthesized molecular theory put into practice on the human body and mind as the be-all and end all cure for persistent ailments, turning usually mild-mannered and sensible people into crazed and delusion killers being masked under a whitewashing umbrella.  Also known as “Mirror Life:  Modern Zombies,” the film is written and directed by former amateur boxer turned filmmaker Kazy Tauginas in what would be listed as his debut writing credit and directorial.  With that being said, “Mirror Life” is actually a doubled up and mirrored concept of itself in some weird kind of way as a different cut of the Brian Kazmarck written-and-directed “Terminal Legacy” from 2012 that has Tauginas as the story creator.  The plot above is essentially the same with the original shoots being spliced with the integrated documentary investigation from Jordan’s cousin Tracy and her cameraman, interwoven as a non-linear parallel extension to the original concept and re-released with a new title, with the genre hot term zombie thrown into the subtitle for good measure.  “Mirror Life” or “Terminal Legacy” part deux is a production from Crapshoot Productions, New Lease Films, Ugly Puppy Productions and Open Fire Films, produced by Aidan Kane, Louise M. Peduto, Nat Prinzi, Stanislav Puzdriak, Brian Smith, and Kazy Tauginas.

Tauginas also costars in the film as Jordan, a surviving trial participant and Tracy’s missing cousin who finds himself chin deep in Dumitor contagion and a prime target in a containment massacre of his fellow trial mates Lindsay (Tationna Bosier, “Supernaturalz:  Weird, Creepy, & Random), Rosemary (Elise Rovinsky, “Fog Warning”), and Keith (Corey Scott Rutledge) when disturbing signs of infection show.  The small sample group have a decent dynamic with Jordan and Lindsay become hot for each other, Keith donning the bad boy antagonist persona, and Rosemary bringing up the rear as the withdrawn woman as they interact with the three doctors conducting the experiments in a cautious and courteous Dr. Taylor (Cuyle Carvin, “Dolls”), a more confident formulation scientist Donovon (Bristol Pomeroy, “Devil and the Nail”), and a more charge-forth with testing and results in Dr. Campbell (“The House on Tombstone Hill) who have their own contentious dynamic when fast and loose trial and error butts heads with steady-as-she-goes testing.  The original “Terminal Legacy” shot cast has their story spliced with a documentary style investigation by Jordan’s concerned cousin Tracy, played by Courtney Cavanagh who was also in anthological spinoff short of “Terminal Legacy” subtitled “Lost Souls” which doesn’t connect with the Kazmarck feature.  Both “Terminal Legacy” and it’s subsequent, unconnected short tread into being a lesser-known version of the popular sci-fi horror series and movies of “Black Mirror,” hence the word mirror being used to attach “Mirror Life” onto the success of the Charlie Brooker written and produced creation.  The cast fills out with Lawrence Ballard, Sally Greenland, Erica Becker, Mako San, Marc Reign, and Brian O’Neill.

Two shoots from two different times mashed together to form a single narrative structure doesn’t come without any issues, also being a non-linear story that toggles time and characters also doesn’t help.  Yet, “Mirror Life” bulldozes its way to being sound with little overlap puzzlement and only sustaining portions of a la carte plot holes.  Kazmarck’s 2012 script and direction nail a successfully conceive pre-apocalyptic thriller narratively designed like a Steven Soderbergh’s “Contagion” released a year prior snuggly fit into the “Black Mirror” like mold.  Where “Mirror Life” becomes a choppy is with the present tense portion of the shot of video documentary, added in as surplus offshoot to perhaps clean up and close out “Terminal Legacy” with fleshier reel and complexity toward the coverup concept.  By using interchangeable lensed cameras and mock security CCTVs, the spliced in sections create a whole new aesthetic and feels that grasping connection to the original film.  Plus, Tracy’s connection and motivation doesn’t appease her drive to make a documentary or even explain why the compulsive, go-getting cousin is compelled to do the extra leg work for her cousin other than their quickly mentioning their blood relation; there needed to be a deeper conversation of exposition out of Tracy’s emotional vault to get the audience on her side for hounding doctors, sneaking into apartment buildings, and the, essentially, putting herself and her crew in harm’s way for Jordan.  In short, “Terminal Legacy” had the makings of a sufficient sci-fi and apocalypse thrills and chills but without actually seeing the film in its entirety, there’s no way to know if the Kazmarck production went into being development hell, shelved for budget reasons, or had a more incongruous outcome that warranted a redo.

Cleopatra Entertainment distributes “Mirror Life:  modern Zombies” onto DVD home video with a MPEG2 encoded, upscaled 720p, DVD 5.  Presented in a widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio, image quality ranges from a third person graded digital capture, a first person raw digital capture, and pseudo-CCTV filter.  For lower DVD storage and the range of perspectives, compression issues are limited to smaller banding issues albeit plenty of darker and negative space opportunities for those milky arch lines to appear.  The grading, however, has a bit of milky residue but not terribly soaked but does keep the black saturation diluted.  Textures around skin and clothing have limited emersion with a smooth or slightly splotchy limitation from the 5-gigabyte compression that has a feature plus bonus content and a soundtrack menu.  For Cleopatra Entertainment, “Mirror Life” is a rights only distributed release, meaning they do not own the music, or rather soundtrack, from the parent company Cleopatra Records.  However, the mix is still an encoded English Dolby Digital 2.0 that has some bite in decibel volume but still can’t quite compare to an uncompressed stereo with “Mirror Life’s” gun-firing, fist-throwing, and the infected guttural sounds; however, the Dolby compression factors into saving space for a decent picture and its accompanying special features.  More importantly, dialogue comes through clearly and prominent.  Bonus features include a director’s DVD commentary, outtakes, deleted scenes, a slideshow, and theatrical trailer.  Cleopatra Entertainment has been constant on packaging with a standard DVD Amaray containing stark and intriguing cover art, especially with “Mirror Life’s” Kerry Russell and Alexandria Deddario-esque Sally Greenland appearing manically and sepia toned with a pair of scissors on the DVD and disc cover.  There are no other physical supplements on the region free DVD that houses an 89-minute, unrated feature.

Last Rites: “Mirror Life” mirrors itself from 2012 with a retouched version of the original film, “Terminal Legacy,” with little-to-no differences and another name slapped on in the director’s section. The horror comes from an effective, scientific relevant story of side effects and coverups but does the Modern Zombies subtitle really, and I mean really, come into play here? It’s a stretch to say the least.

“Mirror Life” on DVD from Cleopatra Entertainment!

Oh, Unholy, EVIL Night! Oh, “Silent Bite” reviewed! (Cleopatra Entertainment / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Santa Clauses vs Vampires in “Silent Bite” Now Available!

Four armed bank robbers hold up in a sleepy hotel on a snowy Christmas night as they hunker down and wait for their police-diverting and getaway driver to double back for them.  With the front deskman on the take, a quiet place to shelter, and no cops in sight, the eclectic bunch of thieves believe they’ve escaped scot-free from the long arm of the law with $1 million dollars in cash.  Unbeknownst to them, the desk clerk didn’t disclose the other guests staying at the hotel, a vampire mistress and her three daughters who have been hidden away waiting for the felons’ arrival to feed on their blood.  Refuge becomes an inescapable trap as the nearly unstoppable and ruthless force of beautiful, deadly women bear down on the scantily armed thieves whose automatic rifles are no match against the vampiric bloodsuckers.  With options limited, they rely on each other and a bitten young woman to survive the night.

Christmas time is upon us.  Joy to the world!  While cheerful idols of Saint Nick and Jesus Christ are erected for one of world’s holiest of days, while candy-canes, gumdrops, mistletoes, and wreath deck the brilliantly warm, primary-punchy colored lights, and while neatly wrapped presents present themselves under the garishly garnished evergreen tree with neat little tied ribbons and bows for all the good little boys and girls, the rest of us unsavory lot have blood red and scary monsters still on the brain.  This is where Christmas themed horror movies come in handy, a little blend of both worlds and holidays to sate our dueling desire to enjoy each holiday.  To begin this year off right, Taylor Martin’s 2024 vampire horror, Christmas comedy, “Silent Bite,” is the first genre-splitting seasonal movie to come across our desk!  Martin, actress of “Till Death Do We Rot” and “Anathema” turned director of short films, helms her first feature from a script by British writer-actor Simon Phillips, who is no stranger to the possible malevolence of a good Christmas horror film having penned and starred in a serial killer couple Mr. and Mrs. Clause “Once Upon A Time in Christmas” and it’s sequel “The Nights Before Christmas.”  Filmed at the Jolly Roger Inn & Resort hotel of Otter Lake, Ontario, Phillips produces the feature alongside Mem Ferda (“K-Shop,” “Bonehill Road”) and executive producers Ern Gerardo and Anubandh Lakhera under the Nox Luna Media Group, 9I Studios, EAG Enterprises, and Dystopian Films labels.

Not only does Phillips write and produce, he stars in the principal role of Father Christmas, the leader of the armed thieves who perhaps is the most even-keeled to bear the competency of a bad guy constitution.  The British national adds a morsel of mercenary radiancy to his role but can’t quite be all that he can be because Father Christmas is too busy babysitting a squabbling, bambino-acting crew too hopped up on booze, drugs, insults, and their social awkward hangups to level up to Father Christmas cool, calm, and collected.  The randomly selected pool of eclectic elves with codenames for hired robbery include the monolith muscle of the feral Snowman (Michael Swatton, “Snow and Blood”), the rootin-tootin’ hardnose Grinch (Nick Biskupek, “Until Death”), and the technological-savvy and brilliantly awkward Prancer (Luke Avoledo, feature film debut).  Phillips, Swatton, and Biskupek have collaborated in more recent projects, such as “What Lurks Beneath” and “The Mouse Trap,” with all three men also having a piece of the two Adrian Langley “Butchers” films pie in their own regard between original and sequel, evoking a comfortability in line and action delivery dynamic when they bicker amongst each other.  There’s a fifth member of the crew, Rudolph (Dan Molson, also from “Butchers Book Two:  Raghorn”), who is not directly described as the leader but led us to believe the decoy driver hand selected all members of Santa’s purloining party pitted against a stronger, deadlier, and more conniving coven of women vampires with Sayla de Goede (“The Nights Before Christmas”) playing the matriarch.  Goede really hams up the performance of a Victorian vampire who’s snobby and seducing by leaving threatening and opposing at the door.  Mother rears three women turned vampires turned daughters in Lucia (Louisa Capulet, “Butchers Book Three:  Bonesaw”), Selene (Sienne Star, “Fear Street:  Prom Queen”), and Victoria (Kelly Schwartz, “The Bermuda Triangle Project”) and, once again, are failed characters to bring the intensity required as hungry seductress for blood and sex, said as much in the exposition between Mother and daughters.  The caboose of the “Silent Bite” cast has Camille Blott and Paul Whitney (“Blood and Snow”) play the recent bitten, love interest of Prancer and a graceless Renfield-type hotel clerk, respectively.  

What started out as a high energy concept of a comic-book style opening credits, providing audience the background bank robbery and chase epilogue, quickly decelerates to brisk walk of more-or-less the two groups intermingling amongst themselves until what basically becomes the climax of the story.  For a tale that plot parallels the Robert Rodriguez-directed, Quentin Tarantino-penned “From Dusk till Dawn,” a severe lack of ceaseless combustible action gives way to just a bunch of roundabout buildup to avoid spending bank on blank cartridges, violent effects, and choreography.  Instead, the AR-15s and handguns are rarely fired, gory effects are reduced to CGI spurts and theatrical blood rivulets down the chin, and a bunch of exposition, which in all fairness is written well and has concentrations of amusing tongue-and-cheek wit.  Developing the characters to their full potential is wasted because conflict between mortal and immortal arrives too late into the story and all that rev-exciting, rock soundtrack-blasting title card illustration at the beginning pseudo-fed a spoonful of high-octane snake oil.  The overall aesthetic of the story indulges in the festivities of the yuletide season of snowy exteriors, garish garlands and other Christmastime decorations, and our five anti-heroes in Santa themed suits but the visual themes and motifs are limited to such and are interrupted by grinchier clunkers of the aforesaid blood spurts and UV light incineration visual effects.

Arriving on an AVC encoded, 1080p, single-layer BD25 on a bloodsucking sleigh is not Santa Clause but Santa Clause with fangs in Cleopatra Entertainment’s “Silent Bite.”  Presented in a widescreen 2.39:1 aspect ratio, the wider lens isn’t put to good use for a story that’s mostly set inside the tight confines of a hotel interior.  Even the pool room, where an opportunity to expand across a full-length swimming deck, is an opportunity that’s missed.  There are some exterior scenes of the Jolly Roger Resort & Inn as well as Rudolph’s eluding of the law that take the wider aspect ratio for a ride but are limited to these peripheral portions.  What really stands out are the colorful Christmas motifs of brilliant red, greens, and blues amongst the scantily cladded seasonal décor and while those areas are limited, the palette is vibrant and saturated to create a warm and cozy atmosphere contrasted against the dark snow.  Details are generally pleasing albeit select scenes where speckling occurs, such as Snowman dunking himself underwater that loose quite a sum of the previously clean image.  Two English audio options are available, a lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 mix and an uncompressed LPCM 2.0 Stereo.  Once again, Cleopatra Entertainment, the movie entertainment subsidiary of Cleopatra Records, continues to restrain their releases from full fidelity potential with not only a lossy surround sound format but also, compositionally, with combined tracks that rise and dive in bitrate, suppressing the audio quite a bit and then, randomly at varying intervals, relieves the pressure to provide a full-bodied, atmospheric contingent of diegetic sounds.  The notifiable difference is staggering and greatly exampled by Simon Phillips voice that sounds anemically high at a lower decoding rate then, all of the sudden, booms with accented resonation and vitality in it’s true uncompressed state. The uncompressed audio layer may not be as expansive but contains no stark erroneousness.  English captions are optional.  A scene clip fluid Blu-ray menu, framed by that same dark red, jet-black delimitation has a special features section only to offer little of said special features with a theatrical trailer and pictorial slideshow.  The physical release has a nice and simplistic black and red illustrative cover that’s a tell-all of what to expect.  The Blu-ray Amaray that holds the disc pressed with the same front cover art has no other supplements.  The region free Blu-ray has a runtime of 90 minutes and is unrated.

Last Rites: “Silent Bite” may not be the main present in Santa’s sack of sordid slayers but it’s definitely a stocking stuffer worthy of kicking off the Christmas season.

Santa Clauses vs Vampires in “Silent Bite” Now Available!

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

Eventually, You’ll Have to Stand Up to EVIL. “The Retaliators” reviewed! (Quiver Distribution / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Man Up and Take Back Your Life with “The Retaliators” on Blu-ray!  Click to Purchase from Amazon.

Having recently lost his wife, Pastor Bishop tries hard to keep his two school age daughters safe with an oversight thumb, but when his oldest daughter, Sarah, begs him for the car, God himself knows that the Pastor’s children can’t stay children forever. Bishop fears come reality when Sarah is chased by a sadistic man, ran off the road, and zip tied to her steering wheel as her car is pushed into a nearby ravine. Destroyed by another loss, there is seemingly no way out of the grief hole for the man of the cloth until a Detective, who once shared Bishop’s pain and suffering with a similar, personal experience, introduces him to his isolated former fallout bunker turned torture cabin in the woods with the man who killed Bishop’s daughter chained captive in the basement and next to him sits a variety of melee tools of affliction. Deeper into the Detective’s subterranean dwelling lies a more terrible, caged secret, one that is incidentally unleashed upon the world, and will wreak carnage upon the land and it’s up to the grin and bear it Pastor to take a stand against pure evil.

Frighting for yourself and for special persons in your life is crucial for any self-respecting person to be able to look at themselves in the mirror and say, “I did all I could.” Those who believe in understanding and forgiveness ultimately fall into being trampled on and biting the bullet because just surviving the other end of a contentious situation can be a false sense of security and an opaque veil to the ever-present dangers lurking in every crevice. The 2021 release of “The Retaliators” accouters that theme of following one’s combative conscious to protect what’s dear while also sporting a hefty amount of violence, blood, subhuman psychopaths, and a nearly all nu metal musician cast. Co-directed between from short and music video filmmaker, Samuel Gonzolas Jr., the film’s star and “Central Park” actor, Michael Lombardi, and music video director, Bridget Smith, “The Retaliators” aims to show an ugly, real truth that can affect and twist good men into the same abhorrence and villainy they’ve struggled to repel and resolve. “The Retaliators” mark the first screenplay from the Geare Brothers, Darren and Jeff Allen, is shot across various locations in the U.S., including states Nevada, New Jersey, and Connecticut, and is a production of Lombardi’s Better Noise Films with the company’s CEO, Allan Kovac, and Philly Born Film’s Mike Walsh also producing.

As a company that’s half part a music record label, the film was destined to showcase some of the independent rooted musical and elemental talent of the rock genre, but the narrative is convoyed by a fellow musician, who will humbly admit they are not trained or experienced actors, but rather actors who are rock artist sympathizers, in the case of principal leads Michael Lombardi and Marc Menchaca of Peacock’s new horror thriller “Sick” and who you may not have recognized in the third season of Amazon’s “Tom Clancy’s Jack Reason” as a high-and-tight, clean-cut naval captain. Menchaca is anything but burred cut as a bearded and wavy-haired, somber detective assigned to Pastor Bishop’s (Lombardi) case of his murdered daughter. Menchaca does his work in feeding off the dark energy cocktail of Lombardi’s grief, despair, and vengeance-stricken neo-pastor. Lombardi’s heartfelt performance definitely deserves praise for how one should react in losing a child and also reflects the helplessness that burdens the parent into a black hole of sorrow. As a character, Bishop struggles morally with seeping into and being swallowed by the grim circumstances gifted for him despite however the circumstances may seem to be in his favor. The gears Lombardi has to switch from a faithful person, to rancorous, to then finally a path of soul changing redemption goes smoothly enough to justify his position as principal lead. Menchaca’s demented detective almost feels left out to an extent, but the audience will get enough of a taste to satiate his unglued righteousness. While no love interest makes it into the fold of characters, the narrative does house spots for the nu metal and rock musicians in supporting or minor roles. Papa Roach’s Jacoby Shaddix, Mötley Crüe’s Tommy Lee, Ice Nine Kills Spencer Charnas, Escape the Fate’s Craig Mabbitt, From Ashes to New’s Matt Brandyberry, Lance Dowdle, Danny Case, and Matt Madiro, and Five Finger Death Punch’s Ivan L. Moody, Zoltan Bathory, and Chris Kael are just a select few of rockers you’ll see in “The Retaliator’s” lineup. Personally, I wanted to see more of Jacoby Shaddix as Quinn Brady, a homicidal madman in a horrific cat-and-mouse lark with the detective. Who knows, maybe we’ll see a prequel with Shaddix returning to the role. For the most part, like Shaddix, the musicians are well integrated with diverse roles that range from biker club, to strip club DJs, to bartenders, and to AA participants. “The Retaliators” round out the cast with Katie Kelly (“Deadly Seduction”), Abbey Hafer, Cree Kelly (“Aftermath”), and the massively built and scary-looking Joseph Gatt (“Titanic 666”) as the child-killer strapped and prepped for Pastor Bishop to physically and mentally break.

Better Noise Films is comparable to another divisional filmic offshoot of a larger parent music record label. Cleopatra Entertainment, of Cleopatra Records, often builds film structures and narrative plots around the company’s signed ensembles to promote and market their lyrical and thrash-heavy material as well as putting names to faces and thrusting them out into the world to those who may not have heard of their music. Aside from likely being a huge cost-savings benefit, these films are often scored by their artists, leading to a diverse sounding and electric soundtrack that typically works out less than desired. What the directors end up implementing, musically, yields result only half of the time while the other half is forced unto the audience for the sheer effect of promotion despite the off-putting composition. Not every intense scene needs a band backdrop to flourish raw emotion and pump up the blood but that’s what films, like “The Retaliator’s,” is bred to show off in a marbled genre that has categorical plot pivots all along the way to the grand finale of an all-out brawl, fight for your life skirmish with the criminally and tortured insane. That latter concept is perhaps one of the more interesting and original ideas of reinventing the psychopath that I’ve seen in a long time and the anticipatory excitement and thrills of their release to wreak havoc like barbaric rippers had found moments of great gore excess when Paster Bishop finds his divine strength to help the savage sadists meet their maker by way of machete, a shovel, and a woodchipper. “The Retaliators” make use of familiar horror tropes, such as the fog machine and a blend of lowkey and neon flushed lighting, to conjure an unconventional crypt of rock and homicide, putting its own unique stamp of indirect evil leading to up to another bigger, badder bedlam of things.

Chalked up to be an 80’s-stylized 90’s cinematic horror pulp, with early 2000’s soundtrack, “The Retaliators” arrives onto Blu-ray home video courtesy of Quiver Distribution. The AVC encoded, high definition, 1080p BD50 has a CinemaScope, aka anamorphic, widescreen 2.39:1 aspect ratio. The large storage formatted disc offers more variety as the capacity can handle the expansion of color and range of content. From complex, diversly lit, and heavily foot trafficked interiors to the great outdoors with trees fields, gravel terrain, and watery brooks, the quite a bit that’s going on looks pretty good on screen and the anamorphic widescreen doesn’t have that squeeze-it-in feel either but can’t escape a few scenes of lens flare. Details provide a tactile enamel, but the colors are quite soft with a lower dialed in color grading. The English DTS-HD 5.1 surround sound has more teeth in the soundtrack that overlaps and snuffs out any ambient sound design, essentially making “The Retaliators” a 96 minute, give-or-take a few scenes, music video. Dialogue doesn’t suffer the same backseat fate as the script-to-screen exchanges are in the forefront and though the soundtrack is a bit flat, the original, nebulous-electronic score in between by “Stranger Things” composers Kyle Dixon and Michel Stein does stand out to add a nice underlayer of questionability and suspense. Special features include cast interviews with actors and music artists speaking to their experience on the film, “The Retaliator’s” music video, and theatrical trailer. The physical release comes with a cardboard slipcover on the first pressing with a rendered pseudo-illustrated mockup of pyramid arranged character heads with Pastor Biship standing bloody and machete in hand right smack in the middle. The standard Blu-ray snapper includes the same cover arrangement art as the slipcover. Not listed on the back, the unrated film does support region A playback. “The Retaliators” pumps up the blood as well as the jams during an overhaul of one’s convictions in a baptism by hellfire.

Man Up and Take Back Your Life with “The Retaliators” on Blu-ray!  Click to Purchase from Amazon.

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!”

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HKyXiAujxOc&t=4s