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EVIL Will Always Get You in the End! “Ghoulies” reviewed! (MVD Visual / 4K-Blu-ray set)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Ghoulies” Will Get You in the End With a 4K-Blu-ray set!

When a satanic ritual of sacrificing an infant boy is foiled by the acolyte mother, the child is taken far away from the fathering dark warlock who attempted to harness the boy’s youth for his own.  Fast forward 25-years-later, the malevolent father dies and the curse of the fiendish family tree has thought to be lifted.  The mansion is bestowed to very same young boy, Jonathan Graves.  Now a man in graduate studies and with Rebecca, his longtime girlfriend and love of his life, the inherited gothic mansion quickly entrances him into the urge for dark rituals, finding fascination in drawing and calling out the spirits and demons to do his bidding as their exclusive master.  In spite of Rebecca’s concerns and hoodwinking his unsuspecting close friends into a dark rite, Graves unwittingly resurrects his deceased and powerful father who seeks to pick up where he left off with his own callous ceremony from 25 years ago. 

If there are pint sized characters with a mischievous, devious edge, you better believe it that Charles Band is more than certainly behind the little terror-tykes hellbent on hell’s work.  One of the more successful ventures to come out of Charles Band’s empire, literally out from his Empire Production studio, is the 1984 released “Ghoulies.”  Written-and-directed by Luca Bercovici, as his debut feature film and who would later direct “Rockula” and “The Granny,” and co-written with Jefery Levy, who would go on to inevitably write a pair of sequels off the original film, the American-made production masters a flawlessly edited and sound designed layer composition mixed with the imprudence of 80’s stereotyped horror-teen character and nostalgic lighting and matte effects that make “Ghoulies” a travel-sized cult classic.  “Ghoulies” is produced and distributed by Empire pictures with Charles Band as executive producer, Jefery Levy as producer, and Debra Dion (“Oblivion”) as associate producer.

You can’t have a story about necromancing sorcery and demonic disinterring without big personalities and, fortunately, “Ghoulies” has a few that standout with memorable dark magic melodramatics.  Opening scenes of a ritual’s beginning introduces Malcolm Graves, an infernally flamboyant, wide-eyed, and animated with his hands sorcerer who likely won’t win the father of the year award.  “Mulholland Drive” and “Waxwork II:  Lost in Time” actor Michael Des Barres lights up the lurid life of Malcolm Graves with great enthusiasm and piercing eyes.  Graves eccentricity is balanced by another Lynchian actor Jack Nance as the acolyte turned mansion caretaker who oversees the Jonathan Graves’ wellbeing.   Nance meticulous eye gazes and gestural articulation combat and numb down Barress over-the-top dark magic ringmaster.  The “Eraserhead” and “Blue Velvet” actor definitely transposes his defined and evident presence of idiosyncrasies over to this little monster movie with manipulating occultist mascara that make “Ghoulies” that much more special.  The third actor is principal lead Peter Liapis who swings the pendula between normalcy and obsessive occultist as Jonathan Graves quickly swept up by an invisible force that drives him to become an intermediate master of miniature minions.  Liapis has that on/off switch ability to be sane one second and completely maniacal the next and when acting tranquil and the boyfriend of nicety to Rebecca (Lisa Pelikan, “Jennifer”), you better believe that we are convinced by his prosaic act.  Jonathan’s friends are an mixed lot of stereotypical lambs for the slaughter, to be used as pawns, and never know their role in the ritual of resurrection.  Stoners buds Mike (Scott Thomson, “Parasite”) and Eddie (David Dayan) fill “Ghoulies” with comedic jokester relief, rockabilly rake Dick (Keith Joe Dick) has eyes on the bedding prize with promiscuous Anastasia (Victoria Catlin, “Maniac Cop”), and an awkward dork Mark aka Toad Boy (Ralph Seymour, “Just Before Dawn”) tries to tickle swoon hottie Donna (a very young Mariska Hargitay, “Law & Order:  SVU”) are the paired up friends to fall into the, pun-intended, Graves trap.  “Ghoulies” round out the cast with the blonde and busty “Evil Spawn” and “Mausoleum” actress Bobbie Bresee as an open-armed invitation for sex and sacrifice while persons of short stature, Peter Risch (“Malibu Hot Summer”) and Tamara de Treaux (“Don’t Be Afraid of the Dark”), credited as the smallest actress in the world, made up a pair of mischievous, quarrelling minions fed up with the current incumbent of infernal dealings. 

For a 1984, Charles Band production, especially one of his first to be distributed under his Empire Productions, “Ghoulies” establishes the bar for the miniature maniac mogul’s subsequent earlier films that may have been the peak era for Empire and even Full Moon pictures, having and hitting all the hallmark tropes of effectual horror.  A fog permeating production design with enough gothic hulk in the mansion and in the out-the-window small gravesite to immerse atmospherics, a matte composition of brilliantly simple visual effects blended with the catastrophe force inspired practical effects that aggrandizes the budget, the fantastic editing by now longtime Full Moon filmmaker Ted Nicolaou (director of “Subspecies,” “Don’t Let her In”) to piece together a more-than-palatable sound design and image, the carnivalesque soundtrack by Charles Band’s brother, Richard Band, to enrich impish latency around the characters, and, of course, the icky-coated and reptilian-rinded puppet demons by creator John Vulich (“Dolls,” “From Beyond”) in dynamic surroundings with the living, breathing characters.  What “Ghoulies” could use is fine tuning on was to further the story development.  A little more exposition into the background of who Malcom Graves is or who Jonathan Graves was calling from the slither of beyond could go a long way.  The ending transition also took a lighter approach, an additional aspect in this pre-Full Moon, Empire Production we don’t typical see in the ensuing works that grinds the desolation gears by shifting the clutch into third gear of blood, boobs, and bodies. 

Coming in at number two on the spine of the MVD Rewind Collection, as part of the 4K UHD LaserVision line, “Ghoulies” comes a 2-disc UHD and Blu-ray set. Presented in a 4K Dolby Vision HDR restoration from a16-bit scan of the original camera negative in 2460p and a sister 1080p Hi-Def restoration for the Blu-ray, both transfers exhibit in the original widescreen aspect ratio 1.85:1. Both transfers cherish the source material and even celebrate it with a clean print scan that elevates the definition of a gloomy, brooding abode under the cast of many a shadow. No issues with compression as black levels remain inky and the in-lined picture isn’t blighted by artefacts, revealing the natural grain without a combover to smooth out any original veneer from the 35mm acetated celluloid. Both discs come with an English DTS-HD 2.0 master audio that’s stark as it is clear and orderly with a prominent dialogue track and a ridiculously good sound design edit that enhances the rituals and rambunctiousness of the cult and kids. Boosted levels are balanced and well overlayed to provide max composition as we get a good range and depth of sound and space with the eye lasers, atmospheric house creaks, and an Earth-rattling finale. English subtitles are available on both formats. As usual due to the vast number of gigabytes needed, the Blu-ray special features outnumber the 4K UHD. The 4K special features include once Shout Factory! exclusives, such as a 2015 archival audio commentary by director Luca Bercovici, a 2016 audio commentary with Bercovici moderated by Terror Transmission’s Jason Andreasen. With the Blu-ray, you receive the 4K content plus a video introduction by Bercovici, which is quick, simple, and not much too an opening recollection of the keystone of his career, an interview with editor Ted Nicolau Editing an Empire that more so Nicolau’s career from beginning to current, an interview with actor Scott Thomson A Mind Is a Terrible Thing to Waste as he exchanges his “Ghoulies” remembrance in that same stoner-fog as his character, an interview with Luca Bercovici Just for the Chick Man, a half-hour behind-the-scenes featurette From Toilets to Terror, a photo gallery, four television spots, and the theatrical trailer. The physical contents include a faux crumpled cardboard slipcover of the iconic Ghoulie in the toilet marketing ploy complete with security tag at the bottom. Sheathed inside is a black Blu-ray amaray with an ironed version of the cardboard O-slip. Inside, both discs are pressed with laserdisc-esque pattern art, and the insert contains a folded collectible mini-poster of the faux crumpled slipcover. The 80-minute, region A locked release doesn’t list a rating on the back cover but I suspect an unrated feature like with most Empire/Full Moon products and this seems to be the complete, unedited version. “Ghoulies” is a must-see for the casual horror fan, “Ghoulies” is a must-see for die-hard fans, and this MVD 4K and Blu-ray Rewind Collection release of “Ghoulies” is a must-own for the collector at heart.

“Ghoulies” Will Get You in the End With a 4K-Blu-ray set!

When There is EVIL in the Seoul! “Gangnam Zombie” reviewed! (Well Go USA Entertainment / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Well Go USA’s “Gangnam Zombie” on Blu-ray Hi-Def!

In the Gangnam district of Seoul, South Korea, former backup to the national taekwondo team Hyeon-seok works underpaid and unhappily for a smalltime viral video streaming company.  His colleague and crush, Min-jeong, is a content editor constantly being hit on by the knavish company owner.  Unhappy at their jobs, the two miserably plug away while avoiding the elephants in the room until an infected, flesh-eating man walks into their office rental building, biting and infected the surrounding professionals that turn the place of business into a place of horror and survival.  With the doors chained shut and no way to call for help, Hyeon-seok, Min-jeong, their small band of coworkers, and the building’s landlady react antagonistically against the quickly devolving situation that seeks to sink its teeth into them.  The upstanding Hyeon-seok does the only thing he knows how, to fight his way out while protecting Min-jeong from a mass army of blood-stained teeth.

In the wake of the popular successful running and rampaging outbreak spread of zombie-madness in “Train to Busan,” the 2016 all-aboard the zombie train thriller not only blazed the rails with a hyper-intense, body-over-body, dog-eat-dog infected film confined to the cramped aisles of linked train cars but it also set the tone for years to come with imitators to rake in the cash of the outbreak breakout success.  Though the concept is nothing new, South Korea has adopted the fast-running infected flesh-eater and shaped it with mass affect with newer entries being submitted every year since the release of “Train to Busan.”  “Rodeukil” director Soon Sung Lee has helmed one of those new entries with “Gangnam Zombie,” a far more contained zombie burst confined to a mall-like office building set in the heart of the Gangnam district, hence the title.  “Gangnam Zombie” is a self-produced production of Soon Sung Lee in association with JNC Media Group and Joy N Cinema with co-producer Choe Gwang-rae.

The aphorism less is more can be applied to many things and many situations, often generally true, much like overthinking a simple problem.  For the cast buildup of Soon Sung Lee’s “Gangnam Zombie,” the saying torpedoes any kind of chance connecting with the chaos-engrossed characters.  Opening to Cho Kyoung-hoon and his partner’s breaking and entering of a shipping container full of boxes of I-don’t-know-what, objectively were lost to the here and why this crime becomes not only ground zero for the epidemic, Cho Kyoung-hoon’s Wang-I is attacked by a container-hitching infected cat of all things, but also the motivation for their transgressions of thievery.  I honestly could not tell you what was being hijacked from the container boxes; to me, the contents appeared to be COVID-19 test kits which would make sense since “Gangnam Zombie” forces the paralleling global epidemic done our visual esophagus with a cat instead of a bat.  After dispatching his partner with a bite to the neck, in what is a very vampiric method I might add, Wang-I wanders his dazed self into the city of Seoul, especially the Gangnam district, where he steals red meat from a grocer and stumbles with a self-image conflict into Hyeon-seok and Min-jeong’s office building.  Indiscriminately unhappy with their jobs with a mild sense of attraction between them, the characters are played by Ji Il-ju and Park Ji-yeon who can’t really get into the tumultuously thrown together chemistry needed to make their emotionally pulling tug work with viewers.  The supposed coupling actors’ scenes feel one-sided with Park Ji-yeon in a defensively scared and uncertain shoes but very much guarded against Ji Il-ju who can wear his heart on his sleeve as he roundhouses zombie extras left and right.  Cho Kyoung-hoon feels more enthused in his black-eyed, rabid-smile zombie mode while still able to grasp his humanity with close-quarters hand-to-hand, an enthusiasm not really shared by the others when faced with ground zero apocalypse that doesn’t quiver under one-liners and vapid, vacuous vernacular and vigor.  Min Choi, Tu-in Tak, and Yi-joo Jung round out the cast.

“Gangnam Zombie” falls into the cheap-thrills trap of comparing itself the deadly strain of COVID-19 not because of the cat and bat reference above but because the opening title sequence hammers in a quick recap of the epidemic era in massive overload of visuals with the occasional infected person flashing into frame.  Though not mentioned once of COVID into the dialogue, a tumbling of slowly progressing confusion settles itself inside the narrative of what director Soon Sung Lee is trying to convey comparing COVID to chaotic cannibalism.  The exploit is egregiously akin to Full Moon’s capitalizing indecorous “Corona Zombies.”  The two not only share germs but also share essentially the same title and are both more comedic and lighter, shadowing over and taking away any intensity it intended in this more comedy-horror than horror-comedy.  Zombie carnage is laid waste to bad continuity editing as we see some of the same zombies looking down one hallway and then in the next scene and in a different hallway there is the same infected head, zombies inexplicably rolling on the floor into frame, zombies sneaking up behind people only to hesitate an attack with more of an intent to scare them when the chased turns around, and the infected are not brainlessly dulled and have the ability, or at least only one of them has the ability, to fight back with blocks and other defensive and offensive moves.  “Gangnam Zombie” milks the stouter predecessors with a haphazardly duck taped lesser vessel to slog forward what other South Korean filmmakers have previously perpetuated so well in the subgenre.

On Blu-ray now from Well Go USA Entertainment is “Gangnam Zombie” with an AVC encoded, 1080 hi-def, BD25, presented in a listed widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio that works well in the compressed environment of the office building. Exterior scenes of the city, overall general landscape, suggest a wider aspect ratio, perhaps a 2.35:1 to capture more the of the urban landscape. Speaking of the office building, the well-lit environment provides less complexities on the digital image with the same gray, steel, and translucent facing in most of the scenes. Varying saturations of red diverse the blood shading around the body and face with darker tints often looking like motor oil to match the midnight irises. Details in the digital age rarely see a loss of face with natural skin tones, to the minute details of reflective surfaces, and a properly sterile office space. The only audio track built into the release is a Korean DTS-HD 5.1 master audio that’s balanced appropriately with forefront dialogue and a backseat generic soundtrack mix of heavy metal and crescendo builds. The zombie grunts, groans, and roars tear into the channels, nicely through the backend channels, but with cacophonous irritation at times. There’s decent secondary sound design with the baseball bat being hit across infected faces and the floor, despite revealing its rubbery bounce, and Ji Il-joo kick and punch melodies. Sometimes a hit-or-miss with bonus features on the international releases, this particular Well Go USA release comes bare bones with no special features on the software. The hardware, aka physical features, is also not terribly spectacular with a standard Blu-ray casing with a sketch and paint cover that’s slightly misleading where our protagonist will be when the outbreak breaks. Unlatching the case reveals an advert insert for three Well Go USA distributed films, likely rotational with different features, with a unique fascination disc press art of rope tied radio with outstand hands and fingers appearing to grab the bottom of it. It’s a Blu-ray opening enigma viewers will have watch the feature to understand. Clocking in at 82 minutes, “Gangnam Zombie” is region A locked and is not rated. The bite marks of “Gangnam Zombie” are a familiar pang and now nearly a decade after a formidable Korean zombie subgenre began, we’ve become too desensitized for hackneyed carbon copies.

Well Go USA’s “Gangnam Zombie” on Blu-ray Hi-Def!

Just Because Your EVIL Dad Says Its Okay, It’s Probably Not. “Netherworld” reviewed! (Blu-ray / Full Moon Features)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Enter the Netherworld on Blu-ray!

A wealthy owner of the Thorton plantation bequeaths to his willfully neglected son, Corey, his large Louisiana estate. He’s welcomed by the estate’s unusual lawyer, a house caretaker with an affinity for birds, and her beautiful daughter Diane who, despite her teenage muliebrity, immediately takes an interest and liking to the handsome young man. Corey is also met with his shirker father’s penned testament, to be resurrected from the dead by a sexually alluring brothel woman and necromancer named Delores who works at the local bordello and bar named Tonks. Fascinated by the idea, Corey hangs around the bar and becomes just as engrossed with Delores as his father as he seeks to abide by his father’s supernatural wishes but there’s a warbler cult connected to Delores and Corey’s father with an underhanded scheme that doesn’t favor the new, young estate owner trying to save and possibly get to know the father he never knew, the same one who abandoned him as a small child.

One of the more stranger Charles Band productions to every come out of Full Moon Entertainment, and that’s saying something for a media empire that made killing on hawking killer dolls amongst other oddity-saturated, carnivalesque sci-fi and horror for many decades, “Netherworld” is the early 90’s, Cajun-encrusted, occulter of the Full Moon legacy director of “Tourist Trap” and “Puppet Master,” David Schmoeller, who also cowrote the film alongside Charles Band. “Netherworld” harkens to a time before Band became visionally crazed by dolls, or miniaturized maniacs in general, with a plot that promises Cajun black magic beyond the traditional spells and curses of Louisiana Voodoo, a son desperate to reconnect with his long-lost father who abandoned him, and a flying stone hand with finger extremities that turn into vicious snake-like creatures when attacking the quarried head, but is “Netherworld” too extrusive of the regular and in vogue poured cement of solidified psycho-dolls? ‘Netherworld” is executively produced by Charles Band, produced by Ty Bradford (“Trancers II”) and is a part of the vast Full Moon Entertainment catalogue of productions.

Unsuspectingly walking into between the veil of the living and the dead is predominately television actor Michael Bendetti (“21 Jump Street”) embarking on his first ever horror feature as Corey Thorton, the city boy, or so we assume as he leisurely journeys down a windingly steamy Louisiana tributary in a button-down shirt and tie, who learns his deadbeat, rich father has left him a large amount of property. For having been left fatherless for all of his life, the pill that read as Corey’s deep-rooted longing to familiarize with a flake of a father is a hard one to swallow. The angle that Schmoeller should have attacked more resurrection motivation is the one that involves Corey searching for answers in his father’s disfavor, choosing to live without the flesh and blood legacy of a son, and why now, posthumously, does his father want to reconnect? Audiences will find the answer overly obvious, but Corey Thorton’s thickness proves more difficult to penetrate, especially when he’s beguiled by an enchantress who can summon a flying, snake-fingered hand that emerges an affixing binding wire out from its stony skin and can turn whorehouse johns into caged birdies, literally, if they misbehave or become indelicately frisky. The house keeper’s horseback riding daughter Diane is marred by Holly Floria (“Bikini Island”) with an excessive Southern Belle accent when her character’s status doesn’t stem from sophistication and affluency but rather from the blue collared starry eyes of Anjanette Comer’s (“The Baby”) motherly and hospitality position. When the climax arrives in grand temps and we’re face-to-face with Corey’s ghostly pops, living in the titular Netherworld, the story takes a sudden branch drop that executes any voyage into the void between worlds and there’s quite a bit of neglect for Robert Sampson (“Re-Animator”) as Corey’s father who barely has any scenes to live up to being the film’s primo antagonist pulling the strings of the marionette of his flesh and blood. “Netherworld” fills out the cast with Robert Burr (“Ghost Story”), Alex Datcher (“Passenger 57”), Holly Butler (“Vendetta”), George Kelly (“Jugular Wine: A Vampire Odyssey”) and Denise Gentile (“Ordinary Madness”) as the super-sexy, premium prostitute Delores with parapsychological powers that connect her to the land of the dead.

Off the tip of a gator’s nose, “Netherworld” offers a taste of Full Moon’s 90’s production, promising radically outlandish F/X with a monstrous airborne hand, saucy sexual content, and gore. Corey’s inner thoughts exposition and waterway introduction tends to be more private eye monologuing in the explanation setup of his unplanned inheritance and it also feels like the brittle beginnings of a trashy romance novel: young man travels down the river to his inherited late father’s estate, torn between a pubertal young daughter of the long-standing estate housekeeper and the haram brothel seductress with an eldritch, supernatural inveiglement. Corey’s past lacks backstory, leaving an even playing field across the board of all characters and participating audiences in what to expect from the wild card that is Corey. Immediately drawn to the wanton Tonks not for carnal desires but rather the one woman who her father says can restore his past expiration, Corey’s not a wild card of ambiguity as his role lacks the pull of tough decisions, often between character versus character conflict, with basically a mind already made up to visit the bar-and-bordello despite the ominous warning signs between George Kelly’s sloppy bayou cajuner wanting to dance with Corey at Tonks, Diane’s strong opposition for Tonks in general, and amongst others dubious gratifying points. “Netherworld” very much lives in a world of opposition, like Superman’s bizarro world that defies logic. Logic such as the transition of people into birds, or being inducted into a clan of avian cultists, or ciphering who’s a good guy and who’s a bad guy, or, and this is the most important or, the suddenly cleaved ending that not only doesn’t allow a satisfying ending but also doesn’t explain much, in dialogue or in action, what came into existence once Corey was stuck in the Netherworld other than the obvious trade his father wanted to force.

Full Moon Features brings Hell to Blu-ray with an uncut and remastered from the original camera negative transfer of “Netherworld” in the continuous effort by the empire to upgrade all their classics for a new wave of format availability. Scanned into 2K from the 35mm negative, the AVC encoded, 1080p, high-definition Blu-ray looks pretty darn good. Well kempt over the years, the negative appears to have sustained little age or wear that progresses the hi-def upgrade with relative ease. Color grading is warm and stoked with detail that encrusts every object – the lushy bayou forest, the stony power of a flying hand, Michael Bendetti’s layered curly-perm mullet – all of it is greatly textured and delineated for depth, presented in the 1:78:1, widescreen aspect ratio. Compression doesn’t appear to be an issue despite a lower storage BD25 but that might be due to the utter lack of bonus accompaniments. The release offers two audio options: an English Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound and an English Dolby Digital 2.0 mix. Both options are equally suitable as the there’s not much more environmental oomph through the extra channels despite the full-bodied cacophonous cicada singing, which unfortunately doesn’t open up depth in the back channels despite the prevalence of the singing in the story’s background sonance. However, dialogue doesn’t feel cheated with a dominating layer and decent range to go with it. Along with essentially what is a bare bones disc, there are also no subtitles available with this release. What is available to view outside the feature is other Full Moon trailers and the original VideoZone segment that covers this particular 1992 gem. Physical features don’t stray too far from VHS, to DVD, to Blu-ray with the same flinty hand rocketing outward in a 3D-like position on the front cover. There are no inserts included with this release. “Netherworld” Blu-ray comes region free, with a runtime of 82 minutes, and, for the first time ever, uncut! An opposition to the usual spun of Louisiana voodoo-hoodoo, there’s another dark magic brewing in the bayou in “Netherworld,” but the promising story can’t coherently piece together down river in an uneven quagmire of quandaries.

Enter the Netherworld on Blu-ray!

EVIL is Ready to Administer Your Physikill! “Puppet Master: Doktor Death” reviewed! (Full Moon Features / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

The Doktor Will See You Now. See You in Hell!  Blu-ray Available on Amazon.com!

The sudden death of a World War II veteran leaves the employees and residents of Shady Oak retirement home to mourn his loss to their humble community.  April, new to the Shady Oak employee family and starting her very first day in the wake of resident’s death, is tasked to assist clean out the family-less resident’s leftover belongings.  Along with a couple of other orderlies, April discovers a trunk bound with a chain lock and breaking into it proves to be a creeper endeavor when the contents of the battered chest is a single doll, dressed in a blood-stained doctor’s gown with a hideously grinning skull upon it’s shoulders.  Soon after, the handful of residents and orderlies of Shady Oak are being hunted down and the maniac-looking doll with a scalpel is suspected to be cause of the grim reaper knocking early on the retirement home attendees’ doors.

One-by-one, and slowly and surely over the decades, Full Moon continues its campaign in broadening the “Puppet Master” universe.  For 34 years and an over three dozen films, including same universe and spinoffs, “Puppet Master” has been the porcelain, wood carved, and rubber-molded face of Charles Band’s Full Moon empire.  “Puppet Master’s” legacy continues to live on animating inanimate dolls into malevolent marionettes with their strings cut.  2020 saw the release of the company’s first character standalone with the more popular, if not the poster doll, Blade in “Blade:  The Iron Cross.”  Next, the span of a year between 2021 and 2022, Baby Oopsie from the “Demonic Toys” universe became the subject of a television series compiled until a three-part TV movie released by Full Moon on Blu-ray and DVD in the last six months.  Presently, Full Moon has ventured back to the “Puppet Master” universe with their release of “Doktor Death,” officially titled “Puppet Master:  Doktor Death,” that resurrects the miniature medical murderer last seen from “Retro Puppet Master” in 1999.  Helmed by the director of “The Dead Hate the Living!” and “The Hills Run Red,” Dave Parker chapters in a darker, gorier edge to the “Puppet Master” series that makes Dr. Kevorkian look like Florence Nightengale.  “Puppet Master:  Doktor Death” is a production of William Butler’s Candy Bar Productions, produced by Butler, who directed the “Baby Oopsie” television series/movies, Charles Band, representing Full Moon distributing powers, and alongside Josh Apple, Greg Lightner, and Mikey Stice.

The non-anthropomorphic cast is about as fresh faced as they come with young actors and actresses who likely weren’t even twinkle in their parents’ eyes yet when “Puppet Master” was released.  A new generation, integrated as victims and conspirators, are folded into this new line of a “Puppet Master” offshoot, beginning with Jenny Boswell in her sophomore feature film role as Shady Oaks’ new employee, April.  Having traversed from California to a small town in the middle of nowhere to work a retirement home, April mentions her strange choice of life-changing circumstances was due in part of searching for a lost relative.  This morsel of mystery puts an enigmatic taste swirling around in our mouths, but Boswell plays the statement casually enough to not throw up warning flags in a natural delivery of her character’s new girl innocence and candor with the rest of her Shady Oak counterparts, which include a perverse man-child Flynn (Zach Zebrowski), a pay for promiscuity Jennifer (Emily Sue Bengston, “Smiley Origins”), and all-around nice guy Ryan (Chad Patterson).  Intertwined by their occupational relation are the patients, clients, or residents, if you will, of Shady Oaks that are more of an interesting, eclectic bunch than the genre trope orderlies that become run of the mill victim fodder for Doktor Death.  Rick Montgomery Hr. (“Gore Orphanage”) plays the wealthy old perv with uncontrollable pinch fingers for the female bottom, John Capocci (“Praetorian”) is an unfiltered opinionate and avid golfer, Melissa Moore (“Sorority House Massacre II”) as a painter who whips up portraits embedded in her clairvoyant visions, and Tary Lyn Bergoine as a mute kleptomaniac living in fear off an oxygen tank.  See – much more interesting and with concrete performances to express who they are precisely as individuals.  “Puppet Master:  Doktor Death” fills the cast void with Erin Eva Butcher, Asthon Wolf, wrestler Jesse Guilmette, and Bill D. Russell.

Between “Demonic Toy’s” “Baby Oopsie” and “Puppet Master’s” “Doktor Death” spinoff projects, “Doktor Death” has a tighter story and more effective gore.  Granted, “Doktor Death” only has single under-an-hour film to its name but with completed and out in the world today, “Baby Oopsie” came off the rails as the series progressed with Oopsie’s look appearing different between the opening drive and the two latter parts, the story unhinges itself with the arbitrary introduction of a fembot, and doll kills that dwindled into dullness.  So, if you’re like me and was irked and turned off by “Baby Oopsie” when it was all said and done, you are likely hesitant to jump right into Full Moon’s next departure from the foremost franchise.  Don’t.  “Puppet Master: Doktor Death” may have the same aesthetic veneer but the guts of story are better compacted to keep audiences on track and the “Doktor Death’s” malevolent malpractice renders a far better disturbing slasher.  On the flip side of that coin, most of the deaths happen offscreen.  Out of “Doktor Death’s” personal 8-kill body count, only one is visually graphic within the scene.  I would say two but the character is later found not dead but just severely injured and we’re left unresolved with their life status.  The other deaths are done offscreen and are implied, denoting signs of demise with blood splatter against the wall or glass, a bloodied club repetitively bashing into a victim just out of the frame, or bodies are misappropriated post-mortem, posed in different discoveries of death, one in a very neat, very marionette, way.  The short runtime falls in sync with the nowadays Full Moon line of quick, cheap, and dirty modern movie, but what it also does is provide quick pacing into “Doktor Death’s” acrid atrocities against the elderly and their clueless caregivers and also opens up the potential for a sequel with a revelation, open ended finale that’ll surely see the return of psychotic puppet. 

Dave Parker brings his knowledge of blood-soaked carnage and maniacal macabre to a resurrected retro puppet for “Puppet Master:  Doktor Death!”  The Doktor is in and has arrived on Blu-ray home video from Full Moon Features with an AVC encoded BD25 presented in high-definition 1080p and a widescreen aspect ratio of 1.78:1.  From my last few previous views of Full Moon productions, there hasn’t been a whole lot of effort into creating an atmosphere but this latest entry levels out what’s been missing from contemporary Full Moon Features for some time, a dark and gloomy, evocatively tropey canvas that looks past the mundane sheen of digital recorded image and into another world of terror. In regard to storage format and compression, there was anything to note that stood out with artefact reproach. The Blu-ray comes with two audio options, an English Dolby Digital stereo 2.0 mix and an English Dolby Digital 5.1. Toggling between the two audio format, not a ton of variance between them, if any at all, that has to make you wonder about the credibility of the multi-channel mix. In any case, both formats offer a well-balanced diet of dialogue, ambience, and soundtrack with dialogue in front and prominent. Range is diverse with all the squishiness of Doktor Death’s puppeteering his golems inside an internal organ orchestra. The Full Moon release offers no subtitles for SDH. Bonus features only include a Full Moon Video Zone featurette of Retro Puppet Master with Charles Band, the original trailer, and other Full Moon trailers, including “Retro Puppet Master,” “Puppet Master 3,” “Don’t Let Her In,” “Piranha Women,” “Blade: The Iron Cross,” “Weedies: Halloweed Night,” and “The Resonator.” case physicality includes a traditional Blu-ray snapper with Doktor Death predominantly taking up the entire front cover with trademark maniacal grin, glowing eyes, and double fisting hypodermic instruments – a scalpel and syringe. The Disc art is pressed with the same front image. The film comes region free, uot rated, and has a runtime of 59 minutes, confirmed against IMDB.com’s listing of 75 minutes. So, either IMDB is incorrect, or the film is heavily edited down. “Puppet Master: Doktor Death” not only expands upon the legacy of the franchise but beefs up the ancillary side puppets that didn’t receive enough screen time and with a constructed filmic narrative worthy of Full Moon’s early canon of films, going back to the Doktor is a necessary follow up.

The Doktor Will See You Now. See You in Hell!  Blu-ray Available on Amazon.com!

Fresh-Water Fatalities of the EVIL Female Kind! “Piranha Women” reviewed! (Full Moon Features / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Awesome Cover for “Piranha Women!”  Check Out the Reversible Cover Art by Purchasing Your Copy Today!  Click Below.

At the seaside dive bar of Antonio Bay, flesh hungry creatures dressed in high heels and lowcut blouses circle around unsuspecting male prey gawking into their female gaze and their female bosoms.  Lured back to the woman’s indoor pool lair, the lured men are nibbled-to-death with tiny, sharp teeth bred by a science gone mad.  The normal, everyday guy Richard understands the dangers of his coining of the Piranha Women all too well as his cancer-stricken girlfriend desperately enrolls in an experiment drug program led by a Dr. Sinclair who binds the magically healing properties of the Piranha chromosome to his patients to build a sexy, sharp-teethed army.  With his colleague dead after being enticed by one of the beautiful and fish-spliced femme fatales and his girlfriend disappearing soon after seeing Dr. Sinclair, Richard must evade the murder suspicions from the police and battle through a pair of sexually aggressive, bikini-cladded chompers to save his endangered girlfriend from becoming one of the Piranha Women!

From the bizarre brain of Charles Band, who delivered devilishly cult pictures like “Puppet Master” and “Trancers” under the Full Moon empire for 40 years (if you’re counting Band’s defunct Empire Pictures) , and from the eccentric and erotica-charged touch of Fred Olen Ray, the writer-director of “Evil Toons” and “Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers”, comes the next freeform and fishy Full Moon feature, “Piranha Women.”  The 2022 film has all the assurances of a contemporary Full Moon production with a slapdash story structure, a handful of willing women to go topless, a hale and hearty use of a familiar carnivalesque score, and, of course, blood and lots of it, discharged by freaks and fiends of mad science.  Charles Band produces the venture, alongside associate producer, the former Playboy model and under-the-radar scream queen, Cody Renee Cameron, with Fred Olen Rey having penned the script treatment and sitting in the director’s chair.

For to recognize any of the “Piranha Women” cast, one would need reach down to the far depts of the fish tank where the bottom feeders roam.  Now, I’m not stating that performances are poor but to call the principals household names at any caliber level in film.  If you’ve established a residing foot on the internet, like me, or maybe have a photogenic keen eye, “Piranha Women’s” slender cast might blip on your brain’s recollection radar.  For instance, Bobby Quinn Rice, the story’s male lead trying to save his girlfriend Lexi (Sof Puchley, “Gatham”) from the clutches of killer fish with hot bods, had swimmingly integrated into the web series Star Trek universe in multiple series.  The “Super Shark” finds a solid lead performance in the adulthood reasonable and morally incorruptible Richard in what is Rice and Olen Ray’s fifth collaboration together as actor and director. If you’re not a Trekkie and have a more salacious sense of knowledge, the two actresses playing the genetically spliced, serrated teeth villainesses are former Playboy models in Keep Chambers and Carrie Overgaard and, yes, they do show plenty of skin if you were wondering.  Chambers debuts herself as an actress with a tight curve on how to hook men to their death with an extremely attractive lure while Overgaard’s off-and-on working relationship with producer Cory Renee Cameron scores the Michigan native a Los Angeles shoot, her first dive into the horror genre.  Chambers and Overgaard do as well as expected in roles where their nipples morph into bite-sized piranha teeth in conjunction with their mouths also modulating into larger razor teeth.  In all honesty, the film could have benefited for more nipple dentata carnage much the same way vagina-dentata did for Mitchell Lichtenstein “Teeth.” “Piranha Women” fills the cast pool with B-movie actors Jon Briddell (“Hot Wax Zombies on Wheels”), Richard Gabai (“Demon Wind”), Michael Gaglio (“College Coeds vs. Zombie Housewives”), Nathaniel Moore, Jonathan Nation (“Mega Piranha”), Houston Rhines (“Angels Fallen”), and Shary Nassimi as the fishy Dr. Sinclair.

Sharks, the apex predators of the ocean, may have their own patented subgenre with Sharksploitation, but Piranha are predominately pack hunters also hungry from meat and deserve their own categorical moniker (perhaps Piranhasploitation?) as these little carnivorous creatures will eat a little of your flesh one morsel at a time until the masticated body looks like chewed bubblegum. Joe Dante knew this with his Roger Corman cult classic “Piranha” and even The Asylum gets into the action with their “Mega Piranha” schlocker. Fred Olen Ray, who once raised his own personal piranha fish, takes a stab at a new angle involving our rather ravenous ankle biters by not making them the main antagonists of the story. In fact, the fish itself is not the villain as “The Attack of the 60 Foot Centerfolds” and “Bikini Jones and the Temple of Eros” filmmaker splices female erotic genome into the fold with body horror elements. The science behind the genetic sequence isn’t necessarily important, as Dr. Sinclar mentions in the film, it’s all little complicated, but there’s a lackadaisical air with the barebones narrative. With a film titled “Piranha Women”, we’re not looking for Academy Award substance or an auteur aiming to reach the depths of our soul with a powerfully visceral, visual tale and there’s a genre fan understanding in what to expect from Film Moon Features and director Fred Olen Ray, but after being pleasantly surprised with Full Moon’s more contemporary projects, like “Don’t Let Her In” and “Baby Oopsie,” I found “Piranha Women” falling apart at the seams. Pivotal scenes of transformation of the desperate, ill-stricken women at the hands of Dr. Sinclair are boiled down to one moment their normal, the next their nips have gnashing nibblers. Plus, and I know I’m asking a stupid question in relation to the director, but why is Dr. Sinclair only genetically modifying beautiful women? And why are the women enacting siren ways by only seducing men? Perhaps men are easy prey when against a hot, female bod but isn’t meat meat? The climatic ending is the weakest link of the entire chain as Richard searches out his beloved Lexi at the “Piranha Womens'” indoor pool lair only to become with the last of the piranha mutants. Richard’s weapon? Ethylene glycol. Yup, antifreeze in the pool water kills piranha and before his showdown with the shifty seductress, he unloads a quart into a fairly large pool, which in my opinion would be diluted to the point of non-affect, but when the piranha woman hits the water, apparently antifreeze electrocutes piranhas and, apparently, for a brief glimpse, the bolts of voltage unveil their monstrous, animalistic side of a humanoid piranha. There’s also another instance of rain melting another creature and, again, the pieces of the puzzle of how this is happening isn’t adding up. A flat, crestfallen ending nearly drowns its interestingly ludicrous premise into forgotten oblivion as the lasting episodic memory continues to battle for legacy between a plunged ending of perplexity and the sharp-teethed piranha women with sharp-teethed areolas.

Piranhasploitation might be an insignificant right now, but the pygmy pack hunters are fiercely swimming upstream to be a household name in terror as Full Moon Features adds their entry “Piranha Women” to the exclusive ranks. Full Moon’s AVC encoded, 1080p, high-definition Blu-ray is presented in a widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio. This particular release has strayed from Full Moon’s indiscriminate use of dark and gloomy lighting gels, tints, and high contrast shadow work that heighten the horror tone for a more natural lit preserve that has become baselessly bland. Compression looks pretty good as I wasn’t catching major instances of banding or artefact blocking but there are softer details around skin textures. However, pixel resolution frequently waves up and down from mid-teens to low-30ss because of the interlaced composite shots with the Antonio Bay dive bar or the floor-to-ceiling piranha tank when layered with characters. The release defaults to an English Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo but there is an English Dolby Digital 5.0 mix option that’ll you’ll have to toggle to during the feature. Both mixes are clean and clear with the surround sound option providing a slightly plusher but not by much more. No subtitles are available. More so with the post-production itself rather than issues with the Blu-ray is the stock ambient background noise doesn’t overpower the dialogue at all but is unfitting, especially when we only see a small cast in the scene but can hear a bustling office or bar. There is even one moment where the background clamor completely cuts out for an important part of the conversation and then never comes back despite being in the same room. Other ambience including poured drinks, popped corks, and high-heeled footsteps is right up front with the dialogue at times. Bonus features include a behind-the-scenes with one-sided discussions by the principal cast and director Fred Olen Ray as well as other Full Moon trailers that not only included “Piranha Women” but also “The Resonator,” “Baby Oopsie,” “Don’t Let Her In,” Evil Bong 888 – Infinity High,” “Weedjies: Halloweed Night,” and “The Gingerweed Man.” The physical features include a snazzy illustrated cover art of one of the piranha women with teeth bared, ready to bite; however, the release includes reversible cover art that reveals more of same said posed piranha women in a NSFW option which is a far better display cover for the standard Blu-ray snapper. As mentioned before, “Piranha Women’s” ending drops steep like going off over the Mariana Trench shelf and part of that reason might be the film’s 58-minute, under an hour, runtime which some will not consider a full-length feature that comes unrated and region free. Plenty to like about Fred Olen Ray’s “Piranha Women,” but there is equally plenty to dislike too with the absurd take on the raptorial fish’s transgenic titty-twisting body horror.

Awesome Cover for “Piranha Women!”  Check Out the Reversible Cover Art by Purchasing Your Copy Today!  Click Below.