Tag Archives: dvd

Don’t Push Evil or Evil Will Push Back! The Invoking review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on

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Adopted child Samantha Harris, now an adult woman, learns that her biological parents left her their family home and takes three friends on a trip to discover what she lost early in life. When they arrive, everything begins to go down hill as Samantha experiences realistic visions that compromises her reality and pits her agains’t her friends.

Talk about your micro budget horror! The Invoking is a prime example on how a film gets made on an estimated $11,000. That kind of money can’t even buy you a brand new car, yet you can make full-length feature film as director, screenwriter, cinematographer, and producer Jeremy Berg has proved. You just have to do everything yourself, pretty much. Accompanied with a few talented actors and actresses and you might just be able to pull off a good, low-budget horror film. Now, that begs the question, is The Invoking a good horror thriller?

In a word – watchable. The Invoking’s story lacks connectivity between the home’s caretaker, the home, and lead character Samantha. The girth of the whole movie lies hard on the story and much like a TV with a loose cable connectivity all you receive is visible static. This doesn’t necessarily mean Berg’s The Invoking is the worst film ever made as their are good highlights. For example, Samantha’s embarkment into madness with her visions are stimulating and creative.
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The film’s title has multiple meanings as the supernatural grounds push the bond between the friends, the friends also push the bonds between each other as well. And we don’t know if the house is under the spell of supernatural forces either, but perhaps – just perhaps – Samantha actually has a psychotic episode as she slowly remembers, as painful as they were, her nightmare that was her childhood.
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Don’t expect a big, on the edge of your seat, intense thriller, but The Invoking could work very well on stage with actors like Trin Miller, Andi Norris, Josh Truax, Brandon Anthony, and D’Angelo Midili. Not a bad freshman film for Jeremy Berg either as the man has talent in all the fields he worked on on The Invoking. Check out the DVD hitting retail shelves and online on May 12th from RLJ Entertainment!

Found Footage of Mockumentary Evil! Black Water Vampire review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on

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Prior to my viewing of Black Water Vampire, the conclusion that I’ve succumb to will tell that I’m one reviewer who thinks found footage horror has been well used and abused through the valleys of independent film to the hills of the Hollywood mainstream market. Though the technique has been ridden hard through the past decade, the touch of realism can still be felt. Black Water Vampire doesn’t stray too far from it’s found footage ancestors as far as horror elements in these types of movies go, but what Black Water Vampire may be weak on, their strength lies with in the producing of bone-chilling and fear-inducing effects that turn your perspective on vampire films to a whole different direction.

Over numerous decades, four women went missing on December 21st and found several days later, dead and drained of blood, near the Black Water Creek. An aspiring journalist enlists three of her friends to create a documentary on the killings and to prove to the world that suspected killer and death row inmate Raymond Banks has been unjustly locked up for the four murders. Their investigation leads them into more than what they expected – a more dangerous and darker path has been set at the stake of their lives.
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Freshman director Evan Tramel sets up Black Water Vampire nicely as a true documentary, interviewing friends and families of the victims, asking retired case workers about the investigation of the past victims, having a one-on-one chat with inmate Raymond Banks, and even trekking to the snowing hills of Black Water to capture the essence of Banks’ isolated cabin. This set up takes about a good portion of the film and though typically this might be the dullest part of the movie, the beginning is a good set up for these characters: Danielle – a passionate journalist looking for the truth, Andrea – a producer who feels compelled about the unfair persecution of Raymond Banks, Anthony – a camera man looking to get paid, and Robin – a friend helping out a friend. Funny enough is that all the characters’ names are actually the names of the actors too: Danielle Lozeau, Andrea Adams, Anthony Russell, and Robin Allen.

When all hell goes loose and things get berserk, the investigators discover a true vampire, bat-like humanoid, hunting them down for more than just to feed. The cat and mouse game between predator and prey had me going, but when the bat creature feels the need to reproduce is where I get a little weary about the story. An atomically frightening atmosphere being isolated in a snow-filled forest, but when you start introducing a horny vampire and a conspiracy notions, a viewer will tend to forget what they’re watching and start to wonder what the hell and why the hell their watching. This feeling succumbs at the movie’s end and though I found solace in an original ending, I couldn’t help to think the pain other viewers, especially red blooded horror fans, would think about this ending.

The acting was par for the course and the actors did a good enough to job to pass for scared shitless, but I found the vampire to be the real star. Brandon DeSpain‘s performance as the creature of the night could scare the pants off Van Helsing himself. DeSpain’s vampire was relentless, none compassionate, visceral, and animalistic. I had a hard to time trying to piece together the relation between the specific date of December 21st and the vampire’s killings. Why the first day of solstice? The acting becomes a little drowned out by other plot mysteries such as a homeless woman wondering the woods and doesn’t speak to the investigators. Her presence and the “oh geez” ending are never explained and there were no breadcrumbs given to help explain.
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Image Entertainment brings this unique take of vampire horror to UK DVD on March 24. Check it out and come to a conclusion yourself, but be forewarned that you’ve never experienced a vampire film like this one. Don’t let the Image Entertainment cover fool you with a big breasted woman being covered in blood as there lies nothing similar to that at all in the film.

Grade A Evil! Murder University review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on

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Enthralled from last week’s viewing of Richard Griffin’s The Disco Exorcist (see review here) that I checked into the player another Griffin film entitled Murder University from 2012. A fairly generic titled college slasher with semi-comedic values that tries to blend in with similar genre slashers such as Urban Legend, House on Sorority Row, Black Christmas, or Sorority House Massacre. Comedy elements separate Murder University from the rest as well as Murder University doesn’t set itself in the present time of which the setting takes place. I’ll dissect Griffin’s film the best I can because my response post viewing teeters back and forth of a thumbs up for pratical effects and homage or thumbs down for storyline and dialogue.

Greensboro University has a notorious reputation for being constructed by a founder who ritualized satanic values and murdered people for years in the late 19th century. In the late 20th century, the New England university is once again plague by the cult-like killers who call themselves the Greesnboro Devils. A survivor of a recent attack and a shunned detective try to hunt down the motives behinds the killings and the secrets of a legacy of killers.
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The upside of Murder University stems from the use of practical special effects. Decapitations became an obvious motif for this film (though there was no reason to explain this and I can only guess that beheadings were a big way to die in the 80s) with a grand total of six axe-chopped decapitations. The detail in the severed heads had high marks as well as other death scenes in the movie. Another throwback from the 80’s is the music and Murder University’s soundtrack certainly have that synth, brit-rock feel in some scenes, but in other scenes, 90’s grunge ruled the screen a long with hairstyles and clothes of a more recent decade.

The downside holds more weight coming from the story and the dialogue. The story comes a part at the seems with lead character Josh Greene as his backstory is intertwined with the murders and to get more of that backstory from his past would have been better than the exposition given nature of who Josh really is destined to be and what Josh is destined to be comes off pointless by default. Was this the divine will of Satan? Were these killers psychotic? What were the motivations? That is the real questions. The dialogue also scores low marks for being off key, choppy, awkward, and explicatively gratuitous. Not everybody is Quentin Taratino and can pull of mouthy vulgarity with ease and the script with Murder University just seems too forced for comfort.
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Jamie Dufault has a solid performance as our hero Josh Greene coming from a nobody in college and transforming to becoming the ultimate domineer in the end, but Nat Silva gives an even more solid performance as the killer (when the killer has dialogue) and Samantha Acampora (Josh’s girlfriend Meg) is certainly the eye candy that we wish would show a little more skin than just her bare ass.

Murder University‘s retro entertainment keeps afloat just under chin level and won’t bore you to death. Richard Griffin is two for two in my little black book of directors and I’ll keep an eye out for more of his material in the future. MVD and Wild Eye Releasing release this Not Rated, widescreen disc with deleted scenes and two commentary tracks. This should be a fairly affordable, tongue-and-cheek horror movie if you’re looking for a cheap, yet entertaining, thrills.

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Evil Spares No One! Gutterballs review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on

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Somebody should tie my feet together, hang me upside down, put a bag over my head, and just beat the shit out of me with a Louisville Slugger for an hour or two. I held onto the Ryan Nicholson’s Gutterballs DVD for nearly 4 years and just popped the disc into the player this past Wednesday. Gutterballs is a the ultimate 80’s homage to the slasher genre where two rival bowling groups are trapped inside an after hours bowling alley being taken out one by one by a psychotic killer known as BBK – Bowling Bag Killer. Why have gone 1,460 days of not watching Gutterballs? Mostly because I have 2,500+ movies and a wife who doesn’t care much for horror movies. I’m limited to 1 to 2 horror movies a week. Yup, I’m doomed.
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Gutterballs doesn’t just claim to be an 80’s homage, there lies true behind their claim. Though the characters might a bit of annoying, overly zealous, and dislikable, I did find everything else to be quite the throwback. The clothing, the editing, the violence, the special effects – all of these qualities harked back to the glory days. The characters, as I were saying, nearly ruined the whole thing by being over the top and I’m sure these characters are written to be this way, but why? The constant three assholes (one who chuckles for no good reason and I couldn’t wait for him to die), the every girl is a slut, and the outcasts were all well-done in a burnt steak kind of way.
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The nudity was nearly x-rated. We get to see Candice Lewald’s hamburger from behind and there is loads of fake dick sucking and dick disfiguring (turning a penis into a “mangina”). And lets not forget the barrage of gratuitous tit shots. Gutterballs is certifiably NC-17 and for good reason also for the two butt pucker rape scenes that will leave women and men cringing. Nicholson uses mainly schlock and shock value to get through to his audience without much of a plot behind it. The plot here is okay at best, but there lies many holes that need filling between the characters and their histories. More development is needed to give the story some girth, but when you’re creating a film with gallons of blood and naked chicks, I doubt a good story is on your mind because that won’t necessary bring in the big bucks.
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Gutterballs is a definite must for any gore fiend of the 80’s slasher film. Even the poster is rad with the homage to Maniac and the DVD cover is scantily clad with a blooding bowling pin. Gutterballs will make you want to go bowling afterwards, but it will also make you want to protect your all your holes from being invaded. Check this one out or you will strike out!

Evil is the Pits! Jug Face review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on

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“The pit wants what it wants.” Sometimes it is that simple. That saying could be the meaning of life for all we know? Could be the answer to the mysterious universe? Hell, could tell us what happened to Jimmy Hoffa and if there really lives a Loch Ness Monster. For the backwood folks of the movie Jug Face, that phrase is life and death. A backwoods community just on the outskirts of civilization serves an unseen entity in a deep muddy pit. The pit psychically connects with Dawai, a local simpleton who loses consciousness when connected to, to create a ceramic jug face of the face the pit wants to sacrifice in order for the community to keep sustaining their health. When young and out of wed-lock pregnant Ada’s face becomes the jug face, she steals the jug and hides it in the woods in attempt to not only save her life but her baby’s too. When the entity is ignored, the wrath of a gruesome death comes down upon the whole community by taking one person at a time until the pit gets what it wants.
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Jug Face strikes an originality chord in this reviewer’s bones. Usually when too much is happening one could easily become lost in the thick of the story, but where the thick might be the thickest, Jug Face fiercely cuts through and weaves a story of a women coming into her own to face responsibility and a story about fate in which no matter how much you try to re-arrange it, you’ll receive your rightfully due diligence in the end. The story ends up being grim for everyone and nobody has a one speck of happiness. A great parallelism to reality if you ask me because not every ending is sugar plums and puppy dog tails.
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The pit entity doesn’t seem like the “bad guy” villain that we might expect. Ada is not saint as she commits carnal sins and her actions result in the deaths of her friends and family and not all at the hands of the pit, but some by the community as well. Granted, not all the victims were innocent – some just as guilty as Ada – but we struggle with Ada’s compelling reason to live and to keep her unborn baby alive too. We’re more partial to Dawai, who like I said earlier is the community nitwit, and her father Sustin who tenderly loves her more than anything as a father should but obeys the pit’s commands when a jug face is revealed.

The ensemble cast headlines with Lauren Ashley Carter as Ada. A relatively unknown actress with a great pair of breasts; she’s topless in the first 5 minutes of the movie. Carter is a wide eyed beauty with a face like Kristen Stewart except without that dumb glare. Indie genre favorite Larry Fessenden (I Sell The Dead, Habit) takes on Ada’s father Sustin. Sean Bridges plays a great village idiot as Dawai and the other Sean, Sean Young, Ray Finkle him-herself, is Ada’s sadistic mother.
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Overall the movie watchable value and cult status written all over it (I has saying cult status, but what else is there to label it?). In reality, the MVDVisual distributed film with come and go with much of the straight-to-DVD market and that is a grisly disappointment because this little bizarre script from first feature film direct received a little money behind it and has a great cast, but the names aren’t big enough, the distributor isn’t big enough, and the story will fly over most people’s heads. MVDVisual and Modern Distributors did do a great job with the 5.1 Surround Sound and the clear 2:35 Widescreen format. Everything is pretty sharp here, but don’t expect jug Face to make waves amongst the masses.