Tag Archives: dvd

Evil Scars Are Not So Visible. Visible Scars review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on

My, oh, my how far Tom Sizemore has fallen from actor grace. The once Saving Private Ryan, The Relic, and Black Hawk Down star’s career the past decade has been riddled with drugs, criminal abuse, and sex – (Sizemore made a homemade porn with two “working” girls….no lie). And so Sizemore currently takes a role here and there in small productions granting him the headline of DVD covers and a small fortune for his appearance. The once great villain or, sometimes, anti-hero has been reduced to a bite-size actor for a few thousand in the pocket and the truth comes to light with the movie Visible Scars, but this film is not the first in which Sizemore stars.
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Backwoods redneck, no good guy Mike Gillis shacks up with a whore and strangles her for her two newborn girls. Gillis steals them and gives them to his wife who can’t bare children herself. Years go by and the girls are subjected to isolation and mental abuse which included the cannibalistic feast of their own adopted mother forced upon them by Gillis. A fiery accident claims the life of Gillis and the girls are thought to be dead and their souls haunt the forest in which they once lived and plague four friends who can’t seem to escape their own past as well as the hauntings in the woods.

Visible Scars leaves more unintentional questions which are produced by numerous scenes that just don’t make much sense – you might say these scenes leave lasting scars. To be more detailed, these scenes just didn’t go into more description of the reason behind the characters’ actions. Why did Gillis go cannibal? What about the enormous span of time between Gillis’s death and the incident with the friends? I won’t sit here and type them all, I rather not bore the readers, but Visible Scars has a bad taste once the credits start to role. One thing is certain, the title is fairly straight forward about the evil in this film, more straight forward than the film itself.
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Even though Sizemore headlines the film, his appearance only lasts a third of the way through the film and then the beauty Jillian Murray (The Graves) takes over. The dual story, Sizemore’s and Murray’s, intertwines by the way of the twin girls – twin girls and twin stories – and only separated by the years in between. The mediocracy of Visible Scars won’t win any film festival awards nor will give Sizemore his reclaim to fame, but I wish more thought was put into the story as I believe there is much more potential with the evil in the woods, yet this mine is far from being tapped and I sense no gold will be struck any time soon for a sequel.

Seeing Evil! Curandero: Dawn of the Demon review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on

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By now I imagine we’re all, by all I mean avid movie-goers, familiar with the director Robert Rodriguez. The balls-to-the-wall flare for action Rodriguez has written and directed some of the most memorable movies in nearly the last two decades – Desperado, From Dusk till Dawn, Planet Terror and, yes, even Spy Kids. Rodriguez is now a well-known household name now that he has his own production company – Troublemaker Studios – and is a hot-shit friend of Django Unchained writer and director Quentin Tarantino (they’re always in each other films if you haven’t noticed). Now, I had thought that I’ve seen all of Rodriguez’s work with the exception of Spy Kids, but I was wrong. Curandero: Dawn of the Demon is a latest release from Lionsgate; however, the movie was completed and released in 2005 – why such a delay? Perhaps the delay was a product of the film being made in and using the language spoken in Mexico. I wouldn’t doubt this as El Mariachi was not known to the American audience until Antonio Banderas and Selma Hayek starred in Desperado, a sort of sequel or remake of El Mariachi, and an American DVD of El Mariachi was released later.

Curandero, which translate to The Healer, follows the healer Carlos – a practical man who uses his knowledge of healing on those he think are weak minded fools just so they feel better about their lives. That is until he meets Mexican Federale Magdalena who hires him to become involved a case where a satanic cult terrorizes Mexico City. Carlos beliefs will be challenged as black magic becomes ultimately real and the forces against him are closer to home than what he could ever imagine.
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Curandero grabs you right from the start as we’re thrown into Carlos’s simple hometown world where he competes with another curandero named Alex Munez who is more popular around town, but even though Carlos thinks his line of work is a bit of a sham, he still makes an effort to please other people making him well liked in the community and has been given respect due to his father’s healing services. The horrifying action begins when Agent Magdalena enters the story; the saucy tall Latina is a realist and doesn’t much in the mumbo-jumbo that is black magic, but her story makes a complete 180 degree turn at the finale and so does Carlos. The story is well written by Rodriguez giving the both Carlos and the federale the same view on spirituality yet making both reason completely different.

Robert Rodriguez’s style directorial feels implemented into Curandero even though Robert Rodriguez didn’t direct the film. It is another Rodriguez who takes the credit for Curandero’s fast-paced, over-exaggerated action. Director Eduardo Rodriguez tries to recreate Robert Rodriguez, but does molds his own take to reconstruct the elements and add great horror qualities that contribute to the action.
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This 2005 cult/possession film should have had a much earlier release in the U.S. There is definitely an appeal here for niche horror fans. Would Curandero have done well with mainstream audiences? No because there is just too much working against Curandero when considering American mainstream audiences – it’s in Spanish, it’s lost in translation with the dialogue, and it deals with some Mexican traditions. Certainly pick this up from Lionsgate Home Entertainment. Curandero will fill your cup of blood and horror.

Crazy Evil Women! Crush review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on

crushCrush might be another edgy, teen melodramatic turned psychotic, obsessive-driven suspense genre film, but Crush provides a solid story that entertains. The teenage day-to-day runs over exaggerated throughout – a teenage life we wish we all had minus the crazy crush. Director Malik Bader works his black magic over his indie project that compares itself to a minor league version of 1993’s (29 years later…coincidence?) Crush starring Alicia Silverstone and Cary Elwes.

The most popular guy in high school has it all – a soccer superstar, good looks, and a beautiful best friend who is head over heels for him. His life seems perfect until a crush begins to secretly stalk him and remove any obstacles that may halt her destructive path that might interrupt their ultimate “union” together.
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I’m going to begin with what I dislike about Crush. Crush, like I mentioned before, over exaggerates the teenage life. High School parties involving alcohol were never this easy to obtain, but for these “kids” the parties seem to be conjured with ease. Also, practically almost no adult presence or the adults are among the clueless crowd throughout the film. Parents are rarely clueless because adults were once teenagers. Thirdly, why in all these obsession thrillers are the mentally unstable women always model-like hot? My mental picture of a woman of this nature, should have a socially unpleasing appearance. I’m imagining a large nose, frizzy hair, over weight, frumpy, maybe even anorexic, gothic and such. However in Crush this is not the case. Lastly, every woman in the film has a hard on for the main character, the soccer superstar. Even his English teacher flirts with him, asks him to call her to “discuss” a novel (even though she never gave him the title of the book).

With all that said, there are numerous undertones to the film. Teacher-student relationship borders are being crossed, the socially accepted version of beauty, the absent presence of adults in a youth’s life, and the way we, as teens, want to perceive our young lives with parties, sex, and alcohol. Crush’s plot plays off these issues, but quickly just hints at most of them and then just as quickly discards.
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Technically, the film can compete with most modern day productions. The story could use strategic work to cover up the twist ending because one could decipher the ending without having to watch the entire film. My most aggravating aspect of Crush is with DVD/Blu-ray cover as this gives away the film’s ending making act one and two of the film pretty much pointless. I’ve probably said too much already, but I won’t go into more details about that. In fact, I’ve probably done enough damage to the film’s reputation, but don’t take my word for it because Crush is certainly entertaining with hints of Swimfan sprinkled throughout – okay, maybe not sprinkled but definitely heavily garnished – and everybody loves watching crazy women when the crazy women aren’t being crazy on them.

Evil Out Your Pineal Gland! From Beyond (Second Sight) review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on

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Perhaps the most very definition of sensory stimulation lies with the Stuart Gordon 1986 mad science horror film From Beyond. Numerous sensors are teased from color perspectives to sexual stimulation to even the thrill of exciting the mind through science. From Beyond is not only a maddeningly weird and utterly slimy film about expanding the pineal gland to the point of losing yourself to a creature ridden other-dimensional world where you’re absorbed into chaotic, gelatinous mutated mass. No. From Beyond lets you fully and freely experience what most people consider to be taboo and frightening.

Dr. Edward Pretorius and his assistant Crawford Tillinghast construct a machine called the Resonator that will tap into the dormant pineal gland of the mind in hopes of expanding to beyond the regions of the mind. When Crawford first turns on the machine, creatures appear swimming in the air and attack Crawford. Ignoring the warnings of possible danger, the obsessed Pretorius turns on the machine and has his head twisted and decapitated by a shape-shifting monster. Crawford’s story lands him committed in an mental institution where he is greeted by Dr. Katherine McMichaels who treats Crawford and wants him to recreate his experience in order to treat what she thinks is schizophrenia. Crawford, Katherine and Bubba Brownlee, an overseeing officer to make sure Crawford behaves himself, return to the Pretorius house to reactivate the Resonator – to recreate the nightmare.

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How can you not read that synopsis and not be curious to see this fun flick? Loosely based of H.P. Lovecraft’s short story of the same title and intertwined with other Lovecraftian stories. We all know that director Stuart Gordon is the true historian behind Lovecraft as he has most likely studied and then directed most of Lovecraft’s stories such as Herbert West-Re-Animator and Dagon. Yet somehow with From Beyond, Gordon and his team did something right; they infused their own ideas and their own creative style making From Beyond more memorable and highly controversial amongst the MPAA. Hell, I’m guessing this is why we can never have a home entertainment copy stay in print for more than 3 years – point in case, the MGM release! Luckily, for you and for me, UK cult and horror film loving Second Sight Films has brought back From Beyond from the DVD grave and has even enhanced the film for Blu-ray!

Oh yeah, Dr. Katherine McMichaels.

Oh yeah, Dr. Katherine McMichaels.

From Beyond really did push the limits with the MPAA; so much in fact that even using green slime over blood to lessen the effect still caused heavily edited down editions. But there are scenes of extreme uncomfortableness which I find a sense of relieve and peacefulness in. Such scenes are with Barbara Crampton in the S&M outfit and she fondles Jeffrey Combs as he lies hair less and injured in bed. If I feel awkward, dirty, or uncomfortable after a scene, I’m extremely enjoying the movie and thank you director, producers, writers, actors, and the rest of the crew in making uncomfortable scenes enjoyable for weird folks as myself. Like I always say, if a horror movie frightens you, then the movie is doing it’s job! From Beyond will surface all sorts of internal emotions and stimulations that cause the sensations to overload and explode much like the Resonator stimulating the pineal gland to the point of blissful agony.

If you want to feel like you’re on a severe acid trip, I’d suggest grabbing From Beyond from Second Sight here before the DVD goes out of print again. Remember, this is a region 2 disc and can only be played on region 2 players so beware!

Evil Mail Call! From Beyond the Iron Doors to eat Bad Meat with Sexsquatch!

Posted by Steven Lewis on

This is what lazy Saturday mornings do to you. Instead of a video or a neat little gif image, I just made a collage in photoshop, but the job gets done.

Bad Meat - From Beyond (Second Sight) - Iron Doors - Sexsquatch

Bad Meat – From Beyond (Second Sight) – Iron Doors – Sexsquatch

You can read my thoughts on Iron Doors here.

I’m thinking Second Sight’s release of From Beyond is next!!!! I’ve seen it before and I have the MGM now OOP version, but I still love the movie and can’t wait to view it again.