Will An Undercover Elite Three-Man Team Defeat A Evil Legion in a Small Texas Town? “Navy SEALS v Demons” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on July 15, 2017

Washed up and dishonorably discharged Navy SEAL, Lieutenant Warren Carr, is haunted by the tragic death of his family and can’t manage to stop kissing the bottle, but when a Navy Lieutenant Commander offers him an olive branch toward redemption, one that involves facing the wrath of virgin blood thirsty demons in a Mexico bordering town called Jack County, Texas, Carr reluctantly accepts the black ops mission. Recruiting a pair of buddies of equally disgraced SEALS, Whiskey and Red, the three men go deep undercover as a bikers and join forces with an established Jack County biker gang to put a stop to the demons from spreading beyond the small town’s limits.

A good rule of them to live by when flipping through your DVD and Blu-ray library is if the film’s title reads and sounds like juvenile garbage – chances are – the film itself will be the same caliber, but there are diamond’s in the rough. For example, till this day, I still believe 2007’s “Shoot’Em Up” is one of the worst titled films, but the Clive Owen and Monica Belluci gory-action shoot out is great fun and undeniably attractive. Okay, so maybe that particular movie is a bad example, as “Shoot’Em Up” sounds pretty rad even if my 3-year-old daughter could have brainstormed a better title, but how about the AK Waters’ story, Charles Roy penned script, and Jeff Reyes directed film “Navy SEALS v Demons?” The common misperception is that a film entitled “Navy SEALS v Demons” must be an intentional farce, but is, in fact, a serious film about crotch rocket demons in search for pure virgin blood and three defamed Navy SEALS undercover as bikers who are hired for the black ops mission to take them out without support or backup. Demons weren’t the only prey of the American beloved, ass-kickin’ Navy SEALS as AK Waters, on the heel of Demons, had pitted the elite force against the living dead in a film entitled, you guessed it, “Navy SEALS vs. Zombies.” Put a KIA on the heads of demons and zombies, right up there with Osama Bin Laden, as our unsung heros can take on natural and unnatural enemies.

Built like a mountain Mikal Vega heads the charge as Warren Carr. Vega, with a resume that credits him a military or bodyguard typecast actor in some of Hollywood’s blockbuster films such as “Transformers: Dark of the Moon” and “G.I. Joe: Retaliation,” breaks from being a jughead extra for Michael Bay films and found a way to be a jughead lead actor in poorly produced nonsense filmmaking that has reared it’s ugly eye-sore head in horror films. By befriending AK Waters, Vega begins his career as a D-list actor with “Navy SEALS vs. Zombies” and working his way from there. Vega has potential and the talent, even if his talent’s rough and shaky at times. Alongside Vega are his two on-screen commando bros, Matthew R. Anderson (Red) and Les Brooks Jr. (Whisky). Together, the three don’t have great chemistry with no real bond forming that Military unspoken code of whether they live or die value. Liana Mendoza plays the semi-quasi female lead opposite Carr; her role of protective stripper mom doesn’t provide that one-on-one connection with Carr, especially since after her nipple-patch covered, incoherently edited lap dance for Carr upon his arrival into town was less than just okay (she’s much better in “Zane’s Sex Chronicles”), when her character is sorely underdeveloped to just be a waste of space and a fly on the wall. Lastly, there’s “Super Shark’s” Tim Abell as the ACES, special government agency whose acronym is never spelled out, acting head director Max Martini. Abell’s scenes in the command center are rather detached from the rest of the action. Abell does a fine job being the tough man in charge to a bunch of bewildered agents who look like they’re all sitting in a VFW mess hall, wondering how to keep operational their recon drone over Jack County, but Abell’s scenes are almost like a wasted effort in trying to sell his band of brother loyalty to Carr.

“Navy SEALS v Demons,” that’s not a typo in the abbreviated versus by the way, must have had storyboards that were shot from illustration-to-illustration because smooth transitions between scenes were anything but present. The 85 minute film also felt frustratingly rushed; for example, a portion of the finale tried to convey a death, a betrayal, and one other important antagonist upper hand all in 20 seconds of short clips, harshly edited together as the filmmakers said, “screw it, let’s just get it done.” The death of the major character didn’t get the respect the character deserved and I would be pissed if I was that actor, the betrayal comes out of far left field in such a brief scene, and the other scene, which I won’t go into details in case you want to actually watch this movie, goes relatively unexplained as well, but one can conclude that the dark powers of the head demon are Pied Piper-ly powerful. Special effects had some brief gory moments, all the demon makeup was obscured by off-screen voiceovers, structure impediments, and biker helmets, and to be frank, I’m still upset that Liana Mendoza, whose inherently sexy playing a sexy role, used pasties and the direction during the lap dance was to screen more of Vega’s mug of contempt as if the filmmakers themselves tried to intentionally censor themselves.

Ripped Boxers Entertainment and MVDVisual’s “Navy SEALS v Demons” goes to battle on Blu-ray home video. The Blu-ray’s image quality is actually quite good with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer presented in a 2.31:1 ratio. Color levels are balanced where needed, especially in the day time sequences, and skin tones naturally favor Carr’s middle-aged definition and heightens Mendoza’s ethnicity and womanhood. I can’t say the image quality did any justice to the demon makeup, rendering the oddly reddish hues on the shoddy latex an obvious quick job. The Dolby Digital 5.1 English only track has very little bite with some loss around the surround sound and the dialogue isn’t always in the forefront and clear. There are no extras on this release. “Navy SEALS v Demons” is, sadly, one of those bad low-rent movies with a low-rent title on a fairly good Blu-ray release and while Mikal Vega and Llana Mendoza share the intensity the story desperately needs, majority of the remaining is stale as week old bread, except for best part of the whole movie when Mikal Vega slaps around a lowlife biker in a barroom brawl. What will be AK Waters next versus project? Navy SEALS vs Vampyres, anyone?

Click to Purchase/Watch Navy SEALS v Demons!

Mysterious Evil Destroys Small Village Families. “The Wailing” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on February 4, 2017

In a small South Korean village, tight-knit families practically know one another in the quaint middle-class community. When mysteriously deadly destructions from inside local families and strange stories of animal carcass devouring creatures in the woods surface, local police sergeant Jong-Goo begins an investigation to connect a pattern of violence and superstition and at the center of it all is a suspicious and reclusive Japanese traveller. Bound by the law and an overall lack of courage, Jong-Goo proceeds to investigate with extreme caution, but when his young daughter, Hyo-jin, becomes subjected to the same symptoms that overtook destroyed families from within, the desperate father sets aside rules and regulations and uses threats and force when visiting the Japanese Stranger, whose rumored to be an evil spirit that’s plaguing the small village with terror and death.

By far, “The Wailing” sets the precedent on folklore horror. Acclaimed writer-director Hong-jin Na lands a harrowingly ambitious, well-constructed film right into the lap of horror fans with “The Wailing,” known also as “Goksung” in the film’s country of South Korea. South Korean filmmakers have once reestablished proof that foreign films can be as masterful, as bold, and as elegant when compared to any other film from major studio productions. Hollywood has started to come around by remaking one of South Korea’s most notorious films, the vengeful thriller “Oldboy,” and seeks to remake recent international hits in “Train to Buscan” and “I Saw the Devil.” Lets also touch upon that top Hollywood actors are beginning to branch out to South Korean films. “Captain America” star Chris Evans had obtained a starring role in Joon-ho Bong’s “Snowpiercer” alongside co-stars Ed Harris and the late British actor Sir John Hurt. “The Wailing” will reach similar popularity being one of 2016’s most original horror movies and one of the more unique visions of terror to clutch the heart of my all time favorite’s list.

Do-won Kwak stars as Sergeant Jong-Goo, a officer who avoids trouble at all costs and has no motivation to be on time for anything. Kwak, basically, plays the fool character, comically going through the routine of investigating brutal murders complete with stabbings, burnings, and hangings despite his Captain’s constant chastising and seizes every opportunity to act dumb and look stupid, but once the story starts to focus “The Wailing” as nothing more than an offbeat black-comedy, Hong-ja Na devilishly about-faces with a severe turn of events that’s a mixed bag of genres. Kwak no longer plays the lead role of comic relief; instead, a more self-confident Sergeant Jong-Goo takes control of the investigation as the deeper he finds himself involved in the dark plague that’s ravaging his village. He hunts down the Japanese Stranger, the debut South Korean film for long time Japanese actor Jun Kunimura (“Kill Bill,” Takashi Miike’s “Audition”) with a zen like aurora that’s enormously haunting to behold and captivating when his presence is lurking amongst the scene. Though Kunimura’s demeanor contrasts with other actors, he’s very much in tune with the dynamic, but it’s the maniacally, foul-mouth ravings of Hyo-jin, played by Hwan-hee Kim, that stand out and are the most distraught during her possession state that could give “The Exorcist” a run for it’s money and is a visceral vice grip to the soul that has to be experienced. Woo-hee Chun and Jung-min Hwang round out the cast in their respective and memorable co-starring roles as a peculiar no named woman and a flashy shaman.

“The Wailing” incorporates various folklore stemming from cultures all over the world including the Koreas, China, Japan, and even from China’s bordering neighbor Nepal and meshes them with religious practices of Buddhism to even the far corners that the Catholic faith possesses. The luxuriant green South Korean mountain backdrop sets an isolated, ominous cloud over a beautiful and serene archaic village, an awe-inspiring juxtaposition created by cinematographer Kyung-pyo Hong that coincides with the complete dread piercing through the heart of the story; a perspective vastly opposite to Hong’s works in the previously mentioned “Snowpiercer” that’s set in the tight confines of a class dividing bullet train. “The Wailing” bundles together mythos with visionary concepts and landscapes in an epic mystery-thriller that’s unforgettable; it will cling to you, like a evil-dwelling spirit, well after the film is over.

20th Century Fox, in association with Ivanhoe Pictures and Side Mirror, produce Hong-jin Na’s top horror contender “The Wailing” with Well Go USA and Kaleidoscope Home Entertainment distributing on DVD and Blu-ray. Unfortunately, I was provided with a DVD-R screener and can’t specifically comment on specifications and image or audio quality. Accompanying the screener were two bonus features: a behind-the-scenes featurette and the beginning tale of “The Wailing” featurette. Both were fairly informative that gives insight on Hong-jin Na’s mindset and how the director’s ambitious story in a malignant tale of comedy, horror, and mysterious involving demons, shamans, and, quite possibly, the devil himself. “The Wailing” significantly captivates, sucking you into the darkness with an uncanny amount of pull with a story too terrifyingly original to avert and too thick with vigorous characters in a plot twist too harrowing to forget.

Ash Vs. Evil Dead – Release Date Announced!

Posted by Steven Lewis on July 18, 2016

The long awaited follow up to Sami Raimi’s “Army of Darkness,” STARZ original series “Ash Vs. Evil Dead” will summons itself to retail shelves on August 23, 2016 on Blu-ray and DVD. Evil Dead producer Robert Tapert and director Sam Raimi come back to be executive producers for Bruce Campbells big return as Ash for the small screen, television series.

“Campbell reprises his role as Ash, the stock boy, aging lothario and chainsaw-handed monster hunter who has spent the last 30 years avoiding responsibility, maturity and the terrors of the Evil Dead. When a Deadite plague threatens to destroy all of mankind, Ash is finally forced to face his demons – personal and literal. Destiny, it turns out, has no plans to release the unlikely hero from its “Evil” grip.”

“Ash Vs. Evil Dead” Blu-ray

Street Date: August 23, 2016
Pre-book: July 20, 2016
Catalog #: BD63966
UPC: 01313263966680
Run Time: 294 mins.
Rating: TV-MA
SRP: $49.99
Format: Blu-ray
Aspect Ratio: Anamorphic
Audio: Dolby TrueHD 7.1
Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish

“Ash Vs. Evil Dead” DVD

Street Date: August 23, 2016
Pre-book: July 20, 2016
Catalog #: ST63965
UPC: 01313263965980
Run Time: 294 mins.
Rating: TV-MA
SRP: $39.98
Format: DVD
Aspect Ratio: Anamorphic
Audio: Dolby Digital 5.1
Subtitles: English SDH, Spanish

You can Pre-order “Ash vs Evil Dead” over at Amazon.com!

Evil Bikers Take On Unstoppable and Unthinkable Savior! “All Hell Breaks Loose” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on March 25, 2016

The spawned from hell biker gang, Satan’s Sinners, ride the dusty roads of west coast America in search of pure virgin women for their master’s ever growing domain. As they wreak hellish havoc along the way, they ride upon newly wed couple Nick and Bobby Sue, stealing the beautiful bride away from her loving husband and leaving him for dead on the side of the road. However, the Lord works in mysterious ways as divine intervention in a form of a boorish Cowboy, who may or may not be God himself, resurrects Nick from the dead again and again to save his wife from the ultimate damnation – Satan’s beautiful virgin slave. Armed and clueless, Nick finds help wherever he can, whether by the prideful local sheriff or the alcoholic priest who performed Nick’s marriage, to stop the bikers and to reclaim Bobby Sue.

“All Hell Breaks Loose” is one of those indie films that’ll fly under the radar of the indie film circuit, scraping and clawing at the surface and trying to create a name for itself. At face value, “All Hell Breaks Loose” is a hell of fun, devilishly entertaining, and so relaxed that it doesn’t take itself too seriously. Unfortunately, those film’s qualities are the complete antonym to a box office money maker or a breakthrough independent golden nugget. I get why money won’t just flow in, though. Director Jeremy Garner’s name won’t ring any bells and has dabbled more in the special effects field than the director’s chair, which I thought his 2009 special effects work on “Melvin” was fantastic, and the screenwriter Jacy Morris, under the pen name The Vocabularist, is also an unknown with only this film under his belt. There’s strike one. Secondly, the lead actor isn’t a big name; Nick Forrest name might seem similar to “Shaun of the Dead’s” Nick Frost, but, sadly, no. But Nick Forrest plays his character of the dimwitted, pee-wee hero character well enough for be recognized and respected. The last, and final strike, is film’s recognizable headliner – “Danger” Ehren McGhehey from “Jackass” fame.

Garner’s film doesn’t need to prove one damn thing to anybody. The horror-comedy story is simplicity thats surrounded itself with undying love, badass demon bikers, and God’s wish-washy methodology; there’s no symbolism or underlining message that suggest otherwise and there’s not much explanation here or there about the particulars of the Satan’s Sinner’s mission or why in that particular region they choose to run amok. Viewers looking for an untamed experience will just want to see the Bikers dish out violence and pain and see Nick die a horrible death over and over again. Even though Garner didn’t dip his hands into conducting the effects for his Sophomore film, Izzy Combs, Ray Kelley, and Steven Strop team up to pull off some amazing lunacy with the limited budget effects that get gory without being over-the-top and ridiculous.

Aside from a pipsqueak-to-a partial demi-god hero in Nick Forrest and “Danger” Ehren portraying a demon biker with an Elvis Presley obsession, the rest of the cast, like the Satan’s Sinners, is a motley crew of talent ranging from twenty years of B-movie experience in Todd Robinson to a slew of undiscovered actors, especially in the biker gang with Hunter O’Guinn, Joshua Lee Frazier, and Tommy Hestmark with leading lady Sarah Kobel Marquette as the damsel in distress while being undressed.

Wild Eye Releasing summons from the underworld “All Hell Breaks Loose.” The unrated, 92 minute feature might have cheesy and cheap DVD cover art, but the entertainment value speaks volumes. The release contains bonus features that contains an informative director’s commentary, a couple of deleted scenes, and trailers. Overall, give “All Hell Breaks Loose” a chance or two or three, just to be completely sure that you understand that what you’re about to see will be utter chaos that’ll make the Waco, Texas shooting look like a little girl’s tea party with her favorite stuffed animals.

All Evil Breaks Loose! “Mansion of Blood” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on February 12, 2016

Pretentious millionaire Mason Murphy hosts the largest and sexiest lunar eclipse party in the close knit community of River Ridge. Murphy renovates the old Mayhew estate, home to the mysterious disappearance of the wealthy Mr. Mayhew in 1926, as the party’s extravagant setting. One of the young party goers is also a practicing partaker of witchcraft and when she attempts to summon upon the spirit of her dead boyfriend to ask about whether he bought a winning lottery ticket or not just before his death, she accidentally aligns all things evil right as the eclipse takes place, trapping the oblivious guests in a nightmarish twilight zone that includes black bat demons, Civil War ghosts, lawn ornament zombies, bar tending vampires, and a slew of maniacal murderers.

Director Mike Donahue’s “Mansion of Blood” is a horror-comedy of an ambitious narrative that was doomed during the middle of production, resulting in a shameless, mishmash heap of a film. From what I’ve read from various article sources, “Mansion of Blood” came to a screeching production halt due in part of a sexual assault claim from an actress or two. The complaint was against the film’s headlining star, Gary “Lethal Weapon” Busey. Are we really surprised here? Busey, who suffered permanent brain damage in 1988 after a motorcycle accident, has sustained from his wild and crazy, sometimes delusional, antics that raises many eyebrows through almost the last three decades. The film’s crew was so fed up with Busey that he was actually fired and massive re-cuts and re-edits caused the story’s downward slope. Aside from the Busey debacle, executive producer and one of the film’s stars Tom Tangen is rumored to have screwed over the film’s investors, leaving director Mike Donahue high and dry.

Honestly, I strongly feel “Mansion of Blood” never came an inch off the ground. I get that the film is a horror-comedy in a slapstick sub-genre, but the story is in total shambles. Numerous characters and their individual stories are diluted to the point of being a suffering and aggravated attention deficit disorder. The severely choppy editing, the unbalanced dialogue and ambient audio tracks, and the oafish acting throughout only piles on top of an already high mountain of sadness. And even though I have a soft place in my heart for Busey and his sheer lunacy, in life and on film, his performance as the malicious party host Zachariah was, dare I say it, surprisingly stale. Only a few handful of scenes of Busey’s floating, grinning head faintly superimposed as a ghost or a spirit or as a something are uniquely guilty pleasurable. Not all has failed as the film’s other star, “Star Trek: Voyager’s” and “Innerspace’s” Robert Picardo, attempts and succeeds at a good performance as the party’s caterer who ends up almost being poisoned by his chef wife, played by Lorraine Ziff.

Again, I’m well aware that “Mansion of Blood” is a horror-comedy, but the no budget special effects couldn’t be any more offensive to our intelligence. The “demons” were extras in black face and black leotards with a dark cape and plastered with exuberantly adhesive bat ears. The computer generated lunar eclipse was near 1950’s animated cartoonish. These effects bog down the quality of the film, turning a potential Sci-Fi channel movie spoof to a more of an obsolete, outdated, and cheesy and campy schlock that could be deemed worthy of being presented on Mystery Science Theater 3000. Instead of solidly funded practical and computer generated special effects, Donahue leans firmly on the hard bodies of young (and some slightly older such as Lorraine Ziff) actors and actresses. The naked bodies of upcoming scream queen Mindy Robinson and the industry versatile Dustin Quick are two to name just a few who pair up with the rock hard abs of Kyle Clarke and Frank Mora Jr. One would think Jennifer Tapiero, Sarah Alami, and Tegan Webster would be the group of main characters that would develop and expand throughout the duration since they’re stories begin in a diner, but their characters become junk roles that fizzle into into oblivion and tangents are created for non-setup characters.

“Mansion of Blood’s plethora of characters is too much to handle, especially when the film tries to go in numerous directions that doesn’t give Donahue’s motion picture any direction. The story and script flounders as the legs are cut right from underneath both of them. I empathize that the Gary Busey and the rumored Tom Tangen issues might have derailed this project that categorizes this film into the scrap-to-salvage scenario similar to prior films like “Bad Meat” and “Old 37.” Tom Cat Films and MVD bring “Mansion of Blood” to retail shelves and I encourage those brave enough to venture into the film to remember this particular review because when the credits begin to roll and the popcorn is down to the last few underdeveloped kernels, you will know somewhere in the sands of time and space that I’ll be whispering in the ears of your mind, “I told you so.”