Put a Quarter in the Slot to Play EVIL’s Game! “Arcade” reviewed! (Full Moon / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on August 5, 2025

Arcade, the future of advanced, virtual reality-based video games, piques the interest of a group of teenagers eager to beta test the system in an underground arcade. Vertigo, who engineered and programmed the game, sends the project manager to also hand out at-home editions of the game for continued testing. When Arcade sucks in Alex’s boyfriend, Greg, into the game, she pleads to video game aficionado and good friend Nick about the game’s sentient dangers. Nick experiences firsthand the horrors as their friend Laurie becomes entranced by its manipulative power and disappears during Arcade’s reach into reality. Alex and Nick must venture into Arcade’s world to save Greg and their friends from a malicious machine seeking to invade and takeover the world, but they must find the hidden keys in all seven stages to reach Arcade’s soul and that’s no easy task when the game becomes very real when dying in the game will not grant respawn in the game or reality.

A movie ahead of its time but not ahead of the game, the Full Moon production “Arcade” is a live-action in a CGI-world thriller that’s one part “Tron” and one part “Virtuosity” for independent cinema, directed by the cybernetic and dystopian familiar filmmaker Albert Pyun (“Nemesis,” “Cyborg”). Charles Band, founder of Full Moon and of a number of low-budget hit franchises, such as “Puppet Master” and “Demonic Toys,” light bulbs “Arcade’s” concept while David S. Goyer, the same David S. Goyer behind “Dark City,” “The Dark Knight,” and the 2022 “Hellraiser,” penned the script, marking the second collaborative production between Pyun and Goyer (“Kickboxer II”) as well as between Band and Goyer (“Demonic Toys”). Band serves as executive producer alongside Michael Catalano and is show running produced by Cathy Gesualdo, all of whom were involved in the back-to-back productions with Albert Pyun with “Arcade” and “Dollman.”

Early Full Moon films always had an interest cast mix of known and unknown actors and “Arcade” is no exception with the tragically inclined Alex, a teen with nightmares about her mother’s year ago gruesome suicide and her father’s inability to cope since, played by an early 90’s recognizable beauty and then Full Moon regular Megan Ward (“Crash and Burn,” “Trancers II,”), coming off her success costarring alongside Brendan Fraser, Polly Shore, and Sean Astin as the love interest in “Encino Man.” Ward role isn’t a damsel in distress one as Alex isn’t afraid to take and dive into a game of certain death to be the lone riser up against all odds. An interesting piece of casting is Peter Billingsley, a name and face that might be familiar as Ralphie from Bob Clark’s “The Christmas Story.” Instead of pining over a Red Ryder BB Gun that will undoubtedly shoot his eye out, Billingsley embodies the serious gamer amongst his group of friends who pines for the next level of gaming but also pines secretly for Alex, a subplot that’s not explored as well as it was technically setup. The lone survivors of Arcade’s acute takeover embark into virtual reality to save the rest of their friends, under the cast of Bryan Dattilo as boyfriend Greg, Brandon Rane, A.J. Langer (“The People Under the Stairs”), and Seth Green (“Idle Hands”) in his early years, all of whom either disappear at moment’s notice of the game’s turn to complete evil or have a moment to stand out with dialogue or a pyshical scene. John de Lancie’s role is small in comparison to his costars but the Q actor for “Star Trek: The Next Generation” and “Picard” has the gift to protrude positively amongst the cast with Lancie’s quick-wit and timed deliveries as the Vertigo gaming production representative Difford unaware of the game’s conscious, dark design. Norbert Weisser (“The Thing”), Don Stark (“Evilspeak”), Sharon Farrell (“Night of the Comet), and the voice of Jonathan Fuller (“The Pit and the Pendulum”) as Arcade’s voice round out the film’s amazingly cult chic cast.

In terms of computer-generated graphics of the early 1990s just eking out of the last decade, “Arcade’s” virtual world is of a clunky, chunky enterprise that epitomizes the era’s current technology. One could argue “Tron” had that same boxiness only forgiven by its award-winning cast. “Arcade” may not have an accolade-laden cast but the Band and Pyun production does, too, receive a pass for its eclectic and curious cast of well-rounded and peculiar-implanted actors and actresses, and also crew, that gives “Arcade” not only a reason to subdue the heavily-contrasted and bulky CGI but also rises it up to be larger than life, more than perhaps it deserved to be in regard to the story’s influences. However, this poor man’s version still has a gimmick coating and the third act editing is atrociously choppy to a point where nowhere could possibly know what’s going on as Alex flies through the seven-level pyramid, easily unearthing the hidden keys, and ending in the summit of Arcade’s human brain wave laced soul. Pieces of the reel were left on the cutting room floor, pieces that would have depicted more rigorous opposition to thwart Alex’s climb in the levels and would explains a whole lot more why she appears bangs up by the end. Albert Pyun resurfaces some of his best directional work to create unsettling moments of possession or of being unhinged as well as using smoke to diffuse the primary hue vibrance starkly contrasted against the computerized gaming world.

Newly remastered in high-definition with touched up color and detail refinement, “Arcade” now has a new Blu-ray release from the Full Moon Feature catalogue. Compounding and restoring various elements, the Full Moon team pulls together the best pieces for the best, up-to-date version available encoded on a MPEG-2 AVC, 1080p, BD25 disc. Honestly, a BD50 would have been better suited for the compression as “Arcade” runs the gamut of effects, coloring, and dark scenes in which, those scenes outside of virtual reality, aka green screen, Albert Pyun’s infuses smoke for the underground arcade to diffuse the colors, spreading them amongst the crowd and the room to create that dive bar atmosphere. However, there’s a bit of artificial banding surrounding the natural banding that delineates the colors within the darkness. Details are also impossible to gauge with the choice styles of hazy and CGI but there are moments of clarity that gives “Arcade” a clean bill of image health around the skin textures. “Arcade” must have been made from televisions as the label remasters the ’93 feature inside it’s full screen 4:3 aspect ratio. Full Moon offers two audio formats: an English PCM 5.1 surround sound and a Stereo 2.0. Dialogue has clear projection without any damage or interference for an independent, 30+ year old film from the early 90’s, but the track isn’t as hardy as desired, especially in the multi-channel that doesn’t diffuse anemically through the side and back channels. Separation also can’t decipher between reality and virtual reality with the layers melding together on a level playing field. Range decently plays a wide berth of tonal shades in computerized, “Tron”-like synth-cycling and in-game explosions and distortions. There are no English subtitles available. Special features include an audio commentary with Full Moon found and producer Charles Band and Alex star Megan Ward in a good one-on-one conversational piece about the past production and a little insight rom Ward’s thoughts and Band’s history as a child to a movie mogul but there’s also a lot of Band flirting with Megan Ward. There’s an archival interview with John De Lancie, a rare VFX reel that extends a few scenes plus displays the scrapped original CGI, the typical accompanying Videozone marketing of Full Moon’s streaming catalogue, other Full Moon trailers, and the original film trailer. Inside the blue Amaray case, the cover art features the original VHS composition artwork and a disc concentratedly pressed with one version of “Arcade’s” virtual villains. The region free release is rated R and has a runtime of 101 minutes.

Last Rites: “Arcade” respawns in a newly remastered high-definition transfer that’s greatly cleaned up the flecked rough patches in front of the computer-generated engine but doesn’t smooth out the rocky terrain of the last act that suffers erratic editing for quick pinch pacing instead of really fleshing out the story flow.

Insert Coin for “Arcade” on Blu-ray!

An EVIL Assassin Battle Royale! “Mean Guns” reviewed! (MVD Visual / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on May 16, 2024

“Mean Guns” on MVD Rewind Collection Blu-ray! Purchase Here!

A Crime syndicate mid-level enforcer named Vincent Moon invites professional hired killers and syndicate affiliates to a new, urban-centric prison constructed by the organization the day before grand opening. The reason for this elaborate invitation is simple: all those invited have betrayed the syndicate in one way or another and are brought into the locked down prison to battle royale to the death. The rules of the competition clarify no one will leave the premises, unless being gunned down by a rooftop sniper is acceptable to them, and three contestants must survive the game to claim the prize, the prize being a three-way split of ten million in cash. As guns, ammunition, and melee weapons are dumped onto the battle grounds, a scramble ensues, and factions are made with 6-hour clock to kill nearly everyone in sight to live and be rich or to be slaughtered by Vincent Moon. However, there’s no honor amongst thieves and thugs and the rules bend in a rigged high-stakes game of kill-or-be-killed.

The late director Albert Pyun was an ambitious, fast-paced, and prolific director who dominated the late 1980s through much of the 1990s with eclectic, science-fiction action. The “Cyborg” and “Nemesis” writer-director severed the line between reality and the alternate that brought science fiction to a more grounded realism, such as we see in the aforementioned films, mostly because Pyun was always short on funds and short on time to deliver a final, finished feature. With his 1997 actioner “Mean Guns,” Pyun severed into another layer on the existential plane and took hold of different kind of alternative reality, one that is plagued by an all-powerful crime syndicate that has its insidious hands in everything, even in the personal and professional lives and secrets of its own employees and hired contracts. Andrew Witham wrote the script that was produced by longtime Pyun collaborating producers Tom Karnowski (“The Sword and the Sorcerer,” “Cyborg”) and Gary Schmoeller (“Hong Kong 97,” “Omega Doom”), together the trio founded Filmwerks which became the production company under “Mean Guns.”

Pre-“Law & Order: SVU,” which would define his career in the film and television industry, rapper Ice-T worked himself in from behind a mic to in front of a camera mostly beginning in the 1990s with “New Jack City,” an urban gangster film that matched his on stage musical presence and starred opposite Wesley Snipes (“Blade”), Chris Rock (“Jigsaw”), and Mario Van Peebles (“Jaws: The Revenge”). Ice-T found cult status in more pulpy thrillers with exploitation “Surviving the Game” as a homeless man hunted down by a group of rich sport hunters and playing a post-apocalypse beast in the graphic novel adapted “Tank Girl,” but his gangster persona had stuck with him, leaving him the legendary rapper seemingly encircled in the same kind of urban gangster films. This is the case with “Mean Guns” as he portrays a philosophical, upper-level syndicate criminal Vincent Moon spearheading a game of wetwork for the unscrupulous wetworkers associated with his organization. Not the most prolifically dialogued or screen timed role, Ice-T does what he can to bring Vincent Moon into the fold of much more colorful characters. “Highlander’s” Christopher Lambert receives co-top of the bill as a psychotic assassin looking to atone for a careless sin. Lambert is wonderfully unhinged while calculating as he integrates his “Highlander” sword skills and maniacal grin into his character of Lou, who through flashbacks had accidently killed a child on one of his hits and retrieves his biological daughter for an abusive stepfather to start life anew. More pragmatic is Lou’s rival Marcus, stoically portrayed by Albert Pyun regular Michael Hasley (“Dollman,” “Nemesis 2”). Together, Lou and Marcus must team up, along with the coldhearted D. (Kimberly Warren, “Blast”) and syndicate accountant turned informant Cam (Deborah Van Valkenbugh, “The Warriors’), to survive against the fray of likeminded killers. “Mean Guns” cast fills out with Tina Cote (“Nemesis 2”), Thom Mathews (“Return of the Living Dead”), Yuji Okumoto (“Robot Wars’), Jerry Rector (“Vampire’s Kiss”), James Wellington (“The Evil Inside Me”), and introducing Hunter Doughty.

Like many of Albert Pyun’s caffeinated action films, “Mean Guns” is the epitome of vehemently slick dipped in a 90’s glaze of an alternative, unchecked free-for-all of bad hairdos, trench coats, and guns. Lots of guns in a pre-computer-generated muzzle flash with real recoil and really bad, but good, one-liners. What’s more surprising about this Pyun is that, unlike his previously mentioned films, “Mean Guns” is virtually bloodless albeit the shoot’em up melee violently lays waste to nearly 100 bad guys. Pyun integrated a liberal use of blood squibs in his other guns-blazing and contentious conflicts, but “Mean Guns” takes a step back to a less severe tile like “Unkind Guns” with a comically coated film pulled straight out of a cheesy graphic novel. For example, a combatant, thinking they just scored the briefcase full of millions, finds their head aflame and their face covered in black powder loony toon style after the opened briefcase explodes offscreen. These moments provide a reality check to the already outlandish, yet highly entertaining, every man for himself game of death made willingly subjectable by its limited principals and Pyun style action.

Getting ready to kill for this new Blu-ray of Albert Pyun’s “Mean Guns.” The MVDVisual release, a part of their MVD Rewind Collection, is presented in a 2.35:1 aspect ratio, AVC encoded onto a 1080p, high-definition BD50. Pyun and director of photography George Mooradian, who collaborated on many of Pyun’s films, such as “Cyborg” and “Nemesis” as well as standalone projects with “Bats” and “K-911,” utilized a spherical lens with steep drop-offs around the edges of the frame, almost looks like everything around the left and right sides should be falling. IMDB states anamorphic lens but judging from the complete focus of the background and the severe oval-like nature of the frame, I’m leaning toward a spherical lens. For vast landscapes where length is nearly limitless, a spherical lens would be ideal to unify depth and main focus but since confined to a prison interior, compact hallways are squeezed in beyond a reasonable limit and often side-stance characters are warped in frame. Details are generally fine with the hi-def pixel count that translates skin tones naturally pleasing with a few moments of corrective coloring aside from the occasional red hot temperature flashbacks that bath everything in color-varied reversal exposure. The transfer isn’t perfect either with a couple of noticeable damage blips on the 35mm print. The uncompressed English LPCM 2.0 stereo is a mambo-ladened, bullet-whizzing, melee-skirmishing, and depth-exacting design that’s well balanced and layered. Dialogue remains free of audible blights and courses prominent throughout. Optional English and French subtitles are available. Special features, including an Albert Pyun introduction that’s encoded into the Play Film as well as the bonus content and to which had to be shot well before his death judging by the appearance of his rather healthy person in the video, includes an audio commentary by the director, a new interview with producer Gary Schmoeller, a new interview with executive producer Paul Rosenblum, and a new interview with composter Anthony Riparetti.. The original theatrical trailer is also included. I’m always elated to see the MVD’s throwback package design and the 59th Rewind Collection release continues the theme with a cardboard slipcover in mock disrepair with a corner edged torn and exposing the corner of a VHS tape cassette. Not to forget to mention the designed rental stickers to heighten the effect. Underneath the slipcase is a clear Blu-ray Amaray case with reversible cover art, each side promoted with a scaled down poster art bordered and backgrounded with a similar coloring shade. Inside, the disc is smartly pressed with a VHS-façade while the insert side has a mini-folded poster of the primary cover art. The region free release comes rated R and has a runtime of 104 minutes, which when watching the feature one can see perhaps some cuts were made for timing. Perhaps, Pyun had a longer version and had to edit and cut down for time.

Last Rites: A romping mayhem, “Mean Guns” is ballistically ceaseless and entertaining, if not also the touchstone of 90’s cheesy action, and is presented well here with in the latest, and greatest, MVD Visual Rewind Collection Blu-ray.

“Mean Guns” on MVD Rewind Collection Blu-ray! Purchase Here!

Classy Brothel Girls Bring Dirty EVIL Secrets to “Madame Claude” reviewed! (Cult Epics / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on February 28, 2021

A high end Paris brothel ran by the influential Madame Claude sends the most beautiful and sophistical women to wealthy and powerful dignitaries all over the world to satisfy their most sexual desires. Her lucrative business becomes a governmental target seeking to collect back taxes on the illicit business. However, the French government is the least of her worries when a playboy-aspiring rake and amateur photographer snaps photos of Madame Claude’s clients in compromising situations that can be ruinous to their status. The CIA becomes involved when unscrupulous business dealings involving an American and Japanese companies connect to Madame Claude and her potentially persuasive young women after rumored photographs put the Madame Claude in the middle. Two governments, big businesses, a jet setting brothel, wealthy socialites and a nosy photographer become involved in lies, secrets, and the potential for murder.

Part biography, part fiction, “Madame Claude,” also known as “The French Girl,” is the 1977 released erotic and political thriller based off the real Madame Claude, Fernande Grudet, as her life of prostitution management and scrutiny unfolded before the public eyes in the mid 1970’s. Erotically and elegantly sexy with gorgeous women groomed into lust and ensnared into the lion’s den of exchanging powers, “Madame Claude” became the third film from the immensely successful erotic French director, Just Jaeckin, following 1974’s “Emmanuelle” and 1975’s “The Story of O.” Jaeckin, pressured by his financiers to continue his success in the highly sought eroticism, returns to the randy genre, but this time with a story to his liking, one that is embroiled in the background of a bribery scandal involving aerospace company, Lockheed, at the heart of it. From a script by crime-action writer André G. Brunelin, based off the book of memories of Madame Claude by Jacques Quiorez, Jaeckin splices visual elements of each story together to form not only an arousing sexual lamination but also a cloak-and-dagger tenser of a film. Shot primarily in Paris, with minor shoots in the Bahamas and Washington, D.C., especially the scenes on the faux White House, “Madame Claude” is a production of Orphée Arts of Paris with Claire Duval on as executive producer.

While the titular character is the obvious centerpiece, Jaeckin mingles the characters around each other in a game of espionage chess toward the endgame of checkmate. Keystone to everyone’s problems is Madame Claude, played by renowned French actress and early onscreen sex object, Françoise Fabian, who previously had roles in the paranormal pubescent horror, “Expulsion of the Devil,” a more comedy-friendly brothel film, “Holiday Hookers,” and among many other films predating 1977, but not until later in Fabian’s career did show rocket to success, playing older, more aligned, women that strongly championed feminism, such as portraying “Madame Claude” who used sex as a means to gain control and power of men, and pushed it to the brink of the era’s cinematic limits. “Horsehead’s’ Murray Head plays the photographer schmo, David Evans, making Madame Claude’s life complicated. An about town ladies man, Evans goes to each of Claude’s girls one-by-one and, for some reason or another, they invite the handsomely charming, but brutish, amateur porn photographer into their bedrooms, sleeping his way into blackmail scheme that will bring down the most powerful brothel head in all of Paris while also lining his pocket with not only money but power among the socialites who treat him like the village idiot. Head’s nails down the fast-and-loose aspect of Evan’s personality that treats his stratagem like a game he’s already won, but when the government agencies come knocking on doors, Head about faces Evan’s waggish incompetence to a frightened man looking around every corner for danger. It’s wonderful to see Head interact with Klaus Kinski (“Nosferatu the Vampire”) and Marc Michel as a ridiculed subordinate in an examination of social status as Kinski and Michel flaunt expensive taste and lavish orgies in lieu of decency, but it’s Murray Head, playing the fool with cemented proof that would put all them of into shame, as the aspirer to their life of luxuries. The beautiful Dayle Haddon (“Cyborg”), Vibeke Knudsen-Bergeron (“Spermula”), and Ylva Setterborg stun in just a handful of the very elegant, and very naked, women acting as Madame Claude’s international bound employees. Other cast of characters in “Madame Claude’s” game of lies and spies include Robert Webber (“Death Steps in the Dark”), Jean Gaven (“The Story of O”), François Perrot, André Falcon, and Maurice Renot.

Following his films “Emmanuelle” and “The Story of O,” Jaeckin’s “Madame Claude” strays into an atypical kind of formulaic eroticism downplaying the sexual excursions and discoveries for a more typical crime drama affair. Jaeckin’s directorial abilities can take you on an exotic tour around the world and onto the fleshy planes of some of the most gorgeous and provocative women to ever grace the screen. Yet, “Madame Claude” trims substantially the skin with a more precise execution to be more of an oil lubricating the machine rather than the gear that actually operates the mechanism to entail sex as a misused tool for motivation and bribery. These scenes of fleeting eroticism outright shine Just Jaeckin’s proclivities with mirrored reflections and becoming lost in the entanglement of sexually enflamed bodies and these scenes outright shine Jaeckin’s intent on delivering a corkscrew crime drama with double-dealings, wiretapping, and counterintelligence gathering as what unfolds isn’t clearly delineated between Madame Claude, David Evans, the French and U.S. Governments and the Lockheed scandal that actually becomes sidetracked at times by the infiltrated sex-training of Madame Claude business as the brothel head has to train an alternative misfit new girl and send her to the Bahamas work trip shortly after a quick one-night-stand initiation with one of the Madame’s trusted former beaus. We wholeheartedly become more intrigued and fascinated with Madame Claude’s feminist principles, recruiting subjugated women to use their sexuality to dominate and become wealthy in the process. In more than one scene, Madame Claude flaunts self-admiration in transforming star-crossed girls into young women fortune bound with their promiscuous ways. Madame Claude’s murky backstory caresses her complexities of anti-man without detail delving into the turning point catalyst that made her become who she became to be, an affluent Madame, other than a seemingly emotionally and controllably invalidating romantic experience with a long time friend and business companion, Pierre (Maurice Renot).

Cult Epics sustains another forgotten classic into a celebrated Blu-ray release with a new 4K HD transfer of “Madame Claude” from the original 35mm negative, supervised by the original cinematographer, Robert Fraisse. Housed on a BD50, the region free release maintains the impeccable coloring under Fraisse’s soft glow with no cropping or undue enhances that tries to put out fire with gasoline and, aside from a discolored yellow-greenish, translucent stripe, perhaps a loose film roll, during the opening scene, the image quality is clean and pleasing in it’s natural 35mm grain. The English and French language audio tracks come with three options: LPCM 2.0 mono, DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 mono, and a Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo. The DTS-HD Master Audio had the highest marks, slightly topping Dolby Digital stereo with a little more gusto in the pipes. Audible dialogue is clean and forefront, but the engineered dubbing laid over Murray Head and, even, the self-dubbing of Dayle Haddon can be off-putting at times when actors’ voices seem to not be sharing the same vocal space with others on screen. French composer Serge Gainsbourg’s lounge, yé-yé score tuned into that erotic soufflé of light and airy pop music that can be often dreamy with singsongy female vocals, complimenting the softer, sexier side of Jaeckin’s film while also playing into period melodies of the 1970’s. Cult Epics always has down right with resurrecting obscure erotica for not only quality sake but also to arm the hell out of the releases with bonus material. Included with “Madame Claude” is an audio commentary by Jeremy Richey (author of the upcoming book entitled Sylvia Kristel: from Emmanuelle to Chabrol), a high definition, Nico B. produced interview with director Just Jaeckin from 2020, the vintage French theatrical trailer, a promotional photo gallery, and Cult Epics previews. Not the most sensual film shot by the renowned maestro of venereal visuals, Just Jaeckin explores his versatility by acclimatizing familiarity with new horizons surrounding brothel delights with shadow games and the new 4K Blu-ray from Cult Epics is the one, and only, way to experience it all in “Madame Claude.”

Cult Epic’s “Madame Claude” on Blu-ray. Available at Amazon – click the poster!

One Tough Cop Taking on Evil Cyborgs! “Nemesis” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on March 9, 2019

In the year 2027, enhanced humanistic cyborgs virtually run the planet with the renowned L.A.P.D. being no exception. Alex Rain, one of L.A.’s finest brute cops, is partially cyborg himself, but the essence of his soul remains human intact while his synthetic flesh cloaks the icy machine beneath. After tracking down suspected cyborg terrorists and almost losing his life in the struggle to stop them, Alex questions his dwindling humanity, leading him down a path of unfulfilling revenge and botched smuggling before his former employer, the L.A.P.D. commissioner named Farnsworth, tracks him down and uses deadly coercion to force Alex as a pawn in dangerous covert mission. The burnt out cop is thrusted back into the fray of his former life when Farnsworth orders him to retrieve data from the treacherous female cyborg, Jared, who was once Alex’s partner and lover, before she hands over the sensitive information to a group of cyborg terrorists who call themselves The Red Army Hammerheads. With a micro bomb implanted near his heart as insurance, Alex has no choice but to accept the assignment before detonation in 3 days and with his time running out, finding Jared isn’t the problem as Alex comes to realize that deception has convoluted the stakes and nothing is who or what they seem.

Albert Pyun’s 1992 cyberpunk action-thriller “Nemesis” is an explosive-heavy, science fiction existentialism film never before seen, or even aware of, by this reviewer, but the ground-worked narrative has remained a constant piece of foundation in being the byproduct of inspiration extracted from other cyberpunk films of its kind, such as “Robocop,” “Blade Runner,” and “The Terminator.” “Nemesis” has a presence much to the tune of another film, “Cyborg,” starring John-Claude Van Damme and that inclination would inevitably make a world of sense when the awe-striking epiphany lands that Pyun also directed that film, also utilizing some of the same actors for his early 90’s cybernetic dystopian feature. In reviewing Pyun’s credits, the assumption can be made that the filmmaker has a sturdy hard-on for the intertwining of mankind and machine as not only did the director write and direct “Cyborg” and helmed “Nemesis,” but went on to be a part of, whether director, writer, or producer, of four more “Nemesis” sequels with a fifth being produced and shot, but scrapped in post-production due to Pyun’s flailing mental health. Rebecca Charles fed the scribal beast as “Nemesis’” screenwriter, along with penning “Nemesis 2: Nebula” and “Nemesis 3: Time Lapse.”

Alex Rain is a cold cut character, sliced thick like a cool cucumber on top of a hard to wedge salad. Rain’s iciness symbolizes his downtrodden humanity status and with each part of his body shattered from destruction, he becomes one step closer to being an automaton with eye brows. B-movie action star Olivier Guner essentially make a big career breakthrough with “Nemesis” as his sophomore feature. Guner’s military background suitably solidifies his physique as a workaholic cyborg cop while also presenting a rough cut speech impediment that’s very straight forward and without emotion. Some would say that Gruner’s approach fits his half-human, half-toaster oven character and I would say that would be correct. The 80’s and 90’s saw a crowded entry list of action stars, including Jean-Claude Van Damme, Chuck Norris, Steven Seagal, Sylvester Stallone, Arnold Schwarzenegger, and many others in various degrees of success – and Olivier Gruner became one of those faces that had since then been lost over the years; Gruner’s performance in “Nemesis” lacked pizazz which could have been the contributing factor to his success, but the monotonic, unflattering one-liners and blank face stare didn’t spark any fires on top of his average muscular frame. His performance, to keep with the fire motif, didn’t provide the oxygen, a combustible, or a flammable source to quickly set ablaze a trail for semi-popularity amongst his peers and that’s where “Nemesis” falters in entertainment value. Comparatively, “Trancers” franchise actor, Tim Thomerson, is full of range and vigor as an concealing Commissioner Farnsworth. Thomerson, in his early 40’s at the time of filming, displayed an impressive physicality to his role, keeping up nicely with his onscreen rival. Farnsworth, from the get-go, reeks of desperation when pressuring Alex to do his bidding and Thomerson really nails the part and can switch on the proverbial dime as an egocentric field operative when chasing Alex through the jungles on the Hawaii set. The night and day performance is a stark contrast between the two actors. What’s mostly disappointing about “Nemesis’” cast that favorable characters come and go; some the characters a pinned with terrific actors such as Shang Tsung himself, “Mortal Kombat’s” Cary-Hiroyuki Tagawa, as the leader of The Red Army Hammerheads and the late, great Brion James (“Red Heat”) chirping a lousy German accent of the Commissioner’s right hand man. The cast has many other recognizable names that, again, come and go, including a strung out looking Merle Kennedy (“Night of the Demons 2”) as Max Impact, Marjorie Monaghan as the algorithmic beauty Jared, Vincent Klyn (“Cyborg”) as a disposable bodyguard, an extremely fit and nude Deborah Shelton (“Body Double”), voice actor Nicholas Guest (“Dollman”), brief cameo by Jackie Earle Haley (“Watchmen”), a fresh faced version of “The Predator’s” Thomas Jane, and Thomas Jane’s bare ass.

The financial backing was obviously designated for a particular department in the “Nemesis” workshop and that department was special effects. Explosions, rotoscoping, stop-motion, sculpture, implosions, practical effects and makeup are just the tip of the iceberg. Frayed wires and eye ball cannons are the elegant touch that makes “Nemesis” a cult favorite and bring substance to a clunky storyline and divisively dynamic acting. However, not all the specials are pinpoint precision and grounded by reality. The one scene that stands above the rest when Farnsworth is hot in pursuit of Alex and Max and he’s shelling off rounds of a shotgun, standing relatively still, blasting away without moving the barrel around to compensate for his prey’s length of distance gained or even when they decided to make quick pivots in direction. Somehow, the rounds hit very close to Alex and Max and that’s not all, they even explode like a single stick of TNT. ACME must have had a hand in the special effects department because the scene sure was loony. Yet, the implosion of a monolithic silo was uber-impressive, well-executed, and really ritzy for the silver screen.

Imperial Entertainment’s “Nemesis” infiltrates onto another home video release, a region free, dual DVD and Hi-Def 1080p Blu-ray format release, from MVDVisual under their MVD Rewind Collection series. Sheathed by a slick, retro-grade slipcover with familiar art, reminiscent of the now decade old Sterling DVD release, the special collector’s edition provides two aspect ratios, an anamorphic widescreen 2.35:1 and a widescreen 1.78:1. This MVDVisual Release has stellar detail in the texture and in framing that are exhibited in various tint shades, such as yellow and blue, and eventually cough up toward a more natural look into the second act when Alex reaches the rough neighborhood of Shang Loo, Java. Even though the visual compositions and mold work doesn’t pop with color and are a bit fuzzy, “Nemesis” is a product of it’s time, the early 1990’s and you can’t fault Pyun’s film for that. The English 5.1 surround sound is beautiful. So beautiful and potent, in fact, that you can actually understand Olivier Gruner’s mumbling, putting dialogue for all characters right into the front row while offering a stimulating range and depth of ambience sound, an unlimited variety of explosions, and plenty of miscellany cyborg hubbub. Other language are available, including French, German, as well as English in 2.0 stereo and there are English and German SDH subtitles available The Blu-ray bonus features include new interviews with producer Eric Karson and director Albert Pyun, “Nemesis 2.0” the director’s cut with Albert Pyun audio commentary, and original theatrical trailer. The DVD is the director’s cut and also includes the Japanese cut with Japanese subtitles burnt-in. Bonus features for the DVD include introductions by the director Albert Pyun and star Olivier Gruner, an afterword by Albert Pyun, a behind-the-scenes featurette, an interview with star Olivier Gruner, the making of segment involving the hefty special effects, stunt work, and visual effects, a featurette entitled “Killcount,” a behind-the-scenes photo gallery, TV spots, Key Art Photo gallery, and, top it all off, a mini-poster inside the casing. Inside a killer definitive, two-format and disc set from MVDvisual, “Nemesis” hones in on the existentialism notion of what being human actually means to each and every one of us through the bombardment of gun fights and jumbo explosions on top of a conglomerate cyborg coup that peaks with hard bodies and even harder viewer contemplation.

Where Does Evil Stand in the Post-Apocalypse? “Blue World Order” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on January 24, 2018

Nuclear war had demolished the quiet rural areas harboring bio-engineering plants and has crumbled societies in a post-apocalypse. The nuclear fallout caused a deadly bacteria to thrive and spread amongst the region, wiping out millions of lives in its path. A group of scientists seek to rebuild the devastated population by devising a plan to send an electromagnetic pulse that will directly input inhibitors in the brain to block the bacteria from overwhelming a dwindling human race, but the success of the pulse came with a severe cost involving the death of every child on the planet. Also embedded in the pulse is a mind altering virus that encoded itself into every person’s brain to act as a mind control device. The only person virally immune, a fallout survivor, is a struggling father, Jake Slater, trying to protect his adolescent daughter, Molly, at all cost as she’s the only child left on Earth due in part to her father’s immunization. Malevolent creators behind the virus aim to get their hands on Molly and experiment on her immunization before inevitably releasing upon the world a much more sinister version of the virus from the pulse tower that only Jake can destroy.

“Blue World Order” is the martial arts, post-apocalyptic, science fiction flick from first time feature directors Ché Baker and Dallas Brand. Baker and Bland co-wrote the screenplay with Sarah Mason that flaunts a major concept, perhaps better suited as a major Hollywood studio concept, but wouldn’t quite cross that threshold of positive public opinion stemmed from cramming too much into the a non-stop, action-packed contiguous acts laid simply out to illuminate an aged old theme of power hungry Government against meager do-right resistance. To further add on top of all that doesn’t feel right about this film, we’ve all seen this film before or, perhaps, a similar rendition of it. The 1989 Jean-Claude Van Damme film, one of many Van Damme guilty pleasures, “Cyborg,” blends martial arts with a futuristic wasteland decimated by a deadly plague and while the gritty and dark “Cyborg” carries itself vastly different from Bland and Baker’s more flashy and glossy approach, the story’s core is virtually the same with oppositions desiring to save the world for an interior motive.

Since this is an Australia production set on location in Australia, seems like a no brainer that Melbourne born actor, Jake Ryan (“Wolf Creek” the television series), would snatch the lead of Jake Slater. Ryan’s beefy build and rugged appearance have him a prime candidate for a hero, a fighting father, in a world in turmoil, but the way the film’s edited, Ryan comes off a bit aloof and a droll warrior. Ryan is joined by a few other familiar Australians and New Zealanders such as Jack Thompson (“Star Wars Episode II: Attack of the Clones), Bruce Spence (“Mad Max”), and Stephen Hunter (“The Hobbit” trilogy) as a screw loose rebellion leader with a awful martial arts stand-in that dons a lighter shade wig. There’s also Billy Zane. Zane, a native of Illinois, has a knack for hitching himself onto foreign products; his last venture we reviewed was a Greek production entitled Evil – In the Time of Heroes, but Zane’s a remarkable actor whose able to morph into the essence of any character, especially characters that sport lopsided power like his character Master Crane, a martial arts instructor turned catastrophic savior post-fallout. The cast rounds out with newcomer Billie Rutherford, Kendra Appleton, and Bolude Fakuade.

One headache smoldering as a consistent motif throughout is the lack of character development. Before his calling as the one to save humanity, a dream sequence exposition touches upon Jake Slater’s time before nuclear war. Slater’s seen engaging in a friendly, if not slightly competitive, martial arts bout with instructor Master Crane. The two have an important, intrinsic history, involving Jake contracting a debilitating disease and able to bounce back with rehab through Master Crane’s teachings, that goes sorely unexplored. Most likely, the lack of development can be a direct result of the aforementioned with too much jammed into an already cluttered heap that jumps from one thought to the next without a proper seque. Even the introduction and the removal of characters has a nauseating sway. For example, when Stephen Hunter’s Madcap is introduced, he suddenly runs up to a fleeing Jake Ryan and the overweight, disheveled, rambler is able to best the physically fit, martial arts instructed, desperate father in more than one occasion. More instances like these can be exploited throughout, but we could be here all day breaking down the details or lack there of.

Random Media delivers Ché Baker and Dallas Brand’s fantasy-action “Blue World Order” onto DVD and VOD nationwide. A DVD-R screener was provided and can’t officially comment on the presentation or the audio tracks, but if there’s one issue to be said about the image quality, the special effects are horrendously Sy-Fy channel cheap with superimposed flames reaching six feet high in a monolithic-like pose. With effects like that, the indie Sci-Fi picture’s intended purpose is to solely entertain on a round house kick and uppercut punch level and not to invoke too much thought into a series of concepts. Instead, to sell the next Billy Zane installment, the selling point long shot of a “Back to the Future” Delorean car chase through the Australian desert is nice and attractive and proven to work. Shoddy blaster sounds and crumbling CGI put the last few straggling nails into “Blue World Order’s” vast coffin for a film that aimed really high for the bar but missed really low with unfocused material and devastating plot holes on a world-ending scale.