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The Home Recordings of a Pure EVIL! “August Underground: Mordum” reviewed! (Unearthed Films / Blu-ray/DVD combo)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“August Underground:  Mordum” Limited Collector’s Edition!

Uncompassionately deranged serial torture and murderer Peter Mountain is back.  Along with his maniacal partner Maggot and his depraved sister Crusty, whose also Peter Mountain’s girlfriend, the terrorizing trio videotape their exploits with no shame and with no end from no matter how mundane to no matter how gruesomely vile.  Rage and lust mix together with sociopathy and psychopathy, resulting in a dangerous combination for whomever crosses their path.  Shocking glimpses of their killing spree reflect through the lens of their camcorder, capturing every kidnap, imprisonment, confinement, rape, mutilation, torture, and eventually murder of their sadomasochistic onslaught onto every random, unlucky soul but with every moment of madness captured, their no so friendly friendship verges ever closer toward a volatile collapse when Maggot and his sister Crusty hook up from time-to-time and the perpetually aggressive juggernaut Peter Mountain is on the brink of breaking more beyond his broken mental state.

The return of Peter Mountain marks the return of shock and gore director Peter Vogel with “August Underground:  Mordum,” the 2003 sequel to Vogel’s unnervingly raw depiction of depravity and exploitation in “August Underground” released two years prior.  Not a traditionally subsequent sequel, “Mordum” is a standalone entry with only the presence return of Peter Mountain to connect the two stories together, but “Mordum” initially didn’t start out as a sequel and only morphed into a feature when Vogel was requested to shoot gruing material for the aptly named death/gore metal band Necrophagia and the band’s lead singer, Frank “Killjoy” Pucci, suggested to turn the material in a follow up film of “August Underground” with Killjoy co-wring alongside Toe Tag Picture’s Vogel, Christie Whiles, Michael Todd Schneider and Jerami Cruise.  What emerged felt like an organic chapter in Peter Mountain’s found footage mausoleum of bloodlust mayhem.  Shot in and around the Pittsburg, Pennsylvania area, “Mordum” is a production of Toe Tag Pictures under executive producer Jerami Cruise.

2001’s “August Underground” brought a terribly raw image to the independent cinema fold that house realistic depictions of the utmost evil and perversion.  So much so, a few of the cast members decided to not use their real names.  For Peter Vogel, a follow up film was like another day walking in the park as a proud papa of his villainous protagonist Peter Mountain, an eclipsingly large and laughing feverishly fiend of a man who preys on the cries and screams of his victims.  “Mordum” introduces us to two new actors into the fold with Christie Whiles, who would reprise Mountain’s girlfriend Crusty in the third Entry “Penance,” and Michael Todd Schneider (“I Never Left the White Room”) as Crusty’s brother Maggot.  It’s not exactly made clear if Maggot is a returning character, the hyena chuckling man behind the character played by pseudonym Allen Peters, or not.  In either way, Whiles and Schneider are equally as vicious on screen as Vogel but invite a whole of a hell a lot more nudity, non-simulated genitalia fondling, and induced vomiting to give “Mordum” that extra mile of stomach-churning, eye-adverting discomfort.  As the fluids deluge in scene-after-scene of massacre depictions, the triple threat come across a like-minded individual, played by the person who very much encourage and inspired for the sequel.  The late Frank Pucci, aka Killjoy, the front man for Necrophagia plays an equal with a slaughter shed full of rotting, putrid corpses, beheaded babies with maggots, and prime meat tied and lying in wait for him to butcher as his leisure.  “Mordum” offers up a slew of victims in different abattoir and snuff scenarios, casted with a rising makeup artist in a pre-crew acting role Midian Crosby (with makeup credits including “Halloween Ends,” “Cop Car,” and “Guardians of the Galaxy Vol. 3”) and Elmo Painter in the vomit and viscera evacuation scene, Rick Kundrach and Tim Grubjesik as unfortunate junkies, as well as Chris Shaw, Shelby Lyn Vogel, Allana Sleeth, Dave Brown, Erika Schultz a few pseudonyms in Daisy, M. Kadath, and E. Jay, and with Ultra Violent Magazine editor Art Ettinger.

Similar to the first film, “Mordum” has no plot in it’s a series of found footage flashes in the day in the life of a serial killer.  This approach makes what you’re having to behold for 70-minutes that much more plausible and realistic and what you’re seeing is quintessential gore porn.  “Saw” wasn’t the basis of the coined term.  No, my sanguine licking friends.  Fred Vogel pioneered that course three years earlier with his sick and twisted show of seminal underground.  The only reason why Vogel wasn’t at the top of the gore porn list was because none of his films had mainstream theatrical runs.  However, literally, “Mordum” contains that borderline porn element of exposed and molested nudity, the below the waste naughty parts that don’t see a tone of skin-to-skin action, and there’s certainly enough gore to go around and around and around and around again.  Some of those smaller gore elements were real, such as skin cutting.  Another element that makes “Mordum” effectively morbid is the special effects work by Vogel, Jerami Cruise (who has gone on to do major studio films from his extreme horror indies), and the late Ryan Nicholson (director of “Gutterballs” and who also was a special effects supervisor on a wide scope of studio and indie films) who provided many of the dismembered and grimed up dummy props framed through a standard definition, commercial camcorder for the Necrophagia music video.  If no story arises, one hell of a damn good show must come out of the horrific footage and Peter Vogel and the Toe Tag team achieve diabolical decadence with stomach content-emptying pizzazz.

Unearthed Films and Toe Tag Pictures have teamed up to release limited edition releases of Peter Vogel’s “August Underground” trilogy.  “Mordum” receives the royal physical release treatment with a 2-disc, Blu-ray/DVD, Limited Collector’s Edition.  The Blu-ray is an AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition, BD50 can only be so detailed with a shaky, consumer cam but the image could not look any better, or gruesome.  Presented in a pillarbox framed 1.33:1 aspect ratio, RGB color model leans more toward warmer reds, yellows, and greens so you don’t get an authentic color scheme on objects or skin tones.  Darker scenes render nicely enough despite the MiniDV magnetic tape’s e-interference compression artefacts and some tracking lines onto digital recording that makes the image jittery/jumpy, but all the in-your-face closeups, low-quality picture quality adds to “Mordum’s” rancid-sensing realism.  The English PCM 2.0 audio track has copious clarity for its unrefined, raw built-in mic recording that comes with some crackling and echoing if the decibels rise during screaming or shouting and the built-in can’t handle the received input. Depth is lossy with the range of the recording and range doesn’t factor into play as dialogue pushes through whereas the low-budget constraints leave the action audibility left to the imagination. Subtitles are not available on either format. The limited-edition regurgitation of the sequel warrants a ton of special features in its inauguration to the mainstream masses. Both formats share most of the extras but the Blu-ray features many more. Brief Dave Fogel touchpoints on certain aspects of “Mordum’s” obscure longevity Mordum Lives!, the climax’s most disturbing visuals The Most Disturbing Scene, and an ode to Necrophagia’s front man Remembering Killjoy dive into those specific nuts and bolts of involvement, a new interview with Michael “Maggot” Schneider A Family Affair of Love and Hate which also includes The Ravenous music video from Necrophagia, offering some more cut scene insight, a sit-down interview with between Unearthed Film’s Stephen Biro and Tog Tag’s Jerami Cruise on the gruesome special effects work on a budget of literally what was lying around, Necrophagia’s promotional video of Rue Morgue Disciple, a new Rue Morge Disciple Behind-the-Scenes gallery, deleted and extended scenes that prolong the violence of the most graphic, extreme scenes and add another level of behind-doors sexual deviation to near pornographic heights, the U.S. premiere from 2003, a brand new extensive photo gallery, original animation work, and trailers while the Blu-ray includes these features, also on the hi-def disc is a new interview with Ultra-Violent’s editor Art Ettinger and Allana Bleeth who both have small roles in the film, a new interview with Zobo With A Shotgun’s Zoë Rose Smith interview director Fred Vogel, filmmaker Dave Parker interviews Vogel as well, Severed Cinema interviews Vogel too in Snuff Purgatory, a new mockumentary and its trailer for Sickcess: A Necrophagia, and a Zombie Demo from Flashback Weekend circa 2004. On top of the special feature filth, the physical aspects of the release come in a clear and traditional Blu-ray snapper case housed inside a cardboard slipcover showcasing the infamously disturbing scene. The same scene is also illustrated on the Blu-rays cover art with reverse cover art providing a rough-and-ready composition alternative of the same scene. Both disc arts are pressed with camcorder blurry images of depicted carnage. The region A/Region 1 locked Unearthed Films combo set has a runtime 91 minutes and comes, obviously, not rated. If looking for the original 3 from Hell, Peter Vogel’s “August Underground: Mordum” assembles three monsters to ever savage the screen with their horrible, unspeakable acts of sadism. The unabashed Unearthed Films rightfully doesn’t lubricate our hole of curiosity, sodomizing our prurience with the metallic taste of blood and madness.

“August Underground:  Mordum” Limited Collector’s Edition!

Norwegian EVIL Has Women Issues! “The Thrill of a Kill” reviewed! (Wild Eye Releasing / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Enjoy the “Kill” on DVD now Available on Amazon.com

Out of work Kimsy and her irritated mother butt heads over Kimsy’s lack of effort in trying to find a job and help out with responsibilities around the house.  After a particularly nasty argument, Kimsy storms out to walk off her frustration in the quiet surrounding woods.  Instead of lowering her blood pressure, Kimsy’s blood runs scarred and runs down her head as she’s knocked out and picked up by a playful serial killer with an irreparable hate for women and takes gratification in degrading them by any means possible.  Sadistically bred by unconditional motherly abuse, the killer treats each of his prized possessions like dogs to submit to his every beckon and call.  Kimsy’s mother and sister, Camilla, grow concern for Kimsy who hasn’t returned home and set off to find her.  When they realize she’s been abducted, they’re able to track her to a remote, vacant cabin used as a kill house and as they set foot inside the cabin to save Kimsy, a killer lies and waits to strike. 

Lars-Erik Lie’s Norwegian torture porn, “The Thrill of a Kill,” resonates with the old and true proverb, what comes around, goes around.  Filmed in and around Norway’s largest ski destination and resort, the Scandinavian mountain town of Trysil becomes the backwoods abattoir for the director to set his exploitation workshop for the bleak Norse horror.  “The Thrill of a Kill” is the first feature length fictional film from the Norway-Born Lie who has digs into the indie underground and gory storytelling, self-funded by his own banner, Violence Productions, and is coproduced by Morten K. Vebjørnsen and Arve Herman Tangen, Morten Storjordet, and Linda Ramona Nattali Eliassen serve as executive producers.

Dichotomizing “The Thrill of a Kill” into two stories set during two different time periods, Lars-Erik Lie’s focal point is not the hapless victims caught in a deadly spider’s web of perversities.  Instead, Lie’s story formulates the theory on how the sociopathic killer was ill-nurtured into a monster with an interweaving plot set in 1968 of a young boy (Carl Arild Heffermehl) neglected and abused, verbally and physically, by an alcoholic and sexually promiscuous about town mother (Sonja Bredesen) who would bring home another town drunk to bed. Missing his (deceased?) father and tired of being bullied by his own mother, the boy mental state snaps like a twig under immense emotional, family-oriented pressure and descends into a murderous madness. Years later and all grown up, the maniac mountain man abducts young women as a direct result of the hate toward his mother and her mistreatments. Arve Herman Tangen becomes the goateed face of the grown man gone haywire. Tangen develops his character with purposeful intent and with a nonaggressive tone to persuade his bound quarry to remain subdued. The role is nothing short of typical that we’ve seen in other films of its genus where a screwed-up child-turned-adult runs a deviancy amok sweatshop of imprisoned flesh and torture devices and Tangen really adds nothing meaningful to derangement. In her debut and only credited role, Kirsten Jakobsen, former Model Mayhem model from Oslo, succumbs to being the unlucky alternative girl, Kimsy, that runs into the big, overwhelming man while strolling through the forest. One would think Kimsy would have suffered brain damage after being struck and knocked unconscious not once, not twice, but three times by the killer who undresses her after each time with the third and final blow putting the final touches on his toying with the girl and bringing her back for a visit to his hen house of brutalized women. After the first blow or two, Jakobsen doesn’t show that much concern for Kimsy’s attentive wellness or concern as Kimsy continues to just wander as if nothing major has happened. Camilla Vestbø Losvik is a much more reliable and realistic rendition of the situation as Kimsy Sister, Camilla. As another alternative and attractive woman, Camilla shares a strong kinship with Kimsy despite their mother’s disciplinary differences toward them, to which eventually their mother (Toril Skansen) comes around as the patron saint of motherly worriment that’s likely a contrasting parallel to the killer’s unaffectionate mother. With an ugly-contented subgenre, “The Thrill of a Kill” has various compromising positions for its cast with rape and genital mutilation that there’s some shade of respect give to those who can mock play the unsettling moments we all are morbidly curious to see. The film rounds out with a lot of half-naked women strung up in bondage or chained to the wall with Linda Ramona Nattali Eliassen, Veronica Karlsmoen, Veronica Karlsmoen, Madicken Kulsrud, and Ann Kristin Lind with Raymond Bless, Niclas Falkman, and Jarl Kjetil Tøraasen as drunk, male suitors.

“The Thrill of a Kill” recreates the simulacrum of SOV horror as Lars-Erik Lie pulls out his handheld video to follow Kimsy’s journey through the jollies of a madman and the mother and sister’s rout out for their lost Kimsy. The beginning starts off with a zombie-laden dream sequences that places Kimsy in a field with a killer and his mutilated corpses that reanimate in a bit of foreshadowing of what’s in store for the spikey haired damsel. By dismissing her vividly horrifying dream of diminutive meaning, just like she does with everything else, Kimsy falls easily into the killer’s hands signifying one of the films’ themes to never take things for granted, especially those things that are important to you as exampled later on in the story. That’s about as much purpose I could pull from out of Lie’s film that floats like a feather on surface level waters. There is one other tangential offshoot Lie attempts to explored but never fleshes out fully is the unbeknownst to Kimsy and Camilla’s perverted hermit of a father who lives on the outskirts of town. Their mother thought he would have insight on Kimsy’s whereabouts but instead he tries to forcibly coerce Kimsy into his shack for involuntary lovemaking and then the exposition ensues after Camilla barely escapes his axe-chopping in (sexual?) frustration clutches. That exposition literally goes into a tunnel leading to nowhere and doesn’t alter the actions of Camilla or her mother to do anything different, expunging any kind of knowledge to utilize for a complete character arc and just comes to show Lie’s written bit parts don’t define the narrative of learned opportunities or gained instinct but rather are just additional sleazy show. The same sleazy show can be said about the rape scenes as they won’t ascertain the intended reaction of squeamish uncomfortableness. Now, while rape is no laughing matter or accustomed at any degree, there’s a level of numbness to these scenes that carry a severe flat affect to doesn’t display the anguish, the terror, or the hurt these women are going through as the killer decides upon himself to violate them. There’s literally no fight in these undrugged, still vigorous, young women who have just been snatched and made into his plaything and while some seasoned BDSM partisans may get aroused, the emotional receptor in me wants to empathize what their strife agony, but maybe that’s why the film is titled “The Thrill of a Kill,” to be an emblem of fun, cheap thrills.

Coming in at number 70 on the spine, the Norway schlocker-shocker, “The Thrill of a Kill” lands appropriately onto the Wild Eye Releasing’s Raw & Extreme banner. The 2011 released film finds a vessel for its North American debut over a decade later after its initial release and presented in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio, with vertical letterboxing on 16×9 televisions, despite the back cover listing a widescreen format and being released in 4:3 is a bit surprising as other countries display in anamorphic widescreen and the lens used in the film is definitely anamorphic as you can tell with flank falloff that distorts the image and makes the picture appear rounded. Color grading is slightly washed and lives in a low contrast. Again, I have to wonder how aesthetically different the transfer is on the outer region product. Soft, SOV-equivalent details don’t necessarily kill the image quality, but you can obviously notice some pixelation in the frame inside the shack and in wider shots of the landscape amongst the low pixelated bitrate. The Norwegian Golby Digital Stereo 2.0 comes out clean, clear, and about as full-bodied as can be with a two-channel system. Some of the Foley is overemphasized production which comes off sillier than the deserving impact of a thrown punch or a meat hook going through the lower mandible. English subtitles are burned/forced into the picture but are synched well without errors though the grasp maybe lost a little in translation. Bonus content is only a trailer selection warehousing select Raw & Extreme titles, such as “Hotel Inferno,” “Acid Bath,” “Morbid,” “Bread and Circus,” “Absolute Zombies,” “Whore,” and “Sadistic Eroticism.” Continuing to achieve maximum controversial covers, Wild Eye Releasing doesn’t hold back for “The Thrill of a Kill” DVD with a crude, yet fitting DEVON illustrated cover art that is a platterful of unclasped splatter while in the inside is a still frame of one of the more tongue biting scenes. No cuts with this unrated release and the film clocks in at 85 minutes with a region free playback. A grating gore gorger with mother issues, “A Thrill for a Kill” redundantly recalls our attention back to the subservience of what makes horror horrifying and while what terrifies us is pushed aside, the free-for-all fiend-at-play treats the death-obsessed to a buffet of blood and defilement.

Enjoy the “Kill” on DVD now Available on Amazon.com

Never Weekend on Sadomasochists’ EVIL Private Island Alone! “Eugenie” (Blue Underground / 4K UHD and Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Eugenie” is Waiting to Tell You Her Story of Perversion!  See It Now on 4K UHD at Amazon.com

A wealthy, sexually sadistic Madame St. Ange, a specialist in the Marquis de Sade’s teachings, entices to coerce the father of a young and beautiful innocent girl, Eugenie, St. Ange befriends to permit the naïve teenager to visit Madame’s private island for the weekend.  Excited and overjoyed with the idea of feeling like an adult indulging in mature activities, Eugenie is unaware that Madame and her equally as cruel stepbrother and lover Mirvel, who has been beguiled by Eugenie’s beauty, have ulterior motives and lured the unsuspecting youth into a ritualistic trap of sexual corruption and sadomasochism.  The step-siblings drug and rape Eugenie for their unspeakable gratifications only for her to awake in what only be explained as horrible nightmares of phantasmagorical encounters but when the nightmares unveil a disturbing reality when the dogmatic Dolmance and the rest of his Marquis de Sade acolytes arrive to initiate Eugenie into more than just pain and pleasure educations but to be a pawn in a murder scheme that tears the very fabric of virtue. 

Spanish director Jesús Franco, or widely known as Jess Franco, helmed an excessive number of provocative-pushing films over his nearly 60-year-career as a filmmaker before his death in 2013.  Many of the once labeled video nasties director were crafted on a tight budget with an even more so tight timeline as Franco churned out regularly mostly trashy horror and sexploitation that would more than often wind up in the projection booth of local red light district theaters for a dime and a wank.  Yet, “Eugenie” strokes a different kind sensation, one that lies in the ethereal concept of sexploitation and the ruin of youth made to order by the Marquis de Sade himself and artfully stitched by Jess Franco’s profundo knowledge of cinematic sculpturing.  “Eugenie,” or “Eugenie…. The Story of her Journey into Perversion” in the extended title, is based off the French 1795 novel, La Philosophie dans le boudoir (Philosophy in the Bedroom) written by de Sade and the script adaptation is penned by “99 Women” and “Christina” screenwriter and profound producer of film, Harry Alan Towers.  Towers also produces “Eugenie” under the pseudonym of Peter Welbeck for Video-Tel International Productions and was theatrically distributed by Distinction Films.

At the frayed edge of an already soul crusher subject matter, “Eugenie” repels against the grain of easily digestible roles,  Marquis de Sade’s characters are sadomasochist with abhorrent qualities of deception, malintent, and insatiability for a cathartic release from sexual pleasure and punishing pain.  On the other side of the coin, Franco and Towers film calls for the characters to push beyond the limits of their comfortability around the idea of drugging and raping, or being the victim of such, as well as violence and murder as part of a cult normalizing and rationalizing unrestrained freedom and ideology.  Swedish born actress Marie Liljedahl had a brief stint in erotica, as a power-seductress as the titular Inga, and only dabbled with sexploitation, “Eugenie” being that dabbled powder only once snorted to warrant a sudden disinterest in the theme altogether.  Liljedahl plays the titular character and she looks every bit the age later-aged teen with a round, youthful face, vibrant demeanor, and curvaceous like a ripe peach.  Like that knot forming in your gut spurred from anxiety, watching Eugenie exploited while in a stupor is the equivalent imaginations of what the deplorable effects and actions of a roofied drink that produces vague and foggy recollections and disbeliefs in what is reduced down to a vivid dream gone wild.  The two inveiglers at the heart of Eugenie’s virtuous destruction quickly become despicably loathed by not only their debauchery plans to corrupt good embodied but also by their snooty affluency and their acrid arrogance with the help.  “The Blood of Fu Manchu” and “99 Women” blonde beauty, Maria Rohm, and the stern faced “Succubus” and “The Vampires Night Orgy” actor Jack Taylor exemplify the essence of evil as the de Sade principled lovers and step-siblings Madame Saint-Ange and Mirvel.  The opened-ended lust Mirvel has for Eugenie morphs into a determined, nagging desire to have her at all costs, kept close to the chest by Taylor but knowing it’s simmering quickly to a head, and you can see in the Madame’s eyes that she’s either really internally pissed about Mirvel’s narrowed focus on a new toy or she’s basking in her ideology’s unchained gratification.  Rohm’s nonaligned decision maintains Madame’s sensual composure and undisclosed intentions until the shocking end.  The presence of Sir Christopher Lee in a Jess Franco film isn’t all that surprising.  The legendary, late British actor – “The Blood of Fu Manchu,” “The Bloody Judge,” and “Count Dracula” – where a handful of euro trashy and exploitative horror that were released around the same time as “Eugenie,” but “Eugenie” garishly bathed in the idea of sexual misappropriations and Lee being a last minute addition due to another actor’s ill-fate, agreed to fulfill the role without knowing how involved the nudity would ultimately land perverted cuts of the film into spank cinema houses.  Lee’s red smoking jacket, elegantly stoic composure and dialogue delivery, and his incredible ability to perform an intimidating figure without as much as lifting a finger compounds the value of Franco’s filmic adaptation to the point where I firmly believe with the original slated actor George Sanders (“Village of the Damned, 1951) in the ringleader and adherent role of Dolmance would likely have not have been half as good.  Anney Kablan, Paul Muller (“Vampyros Lesbos”), Uta Dahlberg, and Maria Luisa Ponte (“El Liguero Mágico”) costar.

Through an ocean of film filth, “Eugenie” may be the very film that proves Jess Franco is a cinematic genius in his own rite by capturing de Sade in the flesh, so to speak, with a plain-sighted fetish that diabolically hatches a scheme within a scheme.  In addition, “Eugenie,” dare I say it, almost feels like a Hammer film, especially with Lee in the picture.  The interior sets are modernly gothic with sleek and sterile furniture but garnished with large candle holders and the Marquis de Sade era sartorial worn by Dolmance’s muted followers. There’s a cadence to Franco’s story, one that leaves breadcrumb plot aspects to go against divulging a straightforward story right from the start, and the history between acquainted characters is contentious and fraught with unpleasant emotions in the act nice, play nice master sadists and the subservient help hierarchy that hints at a fraction of degrading minorities. Saint-Ange and Mirvel boatman Augustine, a black man who has his life reborn from the ashes of poverty only to be toiled as their attendant and frivolous plaything when the mood is right. There’s also deaf and mute woman brought on to be the new maid in a moment’s conversation between the siblings just to drop a dab of her presence amongst them. Augustine and the maid represent the lower class of people, a man of color and a woman of disability, to easily take advantage of just like Saint-Ange and Mirvel do with Eugenie’s innocence. France shies away being overly showy in slipping in this unjust dynamic that unfolds bit by bit as mentioned earlier of Franco’s revelation design. “Eugenie” not only dangles the attractive set locations and nudity carrot to draw attention but also invests in its talent as Frnaco the cherishes the cast of individual portrayers with longer shot moments to speak volumes of their unique objective or to pedestal them in their own keynote scene of power and, subsequently, obliteration that makes every occurrence worth noting and not just something to write off. “Eugenie” has no tears or apologies to spare but only inhuman indecencies separated by a blurred, unfettered line of sex and sadism satisfactions. This is Jess Franco at his finest.

The 1970 “Eugenie” print takes on more pixels, 2180p to be exact, with 4K UHD transfer and a re-release 1080p high-definition Blu-ray in a 2-disc set from Blue Underground. The 4K restoration from the original camera negative with Dolby Vision Hi-Def resolution on a 66GB, double layer UHD and is also on an AVC encoded Blu-ray that are both presented in an anamorphic widescreen 2.40:1 aspect ratio. Both transfers execute their respective program, offering an average frame rate of mid-high 30s Mbps, but there’s a focus issue with the transfer brought upon likely at the origin of filming and we know this because the frame rate never drops, staying consistent throughout the issue. Periods of unfocused detail come and go between edits and often in the same shot as if attempting to render delineation between the foreground and the background in order to get the shot on the fly (there are many instances Franco had limited time to shoot). Color grading, including skins tones, are natural appearing until the red tint, a symbol of when the subject matter becomes dark, eliminates and reduces vast color palette to one single hue. Both formats offer an English and French dub language 1.0 mono mix that buff enough to be ample; in fact, the mix is rather good considering the single channel with substantially clarity with no hissing, popping, or other blights on the dialogue track, Foley, or any track for that matter. Subtitles are offered in English, French, and Spanish. If you’re looking for special features, they mostly encoded onto the second disc, the Blu-ray, with Perversion Stories, a retrospective interview with the late Jess Franco, writer Harry Alan Towers, and stars Christopher Lee and Matrie Liljedahl discussing the behind-the-scenes measures and understandings of the sexploitation classic, Stephen Thrower on Eugenie, an interview with the author of “Murderous Passions: The Delirious Cinema of Jesus Franco,” a new interview with costar Jack Taylor Jack Taylor in the Francoverse, a newly expanded poster and still gallery, and theatrical trailer. The 4K disc also has a new commentary with film historians Nathaniel Thompson and Troy Howarth, plus a theatrical trailer. A two-disc UHD case holds a disc on each side of the interior and the case itself sports the class naked Eugenie pose with her brown locks draped over her shoulders, covering her chest. Speaking of covering, the snapper case is sheathed in a O-slipcover with oval cutout of the front to display Eugenie with a Victorian-aged mirror border. The darkened slipcover is also prominently titled under Marquis de Sade’s novel English moniker, “Philosophy in the Boudoir” that has a regal and classic aesthetic. The unrated, 87-minute film has an all-region playback. Jess Franco distills revolutionary extravagance and couples it with the notion that youth will inevitably be corrupted by family, friends, and a group of cruel Marquis de Sade cultists in what can be construed as one of the director’s most prestigious sexploitation and melodramatic films of his oeuvre.

“Eugenie” is Waiting to Tell You Her Story of Perversion!  See It Now on 4K UHD at Amazon.com

The EVIL Fat Man Delivers a Sack Full of Slaughter in “Christmas Cruelty!” reviewed! (Unearthed Films / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Oh, Its Starting To Look a lot Like “Christmas Cruelty! on Blu-ray!

Eline, Per-Ingvar, and Magne are three close and eccentric friends preparing for the jolliest time of year, Christmas. Concocting a unique Christmas spirit of their own with scarring passers dressed as Krampus and brewing an alcohol infused cocktail, the unconventional celebration reflects their individual perspectives on the holiday: a knowledgeable Eline embraces more traditional values, Magne goes against the grain with a loose grasp on the concept of it all, and the lack of mental acuity for wheelchair bound Per-Ingvar leaves him in naive, gullible belief. All the while the friends prep the groundwork for a Christmas party, a homicidal sociopath tracks and records their every movement, habits, and personal attributes and when Christmas comes, the meticulous and brutal serial killer dresses as Santa and infiltrates what turned from being a joyous bash into Santa bashing in heads with a hammer, decapitates party guests, and rip-roars a chainsaw with blood splattering apathy.

It’s that time of year again to ride the Christmas slay down the hills covered with blood-red snow. Santa, usually a sign of pure good and jovial togetherness, is transformed to embody terror and evil across the holiday season. In 2013, Norwegian filmmaker Per-Ingvar “PIT” Tomren (“Bonzai Motherfucker!”) and his co-director Magne Steinsvoll (producer of “Killungard” and “Lyst”) not only star in another Yuletide horror that yields itself to violence and blood but also adds their perspective entry into the vast Scandanavian subgenre of ole’ Saint Nick, or an imposter of the jolly fat guy, going postal in the worst possible way. Tomren and Steinsvioll work into their debut feature film off a script penned by principal co-star Eline Aasheim as well as Janne Iren Holseter, Anita Nyhagen, and directors Tomren and Steinsvoll. Originally entitled “O’Hellige Jul!” in Norwegian, the 2013 released “Christmas Cruelty” is a Stonewall Productions and presented by DC Medias under the producing credits of Magne Steinsvoll, Kim Haldoersen, and Raymond Volle (“Saga”).

Instead of hiring an outside cast for a serial rapist and killer Santa flick, why not just star in the film yourself? In order to get their feet wet in film production as well as learning the rigors of acting, Per-Ingvar Tomren, Magne Steinsvoll, and Eline Aasheim essentially portray themselves as the three friends spending unique quality time together during Christmas. Per-Ingvar works into the script the corporeal truth of this delicate skeletal structure that battles brittle bone disease aka osteogenesis imperfecta. Confined almost entirely to his wheelchair, Tomren curbs his wellbeing for the sake of art as the filmmaker doesn’t exempt himself from the various physical altercation scenes to have a stuntman take the glory. The same kind of sentiment can be said for Eline Aasheim whose character must endure an invasive attack, one that’s deeply uncomfortable and intimate in nature surrounded by a virtually an all-male cast which includes offscreen friendships. Then there’s Magne. If Per-Ingvar and Eline embodied metaphorically everything that is good about the Christmas spirit, Magne was the complete opposite as a complaining, sexist, and indelicate sourpuss living in the moment rather than grasping his own barbed attitude. The malarky between the three friends on screen is perhaps very mirrorlike offscreen as there is a comfortability level with each other performances that keeps the dynamic on the edge of combusting but yet you never feel like a change in their relationship will ever mount, keeping their friendship close, tight, and compact. The outsider, the Serial Santa, is played mid-50’s Norway actor Tormod Lien. I mention Lien’s age because he is older than the other principal characters and that plays into his character’s wisdom as a family man who takes notes on who’s halls he will soon deck. Calm, organized, and deviant, Lien plays into the apathy without a twinkle of empathy and engineers a bloody show of planned homicide with some comedic bits put on by Lien when Serial Santa has to go off script because of interruptions.

In my mind, there are two types of Christmas horror films: the uncanny universe where Santa, or something related to Santa, such as his toyshop elves or Krampus, world’s lives and breathes in a twisted malevolency while the other type resides in fact with sociopathic and mentally unstable Santa impersonators who go on a merry murdering spree. “Christmas Cruelty!” falls in that latter category with serial killer, dressed as Santa and a grotesque mask, gatecrashes the good protagonists’ party for the nefarious primordial urge to hurt, rape, and kill. Maybe even dabble in a little cannibalism. “Christmas Cruelty!” is a lump of extreme exploitation for next level nihilism. I’ve seen my fair share of messed up movies, but the Tomren and Steinsvoll defiling picture doesn’t even have a millimeter of morality. Without a theme, a message, or a basic point, “Christmas Cruelty!” is hollow atrocity for the sake of shock and slaughter. The principal goods are either too afraid to help each other, too unwilling to help each other, or are too conceited to even take notice that something is amiss. Instead, it’s the Serial-Santa who has his ducks in order, unabashed to simply walk into a room and start his plan of cold-hearted perversion, but before even getting to that moment with deliciously diabolical practical special effects that can produce a gut-wrenching impact, the story goes static with the principal goods chitchatting about history of Christmas, their likes and dislikes of the season, and nursing a hangover from hell. This portion to build character doesn’t actually build character as we’re skirted around victimized trio’s reason for to deserving of our sympathy. Yeah, there’s a person with learning disabilities in a wheelchair and a young woman with an inkling of a moral compass but I find them aimless, sleepwalking through life, and without purpose.

Christmas comes early with the release of “Christmas Cruelty” on Blu-ray home video from our friends at Unearthed Films and MVD Visual. Presented in 1080p with a widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio on an AVE encoded BD50, Unearthed Films rendering of the transfer goes without a hitch, but the stylistic choices of Tomren and Steinsvoll are an eyesore with a mustard yellow overlay intended for a grindhouse veneer that also correlates with the large font and embossed opening credits. Much of the details and natural look are lost in the yellow tint. The erratic editing is supposed to reflect Serial Santa’s fragmented mind which idiosyncratically finds footing but can be off-putting to its experimental quality. The Norwegian language DTS-HD 5.1 surround sound mix reflects no issues with depth and range despite having limited need for both and has mostly clear dialogue albeit some obstruction from the soundtrack that is heavily integrated into the sound design and becomes a character in itself with a blend of English-lyrical Christmas themed tunes, instrumental string melodies, acoustic solos by Magne Steinsvoll, generic rock tracks, and folksy jamming that ends with the loud roaring of a chainsaw slicing through body parts. The bonus features include an audio commentary with co-director Per-Ingvar Tomren and producer Raymond Volle, retrospective interviews in How Cruelty Changes Our Lives featurette, blooper outtakes, photo gallery, The Last Rebels hit “Endless Highway,” an interview with Morten Haagensen, “Tradition” short film, Press Conference, a watch-a-long session with Flesh Wound Horror, and teaser trailer. The Unearthed Films menu options were a bit cumbersome to navigate when trying to play the movie as the next screen goes to the three audio options – either two commentaries that run along with the film and the play movie without commentary, but the options are not terribly intuitive and had to go through the options before I was able to play just the movie. The physical release comes in a traditional blue snapper case with the soulless, dead eyes of the Santa mask illustrated with liver sports and aged wrinkles on the front cover. Unearthed Films’ release comes not rated, region A encoded, and has a runtime of 94 minutes. Probably not the perfect holiday gift for the conventional horror filmgoer, “Christmas Cruelty” is difficult to ingest and digest as not only an extreme exploitation film but as a film as whole, but with the callous chunks of coal and the striped blood red candy cane of scrumptious special effects, the Norwegian definitely offers a good stocking stuffer.

Oh, Its Starting To Look a lot Like “Christmas Cruelty! on Blu-ray!

When the EVIL Novice Becomes the EVIL Master. “Assault! 13th hour!) reviewed! (Impulse Pictures / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Assault!  13th Hour” on DVD from Impulse Pictures!

A gas station attendant is beguiled by the culpable bad boy antics of a serial rapist in a red jacket. As the attendant becomes more enthralled by the sociopath’s life-altering school of assault and apprenticeship, he attempts a solo flight to turn his women victims into loving his deplorable acts of sexual misconducts. His emulation of sprouting a decadent rape fantasy fails as the connective alternative sexual experience between the powerful and the powerless only induces complete fear. Curious to how the connoisseur of forced copulation gets away with women paying him for ravishment again, the novice learner of lechery aims to seek as much knowledge as possible without hesitation and without question but a homosexual gang hunts down his master in the crimson jacket for an unspecified act that warrants retribution. Caught in the middle, the gas station attendant must fight for his life if he wants to continue the legacy of violation.

Better known as “Rape! 13th Hour,” Yasuharu Hasebe’s “Assault! 13th Hour” is a perhaps a more marketable film for many western distributors with the world rape kicking off as an exclamational in the title. One of Japan’s well-known exploitation and pinku filmmakers, having directed a slew of films with a combination of action, crime, and sexual dysphoria and kink with the Stray Cat Rock film series (“Sex Hunter,” “Delinquent Girl Boss”) as well as “Rape!,” “Secret Honeymoon: Rape Train,” and “Raping!” Yeah, I would say Hasebe had a deviant fantasy for the subject. Released in 1977, “Assault! 13th Hour” comes from the same mind of “Hausu” screenwriter Chiho Katsura and Toshiro Masuda’s “The Perfect Game,” a Criterion release film, screenwriter Yoshio Shirasaka. Now, the 73-minute narrative rapt in the idea of women throwing themselves, as well as their yen, at the attacker in a twisted reaction to forceful violation with a greenhorn being trained-to-inherit the practice is by no means as surreally horrifying as “Hausu” or as complicatedly thrilling as the gambling-gone-awry “The Perfect Game.” Still, an underlying, nagging feeling of the patriarchal power that is deeply engrained into Japanese culture can be digested with this pinku-production under the company eye of Nikkatsu Corporation, releasing the film under its pinku eiga subsidiary, the Nikkatsu Roman Porn banner, with Ryoji Ito (“Cruel High School Girls: Sex Lynch”) producing.

Now, whether “Assault! 13th Hour” is a sequel to either Hasebe’s “Rape!” or “Assault!” is not clear from this reviewer’s eyes – I have yet to see either one of those particular previously films – but there lies one commonality between all of them, Akira Takahashi. A lifer in the pinku eiga industry, Takahashi has collaborated with Hasebe on a number of films that run the gamut of exploitation. For his role of Crimson, a serial rapist and delinquent who sports a red bomber jacket, the principal predator is more mysterious in not only his actions but his backstory involving the homosexual gang boss and his two equally sapphic goons and this is where I suspect “Assault! 13th Hour” might be a follow up film as Crimson’s historical transgressions don’t come to light. Hence, the gang’s manhunt never fleshes out to a warranted chase down and the unsuspected sexual tension that produces from it between Crimson and the gang boss. Takahashi brings a confident and suave creep to the lead but doesn’t necessarily have the charisma to make Crimson stand out on his own as a memorable character. Crimson’s accomplice, and the story’s perspective primary, played by Yûdai Ishiyama (“Izo”), fits snuggly into the part of curious in his character who takes uninitiated baby steps into wanting to be a part of this cabal of beastly baroque bedfellows that can persuade Stockholm syndrome upon their victims before they zip up their pants. Ishiyama’s role provides more depth as a low-end gas station attendant with a pent-up perversion and who’s better to exploit and nurture his willingness more than his equivocal new best friend, Crimson. The story’s unpublicized character list provides the story with a nebulous pall to make a statement that this can happen to anyone and can even happen to this cast list of Yuri Yamashina, Tamaki Katsura, Naomi Oka, and Rei Okamoto.

I’m still wrapping my head around the plot’s sudden drop into mid-story without a callback to Crimson’s sordid history that weaves between his seemingly magical persuasion of perversion and his tumultuous involvement with the homosexual gang who want more than just to beat him to pulp. The chance stance Hasebe has to fashion into a comprehensible story, based off the script’s limiting section of a whole, is turned into a wildly suitable and often alternate universe viewed milieu where corruption and immorality goes without proper attention or justice. There are no detectives tracking down the rapists’ rampage or even the display of just a single police vehicle at the aftermath of the crimes. Judgements are contained within the confines of the criminal underworld from a twisted perspective of vigilante justice and, you know, it works! The one-sided standpoint immerses the viewer into a filthy, degrading, and perversely fantastical sea of immorality where lawlessness is the law, but as far as pink films are concerned, “Assault! 13th Hour” is a tame entry that doesn’t shockingly exploit the senses. Likely, that reserved jolt from the jarring material stems from decades of repetitive similar films of the same genre and/or nature and we, those fans drowning in fascination of the pink film category, might feel a little numb to its debauchery though the ending’s infringing necrophilia onto nearly every possible orifice on the victim’s body can be an eye-opener, or an eye-closer depending on your level of comfort and intrigue. Assault! 13th Hour” explores a trade far less trodden in its unusual master and pupil dynamic and subjugates any ambiguities over the blurry line between heterosexuality and homosexually with a slightly biased preconceived notion that heterosexual assault leads to viable passion whereas the counter only offers brutality and bloodshed.

Arriving onto DVD from Impulse Pictures, the XXX and erotica sublabel of Synapse Films, is the Nikkatsu Roman released “Assault! 13th Hour!” The anamorphic 1.85:1 presentation renders a respectable transfer of the 35mm film despite the noticeable age and wear of the warm, inferior negative stock that often appears dark and detailed indiscernible, unlike the stylish use of high contrast. The Japanese Dolby Digital 2.0 dual channel casts a better-than-expected dialogue track and general ambient score albeit the overplayed audio bytes for cars revs and screeching tires. The constant low whir never goes above a whisper, leaving alone the dialogue to remain clear and free of obstructions and that also goes for the absence of pops and hissing. The newly translated and removable English subtitles pace well, display without typos, and are synchronously consistent. The 1977 Japanese erotica and roughie is a feature only release for Impulse Pictures with no bonus material included. The tight and taut, rough and dirty, “Assault! 13th Hour” is a tinderbox of ferocity as well as a tender box of far out fantasies that makes this dichotomy of sexuality and violence an interesting slice of Japanese erotic cinema.

“Assault!  13th Hour” on DVD from Impulse Pictures!