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Eating Disorder? More Like EVIL Disorder! “Binge and Purge” reviewed! (SRS Cinema / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Binge and Purge” on SRS DVD Home Video!  This One Is Hard to Keep Down!

Three former police officers now private sector detectives find themselves embroiled in a cannibalistic frame up by the police state in a near dystopian future.  Their no choice, self-preservation investigation leads them to a group of models who consume people in order to stay vibrant and young as if frozen in time.  The mastermind behind the models’ ravenous new diet is a former Nazi science experiment-turned-fashion designer who has not only spread his indelicacies throughout the fashion world but also into a corrupt authoritarian police department helmed by a sordid chief.   As more and more people succumb to the ghastly craving of human beings, the rebellious detectives embark on an ambitious plan to cut off the head of the snake by working up the fashion designer’s human-hungry hierarchy but are they too late to stop the meat-eating madness?  Has the world been forever infected by the touch of pure evil? 

The first Christmas horror film review of 2023!  Brought to you by the Canadian-born, “Meat Market” trilogy director Brian Clement, the filmmaker’s written-and-directed third feature, “Binge and Purge,” is the 2002 genre melting pot of action, horror, and comedy set in an undisclosed urban jungle of North America where a person’s legal rights no longer exist, beauty and fashion insidiously influence, and normalcy becomes rebel factions’ reason to fight tooth and nail to hang on to it despite the coursing corruption and taking refuge from repressive authorities on their tail.  While sounding glum and despondent, Clement’s addition of black humor adds a loose layer of lurid levity to the bizarro-world society mirroring our own that teeters toward a path of culture and humanity deterioration with radical political and influential figures.  Once considered being the third film in the “Meat Market” series and alternatively known as “Catwalk Cannibals” in other countries, “Binge and Purge” is produced by Clement under Frontline Films. 

One thing to note about SOV independent production is the impressive number of cast involved.  The large cast helps manifest Clement’s ambitious dystopia and chaos-riddled world.  Without it, “Binge & Purge” would have been too anorexic to sustain selling grandiose on the cheap.  Typical formula for flesh-eater films persists with secluding a handful of principal roles, majority only speaking roles, fleshed out with an epic apocalypse contextualization of little-to-no dialogue, story arc, or any other sort of prominent screen time stock or background characters in a horde of the undead in crude bloodstained suits.  Clement establishes good guys and bad guys clearly but doesn’t necessarily the focal characters with an ebb and flow pattern between the three detectives May (Tamara Barnard), Vanzetti (Stephan Bourke, “Exhumed”), and Number 11 (Fiona Eden-Walker), who we gather was a former highly trained operative so engrained into the training and operations that her name was lost or forgotten, reduced to a number and the troupe of man-eating models under the eternal fashion designer Karl Helfringer (Gareth Gaudin). The models consist of not your slender-hip vixens with shaved down noses and hungry-looking figures but rather the curvy, pin-up types to wet a seemingly heathy appetite. Moira Thomas, Samara Zotzman, Amy Emel, Becky Julseth, Terra Thomsen and Melissa Evans lavish in so much delight over the sticky glop and spilling intestinal scenes of shoulder-to-shoulder cannibal chow downs that there isn’t an ounce of hesitation or disgust before enamel stabs into the fresh viscera but where the enthusiasm mostly falters is with the monotone dialogue deliveries with hardly any swing in inflection, tone fluctuations, or any kind of gesturing during the more emotive occurrences. “Binge and Purge” rounds out with Robert C. Nesbitt and Chuck Depape respectively as a fashion magazine reporter turned human hungry minion and the coke-snorting corrupt police captain.

“Binge and Purge” is more than just a Christmas horror.  Amidst the meandering storyline of touching points in time and space with numerous characters and flashbacks skating on thinly laid context ice, such as the Spanish Civil War of the 1930s, Nazi experiments of the 1940s, and how America became a police state, the girth of “Binge and Purge’s” main coarse actually spans across the end of the holiday season in that week between Christmas and New Year’s, approximating a Y2K scare vibe of total chaos and confusion by way of cannibalism contagion instead of a feared computer bug, but that’s one area lacking in Brian Clement’s production laced with insatiable consumerism and consumption with in regard to really hyping up the cheerful holiday atmosphere to become besmirched by the corrupted filth of dirty cops, a plague of death, and a conspiratorial coup by high fashion.  The occasional Santa hat makes an appearance in a model shoot and the end of the year countdown denotes the pinnacle of a MP5 massacring finale, and though I can’t be certain, even the soundtrack sound to be distorted versions of the perennial Christmas classics, but that’s the extent of Clement’s holiday backdrop that would have easily fissure a chasm between “Binge and Purge” and the next low-budget cannibal shocker.  If you’re going to set the film during Christmas, deck the freaking halls, man!  Where Clement bedecks the film is with blood and gore that sees stringy sinew and a high body count’s insides become outsides over an encircling of edible entrails and on literally finger food trays.  Another shining highlight area is the action with agreeable submachine gunfire and the creative pyrotechnic-flares for explosion special effects that does rich up production value, inching the film more toward a magnetic, practical effect-laden, SOV spectacle worth the viewing calories. 

Shot on S-VHS, SRS Cinema gets their hands on the best master print director Brian Clement could carve out of his body of work. The MPEG2 encoded DVD presents the feature in 1.33:1 pillarbox aspect ratio in a 480p resolution. S-VHS master looks pretty darn good despite the caliginous reflection that produces more shadows and illumination on the tape, even if S-VHS offered better illumination as a format, and a lower, poor resolution than S-VHS’s Betamax predecessor. Still, this print has enough delimiting factors to produce a well-oiled image suitable for public distribution with a mix of neon warm and soft color capturing and crude lighting for maximum gritty-palpable product. The English LPCM mono track also has admirable lossless fidelity with a bitrate decoding of 192kbs, that has come typically standard, and greatly appreciated for audiophiles, on SRS releases. Some scenes are better than others, but the dialogue does retain some tail-end hissing and can be soft in spot. Otherwise, dialogue renders clearly enough. The release offers no subtitles. Bonus features include an archived audio commentary and a new SRS cinema produce audio commentary both of which include a self-deprecating Brian Clement going through his “least favorite” work’s production wishful do-overs, where the cast are nowadays, and his favorite gags and setups, a handful of deleted scenes, a slideshow, a new SRS cut trailer, and other previews for other SRS distributions. SRS Home Video release is mocked up with a retro VHS box-impression Amaray DVD case complete with graphically printed-in Please Be Kind, Rewind and Horror stickers. The not rated film has a runtime of 83 minutes and is region free. Nowhere near being a bulimic gorge for expulsion to empty one’s cinematic capacity, “Binge and Purge” is fully digestible grubby grub of horror, action, and comedy. 

“Binge and Purge” on SRS DVD Home Video!  This One Is Hard to Keep Down!

Playboy Discovers Vengeful EVIL’s Hidden BDSM Room A Little Too Snug. “Emanuelle’s Revenge” reviewed! (Cinephobia Releasing / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Emanuelle’s Revenge now on DVD from Cinephobia Releasing!

A wealthy businessman philanders his way through woman in a pursuit of satisfactory conquest.  The formidable challenge of bedding a hard-to-get woman arouses him and the chase is all that more thrilling and erotic.  His persistence and perfect man act pays off with up-and-coming model Francesca, but for the playboy, Francesca becomes another notch in his belt and quickly implodes Francesca’s romanticized relationship after a sexual tryst in the public eye.  A year later, he begins his surmounting quest again with Emanuelle, a renowned writer in a lesbian relationship.  The beautiful and darkly seductive woman catches his eye and the game begins as he uses every excuse to rendezvous with her despite the Emanuelle’s partner standoffish opposition, but as his tenacity appears to be paying off as she leads him on, awarding his constant charm with favorable kittenish returns, Emanuelle is actually leading him straight into the jaws of a deceitful plan.

Italian co-directors Monica Carpanese and Dario Germani are copiously inspired by the heyday of Italian Eurotrash cinema.  The actress-turned-debut director Carpanese has starred in a handful of erotic and horror thrillers of the prolific trashy filmmaker Bruno Mattei, such as “Dangerous Attraction” and “Madness,” while also having a principal performance in the 2022 sequel to Joe D’Amato’s notorious cannibalism film “Anthropophagus.  Her colleague Dario Germani is also the cinematographer for the spaced-out follow-up as well as establishing himself in the genre not as a filmmaker behind the lens but also a director with genre films under the belt with “Anthropophagus II,” a dissimilar lover’s anguish in “Lettera H,” and a snuff-slasher “The Slaughter.”  Carpanese and Germani’s next collaborating venture continues with another D’Amato influence mixed with the popular erotic series, and its tangent spinoffs, of Just Jaeckin’s “Emmanuelle” that has official and unofficial sequels spanning all through Europe with enticingly, titillating erotic stimuli and thrills.  Their explicit explication of the near 50-year-old sexy-laced franchise comes in the form of “Emanuelle’s Revenge.”  Dropping the second “m” along with the choice of similar story and title moves the film closer to being a remake of the Joe D’Amato “Emanuelle and Francoise,” aka “Emanuelle e Francoise” or “Emanuelle’s Revenge.”  Carpanese pens the Marco Gaudenzi and Pierpaolo Marcelli produced script under the production flags of Flat Parioli, Haley Pictures, and TNM Productions. 

“Emanuelle’s Revenge” is carried by a small, four-person principal cast and half that for peripheral players within a dual-timeline story that provides the same cat-and-mouse game but with different, yet shocking outcomes on both of them.  At the tip of the spear is playboy Leonardo played by Gianni Rosato.  Sporting his best bandholz beard and pony bun, Rosato’s aggressive entrepreneurship extends beyond the working stiff hours and into the extracurricular activities of hunting down and dominating the opposite sex to sate his kicks for kink.  As the primary principal, Rosata receives the screen time that digs further into Leonardo’s psyche and what’s revealed about Leonardo’s nature is obvious trouble with an aggressive flirtation to the point where his whole game is akin to a stalker, showing up unannounced where he knows his targeted woman will be, obtaining their property that he has no right to, and essentially sucking their face with really bellicose kisses that look like they hurt.  Okay, maybe the latter is more overzealousness on Rosata’s part but certainly adds to Leonardo’s alarming behavior to which women seem to be attracted to as if giving into the idea that women prefer bad boys.  Such as the case in the first narrative with Francesca, a promising model with a now sex-relationship smart attitude after a previous relationship went terribly wrong with revenge porn.  Played by Ilaria Loriga in her own credited role, the young actress isn’t quite the epitome of innocence but is understandably weary to fall in love again with the persistent Leonardo but with all the foretell warnings of a disaster in the making, Francesca’s penned as sorely naïve and having learned not one single lesson of her past relationship with promiscuous men.  A year later, in the second act’s story, Emanuelle strolls into the picture under the olive-skin and deep eyebrows of Beatric Schiaffino who bats enticing eyes of the titular character’s hidden agenda. Schiaffino’s crafts a demeaner starkly different against her previous year counterpart as Emanuelle’s coquettishness doesn’t refrain from the fact she’s already in a hot-and-heavy relationship and matching Leonardo’s hot-to-trot escapade with a come-hither that’s just out of his reach. If a rake beckons a game of amorous desire, then Emanuelle enacts a game of her own, one of a lure to lead the blind right into her spider’s web and Schiaffino properly tightropes pleasure and purpose to a somatosensory stimulation level. “Emanuelle’s Revenge” rounds out with Luca Avallone as Leonardo’s licentious friend and business understudy, Ilde Mauri as Emanuelle’s lesbian partner, and Miriam Dossena as Leonardo’s 20-something daughter who suddenly pops into play in the Emanuelle story.

Even though “Emanuelle and Francoise” has never traipsed across my eyes, from what I’ve read the Joe D’Amato and the coproduction of Monica Carpanese and Dario Germani share a lot in common, but the modern-day version of this sordid tale of lust and revenge sticks to the venereal veneer only whereas D’Amato engages a cannibalism and other ghastly horrors. “Emanuelle’s Revenge” seduces with melodramatics, frisky fantasies, and contemptible thralldom because of one man’s wandering libido, focusing tremendously on the building game of mostly pavalar rather than diving into shock value. The narrative begins with a suicide of Francesca, jumping half nude off a busy passenger vehicle bridge, and this segues into Leonardo’s assertive activity into Francesca’s life and so the tale’s non-linear format is already incredulously fated with tossed in opening scene just to grab attention. When following Leonardo’s uncomfortable pursuit, and uncomfortable henpeck kissing, of Francesca, the audience is just along for the ride up to the point of incident where they’re abruptly blue-balled by cut-to a year later without knowing why Francesca decided to throw in her life towel. The brain and our movie-watching experience eventually catchup with the fact everything will be explained at the climatic, but the format jars the assimilating process a tad. Throughout the narrative, there’s plenty of a T&A to go around as I believe nearly every actress with speaking lines drops at least her top, living up to the long history of “Emmanuelle’s,” or “Emanuelle’s” fleshy affluence and erotic elements. Considering the plot twist, Carpanese’s approach doesn’t compel any creativity into the mostly remade erotic-revenger and makes contact with formulaic properties that poison any kind of novel ideas that might have been indited in the inner story layers.

Arriving at number 8 on the spine for Cinephobia Releasing, “Emanuelle’s Revenge” is now on DVD, presented in a widescreen 2.35:1 aspect ratio. The MPEG-2 encoded DVD9 has a sleek look albeit tumbling through a bitrate spread of 5 to 7 Mbps. Some surface coloring suffuse, especially on skin where similar tones seep into the adjacent due to block boundary artifact, but the amount is very little and doesn’t sully much to render the picture an admixed wash in the lion’s share of soft lighting. Details are okay here with the stunning urban landscapes and more opened metropolitan venues, such as a rooftop party, opening up audiences to the chic levels of high society’s profanation of control and sex. The release offers two Italian language audio tracks: A Dolby Digital 5.1 surround and a 2.0 stereo. If asked, I would suggest less channels as they are redundant and useless and go for the 2.0 stereo as there’s not much frequential range in what is essentially a talking head film with an exposition driven narrative. Dialogue is clearly and cleanly stated overtop other audio layers with a powerfully boosted stock file soundtrack in parallel unison to the theatrics. English subtitles are optionally available and the error-free translations keep up with dialogue pacing. Only other Cinephobia Releasing film trailers, including “Brightwood,” “The Goldsmith,” “The Human Trap,” and “Amor Bandido,” are available bonus content. The black background front cover delineates deliciously Beatric Schiaffino as the titular Emanuelle sitting open robed, in thigh-high laced stockings, and on her wicker chair throne. This image reminds me of a mistake in this revealing scene with the very first image of Emanuelle sitting in the oversized back chair resembling closely the front cover image, but the subsequent scenes have her once flesh exposed chest to midriff covered up with censurable continuity. Inside the DVD Amary case lie no insert and the same provocative front cover Emanuelle image more centrally cropped down and blow up to emphasize the seductive siren. The not rated, 83-minute feature is limited to a region one playback. “Emanuelle’s Revenge” spices up the contemporary franchise with erotic entails, exorbitant egos, and illicit indecencies despite its sacrificing of pacing and organization for sleaze, skin, and a side dish of kink.


Emanuelle’s Revenge now on DVD from Cinephobia Releasing!

Even Bad CGI Crocodiles Have an EVIL Smile. “Crocodile Island” reviewed! (Well Go USA Entertianment / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Journey to the “Crocodile Island” on DVD from Well Go USA!

The Dragon Triangle is known for being the Bermuda Triangle off the coast of the Asia continent.  Ship and plane mysteriously disappear due to the area’s supposedly distorted navigational and mechanical instruments, wreaking havoc on commercial transportation and the directionless travelers who have wandered into its esoteric province.  When an Australian outbound commercial flight GZ261 is forced to violently crash land due to this very phenomenon, survivors find themselves not in the middle of the sea but on an uncharted island full of man-eating crocodiles, large and ferocious spiders, and a giant, prehistoric crocodile that can swallow a person whole.  With no food or water and danger lurking around every corner, the remaining, uneaten passengers must survive with the tools around them and locate the wreckage of a World War II plane that crashed long ago, salvage it’s radio, and call for rescue but the journey is perilous with a very hungry, colossal crocodile on their tail.

The Dragon Triangle, alternatively known as the Devil’s Sea or the Pacific Bermuda Triangle, is actually a real stretch of urban legend approximately located from the Northern Tokyo to the narrow vertex down below the island of Guam and enveloping most of the Japanese offshore islands.  The suspected berth of paranormal yarn has a long history of marine mysteries and aviation ambiguities and it’s also the basis for the 2020 Xu Shixing and Simon Zhao creature-feature actioner “Crocodile Island.”  Shixing, who went on to helm “Sharktopus” released this year, and Zhao, who oversaw the directorial duties for “The Antarctic Octopus” also released this year, seem to have knack for exaggerated megafauna movies beginning with “Crocodile Island” from a script by Minming Ni of “Exorcist Judge Bao.”  The undivided Chinese production showcases under the banner of Perfect World Pictures, an entertainment content company that often co-finances films with American studios, such as with “Jurassic Park Dominion, and New Studios Media, the company behind Ni’s “Exorcist Judge Bao.” 

At the very core of “Crocodile Island’s” larger-than-life CGI creature extravaganza is a life ordeal larger than any crocodile could ever be with a strained father-daughter relationship that takes surviving a plane crash, man-eating reptilians, and supersized spiders to resolve.  In steps Gallen Lo as rigid father Lin Hao to agitated and rebellious daughter Lin Yi, or as called continuously in the film as Yiyi, played by Liao Yinyu.  The “Vampire Controller” Lo takes parental responsibilities like a high-end security guard at an exclusive night club exhibiting almost zero emotion toward an equally stoic daughter who just lost their mother, the reason for the plane ride from Australia where Yiyi’s mother, Lin Hao’s ex-wife and Yiyi resided after a suspected divorce. I say suspected because Lin Hao hasn’t seen his daughter in years, solidifying his estrangement to the extreme, but deep down he reticent care for her despite the lack of expressive emotions and awkward alienation.  He shows this be becoming a gatekeeper against Yiyi’s romantic interest Cheng Jie (Wang Bingxiang) who boards the same flight but keeps his distance by concealing his presence from what would ultimately be a father’s sundering wrath in effort to protect and reconnect with her having been absent during her adolescence and still thinking she’s a child.  That becomes the underlining theme to “Crocodile Island,” to fight to protect what’s most dear to you, as Lin Hao fights against man and beast to protect his child and going through the learning curve of her growing up.  One significant flaw in Lin Hao’s development is his background is never divulged.  We’re hinted by other survivors that he might be former military, but nothing is clear except that he’s had some survivalist and leadership training, two apex personality attributes that collide in reconnecting with his daughter as well as sewing a connection with her boyfriend who’s eager to protect Yiyi too.  Out of all the survivors, this triad dynamic is harder pressed than the others – a first child expecting couple, a social media junkie and her creep of a friend with a bad heart, a pair of single men – who seem like they’re just a long for the ride, to be crocodile chow, or to give the principals more time to work out their internal issues.  Wei Dang, Xue’er Hu, Qiwei He, Zhao Zuo, Zhiyan Zhao, Jack Wayne, Bruce Alleyn, Patrick Alleyn, and Jinyi Zhao costar.

“Crocodile Island” stands alone as a 100% Chinese backed product for the often American partnered Perfect World Pictures as the carnivores look nothing remote similar to the likes of “Jurassic Park” and, instead, has all the hallmarks of a midnight feature on the Syfy Channel but even through the shoddy computer imagery, the feature remains one-up from those made-for-television premiers by turning on and building up some tense atmospherics, a fog-laden forecast with Kaiju-lite spiders dangling-dormant overhead the survivors or the close-quarters cave battle against the giant crocodile, that does keep concentration from veering off into a ditch of mundane dullness.  Still, every creature, every aircraft, and every explosion from the muzzle fire of the U.S. military issued Thompson submachine gun to the fragmentation detonation of the MK II grenades are CGI rendered and poorly at that.  The laws of physics do not apply to “Crocodile Island” as the regular sized reptilians can leap forward, airborne, for feet on end and the action is almost a near, undefinable blur on screen of the pallid, fringing translucency composite mockup.  While visual effects can be 90’s intro-level rubbish (what year are we in?), I found the story to be palpable enough and to a point of plane crash survivors find themselves basically on a heavily reduced variation of “Land of the Lost” or “Journey to the Center of the Earth” where instead of a T-Rexes and other giant, prehistoric creatures nipping at their heels, massive ocean crocodiles and arachnids lay claim to their flesh and bones but that part of the story wavers on wishy-washy rationalization.  The World War II plane that crashes, because of a flock of pterodactyls nonetheless, was carrying radioactive material which is alluded to being the cause of the giant spiders and crocodile, yet the crocodile was present at the WW II plane crash when snatching one of the pilots right out of the sky with a vertical leap, so the mysterious Dragon Triangle Isle remains still a mystery.

If I had to choose between the Bermuda Triangle and the Dragon Triangle, my chances of survival definitely reside better west side of the prime meridian and now you can make that determination yourself with a DVD copy of “Crocodile Island” courtesy of Well Go USA Entertainment.  As part of their Hi-Yah! collection, despite depicting no martial arts, “Crocodile Island” is presented in a widescreen 16×9 aspect ratio and stored on a MPEG2 encoded DVD9 with a average bitrate between 7 to 8 Mbps.  Aside from the absurd VFX, “Crocodile Island” looks pretty good compression-wise and detail-wise with a blight free digital image that pops with lush greenery and stark contrast, the brilliant sandy beach and bright blue water comes to mind as examples, with a grading range that runs the natural color spectrum.  The Mandarin language audio comes with two options:  a Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound and a Stereo 2.0.  Both render a clean, damage free mix with prominent dialogue and a pinpoint ambient sound design only to be besmirched by the laughable CGI and creature noises.  While the track is listed as strictly Mandarin, an English dub on the same track combs over the natural voices of the English-speaking actors, the pilots in the movie who are obviously speaking English when reading their lips, but the English dub sounds like Asian actors attempting English vocal impersonations that synch up egregiously.  Subtitles include English, traditional Chinese, and a simplified Chinese, which I’m not entirely sure if that means for a child’s benefit or another reason.  The English synch appears to be oversimplified as well with a slew of straight forward statements and exclamations, adding little depth to what the meaning characters attempt to convey in more significant conversion.  There’s not much in the way of special features in the rainy motion DVD menu aside from the film’s trailer and other Well Go USA Entertainment preview trailers for “A Creature Was Stirring,” “Creepy Crawly,” and “Gangnam Zombie.” The Amaray front cover has run-of-the-mill, campy Giant crocodile pomposity of a cover art with the doubled-sided, one-sheet inside insert of other Hi-Yah! Well Go USA Entertainment titles. What I found aesthetic is the simple designed, yet eye-catching disc pressed with a shimmering glint. Not rated and locked on a region one playback, the release has a runtime of 87 minutes. While this crocodile’s skin remains without a tangible leathery hide in the semi-aquatic beast’s digital creation, “Crocodile Island” has sporadic action and atmospheric value vastly needed to combat the cringeworthy croc.

Journey to the “Crocodile Island” on DVD from Well Go USA!

Congratulations! You Won an All-Inclusive EVIL Trip to “Terror at Red Wolf Inn” reviewed! (Cheezy Movies / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Come for the Dinner, Stay to be Eaten at the Red Wolf Inn on a Cheezy Movies’ DVD!

When riffling through her mail, Regina McKee opens a letter informing her she has won a marvelous prize, an all-expenses paid vacation at the quaint resort of Red Wolf Inn.  The young college student is escorted on a charter plane to a quiet town where the historic 1891 resort house resides and to greet her re hosts Evelyn and Henry Smith along with their grandson Baby John Smith.  Occupied with two other guests, Regina finds the old house luxuriously relaxing, her hosts cordially jovial, and the food as about as fantastically delicious as it is seeming endless when the Smiths introduce course-after-course of beautifully cut fillets and delectable desserts.  The Smiths don’t like to skip a meal.  When the other guests’ planned departure feels abrupt without them saying goodbye, Regina begins to suspect something isn’t quite right with The Smiths, something hidden behind the doors of the walk in refrigerator and is being incorporated into all those fatteningly delicious meals. 

Before Papa Jupitar and his children terrorize and cannibalize the Carter family on their way to Los Angeles through the rural, desert roads of Nevada in 1977 and even before a group of young friends stumble upon a demented family abiding by the slaughterhouse rules of people in the backwaters of Texas in 1974, there was the elderly couple and resort owners named The Smiths who entertained young women for dinner to wet their appetites by plumping those same young women into dinner in 1972.  The Late director Bud Townsend, who helmed a limited filmography in his short feature film tenure between 1970 and 1985 with such titles as “Nightmare in Wax” and “Alice in Wonderland:  An X-Rated Musical Fantasy,” took the only credited Allen Actor script and fashioned it into a dissembling macabre for the silverscreen.  Also known as “Secrets Beyond the Door,” “Club Dead,” “Terror on the Menu,” and “Terror House,” which the latter was likely the version experienced for this review due in part to cuts made, “Terror of Red Wolf Inn” is a production of Far West Films and Red Wolf Productions LLC with “Count Yorga, Vampire’s” Michael Macready producing and Allen Actor and Herb Ellis associate producing.

Would you ever answer the letter to a strange solicitation about winning an all-expenses paid vacation in a sleepy little town?  No, neither would I, but that’s what the heroine principal Regina McKee (Linda Gillen, “Black Rain”) did on a whirlwind, excited whim during a time when scammers had only the United States Post Office to importune their tricks upon the gullible.  The 1970s are obviously not as clued in or as technological savvy as the modern times of today with caller Ids, tall tell signs robo-recordings, and all the news stories and documentaries about telemarking boiler rooms; instead, we’re transported back in time where the gift of deceit can be achieved too terribly easy.  Linda Gillen, a freckled face, auburn-haired actress looks like the girl next door with a realness about her modest appearance as a leading lady and when compared to the likes and looks of Mary Jackson (“The Exorcist III,” “Skinned Alive”) and Arthur Space (“Mansion of the Doomed,” “The Swarm”), as innkeepers Evelyn and Henry Smith, the elderly couple reel in that realness even further by being not overly ruthless in their confidence game of cooking with cannibalism and instead bring warmth and hospitality that results in a slow burning dread that can be just as terrifying as an open cookbook cannibal.  The one character I struggle with is Baby John Smith played by John Neilson (“Honky”) and is method toward an unhinged grandson Regina recklessly falls for in record time of knowing him.  Baby John Smith very much plays into his moniker with childlike tantrums and glistening eye wonderment under a tall and chiseled frame of a man, but his infatuation with Regina, that ultimately plays deeper into the story and to foul up his family’s usual dinner plans, feels ingeniously forced as a device just deployed without justification as there is nothing inherently special about Regina compared to the two other lovely guests with more interesting backgrounds and appearances in characters played by Janet Wood (“Ice Cream Man”) and Margaret Avery (“Night Trap”). 

Allen Actor’s script is overall just plain ludicrous.  Who in their right mind would jet off to an unknown small town for a vacation getaway they won out of the blue from a resort that somehow, someway received their name and address?  Was it just a name randomly picked by pointing to that person in the national phonebook?  Who knows because the exact why and how doesn’t see light within the framework that has Regina be the crab who doesn’t know they’re boiling in a pot of hot water until it’s too late.  There are also two good-looking female guests who are also invited for a 2-week staycation until a party and celebration are given by the host for what is ultimately their guest’s last meal to become a meal for the remaining, unsuspecting guests and the devious entertainers.  Aside from a questionable story setup, I found “Terror at Red Wolf Inn” to be well-made and acted.  Townsend obviously knew what he wanted and how to do along with cinematographer John McNichol (“Private Duty Nurses”) to effectively turn around a fly-by-the-seams script into something far more polished on the surface and that adds that layer of suspense when our heroine discovers the truth about her hosts and her newfound love interest.  There’s also an interesting angle of letting Regine free range the house and grounds after the unveiling of anthropophagy because the whole town is essentially in own the caper or the town’s just  one big family, the character pilot who dropped off Regina and the police offer who turns out to be Baby John Smith’s brother or cousin.  Not a lot of detail explores this angle but enough is said and done to know that Regina is trapped without being shackled to her room in a pretty surreal and scary variable of the Inn’s history.

The USA thriller has many titles, been released on many formats, and now Cheezy Movies and Trionic Entertainment presents “Terror at Red Wolf Inn” on a standard definition DVD.  The 480p transfer print is an anemically graded rip from the VHS, digitized to DVD with all the excessive noise, speckled dropouts, mistracking, and blocking included and on top of the original 35 mm print that had typically celluloid grain and, perhaps, its own age and wear issues by the time this print made it to tape.  The print used for VHS appears visibly clean if removing the VHS defects but with the lower resolution, the Cheezy Movies DVD looks pale and dark with very little detail in what is basically slapping together a DVD without any augmentation and restoration to the print.  This is very conventional for this distributor so no I’m not surprised.  The English language mono mix has an enervated strength being ripped from the VHS audio track. Dialogue meets bare standard being out-front and intelligible and can be rambunctious at times with the unpropitious parties for every guest sendoff but doesn’t have space or depth around them under the brittle unbridled bitrate that offers crackling and some hissing throughout. There are no subtitles available with this release. With most of Cheezy Movies’ catalogue, only within the static menu is a chapter selection in its near-nude dressing. The region free release comes with a, supposed cut, R-rated print and has a runtime of 90 minutes. Behind the exemplar 1970’s color graded and arranged poster art for the front cover, one of Evelyn and Henry Smith looking stern over a girl laid out in bikini, inside the standard Amaray DVD case is a disc printed with the same artwork, but title and tagline cropped with just the elderly Smiths and the bikini-bottomed gal. There is not an insert included. “Terror at Red Wolf Inn” is the precursor to a family of cannibal crazies subgenre that has, for the better part of its existence, exploded rather than imploded all due in part to Bud Townsend and his modest directorial.

Come for the Dinner, Stay to be Eaten at the Red Wolf Inn on a Cheezy Movies’ DVD!

Being Lesbian is Not as EVIL as Being a Homophobic Subverter. “Herd” reviewed! (High Fliers / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Having been banished by her abusive and intolerant father, Jamie Miller struggles inside her once amorous relationship with girlfriend Alex as they make a new life for themselves in the city.  The dwindling connection between them forces their hand into a couple’s canoe trip retreat down a river near Jamie’s hometown to hopefully rekindle what was lost.  When Alex accidently breaks her leg after a nasty couple’s spat, Jamie has no choice but to seek help within town only to find the town is under siege by a mutating virus, turning infected into shambling shells of their former selves.  The Government’s downplaying of the containment of the small town leads to armed militias warring against each other for food and supplies and Jamie and Alex are caught in the middle of a tripartite conflict between her Father’s prejudicially like-minded militia, a ruthless band of rogue soldiers, and the walking infected.

Socio-political outbreak horror “Herd” is the latest project from music video and documentarian filmmaker Steven Pierce trying his hand at a full-length fictional narrative.  Pierce co-pens the film with James Allerdyce, both of whom have worked on the 2020 music documentary “Jose James & Taali Live from Levon Helm Studios” about the creative process of live-streaming performance at Woodstock venue.  The song and dance of the 2023 released “Herd” pulls inspiration from recent popular talking points in America with a couple of conspicuous drifts from one surface level incredible horror, a lesbian couple stumbling into the unbridled mess stirred by virus mutated townsfolk, to a more realistic horror of gun-toting narrowmindedness, extreme self-preservation, and government half-truisms.  Alongside Steven Pierce and James Allerdyce producing are also debuting fictional narrative filmmakers with Michael Szmyga, Matt Walton, Lev Peker, Matt Mundy, Bret Carr, Lori Kay, and Ryan Guess under the banner of Framework Productions.

Initially after the opening scene of something zombie-contagiously brewing, the story dives head first into despondency of Jamie Miller (Ellen Adair, “Trick”) and Alex Kanai (Mitzi Akaha, “Bashira”).  Not at first evident of what kind of relationship sends these two on a canoe trip in the middle of nowhere but becomes evident quickly that the two are a couple with Alex forcing a last ditch effort hand to rescue a ship that’s slowly sinking in the abyss with troubled girlfriend Jamie.  While Jamie has her extraneous displeases with their relationship, very similar to most couples, the knotty crux more so lies Jamie’s abusive, bigot of a father who lives inside her head and, for some reason or another, has flared up recently despite be resolutely at bay for what seems to be years into the relationship. That bit of missing backstory becomes an harbinger of many other unexplained or underdeveloped aspects of “Herd’s” genetic makeup that funnel down to not fleshing out many characters, such as the father character who is plainly found deceased in the second act with yet to no significant progress made with a character who has tormented our heroine protagonists to the point of a near mental breakdown with disturbing visions of a faceless mother amongst the crippling of her disavowed, disapproved relationship with another woman.  “Major League’s” Corbin Bernsen plays the father briefly before succumbing to an offscreen fate and Bernsen’s no stranger to zombie genre having directed one himself (“Dead Air”) and would have greatly added to “Herd’s” undercurrents as a headstrong xenophobe with a radical complex.  Instead, we get Big John Gruber (Jeremy Holm, “Don’t Look Back”), a complete and utter 180 from the volatile buildup of Bernsen’s conditioned and dogmatic militant.  Nothing inherently flawed about Big John’s softness and sympathy toward a difficult situation, even going as far as supporting Jamie’s same-sex relationship, in what could be construed as a parallel of dispositions that ultimately bleed red all in the same as redneck conspiracists will never bleed out, such as seen with militia lackeys Bernie Newson (Brandon James Ellis) and Tater (Jeremy Lawson, “Happy Hunting”) who hold onto their conspiracies as well as their guns.  Amanda Fuller (“Starry Eyes”), Steven Pierce, Matt Walton, Ronan Starness, and “Shallow Ground’s” Timothy V. Murphy and voice actor Dana Snyder of “Squidbillies” fill out the cast.

“Herd,” once titled “It Comes From Within,” very much implies the sheep who blindly follow the influential proximal powers into separating factions of dependency on the very moment national authority downplays the truth and designates into a free-for-all for survival, a doomsday prepper’s wet dream.  “Herd” catapults a very anti-government harpoon message right into the lampooning of Midwest gun nuts and schismatic truthers.  These instances surrounding a not-too-exaggerated truth detrimentally snaps the arc for the initial, more considerable character metamorphosis with heroine lead Jamie Miller.  We’re no longer on her track toward parental recovery that’s laid a substantial foundation in the first two acts with flashbacks of her father verbally tirades and banishment, only able to visualize her mother’s faceless corpse, and the brittle relationship she has with girlfriend Alex when going into the third act careens into a clash of the small-town titans.  The disinvestment of an endeavoring lesbian courtship plagued by mind-traumatizing scar tissue and a frustrated partner is ran over by the warring militias to the point where we’re scuttled from face-off to face-off and Jamie and Alex road-to-unity takes a backseat wholeheartedly.  The unexplained infected are also pulled into the backseat as an unfortunate consequence of said conflict that missed the mark explaining the climatic scene with the infected, shambling, boil-riddled bodies’ near unintelligible and moaning in unison wail that conveys a less antagonized existence and to defend themselves when threatened.  The humanizing moments are lost in the wake of war and conservative hoopla that insidious impale anything meaningful, but perhaps that was the message all along, a sort of blindness or autocratic ways to diverge free thinkers, as exampled with Big John Gruber whose liberal opinions and talk did nothing for him in the end.

Get into the “Herd” mentality with a new DVD from the UK distributor High Fliers Films.  The MPEG-2 encoded PAL DVD has a widescreen display with a 2.35:1 aspect ratio.  Compression decoding bitrate has impressive measure up to an average of 7 Mbps, leaning toward more detail, less artefact intrusion.  Shot in more rural areas of Missouri, though I believe the story takes place in the Midwest, Kansas maybe from the dialogue, an enriching scope of landscape, such as a dusty crossroads or a vast river shot from above, adds palpable details and texture with a natural grading.  Brennan Full doesn’t go fancy with an extravagance appears but exercises control over the contrast and shadows to obscure the infected lurking about and also handles the camera professionally, resulting in a cleaner, precise, and full of various angles and shots that typically would be nonexistent in most indie works.  Full also retains much of the natural and environmental irradiance for lighting without the use of gels to augment tone.  Two English audio options are available to select from, a Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo and a Dolby Digital 5.1, though not listed on the back cover. The surround sound mix shepherds in a better flexier channel distribution with back and side channels offering broader infected gutturals and militia gunfire. Dialogue is clear and clean of hiss and other banes in the leveled whereabouts of the digitally recorded audio layers. No subtitles are available. The High Fliers DVD is void of special features within the static menu framework. The clear amaray case unfortunately displays a shoddy composite image of a boil-repleted infected man with a beard trimmed with bad photoshop scissors giving way to a horde of baldies, which the latter doesn’t closely represent the “Herd.” There is no insert inside the casing. UK certified 15 for a sundry, laundry list of strong language, violence, gore, threat, horror, domestic abuse, and homophobia, the DVD’s playback is region 2, PAL encoded, and has a runtime of 97 minutes. “Herd” variegates down many different possibilities – a tumultuous fraught lesbian couple, tormenting father issues, governmental lies, rural dissidence, inexplicable infected creatures – but never settles to resolute one of them with confidence and that’s hurts the film’s better laid in visual portraiture.