Enjoy The Last Night in EVIL’s Hotel. “The Innkeepers” reviewed! (Second Sight Films / 4K UHD Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on September 14, 2025

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The Yankee Pedlar is a historic hospitality hotel with over 100 years of service that comes with its own notorious past and haunted tidings. On the verge of closing for good, the Yankee Pedlar has one more weekend to remain open and house guests but with only a handful of rooms occupied, there’s not much else to do for the two innkeepers, Claire and Luke. As a way to pass the time, Claire is eager to video capture spooky events to feed into Luke’s website based off the hotel’s history in the death of Madeline O’Malle, a bride to be who committed suicide on her wedding day when the finance no-showed and her corpse was left to rot for 3 days in the basement as hotel owners feared for bad publicity, but when eerie begin to plague, call for her, with visions of a bloodied O’Malle in a white gown, Claire finds herself in the dangerous company with a permanent guest at the dying hotel.

Ti West, the established genre director with the famed “X” trilogy, kept audiences pale in fear and the hairs on the back of their neck stiff and straight up with his written-and-directed horror films that retained staying power amongst fans. 2009’s “The House of the Devil” is considered one of the more recent better throwback horrors of our time surrounding classic tropes like a satanic cult and a home alone babysitter. West’s 2011 film “The Innkeepers” comes at a rebound time when his commercial picture, “Cabin Fever 2: Spring Fever”, sequel to Eli Roth’s breakthrough hit from 2002 about a flesh-eating virus, didn’t quite feel like his film and “The Innkeepers” also hit a little different by shielding audiences from any type of horrific, on screen splatter violence and be concentrated on pure fear of the senses. Though narratively set in perhaps Pennsylvania due to some references of towns an hour outside of Philadelphia, “The Innkeepers” was actually filmed more North in Connecticut with the real-life Yankee Pedlar building. Larry Fessenden (“The Last Winter,” “Rehab”) of Glass Eye Pix and Derek Curl of Darksky Pictures co-produce the film along with Peter Phok and Ti West.

In the two principal roles of Claire and Luke is “Barbarian’s” Sara Paxton as an unmotivated hotel clerk coasting until the very, bitter end and “Cheap Thrill’s” Pat Healy as a blasé and uninterested front desk colleague interested in getting on the popular haunted house train with his own website about their employer’s centenarian hotel. Paxton inarguably shoulders much of the screentime as the girl who cried wolf when she experience’s the sounds of a wolf, aka the spooky serenades of one Madeline O’Malle, and the visual eviscerations of her bloodied corpse that would scare the bejesus out of anyone. However, the frights are not enough to seemingly strike fear in Paxton’s shield of composure or even enough to put West’s story to rest with a simple I’m outta here as most of us chickens would flock toward the exit on the first instance waking from a vivid dream too real for comfort. Healy ultimately steals the primary performance away from Paxton with his own gruff and irritated by everything: the hotel, the guests, his own pitiful existence. Healy does a nice job creating that subtle tension between Luke and Claire, knowing Luke’s own hangups lie somewhere in between and haven’t been exposed yet, all the while being a sarcastic boor for most of the time. There are also side characters in the form of random guests occupying the skeleton-crewed hotel bringing with them their own set of baggage. One of guests is Kelly McGillis and the “Top Gun” actress, in a bit of a meta-role of an aging actress turned mystic. There’s also Alison Bartlett (Gina from various Sesame Street shows and specials) and Jake Ryan (“Asteroid City”) as scorned wife and her son and the peculiar older gentlemen, played by George Riddle, who requests a special room and will not take no for an answer. One of the more curious castings is Girls’ Lena Dunham as a coffeeshop barista in a one and only brief scene that doesn’t add really anything to the whole in a pointlessly random interaction with Claire that, perhaps, plays off Claire’s repetitiveness and stasis life of going there everyday but not really knowing much about the barista, who is apparently always there too.

Juggling between the blended tones of comedy and horror, Ti West doesn’t commingle the two directly into one scene, keeping distinction for one or the other in their individualized moments. This leaves little room for alleviating dread levity inside the scare moment after building tension and fear of being chased or waiting for the silence to be broken but an unsuspected jump scare. Outside the context of the fright-filled moment, back and forth quips and playful antics between Luke and Claire as two bored and starved for company innkeepers in the hotel’s waning days are delivered in brightly lit rooms and mostly shared with another person to be a telltale safe space against the malevolence of serrating spook-house intensity that often lingers and waits on with bated breath. In the innermost between is Claire’s internal struggle to cope with the impending outcome that there is nothing on the horizon for her. No secure job, no ambitions, no plans of any kind are seemingly providing the character with no hope and in that stagnation, she desperately holds onto what’s nearby – Luke’s interest in the Yankee Pedlar’s hauntings. Enhanced by the odd actions and placement of the modicum of guests – McGillis as a crystal charm intuitive and Riddle as a strange-enough older man with a specific room fascination – Claire motivation to reveal Madeline O’Malle becomes tenfold because of her unconscious lack to move forward in life, which then spurs the question, is Claire’s experiences grounded in truth or are they just a downspout of manifestations induced compensation? You’ll have to be the judge.

Like “House of the Devil,” another of Ti West films makes the Second Sight Film cut onto a newly restored 4K scanned UHD Blu-ray release. “The Innkeepers” HVEC encoded, 2160p ultra high-definition, BD100 has the true presence of quality video with a gradual improvement in the finer details of a greater pixel count inside the HDR with Dolby Vision. Though digitally recorded with a no imperfections to note from previous releases, Second Sight’s release does appear sharper and deeper around the black levels that often improve with better resolution and suitable compression and with a good portion of the story taking place in the dark recesses of a hotel basement and the in the shadows of unlit rooms, there’s no visual compression issue or loss of expected detail. Contrastively, darker scenes appear more lit by a lower contrast but still, the details are there in depth and in closeup. The English DTS-HD 5.1 surround sound audio track diffuses the spread of atmospheric creepiness – ghosts whispers, nondiegetic bangs and clangs, and a Jeff Grace building orchestral score that keeps the heart bumping (think Richard Band’s “Re-Animator” but with more lulls”). Dialogue is prominently clear and in front of the aforesaid layers with depth mostly between Claire and Luke’s conversing in the lobby and range limited to, again, the aforesaid. English subtitles are available. Though this review is catered to the limited edition, rigid slipbox release full of tangible goodies, the standard release does have encoded a small army of special features that has two audio commentaries with the first including Ti West, producer Larry Fessenden of Glass Eye Pix, producer Peter Phok, and sound designer Graham Reznick and the second commentary also West but with principal actors Sara Paxton and Pat Healy. A slew of new interviews provide a well-rounded, in-depth look at the creative design as It West A Lasting Memory, Pat Healy Let’s Make This Good, Larry Fessenden Our Dysfunctional World, director of photography Eliot Rockett Living in the Process, composer Jeff Grace Cast a Wide Net, and line producer Jacob Jaffke A Validating Moment contribute to the retrospective. Special features round out with archival behind-the-scenes and the trailer. The physical presence of Second Sight’s “The Innkeepers” keeps in-line with previous standard edition 4K releases with a black Amaray case and a monochromic grayish illustrative cover art setting audiences up for ghostly expectations. The UK certified 15 release contains strong horror, gore, language, and sex reference – though the gore is subtle and definitely not over-the-top or even explicit. This particular UK release, that has a runtime of 101 minutes, is region free and presented in a widescreen 2.40:1 aspect ratio.

Last Rites: “The Innkeepers” works, if not wriggles, into the brain, much like the invasive worthlessness inside Claire’s swirling mind, and the Second Sight Films’ 4K UHD Blu-ray is an ultimate celebration of not only the film itself, but also the venerable work of the horror genre’s freshest master Ti West.

Book a Copy of “The Innkeepers” on 4K Ultra High-Definition!

The Slammer is Full of Correctional Officer EVIL in “Lust for Freedom” reviewed!

Posted by Steven Lewis on June 23, 2023

The Jailed Chicks “Lust for Freedom” on Blu-ray!

Broken by the violent death of her partner, who she was also engaged to marry, after a drug bust goes south, undercover officer Gillian Kaites abandons law enforcement and drives across country in an internal turmoiled mess. She’s pulled over by a Georgia County cop after she aids a frantic woman fleeing to escape two men in a black van. Framed for narcotics possession by the corrupt officer, Gillian is drugged and locked away in the County’s women’s penitentiary overseen a strong-handed matron and an unscrupulous warden who dabbles in prostitution trafficking, drug smuggling, and even the occasional snuff filmmaking. Back into a cellblock corner, Gillian must defend herself against the warden’s goons, protect other girls also falsely incarcerated, and lean into the sympathetic ear of the same corrupt cop that framed her after voicing his years of disgust with the warden’s malfeasance.

Part II of our bamboozled behind bars and following the 1986 examination of Eric Karson’s military simulation turned enslavement “Opposing Force,” is our next feature helmed by another director named Eric, notably Eric Louzil, with “Lust for Freedom.” The debut film of Louzil, who went on to helm “Class of Nuke ‘Em High Part II and Part II” for Lloyd Kauman and Michael Herz of Troma Entertainment as well as slaving over standalone horror and sleazy schlockers in “Bikini Beach Race” and “Night of the Beast,” was also the first feature penned by the American-born, UCLA grad with a penchant for low-budget lewidies, cowritten alongside the “Shadows Run Black” writing duo, Craig Kusaba and Duke Howard. With the working title of “Georgia County Lockup,” which in actuality the film was shot in various California and Nevada locations, such as Ely, Nevada, “Lust for Freedom” is an 8 x 8 cell of nudity, violence, and corruption under the co-production companies of Mesa Films and Troma Entertainment, with the latter reediting the original script and adding ADR adlibs to apply a sexed up and Troma-fied integration of product into their independent collection. Louzil and Laurel A. Koernig produce the film with Troma bigwigs Lloyd Kaufman and Michael Herz as executive producers.

“Lust for Freedom” has many eccentric characters with many assorted plotlines in what is essentially an all women battle royal brawl in the cat-scratchin calaboose. Stirring up trouble like a piece of scrap metal lodged in the gears of a well-oiled machine is tall and beautiful former cop, Gillian Kaites. Played by Melanie Coll in her only known role, Kaites is only the bear in the bees’ nest, forced into confinement under false pretenses and to be subjugated by the likes of a wayward officialdom with lust in their eyes, greed in their pockets, and a disdain for disobedience. Coll’s a bit flat footed with her performance and her Karate Kokutsu Dachi stance could use some improvement, but the tall, muscular, curly haired and light blonde actress can wield a multi-round popping automatic rifle with authority. Stark against her Amazonian physique, not in a hard pressed and sexualized way, is main antagonist is the unbecoming Southern gentleman Warden Maxwell under the balding and overweight guise Howard Knight, but Kaites is more in tune against the procrustean penitentiary matron Ms. Pusker and Judi Trevor gives a Hell in a cell pastiche of early fascist women of Roger Corman produced WIP films, enforcing her will with prison muscle in the miscreant tough Vicky (Elizabeth Carlisle, “Evil Acts”) and the oversized guerilla (professional wrestler Dee “Matilda the Hun” Booher, “Spaceballs,” “DeathStalker II”). Ultimately, Kaites sees her only path to escape through the very same person that wrongly confines her in the first place. William J. Kulzer (“Class of Nuke ‘Em High Part II: Subhumanoid Meltdown”) doesn’t quite fit the corrupted bill of Sheriff Coale, a mild manner and seemingly reasonable officer who goes with the despicable flow of sex trafficking amongst other indelicacies. Yet, maybe that’s the purpose in Kulzer’s character, to be conflicted by the choices he and his callous cohort has made that made him stick out as the least repulsive individual behind the concreate and metal barred big house. “Lust for Freedom” rounds out the cast with Donna Lederer, John Tallman, George Engelson, Rob Rosen, Shea Porter, Rich Crews, Raymond Oceans, Elizabeth Carroll, Lor Stickel, and Joan Tixei.

Gratuitous, full-frontal lesbian sex. Yes, “Lust for Freedom” appeals to the very definition of its own title, like many other WIP productions and though a core element to the integrity of the subgenre, the creamy smoothness of two curvaceous, naked bodies getting it on shouldn’t always be the main selling point. Luckily, Louzil ponies up more salacious material for his pinks in the clink caper. An elaborate spiderweb of activity balloons and pulsates outward from the moment Kaites crosses path with an evening-dressed escapee being chased by a scary looking Native American and his sociopathic hooligan partner in a black van. “Lust for Freedom” may be hammy and cheesy but what it’s definitely not is dull in its multifaceted approach to expose character layers. Some characters grade more toward deviancy, such as Warden Maxwell and Ms. Pusker, while others are lifted toward a more redemptive means, such as with Sheriff Coale; that shepherd “Lust for Freedom” into a culminating jailbreak. The narrative doesn’t necessarily focus around Kaites but she’s on a redemption arc to dig her out of a despair pit and into a fight worth fighting for purpose after the death of her finance, set up in the opening act. As she evades the Vickey’s directed infringement to rough up the new girl, Kaites takes under her wing a fright clink chick named, another wrongly accused prisoner after being taken wandering the road, a theme that is a reoccurring motif from Kaites to Donna in thinking the young women can manage the world and their problems on their own accord but at a cost. However, whatever semblance is left of Louzil’s original script has likely been lost once Troma revamped it into the finished product you see today. Riddled with choppy cuts and incoherent segues, we have to wonder about Kaites’ role that may have been transmuted into a lesser core commodity in the final product.

Troma Entertainment releases a high-def, Blu-ray release of “Lust for Freedom.” The AVC encoded, 1080p resolution, widescreen release, in a 1.78:1 aspect ratio, compressed from its original aspect ratio of 1.85:1. Lloyd Kaufman mentions Louzil had shot the film on 16 mm and Troma subsequently blew up the negative to a 35 mm print that reframes the transfer for projection. Image-wise, the picture appears relatively clean albeit a plush grain and a few visible 16 mm cigarette burns with little-to-no age wear or exposure issue and the BD25 storage format has capacity aplenty to render an adequately compressed image with hardly any loss to the quality. Since the quality is heavily granulated, definitely no DNR implemented, the compression doesn’t suffer from a lack of a sharper, restored image. The audio is an English language Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo can be echoey at times, as if the boom is catching warehouse reflection, but dialogue does topple in an appropriately laid out track mix that’s intertwined with hair metal band Grim Reaper’s titular “Lust for Freedom” single. We don’t get a ton of depth in the close quarters of the prison set but neither do we receive any depth in the exteriors either, sustaining most of the volume in a forefront stasis. Troma adds spotty ADR to kitschy up to Troma’s ludicrous level and its quite evident like a sore thumb that doesn’t quite match the ingrained audio mix. There are no subtitles available. Extras include the original DVD intro by Lloyd Kaufman, which also plays automatically at the startup of the feature, a directory’s commentary by Eric Louzil that is asynchronous with the feature in what is an approx. one-minute delay behind the Louzil’s retrospect, the original theatrical trailer, an interview with Lloyd Kaufman, a brief, brief clip of Eli Roth’s encouragement to just go and do a movie to the best of your ability, a Troma-themed showcase of one of their more modern Tromettes – Mercedes the Muse, the Radiation March, Gizzard Face 2: The Return of Gizzard Face, which has been on a slew of Troma’s releases over the past year, and coming attractions from the independent company. The Blu-ray comes in a tradition snapper with a guard tower, barbed wired, and Gillian Kaites with a semi-auto in her grip and barely cladded and torn clothes. No insert inside the case and the disc pressed art is the same as the cover illustration. This Troma release comes unrated, is region free, and has a runtime of 94 minutes. Plenty of desire for “Lust for Freedom,” busty babes behind bars barely bores and this vintage Troma keeps the WIP lacquer wet with self-satisfactory sadism and sexual spiciness.

The Jailed Chicks “Lust for Freedom” on Blu-ray!

Little Book of EVILs. “The Last Thing Mary Saw” reviewed! (Arachnid Films / Digital Screener)

Posted by Steven Lewis on August 15, 2021

Southold, New York, 1843. A young, once-proper, daughter, Mary, of a puritanical family sits before an investigator as suspect of the brutal massacre of her family. Her eyes having been gouged and plucked from her skull, Mary can’t see the musket rifles pointed straight at her as she’s assumed to be practicing dark dealings being the sole survivor. She must recount the exact details of story that begins with the family’s severe punishments imposed upon her and the house maid whose practically publicized intimate relationship was seen as wicked, sinful, and embarrassing. Unable to be discouraged by disapproval and cruel corrections, Mary and the maid continue to sneak their forbidden affair but did she and her lover commit the heinous crime or was there more behind the veil involving an infinite evil, bound by a mysterious book, pulling at the marionette strings that has cursed Mary and her bigoted family?

Tackling themes of homosexuality in the 1800s in the time of itchy-trigger-finger heresy pointing and dogmatic ideologies comes the debut horror film of writer-direct Edoardo Vitaletti entitled “The Last Thing Mary Saw.” The Northeastern Americana thriller is a fermenting tale of a remote extended family, of some wealth and stature, trying to remedy the eldest daughter’s uninhibited rendezvous with an equal in age young house maid by subjecting them both to torturous corrections aka kneeling on uncooked rice while reciting a specific passage regarding sin from scripture. Vitaletti’s first feature length film is from executive producers Joseph Michael Lagana (“Actress Apocalypse”), Mike Nichols (Eli Roth’s “Fin”), Keryn Redstone, and Scoop Wasserstein and from New York based production companies Arachnid Films and Intrinsic Value Films.

“The Last Thing Mary Saw” has an intriguing cast as well as a cast, at least I think, everyone should love. When this Washington, D.C. born actress is not pretending to be a creepy psychotic child, “Orphan’s” Isabelle Fuhrman finds other ways to slip into tightknit family structures. The now 24-year old Fuhrman plays house maid Eleanor who continues to fight for Mary’s affection despite Mary’s closed minded and religiously persecuting large, all-in-one-house family. Mary, the titular character played by “Insidious: The Last Key’s” Stefanie Scott, has stars in her eyes as she’s hot for the maid, but I couldn’t find that deeper connection between Fuhrman and Scott whose characters even further themselves from each other by being more intent on beating the system rather than being romantically and consummately intimate. It’s almost as if Vitaletti starts beyond the point of building up the relationship, having prefabricated Eleanor and Mary’s love, and is only thirsty for the consequences that follow. The lovers become embroiled into the family’s personal problem with their daughter’s relationship and at the helm of it all is the matriarch at the hands of Judith Roberts. The “Dead Silence” and “Orange is the New Black” actress embodies coldly an unyielding crone that eager wants to keep the so-called troublesome maid with the family, even if that means passing her skillset to uncle Eustace (Tommy Black) and his wife and adolescent child (Dawn McGee and “Starry Eyes’” Shane Coffey). The crux of the problem starts with the father (Michael Laurence) who brings a book filled of peculiar, teratology-related storiettes that might not be odd today, but were damn near witchcraft in the mid-19^th century, and that’s when things begin to spiral bleakly with manipulation and suffering in various ways. “The Last Thing Mary Saw” rounds out the cast with Carolyn McCormick, P.J. Sosko, Daniel Pearce, Stephen Lee Anderson, and “Scream 4’s” Rory Culkin as credited “The Intruder.”

What intrigues most about Vitaletti’s script is no character is inherently labeled as a conventional genre trope. The chapter-storied narrative plays out in three parts with the title paralleling the contents of the mysterious red book as well as the action in each plotted chapter. What seems orthodox for the film’s set period in punishing those in same-sex relations alluded “The Last Thing Mary saw” to be a tale of sordid, Godless misconceptions and yearning attraction between two young women, but then the catalyst happens, a supernatural being is revealed, and then the tide turns from the sinister misguided to the sinister malevolent. Another Vitaletti explores another theme: hate. Mary hates her own family to the point of setting out revenge upon them; she would do anything to not separated from Eleanor, but yet Eleanor remains in the house, not dismissed, or reassigned to another house. Hate festers into everything, boils closely at the edge, not just for Mary and Eleanor but for the family who hates secular unions, hate embitters in the grounds security guard after his leg was purposefully crippled for running away, and hate also tears are Rory Culkin’s The Intruder whose monstrous birth has left him with no family or respect amongst his peers so he must take away from others. Without production designer Charlie Chaspooley and costume designer Sofija Mesicek, there wouldn’t be this resurrection of early 1800s resemblance that’s essential for the story’s period and the acting also smooths out the dialogue of a yonder-forgotten dialect of a lingering British-English set in area of Long Island. Though I like where the story progresses and how climactically ends, following along with Vitaletti’s script falls nearly deaf on a coherent understanding. Plot points do come out of nowhere at times that don’t segue neatly enough for comfort and we’re left with a mountain of enigma that somehow ties Mary, the book, and an unconventional Matriarch together into a dysfunctional family affair; yet, the sullen atmosphere makes for good unbenevolent folkloric horror coupled with Vitaletti’s incredible patience the scenes with immense anticipation and dread.

Premiering worldwide at the virtual rendition of the Fantasia Film Festival, “The Last Thing Mary Saw” will be a part of the festival’s first wave of films for attendees. No digital, on demand, or physical release dates have been set for this occult horror drama from first time feature director Edoardo Vitaletti, so you will have something to look forward to in the coming days of new releases! Director of photography, David Kruta, has come along way since the unfinished mess with the discarded survival-slasher “Old 37” by maintaining Vitaletti’s natural rustic scheme of the early 1800s and then toil with the phantasmal occult in one or two scenes with an airy, dreamy, and, if not, an ethereally beauty in it’s parlous context. Situational context is also key when a scene with a long stretch of no dialogue becomes the means to an end and Kruta has to capture culmination of storytelling through the facial emotions and body gestures coordinating in light charade as well as a more hefty depressed language. “The Last Thing Mary Saw” is unpretentious horror done right with a melancholic reflection of a bygone past mixed with obscure occult elements wresting life from already blinded grips consumed by hate and arrogance is pure bread and butter for a director just getting warmed up.

Sit Back. Relax. And Wank Off to EVIL’s “Live Feed” reviewed! (Unearthed Films / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on December 7, 2020

While on vacation in China, five friends traverse the local festivities and drinking holes, relaxing in the surroundings of an alien culture of their getaway destination, but when one of them accidently bumps into a depraved Chinese Triad boss, they believe to have nearly escaped a localized international incident with the help of a Japanese vacationer who seems to know quite a bit about this particular Triad boss. To blow off steam, and to blow off some loads, the friends patron the Venus Theater, a sleazy porno theater offering 1-hour couples VIP rooms. Their short-lived, and short-comings, visit turns into a terrifying nightmare of broadcasted kill rooms as they find themselves trapped inside the theater owned by the Triad boss for his personal snuff cinema experience and fine dining of cannibal cuisine. Fried dong and balls are 100% MSG free.

With a Ryan Nicholson directed film, you never know just what to expect. From our reviews of the Vancouver native’s work, his teen slasher “Famine” was an angsty disappointment, his destitute slaughterhouse “Collar” collided technical gaffes with sordid satisfaction, and his most renowned direction on the bowling-themed retro-slasher, “Gutterballs” displayed a primal brilliance that rolled one hell of a strike down the lanes of indie filmmaking, but the late, great gore hound filmmaker always lit up our screens with a single reoccurring theme – flashes of red. Lots and lots of red blood that is! The blood geysers and gushes in heaps in Nicholson’s 2006 release, the written and directed, “Live Feed” that touts SOV violence in an arcane snuff style. Co-written with his father, Roy Nicholson (“It Waits”), the self-taught, special effects prodigy bursts onto the full length feature scene with an introductory exploitation and survival horror full of ambition, insane effects, and a narrative bred specifically for fountaining blood. Self-funded under Nicholson’s Plotdigger Films, the ”Live Feed” legacy continues to output interest in the gore and snuff subcategories with updated home video distributed releases throughout the years, keeping the resourceful, twisted humor filmmaker alive and well in our hearts and collections.

The story revolves around five friends, or more intimately, the hapless stars of a snuff theater production, who are not the most chaste or morally concerned individuals finding themselves center stage because of their wanton whims and uninhibited fortes. Out of the touristy Americans in a given the impression of being a strange and sordid foreign land, one of them quickly becomes established as the primary beacon of hope as an unassertive wiser in Emily played by Taayla Markell in her first lead performance. Though their long history makes for easy persuasion into participating, from a distance, in their lewd behaviors, Emily’s hemmed in around familiar perversities derived from her good friends and even her finance. Mike, a muscular, drug-fueled blowhard develops his crass charisma from “Stan Helsing’s” Lee Tichon, Mike’s current and former girlfriends, Sarah and Linda, in tinge of tattered relationships by Caroline Chojnacki and Ashley Schappert, and Darren, Emily’s douchebag, philandering fiancé played by “Skew’s” Rob Scattergood, lead Emily astray from her own self-preserving inner voice when their arrogance and laxed attitudes place them in hot water with a sadistic Triad Boss. Stephen Chang fills in the gangster roll with a plastic energy that’s over-the-top and absurd just like the two women who hang off each side of his arm in hackneyed fashion, offering very little to outshine as a sadistic megalomaniac. Luckily for the out-of-towners who are soon-to-be-goners, they coincidently meet the conversant Miles Nakamura (“Mortal Kombat: Legacy’s” Kevan Ohtski) who round houses his way through a torrent of bad guys to save his newfound American friends, but for what reason goes over our heads other than the potential guilt of knowing he left them to their demise. Greg Chan, Mike Bennett, Ted Friend, Colin Foo and introducing boner-fide stripper, Charlene McCulloch, with an in your face pole dance rounding out the cast.

Whether in a stroke of good luck or an ill-timely misfortune, Eli Roth’s highly popular and profitable “Hostel” was released a year earlier in 2005 and while Nicholson’s surely cantered behind that gore porn locomotive in the early 2000’s that sauntered a path for many filmmakers to make unbridled torture and tits productions in the wake, “Hostel” undoubtedly provided some hinderance by scraping some of the shock value from off the sticky theater venue floors of “Live Feed.” The characters were also nothing to write home about, or in this case, to write highly about, as the circumstances that churn the dynamics amongst their closed circle friendship don’t dissolve until well onto the cusp of being dismembered and thus becoming a moot investable or relatable venture that was, in a way, still crawling for the finish line with spotty payments on Darren and Emily’s acute about-face relationship, the only turbulent character context that saw contentious action. Yet, there is wonder why “Live Feed” even attempts to brittle or outright break the bonds between friends and lovers in a film that’s all about the blood, about the blood, no trouble, as I channel my Megan Trainor phrases that probably sounds better in my head than in my review. Unless Emily and Darren’s woes play later into the story, as a point of significant break from the other or in a glimmer of salvaging something between them, the purpose is purposeless and the blood should pool together the entire snuff narrative without an emotional hiccup. Speaking of blood, the effects between Jason Ward (“American Mary”) and Ryan Nicholson couldn’t have been better executed with a pliable, tangible, and free from visual imagery arsenal at their fingertips with prosthetics upon prosthetics of grisly skirmish matter.

“Live Feed” has it all: cannibalism, decapitations, sex, bondage, medieval torture, kung fu, snakes, pole dancing, barbecued penis, sword play, a “Big Trouble in Little China” old man Lo-Pan lookalike, and gallons of spattering blood. All of the above now arrives uncut and uncensored onto an Unearthed Films Collector’s Edition Blu-ray release. The region A BD50 presents the transfer in a widescreen, 1.85:1 aspect ratio, enclosed with various formatted styles from the poor resolution of SOV to a full-bodied and unstrained digital playback lit up with vibrant neon lightening by director of photography, Sasha Popove, to create an illuminating florescent color splay of a universal Asian urban district. The sundry of styles can be weighty on the sequences that challenge what should be natural segues into the next scene, but the format choices, from mostly handheld vantage points, interrupt the flow with a nonsensical fluidity. Unearthed Films amassed a legacy-stamping amount of extra content with a commentary with Ryan Nicholson and cast, a making-of segment entitled “Behind the Blood” which is geared toward being a tell-all on how they spun and produced “Live Feed’s” fruition, a return to the Venus Theater location with a low-key walkthrough of scene locations and you get a little X-rated show during a live project run, deleted scenes, alternate scenes and ending, the video feed footage, photo gallery, trailers, and a short film entitled “Womb Service” of the softcore feature playing background of the feature story. There’s also an “Adult version” of “Live Feed” in the bonus material that includes the original runtime feature but with edited in hardcore footage; however, personally, did not notice any sultry inserts. Maybe they’re brief and missable…? In the experience unravelling Ryan Nicholson’s work, “Live Feed” is the filmmaker’s second best movie with wholehearted intention to jazz it up with as much blood and exploitation as possible and his loss, as a person and an exorable filmmaker with room for ghoulish growth we’ll never experience, stings to this day.

“Live Feed” blu-ray now on sale at Amazon.com. Click the cover to go to Amazon.

Writer’s Block is a Fictional Author’s EVIL! “Blood Paradise” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on July 23, 2019

Flustered about the severe flop of her latest book, crime novelist Robin Richards encounters writers’ block as a result. Losing inspiration in the big city with her droll boy-toy, her publisher recommends a visit to the scenic Swedish countryside as a change of pace that’ll remove her out from the comfortable surroundings and, hopefully, begin to craft new ideas for a rebound book. Totally out of her element quartered inside a farm residence, Richards can’t help to investigate her peculiar hosts and a chauffeur, a super fan who is besotted with her while his wife voices her utter disdain for the writer, but their odd behaviors stimulate inspiration for her work beyond her ability to observe that something is dreadfully and dangerously wrong with them.

From a title that can be interpreted as an oxy-moron, “Blood Paradise” spills onto the screen as a sexy suspense-thriller with pinpoint-peppered dry comedy. The Swedish bred film is directed by Patrick von Barkenberg, who also has an important-minor role contribution to the narrative as well as co-written alongside the film’s lead, Andréa Winter, that proposes total control over the juxtaposition of not only the sane versus the insane, but also enthralls with a crime storyteller from the city thrust into her own calamitous tale of murder on the rural fringes. Barkenberg and Winter have poised chemistry weaving a story that’s mostly building the bizarre attributes of characters with even Robin Richards’ pooled into that group being a stranger in a strange land; the filmmakers’ past collaborations of short films, including “A Stranger Without” and “A Little Bit of Bad,” firmly establishes them as being the right kind auteurs for the job.

As stated in the above, Andréa Winter stars as Robin Richards, an adventurously alluring writer willing to try anything to get her career back on track. Winter, who is also an electro indie pop singer in Baby Yaga, is as stunning at her performance as she is in her natural beauty with a role that tenaciously exhibits her uneasiness with the locals and their bare necessities while also not being afraid to bare nearly all herself in compromising positions and places. While Robin is most solitary in conversation as she is interactions with other characters, there’s great dynamic contrast with Hans. Hans Bubi and, yes, if you say it out loud, a definite nod to a memorable line from “Die Hard.” Played by Christer Cavallius in his sole imdb.com credit, Cavallius’s wide-eyed and big smile below his shoulder length hair makes him a comical to a point and when you add Hans’ current hell of a marital status with a potted plants devoted woman and his mental blocking obsession with Robin Richards, the overly flawed and desperately optimistic character has hopes and dreams from a slim chance opening that he is hesitant in completely seizing, though we, and even perhaps Hans himself, knows the outcome if he took the risk. Another character highly involved in Richards’ circle of exchanges is with the farmer, Rolf, played by Rolf Brunnström. Rolf is a seriously complex character, an irresistible mystery to the author who spies on his enigmatic tasks involving a locked barn with windows covered with plastic. Rolf’s detached and impassive with his wife’s death that looms throughout the story and Brunnström, a middle-aged man, turns out to be more than his simple life implies. “Blood Paradise” remaining cast includes Martina Novak, Ingrid Hedström, Ellinor Berglund, and Frankie Batista.

Finding the comedy in a film like “Blood Paradise” might be a task suited for people with a dark sense of humor, but the quality is present and can be compared to the offbeat nature that Eli Roth subtly nurtured in his breakout flesh-eating squeamish-er “Cabin Fever.” Dry and restrained, the comedy is dialed down to a low-lying hum in “Blood Paradise,” honing in frequently on the sexualized suspense that’s audience attractive and runs parallel with Robin Richards profession as a crime novelist who pens tales involving gimp-cladded deviants, and the story simmers to a boil, reducing down story intricacies into an unraveled macabre of things once dead are now very much alive in transcendence, just like a good crime narrative should unfold.

Gripping with toe-curling tension, “Blood Paradise” arrives on a Blu-ray home video courtesy of the Philadelphia based distribution company, Artsploitation Films. Presented in HD, full 1080p anamorphic widescreen, 2.35:1 aspect ratio, Artsploitation Films has a remarkable looking release on their hands that’s soft where intended and detailed where necessary, registering a vast palette of rich colors thats typical with digital films recorded with an Arri camera, as listed on the internet movie data base. The English and Swedish 5.1 Dolby Digital surround sound has an equally good and clean facet of range and depth for a rather subdued thriller that’s more mystery, than panic stricken. Soundtrack by Andréa Winter adds a bit of lively-atrocity synth that doesn’t push through enough to be a factor in it’s assimilation between the ambience and dialogue tracks. Bonus material includes three deleted scenes and two music videos by Baby Yaga – “Dreamer” and “You and Me” – that feature artistic renders of the film. “Blood Paradise” is no tick sipping on sangre-sangrias on a beach somewhere. Patrick von Barkenberg’s “Blood Paradise” captivates in the inexplicable without sheering away from fraught character contexts while still maintaining a healthy dose of sex appeal and blood.