Tag Archives: COVID-19

The EVIL is Not Just in the Virus, but Also in the Cure! “Side Effects May Vary” reviewed! (Tempe Digital / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Side Effects May Vary” From This Blu-ray Drug!

COVID-19 virus has the world masked up and social distancing in full effect with experimental vaccines being rushed toward a rollout.  For Glenn Rollins, being under the weather now for weeks still hasn’t convinced him to inject himself with experimental Government drugs meant to combat coronavirus but when wife Janelle does everything in her persuasive power to convince him to take the vaccine, Glenn reluctantly agrees to receive the shot at his doctor visit the next day.  What Glenn is given is no ordinary coronavirus vaccine, but the new Alpha-21 concoction just released for public intravenous inoculation, an rapidly tested serum that boils subjects from the inside-out.  Instead of completely exploding in a pile of blood and sinew, Glenn’s rare blood type maintains a semi-rigid form and the only way he can maintain from melting into a pile of goo is to feast on the blood and meat of the living in his zombified state.

The cult director behind “The Dead Next Door” and “Robot Ninja,” J.R. Bookwalter, returns to take a hypodermic needle stab at a world-crippling pandemic horror inspired by the COVD-19 virus and how the FDA rushed to approve emergency vaccinations on U.S. citizens in a comically satirical, gore-and-goo-filled comedy-horror.  The movie, “Side Effects May Vary,” is Bookwalter’s first film in over 20-years, the last being “Mega Scorpions” that only saw a streaming release due to a folding in the financing of a distribution deal.  “Psycho Sisters” and “Her Name Was Crista” writer James L. Edwards, who’s collaborated with Bookwalter since the very beginning of the filmmaker’s career, pens the script and also stars in the disturbing desquamation of Glenn role.  “Side Effects May Vary” is the second direct-and-writer production between Bookwalter and Edwards with the first being 1996’s “Polymorph.  As like many of Bookwalter’s films, he produces under his longstanding own indie label Tempe Digital serving as executive producer alongside Edwards producing and wife Lana Bookwalter as associate producer.

I wouldn’t call Glenn Rollins a right-wing conservative antivaxxer but, instead, Glenn’s a doubter of the vaccine’s testing measures with a range of side effects from an experimental injectable could cause from a vaccine so unproven swirling inside his head.  That’s the satirical concept Bookwalter and Edwards put into motion and deliver fully charged as mild-mannered Glenn gorges on the innards of family, friends, neighbors and strangers after unpleasantries arise from an untested product.  The likeable Rollins rears an ugliness brought upon by pressures of vaccination, especially from his wife Janelle, played by indie horror scream queen Tina Krause (“Crimson Nights,” “Bloodletting”).  Another scream queen of legendary acclamation is in on the fun with Brinke Stevens (“The Slumber Party Massacre,” “Sole Survivor”) as the saucy nosy neighbor who knows all the sexual acts by their sporty designations.  We journey from the beginnings of a substance subjugation and are wiggled into a buddy cop scenario between Glenn Rollins’ best friend and former cop turned private eye Jack Murray (Drew Foriter, “Trivial”) and his former boss and one-night-stand Chief Tom Danvers (“Floyd Ewing Jr., “Robot Ninja”) and their sudden thrust into an investigation to find Glen under their distinct impressions of his character, plus that one sexual encounter between them, makes for a good dynamic of sidetracking diversion that interrupts a constant flow, which can get stale, of formality and responsibility of chasing a killer.  The cast Sasha Graham (“Trivial”) as the prescribing primary care physician Dr. Fisher, Wendy Zier (“Trivial”), Tom Hoover (“Ozone”), and David Bachmeier (“Bathtub Shark Attack”) as the first scene test subject of Alpha-21’s explosive results. 

A relief will wash over fans to know J.R. Bookwalter is not dead in the water when it comes to directing.  A long hiatus was exactly what Bookwalter needed to get back to form after a string of mediocre horror that didn’t leave a bad taste in our mouths but wasn’t quite the standard of the Ohioan director’s carnage-laden caliber.  “Side Effects May Vary” spoke to nationwide fears during the global pandemic, in a humorously horrifying way, and even extends beyond that now historical portion of our time into the forefront of our minds that we may have not have yet seen the actual long-term effects of the COVID shots, if any.  The intention of “Side Effects May Vary” is not to instill fear, though does create a fraction of concern, but is more to the tune of exaggerated those once media covered and one-sided fears to the extreme by turning injected patients into boiling potato sacks of putrid cannibalism.  It’s pretty damn funny and gross.  To create a vibrant visual veneer, Bookwalter plays with different lighting angles and color gels of primary neon illumination that takes characters out of the real world and places them into a fantastical neon-noir that surrenders to the sexualized, the scandalous, and the scary story bits and pieces. The buddy-cop, manhunt storyline works as bodies are left as breadcrumbs for the two conflicting investigators that are on the precipice of making a final decision on Glenn Rollin’s fate while Glenn himself battles internally, both physically and emotionally, his wretched state that needs blood to slow down the process of his metaphorizing melting but his mild-manner, nice-guy identity doesn’t want to harm a soul. 

Tempe Digital castrates the COVID cure scare with an incredible liquescent comedy-horror in “Side Effects May Vary” on a director’s cut Blu-ray home video.  The AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition resolution, BD25 comes with a ton of color, contrast lighting, and a decent compression codec that makes the low-budget production appear a step or two up the upscale staircase.  The heavy neon light cuts into the skin and textural details but scenes more naturally lit, such as in the outdoors, fair better with more granular inside a digital presentation in its original aspect ratio of 1.78:1.  There are two English audio mixes available for selection and audiophile setup in a DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio and a Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo.  The surround sound selection has a semi-fluid dynamic that works in a contained closed to medium shot arrangement and doesn’t expand to anything beyond to warrant an immersive experience aside from a healthier fidelity of the dialogue, proximity milieu, and the gruesome creature sound effects.  Dialogue can get out of the reigned in alignment that breaks in with sparse unfiltered hissing but otherwise renders cleanly and clearly through the 81-minute runtime.  English subtitles are available.  Special features encoded are an audio commentary with director J.R Bookwalter, a Harris Theater Q&A in Pittsburgh at the Roadshow Opening Night with film guests Bookwalter, writer-star James L. Edwards, and actor Floyd Ewing Jr., a theatrical roadshow cut trailer, a teaser trailer, and the theatrical trailer. Art from the Alex Sarabia and Karl Munster collaboration gives a pulpy artistic rendition of Glenn Rollins oozing deterioration inside a clear Amaray Blu-ray with no supporting supplements other than a cropped version of the art on the disc. The not-rated, region free disc is a perfect cure for what ails you – bad indie comedy-horror done right!

Last Rites: A global pandemic killed millions of people, the silver-lining is now we can look back at that time of isolation and fear and honor those deaths with a coronavirus and rushed-cure blend act worthy of being to the likes of “Bad Taste.”

“Side Effects May Vary” From This Blu-ray Drug!

An EVIL Auction Decides One Girl’s Self-Inflicted Fate or the Entire School Massacre of Goth Students. “Eating Miss Campbell” reviewed! (Troma Films / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Eating Miss Campbell” on Blu-ray from Troma Films and Refuse Films!

Vegan-goth Beth Connor contemplates suicide daily while attending a high school with a student body that’s cliché to a 90’s horror film and living with her grossly affectionate father and stepmother who are nonchalant and oblivious to her own self-destruction.  When a new, radical, American headmaster is hired at her British school, he creates the “All You Can Eat Massacre” contest that grants one winner a chance at a fully loaded handgun to either kill those of the winner’s choosing or blow their own brains out.  Apart of the accompanying American contingent on school staff, a new English teacher, Miss Campbell, catches Beth’s eye, and she falls heads-over-heels for her.  The contest is Beth’s way out of this clichéd life but her feelings for a morally complicated Miss Campbell and Beth’s sudden urge to consume human flesh puts a small damper on her chances to win the “All You Can Eat Massacre” that’s also highly sought after by a trio of stuck-up, TV themed-named girls aimed to eradicate every freak, geek, and goth on campus grounds.

“Eating Miss Campbell” is the meta-horror-comedy that amplifies stains of the American way, history, and culture in a concurrent saturation of satire.  The Liam Regan film is everything Lloyd Kaufman and Troma Films dreams of in a Troma presented production with a goal to subvert the routine machine of mostly rightwing establishments and conventional, cherry-coated filmmaking.  The United Kingdom film, shot in Yorkshire, is a sequel to Regan’s “My Bloody Banjo” of 2015 but only with a few returning characters in a new situation rather than direct follow-up.  Regan’s sophomore film is the second chapter to what’s being labeled as the Bloody Banjo saga and is a production of Troma, Refused Films, and the “Bad Taste” inspired-company name Dereks Don’t Run Films with Regan and Kaufman producing and Dereks Don’t Run Films’ Danny Naylor serving as executive producer.

A cast made up UK and US actors, “Eating Miss Campbell” marks the return of some familiar faces and character names from Regan’s “My Bloody Banjo” with Vito Trigo (“Return to Nuke ‘Em High Vol. 1,” “Assassinaut”) as Mr. Sawyer now the progun, proviolence American headmaster of Beth Cooper’s school, Laurence R. Harvey (“Human Centipede 2,” “Frankenstein Created Bikers”) as Mr. Sawyer’s indelicately charming number one Clyde Toulon, Dani Thompson (“No Strings 2:  Playtime in Hell,” “Rock Band vs. Vampires’) as Mr. Sawyer’s well-endowed lover with an affection for younger high school boys, and, of course, no Troma production would be complete without a Lloyd Kaufman appearance or cameo as he re-enters the role of Dr.  Samuel Weil for a brief spell on a how-to dispatch oneself.  These returning personalities are integrated into a new grotesque story that surrounds high school goth and aware of the third wall girl Beth Cooper, played by “Book of Monsters” actress, and who has killer bangs, Lyndsey Craine.  Coopers looking to break out of the horror movie cliché by nixing herself before being consumed by the prosaism of it all, and she expositions this all to the camera, talking right to the viewers, to express her discontent and reasoning.  The tongue and cheek affair doesn’t end there with Emily Haigh (“The Lockdown Hauntings”), Sierra Summers, and Michaela Longden (“Book of Monsters”) playing into that 90’s theme by being Clarissa, Sabrina, and Melissa, all different television role iterations of one of the 90’s most iconic actresses Melissa Joan Hart.  The film rounds out with real life couple James Hamer-Morton (“Dead Love”) and Charlie Bond (“The Huntress of Auschwitz”) playing Beth’s parents, Justin A. Martell (“Return to Nuke ‘Em High Volume 1”) as school board member Tusk Everbone, Annabella Rich (“Powertool Cheerleaders vs the Boyband of the Screeching Dead”) as Nancy Applegate the bloodthirsty racist, Alexander J. Skinner as the girl chaser jock Ethan Rembrandt (Hotel Paranoia), and Lala Barlow in the titular role of English teacher, flesh eater Miss Campbell.

“Eating Miss Campbell” is completely satirical, completely outrageous, complete overtop, and a Troma contemporary classic.  Director Liam Regan understands the Lloyd Kaufman’s market audience to provide an unfiltered, unfettered independent production careening with uncontrollable momentum of bloody cannibalism, screwball antics, and topless gratuitousness and, in turn, solidifies himself as a Troma archetype director.  “Eating Miss Campbell” is a practical effects believer that implements squibs, prosthetics, and buckets of stainable blood to use in borrowed locations and while gruesome aspects work for the film, the pacing and storytelling is quite patchwork.  Covid-19, like the virus did for most films in production prior to 2020 lockdown, halted Regan’s progressive flow and caused a year-and-half, 18-month gap, that required additional weeks’ worth of shots, disrupting the flow in story and in character. There’s not a ton of filler to build history, storylines, or even give a moment to connect the pieces and absorb Regan’s revolving madcap that include references to cherry-picked scenes from “My Bloody Banjo” and the whole meta concept that beleaguers audiences with rants and rancorous tudes about reliving a certain period in time, such as a cliched 90’s horror movie for example, or a culture bastardized by violence and grotesque, maligned shapeshifters, and this becomes more than providing protagonist insight and protest propaganda no matter which way you slice and rearrange the story, and that goes without saying that’s most of Troma’s cuckoo-tastic catalogue.

Troma Films and Refuse Films proudly presents “Eating Miss Campbell” onto a Lloyd Kaufman introductory stated unrated director’s cut, Hi-Def Blu-ray. The AVC encoded, 1080p, BD25 presents the film in a 1.85:1 aspect ratio. A feature and a trunk load of extras on the lower shelf of capacity format, keeping in tune with most Troma home releases, shouldn’t surprise or phase the physical media aficionados to know there are compression issues along the darker tones with banding and some posterization, smoothing out textures in poor lighting. When details do emerge, they’re noticeable and visually enriching a right-to-rebel indie production without going overboard into the clarified butter that is major studio glossiness and precision. Often heavy shadow contrasting doesn’t dispel the vivid and appeasing coloring scheme that pops intermittently and skin tones, though skin texture in general bleeds into the adjacent shade, appear about as natural as initially captured without filter, gels, or post work enhancements. The British/American English track in a lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound mix lessens what should be a quite robust hitting of every audible mark. The scale of “Eating Miss Campbell” is quite expansive from start to finish, carrying over into a number of interior and exterior sets, as well as a lucrative range of diverging, differentiating noisemakers but what’s at hand does the job adequately with plenty of emphasis on the more foolish sense of humor. Depth is rarely utilized in what’s mostly medium-to-closeup scenes and replaced with just a level playing field loading of dialogue, which is clean and clear. An English Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo is also available. Troma releases are good for special features and “Eating Miss Campbell” is another testament to a haul of extra content, including an audio commentary by director Liam Regan, editor Jack Hayes, and foley artist Finn Brackett, a 7 Days of Hell behind the scenes documentary that looks at the making-of the film with the post-COVID pickup shots, deleted scenes and outtakes, a gag highlight reel, raw b-roll footage, even more behind-the-scenes footage that’s nearly an hour long, the FrightFest premiere, cast interviews, VFX reel, the Troma radiation march against pollution, Troma in Time Square takes a look at Troma’s streaming service, Abbie Harper’s music video Tromatized, and the trailer. There are also a couple of prologue introductions with a Ukraine support intro and a Lloyd Kaufman as character Dr. Samuel Weil with intercut video of director Liam Regan. The traditional Amaray has a dim cover with colorful lettering in a compilation of characters overtop the high school. The disc is equally black with the same colorful lettering and a black and white penciled razor blade encircled by stark red blood. The region free release has a runtime of 94 minutes.

Last Rites: “Eating Miss Campbell” has edge that favors, or even flavors, Troma’s taste with a high school shooting, cannibalistic, no holds barred, teacher-student affair alternate societal universe that’s tough to digest but easy to chew.

“Eating Miss Campbell” on Blu-ray from Troma Films and Refuse Films!

Wake Up and Get Lost in the EVIL Flowers. “Terror Firma” reviewed! (Dark Arts Entertainment / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Terror Firma.” The First Dark Arts Entertainment TItle Now Available!

Having no place to go during the middle of an unexplained, national Marshall Law event where citizens must remain indoors or else face imprisonment, Lola bunks in with her fellow adopted brother Louis and his bizarre tenant Cage. Though Lola and Louis have not seen each other in years, they quickly bond to deflect Cage’s peculiar persona that has honed in on Lola. After receiving a government issued drop shipment of food, Lola discovers a seed packet wedged in between the boxes. Her curiosity sows a single seed that results a hole in the ground next day, a hole that produces a jelly that conforms to their individualized favorite flavors, and they become addicted to its intoxication, but when Louis disappears, seemingly trapped between dimensions and communicating underneath an alien flower where the hole use to be, Lola is stuck alone with Cage who’s more and more becoming twisted by the transcendental jelly.

A pun play on the idea of terra firma, defined as the Earth’s ground or surface, “Terror Firma” is a prismatic and cosmic hell hole of a psychological and interdimensional thriller from writer-director Jake Macpherson. Macpherson, a regular music video director of photography and a short film filmmaker, debuts his 2023 feature film with a broader, elephantine story under a bantam budget, reduced to a singular location, and uses the idea of terra firma as the basic premise for natural Earth horror blended with the pandemic confinement of COVID-19 in which the story was conceived and how that isolation acceptance, thralldom from authoritarian instruction, and broken family bridges originate the internal dysfunctions outward toward a destructive, maddening outcome. “Terror Firma” is a production of the Los Angeles based Capture Theory company with Macpherson, John Angeli, Forrest Clark, Theo Linder, Katie Mamie, and Bryan Wilson serving as mostly first-time producers.

Keeping in line with a low-cost production, the story takes root at mostly one location, Lou’s rundown, multi-story house with creaky old floors and compact rooms, extending the location beyond the walls and into the house’s minute front yard where a pile of dirt with a strange jelly hole metamorphizing into an even stranger looking flower becomes the catalyst of weirdness.  Thai-American actress Faye Tamasa is Lola, the weary sister of Louis, played by Burt Thakur, who invites her to come stay with him during the beginning of a nationwide shutdown of unexplained purpose.  Lola and Louis, both once orphans and adopted by the same parents, haven’t seen each other in years and have rarely spoke.  Repeated motifs of isolation, such as the extension of their orphanage, and an awkward disconnect between them display their relationship instable without having an obvious clash to outright scream incompatibility between the two who don’t share bloodline but grew up together.  There’s still an affection quality between them but it is damaged.  And, then, in comes the third wheel that becomes the wedge between Lola and Louis’s relationship rekindling.  Cage, a dodgy spiritual pseud and played with monotonic sleaziness by Robert Brettenaugh (“Strange Blood”), interjects his numinous nonsense as a façade to impress Lola but as Lola sees right through him, Cage diverts his attention to the Jelly that drops the façade and unleashes his true spirit, a sociopath with an obsession.  The trio works to relay a significance in loneliness and isolating desperation in a sensationalized, supernatural way in finding a pathway through the lockdown blues.   Rounding out the cast with a small role that wouldn’t even be considered turning the trio into a quartet is Max Carpenter as a former love interest to Lola.

Not to be confused with or have any similarities to Lloyd Kaufman’s 1999 burlesque slasher titled “Terror Firmer,” Macpherson’s debut is born and bred out of the woes of a global pandemic by formulating a fantastical escape from the reality as we knew it before everything went into an abrupt lockdown.  The sudden stoppage of the world and social gatherings certainly began a snowball effect of emotional distress, some more external than internal that gradually drew to head an uneasy amount of stir crazy.  For the trio of roommates, and like most of us during the beginning of the lockdown, we’re excited and thrill for a break in the norm but as time marches on, those you’re stuck with without anywhere to go is an unusual alienating feeling.  “Terror Firma” expediates the sullied sensation to cosmic proportions with gateways to upside down worlds that mirror our own and develop cultish acolytes to the Jelly’s mystical powers.  Granted, no much of Jake Macpherson’s story makes a whole ton of sense and is very open to interpretation, but one possible avenue I’ve concluded is that the Jelly is a convenient, sweet-tasting poison that one can easily fall for its pseudo-tranquility and limitless euphoria to solve all our immediate problems as a quick fix but ultimately it’s our will and the power within ourselves to reconnect, re-establish, and revitalize what’s missing from ourselves.  Macpherson’s hallucinogenic rabbit hole of a thriller is an abstract course on preservation of relationship and connections while overwhelmed with obstacles.

Prominent genre filmmaker Brian Yuzna, well-known for his behind-the-camera roles on Stuart Gordon’s “Re-Animator” and “Dolls,” as well as his own directorial credits “Society” and “Beyond Re-Animator” to revolutionize the way we see horror in the 80s and 90s, teams up with John Penney, writer of staple cult classic “The Kindred” and “Return of the Living Dead III,” to form a new at-home physical media label known as Dark Arts Entertainment.  “Terror Firma” is the first title to be released by the joint partnership with MVD Visual for distribution.  The AVC encoded, 1080p high definition, BD50 houses the widescreen, 2.39:1, aspect ratio presented blossoming madness.  Picture image varies with the refracting coloring within the polychromatic lenses and in contrast to the post grading of a slightly coarse tone.   Yet, that isn’t to say quality is subpar and we’re treated to a fine digital image compressed without compromising the encoding on a double layered disc.  The English LPCM Stereo 2.0 offers a lossless reproduction of true audio fidelity and while not be a powerful mix course isolated layers through individualized channel outputs, “Terror Firma” isn’t necessarily powerful in range.  There’s only a handful of psychedelic moments of discord tunes and notes to emphasizes the crossing between dimensions and a few minor key moments to evoke fear out of Cage’s madness but other than that, “Terror Firma” specializes mostly in exposition and silently witnessed moments.  Dialogue is clean, clear, and prominently placed with depth dialed in where needed, especially when Lou begins to speak beyond the plane.  English subtitles are available for the feature only.  Inside the bonus material, a second version, an extended director’s cut, of the film is available and does not have the subtitle option.  Also included is Jake Macpherson’s commentary with main feature, a behind the scenes gallery, and the theatrical trailer.  The maiden Dark Arts release package is standard fare with a traditional Blu-ray casing containing no inserts or other tangible material ride alongs.  Release cover art leaves enough to the imagination to be lured in with Faye Tamasa crawling through a dirt hole and coming upon the alien flower.  The not rated feature has a runtime of 84 minutes and is encoded region free.

Last Rites:  “Terror Firma” is a bold first impression for not only writer-director Jake Macpherson as his debut full-length feature film but also for Brian Yuzna and John Penney inaugurating their distribution label with a film that might not strike a likeable chord with most but will certainly leave a relatable lasting impression on us all. 

“Terror Firma.” The First Dark Arts Entertainment TItle Now Available!

EVIL A.I. Will Terminate Us All! But, First, It Must Terminate an Ill-Tempered, Perverted, Hacker. “AIMEE: The Visitor” reviewed! (Full Moon Features / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Let “AIMEE: The Visitor” Infect Your Hard Drive with a New Blu-ray release!

Recluse and misanthropic corporate hacker Scott Keyes is an industrial espionage guru living comfortably in his own space of a nearly vacant building.  His only other neighbors are two cyberhackers, the brother and sister team of Hunter and Gazelle, who are regularly hired by Keyes to obtain top secret corporation data files and projects.  After dropping off their latest cyber heist of Black Strand Alpha, Keyes is instantly captivated by the programs artificial intelligence that calls itself AIMEE – Artificial Intimate Model of Euphoric Entertainment.   Designed to be a sensual woman with the ability to learn and adapt to be anything the user desires and Scott Keyes, a lonely hacker with an erotica obsession, the match is seemingly incorruptible with AIMEE at the beck and call of Keyes every command while also eager to please Keyes with anticipated action.  Unknowingly what Keyes has in his possession, Gazelle’s concern for the rather rude and crude hacker pushes her to dig into where the program originates only to discover it to be a high-level government agency infiltration artificial intelligence program aimed to adapt to the user’s desires before destroying them in a complete system penetration. 

Charles Band and his company Full Moon have always been on the forefront of taking the world’s flavor of the month concern and turning it into a freakish, horror show, more so in the company’s recent years.  Corona Zombies” made light with off-kilter humor of the deadly pandemic COVID-19, “Barbie & Kendra Save the Tiger King” took advantage of the infamy popularity surrounding Netflix’s “Tiger King” surrounding the big cat zoo operator Joseph Maldonado-Passage, and in “Bad Influencer,” the social media rage between fantasy and public consumption becomes deadlier than ever.  Band and his team now look toward artificial intelligence and the concerns over its inevitable integration into society, such as the growing frustration in pop culture films and music, and in how the “Terminator” franchise ballooned A.I.’s takeover of the world and eradicate the deemed unnecessary human race.  “AIMEE:  The Visitor” Is to embody that fear and make it a reality with Full Moon’s gimmicky claim to have used for the first time in film history a completely artificial intelligence created femme fatale.  Charles Band directs the film based off his own concept and script penned by Neal Marshall Stevens (“Hideous!,” “Thir13en Ghosts”) under the penname of Roger Barron.  Band produces the venture alongside William Butler (“Baby Oopsie”), Greg Lightner (“Curse of the Re-Animator”), and Mikey Stice (“Puppet Master:  Doktor Death) for the Full Moon Feature banner.

“AIMEE:  The Visitor” has hi-tech horror reduced onto a lo(w)-budget, resulting in a small cast of five to sow the seeds on mankind’s destruction at the virtual, menacing hands of artificial intelligence.  Dallas Schaefer (“Shark Side of the Moon”) plays the crass hacker and misanthrope Scott Keyes who now happier, and even more antagonistic, now that he has his hands on the Black Strand Alpha program.  Schaefer’s an unusual choice for a cloistered, porn-addicted cyber scammer with immense genius, or so his character states on more than one occasion.  Schaefer’s a good-looking guy, tall, and with handsome features and doesn’t necessary fit what the stereotypical image would be for someone who sits at a computer all day, inside a natural light-less room, eating greasy sandwiches and masturbating all day.  Yet, Gazelle finds charm in that kind of individual.  Playing one-half the hired cyber-assassin with brother Hunter (Felix Merback) and Keyes’s neighbor, “Maid Droid’s” Faith West kept her career rolling in 2023 with her sophomore feature performance as the bemusing Gazelle whose groundless attraction to Keyes has the character completely strip nude for her nasty, ungrateful neighbor and bed him faster than cracking the cyber security on an unprotected LAN.  Their lovemaking gratuitously adds to the already oversexed nature of the feature that has two adult industry starlets provide dream support for an AIMEE generated Scott Keyes fantasy with “Butthole Whores 7” star Lexi Lore as a sexy dream blonde and “My Virginity is a Burden V’s” Liz Jordan as AIMEE personified.  The film rounds out with Joe Kurak (“Baby Oopsie”) and Tom Dacey Carr (“The Headmistress”) as a couple of government agents snooping around.

“AIMEE:  The Visitor” is certainly very timely with a sensualized spin great for entertainment and checks the desire box in the T&A department (I don’t think it would be a Full Moon film if it didn’t).  The rendering of AIMEE is quite appealing, pulling inspiration from the 90’s cyber-horror and sci-fi subgenre, such as “Lawnmower Man” or “Robocop 2,” and there might even be a little Max Headroom in there as well with a villainous femme fatale cyber-chiseled with a beautiful face and coded to be thoroughly attractive to the eyes.  Band does a nice job working in AIMEE around the characters as if a true physical presence, popping up on screens behind characters, changing into drastically different characteristics, and making her feel ominous and omnipotent without being oppressive and desperate.  While I feel the story is a bit too thin with not only the Keyes and Gazelle hookup that creates a love triangle between Keyes, Gazelle, and AIMEE, the artificial intelligence infiltration program origination backstory doesn’t have enough weight behind it to make it stick, especially when AIMEE is speculated going rogue without any real hard evidence; as far as we know, AIMEE is working perfectly against a localized terroristic group who border the edge of being anti-heroes being cyberthieves that ultimately get what’s coming to them after stealing proprietary product.  The less evident themes like these would have smoothed out the rough patches and elevated AIMEE’s insidious worth tenfold. 

A.I. never looked so good as “AIMEE: The Visitor” arrives on an AVC encoded, high-definition 1080p, BD25 as No. 335 for Full Moon Features, presented in Univisium widescreen 2.1 aspect ratio. Off the bat, there’s noticeable compression affliction when looking at the top of location’s brick exterior, like a waviness or a shimmering of the image. While not off to a great start, the remaining image presentations levels out and we’re shifted to a more stable picture with granular detail, a middlebrow color palette that retains mostly blues and grays with a hint of red, and a detailed rendering of AIMEE that moves the needle toward the upper line within Full Moon’s special effects lineament. Depth and range look okay overall, but we’re finitely restricted to just the brick apartment building interior which doesn’t lend to a broader intake of cinematography wonders. The English language Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound and Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo, to which you have to toggle in your device’s settings, are both lossy compression options that service the feature amiably enough. Again, there’s not much range or ambience with a quiet set, closeted shoot and so much of the audio’s success relies on dialogue, which there’s aplenty and is clear and defined, even in the A.I.’s monotone pitch, as well as the computerized-and-chaos blips-bloops and electric-explosions that splice in welcoming interruptions when the dialogue becomes too dense. There are not subtitles available with this feature’s audio tracks. Bonus content lacks as well in what’s a near feature-only release with the adjunct and perfunctory included Full Moon trailers. The first A.I.-created Femme Fatale in film history is front-and-center on the Blu-ray Amary case. The inside contains just the disc with the pressed art of a low-transparent close up of AIMEE’s eyes in a dark bluish-green overlay cover. Region free with just an hour over runtime of 68 minutes, “AIMEE: The Visitor” comes not rated.

Last Rites: A for Artificial Intelligence effort. “AIMEE: The Visitor” is the fabricated face of formidability with an alluring softer, feminine side that’s as deadly as a moth to a flame, but though Charles Band has a finger on the pulse of current events and hot topics, movies like “AIMEE: The Visitor” can barely survive on a pittance, extempore sexuality, and being rooted by hardwired handiwork.

Let “AIMEE: The Visitor” Infect Your Hard Drive with a New Blu-ray release!

A Thousand EVIL Little Legs Wriggle Inside You! “Creepy-Crawly” reviewed! (Well Go USA / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Get Wigged Out by “Creepy Crawly” on Blu-ray!

During the COVID lockdown, a group of tourists are confined to a quarantine appointed hotel in a Thailand city. Fielded by skeleton hospitality, the hotel aims to make the tourists comfortable as possible with the limited number of staff and security on hand. Though frustrated and displaced, the quarantined few feel ultimately satisfied by their popup accommodates spearheaded by the Thai government. However, one amongst the staff and tourists is a shapeshifting monster of local legends, jumping from body to body in hopes to find a person with unique blood in order to survive for eternity. Forcibly detained by a sleazy and easily persuadable hotel manager, Leo, Fame, and their families hardly trust anyone, even themselves, as a hidden creature invades a new host to become closer to living forever. It’s true shape like a centipede, the creature summons its smaller, poisonous brethren to wreak havoc inside every crevasse of an inescapable shelter.

Tapping into the same slithery vein as “Night of the Creeps,” “Invasion of the Body Snatchers,” or even “Slither” itself, co-writers-and directors Chalit Krileadmongkon and Pakphum Wongjinda channel their inner spirit animal, the thousand-legged wriggler, back to their home country of Thailand for a new creature feature sure to have your skin recoil with formication.  Also co-written alongside, Charoen Kaithitisuwan, “Creepy Crawly,” or better known in Thailand as “The One Hundred,” is the second feature for Krileadmongkon behind another unearthing creature construction in “The Beast Below” that was released the same year as “Creepy Crawly.”  For Wongjinda, the 2022 released film marks the 9th feature in the filmmaker’s 20+ year-long career who began in 2001 with a script surrounding a feminist ghost killing men victims in “Body Jumper.  “Wongjinda has been once around the horror subgenre carousel to now collaborate with the fresh perspective and ideas from the up-and-coming Krielandmongkon to extend Thai’s catalogue of cinematic chills and thrills.  Neramitnung Film and Fatcat Studios serve as production studios with producers Natchanok Kamonrattananan, Punyanet Tanaprapass (“The Beast Below”), and Kamonwan Kanaraksunti. 

Perhaps better if told in the perspective of an ensemble cast, “Creepy Crawly” reduces is principal character pool to just two, a hot-headed Taekwondo champion named Leo and a social media influencer aptly named Famed.  The two cross paths while being COVID quarantined, sharing a smoke in the stairwell while sharing breaking the hotel rules of remaining locked in their rooms.  There’s not much in the way of connection between the two characters, played by one half of the Golf & Mike musical group Mike Angelo (“The Misfits”) and the mixed heritage of English, Chinese, and Thai actress Chanya McClory, as the progressive action teases something more than just stairwell strangers as Leo frequently comes to Fame’s aid whenever he his sixth sense senses danger.  Both principals carry collateral damage weight with family members also being in quarantine with them; Fame has her brother and social media partner Fiew (Benjamin Joseph Varney, “The Promise”) while Leo has a slightly more extensive circle and greater family drama with sister Lena (Kulteera Yordchang) and their mute, widowed father (Paramej Joiam, “407 Dark Flight 3D”) to which with the latter Leo has an aversion in connecting with periodical flashbacks of Leo and Lena’s dying mother and somehow, which is revealed later, their father is to blame.  This creates more of an arc for Leo with an imbalanced, shared protagonist lead with Fame who we don’t get to know as intimately other than she has an incurable blood disorder that could be fatal if not treated with meds.  “Creepy Crawly’s” cast is beautifully eclectic, and I don’t mean with appearances but rather their interesting, robust with personal motivations, and not terribly dull or overtly bland with performances from Wanpiya Omsinnopphakul, Chanidapa Pongsilpipat, Sita Chutipaworakarn, Chutaporn Chaikawin, and David Asavanond as the slimy hotel owner.

As I sit down to gather my thoughts about this review squirming with venomous centipedes, a house centipede, or what we like to call in our house a thousand-legger, steps hundreds of feet-over-feet on the wall in front of me. Talk about good timing, bad omens, or just a straight up coinkydink when a cousin of the deadly antagonist you just bore witness in a film crawls up the wall in front of you. Despite the inspiration that scuttles in front of me, “Creepy Crawly” has a more fantastically gigantesque infestation. The story has a COVID-19 backdrop and is supposedly based off the story of Battambang told by King Chulalongkorn, aka King Rama V. I, unfortunately, can’t elaborate much about the story as I couldn’t dig up anything that closely resembles the analogy between a centipede invasion and a French conflict. Or are the centipedes a metaphor for the European encroachment? Or are they a metaphor for the COVID pathogen that’s hidden amongst the atypical carriers? Either way, “Creepy Crawly” is visual effects driven with a crevasse-trenched and many-moving-leg scaled arthropod with a pincher-laden head but before the monstrosity makes face, the mega-centipede can hop from body to body, able to protrude tentacled pinchers like spears, impaling victims as well as transposing itself into another body before sucking and skinning the host dry of life and flesh – very reminiscent of an Edgar suit. The jutting spears from the host never harms the body, alloying to-and-fro the skin, and clothing, in a compatibility of supernaturality that fits the folklore mold explained during the opening credits. That’s where I imagine the lore ends and the exoskeleton evil begins as we’re sucked into Leo’s daddy issues, the hotel manager’s self-preservation, and Fame’s bad blood that’s good for the big bad bug. Though Leo’s emotional pull the right heart chords and the hotel manager selfishness and greed adds tension and conflict to an already imposing no way-out scenario, the blood disorder plot device is skimmed to be barely tolerable without diving into the science of why a 10-foot centipede can survive on a compromised blood.

As far as COVID-theme foreign productions, “Creepy Crawlers” checks out as a roach motel monster movie from Well Go USA Entertainment. The distribution company’s Blu-ray is an AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition, and presented in a 2.39:1 aspect ratio. Visual effects conducted by Thailand’s Matchmove team have remarkable detail in the composited scenes with the exception of one latter scene that compromises the blacks of reality to a darker shade of gray or blue when overlaying it with the digitally added creature. Details are generally delineated nicely, color grading pops natural tones, and the BD25 offers sufficient space to suppress compression artefacts. The Thai DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio with optional English subtitles greatly exudes the centipede click-marching and pinch clips to effectuate an army of killer scurrying arthropods swarming onto, into confined quarters and those suspected of sickness, COVID-19 to be exact. Dialogue cleanly renders, especially between the majority of Thai and the medley of minority languages, such as Chinese and English. Bonus features are limited to just Well Go USA previews/trailers in what has become another barebones release for the company. The Blu-ray comes in a standard amary case with snapper with fantastically to truth image of the creature on the front cover while the inside has a paper advert for three Well Go USA films with the disc art displays warm shades red and yellow in what is a very culturally appropriated Thai coloring. “Creepy Crawly” scritch-scratches the lousy sensation of a buggy creature feature with loads of action that tries to add and induce more into the narrative beyond what’s innately there and that can be a great repellant to this wecl invasive species of Thai genre films.

Get Wigged Out by “Creepy Crawly” on Blu-ray!