EVIL Wants You Tour Your Own Personal Hell! “Trapped Ashes” reviewed! (4K UHD and Blu-ray / Deaf Crocodile)

Posted by Steven Lewis on March 12, 2025

4K and Blu-ray “Trapped Ashes” from Deaf Crocodile. Available Here!

The VIP package for a historical studio backlot tour gives seven strangers a behind-the-scenes look at how movies were made and the background behind them. When their cart pulls up to one of the more infamous movie houses for Desmond Hacker’s fright flick Hysteria, the tour group are eager to explore what’s typically off limits for normal, non-VIP tour attractions. Once inside the backlot house, much of the Hacker’s funhouse tricks and odd designs are although covered in cobwebs are still very functionally practical as the group separates and goes room-by-room to peruse a movie house. When they all gather in what looks to be the commune dining area, they find themselves unable to locate the way out no matter which unlocked door they choose, which circles them back. The tour guide mentions Hacker’s movie had similar parallels and that the only way to free themselves would be to tell their own personal horror story. With nowhere to go and nothing to lose, the stories begin their descent into terror.

For someone who doesn’t go out of their way to watch horror anthologies, I’ve been on a kick lately with a decent string of short film compilation feature, starting with the latest entry from the popular “V/H/S” franchise, “V/H/S/Beyond.” Next up takes us back to 2006 with “Trapped Ashes,” a campy horror anthology that not only brought together legendary genre directors, such as “Friday the 13^th’s” Sean S. Cunningham, “Gremlins’s” Joe Dante, “The Matrix” visual effects arts John Gaeta, “Silent Night, Deadly Night 3: Better Watch Out’s” Monte Hellman, and the late director of “Altered States,” Ken Russell, but also brings together aged, yet still legendary, familiar faced actors that have since past that short time between 2006 and 2025 Dennis Bartok wrote the anthology piece and is his brainchild, producing the film.

Those aforesaid actors have a combined nearly centuries (plural!) of experience with careers spanning an average of 50 years each. Henry Gibson (“The ‘burbs”), John Saxon (“A Nightmare on Elm Street”), and Dick Miller (“Gremlins”) all together in one film. Granted, Dick Miller’s cameo was so short that all three were only together for a brief scene but the trio alone should bring in genre fans to witness Henry Gibson in a persona he does best, a round faced under stark white hair and with puppy dog eyes that draws one closer to his innocence only to have the rug snatched right from under you when he turns sinisterly dark as the seemingly harmless tour guide. Saxon also plays true to his conventional character archetype as a wise-cracking tough guy too cool for school; this time, he plays a screenwriter haunted by his own betrayal toward his best friend while being infatuated with a bewitching beautiful woman. Unlike most horror anthologies, “Trapped Ashes’” individual tales contain mostly the same cast as the wraparound with Saxon, Jayce Bartok (“Founder’s Day”), Lara Harris (“The Dogfighters”), Rachel Veltri (“Pray for Morning”), Michèle-Barbara Pelletier (“Brainscan”), and Scott Lowell as the tour guests with personal hell to tell. The heterogeneous group convey their supernatural-laced anecdotes that mingle inside the context of their being or life whether body image, marriage, friendships, and childhood, subjective intimacies that shape their excruciating experiences that, if audiences see them on screen for the first time, wouldn’t be clear how deeply burdened or troubled they are at first glance. Once the story is told, moods and personalities shift, or perhaps seemingly normal habits are made clearer, and this is made possible by the eclectic bunch of actors to carve away their characters’ exterior shells to see who they really portray. Ryo Ishibashi (“Audition”), Yoshinori Hiruma, Mina E. Mina (“Eastern Promises”), Winston Rekert (“Eternal Evil”), Ken Russell, Tahmoh Penikett (“Trick r’ Treat”), Tygh Runyan (“Disturbing Behavior”), Amelia Cooke (“Species III”), Luke Macfarlane, Deanna Milligan, and Matreya Fedor (“Slither”).

Riffling through the obvious camp “Trapped Ashes” touts very proudly, there are nuggets surrounding the unsavory themes. Body dysphoria within “The Girl with Golden Breasts” is one of these topics, where an actress feels compelled to enhance her bosom for better, younger roles, and that speaks the relevance ill of the movie industry’s perverse tidings of late as actors and actresses continue to fill, inject, scar, and manipulate themselves into being their unnatural self to satisfy producers, execs, and audience likes and expectations when, in reality, hurts nothing but themselves. Dissatisfaction marriage, or perhaps better labeled stagnant marriage, leads into invasive third party to sate long neglect passion and in this case, that third party is an ancient Japanese demon named Seishin (Japanese for Spirit) who lures the wife’s sexual appetite down to the pits of the netherworld. From there, themes love triangles, obsession, cheating, and dysfunctional family structures formulate a pod of personal pate smeared with victimization, the victims being the storytellers stuck in the Desmond Hacker’s Hysteria backlot house. “Trapped Ashes” isn’t about being victim, it’s more about playing the victim and those playing may not be victims of their own tales at all that adds a morsel of supernaturality to the recipe that changed the course of the idiosyncratic anecdotes that are close to their emotions and mental well-beings as well as proximally physically hazardous.

Our first time covering the Dennis Bartok and Craig Rogers founded Deaf Crocodile release and it doesn’t disappointment with a sleek new 2-Disc 4K UHD and Blu-ray of “Trapped Ashes,” scanned and restored in 4K for its Blu-ray debut. Presented in a widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio, the Deaf Crocodile UHD is HVEC encoded, 2160p Dolby Vision, BD66 and the Blu-ray is AVC encoded, 1080p high definition, BD50. For an early 2000 production, “Trapped Ashes” doesn’t have the digital veneer of early 2000s film besides some visual effects work of the image manipulation drooping effect. The extra pixels of UHD really brighten and elevate the image to today’s standards to surface the most inconspicuous details lost in standard definition. Color saturation and skin tones appear natural and organic with no signs of compression issues or imbedded problems with the digital equipment. Depth has really opened up in areas like the funhouse illusions of the Hysteria house in the wraparound segment and or in “Twin” when reality of the situation is made clear to put the explanation in one single medium-to-medium closeup frame. Blu-ray copy mimics a lot same UHD accolades with a less fine tune edge around the background. The English DTS-HD 5.1 surround sound is the only audio option available on both formats. More than ample, the lossless provides a deepening immersion the deeper you go into stories with balanced side and back channels complimented by an even-keeled LFE to register the bass near the front while whispery events hover around a surrounding backside, such as with Cunningham’s “Jibaku’s” drawing-in hallucination moment of a Japanese painting that instills reverberating echoes and Shepherd tones. English SDH subtitles are available. Bonus features include threw new interviews – Dennis Bartok moderates a feature-length, online platform interview with director John Gaeta, cast members Jayce Bartok, Scott Lowell, and Lisi Tribble, producers Yuki Yoshikawa and Yushifumi Hosoya, and cinematographer Zoran Popvic, a second feature-length interview with cast members Tahmoh Penikett and Tygh Runyan and production designer Robb Wilson King, and the last approx. 40-minute interview is with producers Mike Frislev of Nomadic Pictures. Extras do not stop there with a director’s cut of Monte Hellman’s “Stanley’s Girlfriend,” the original full-length cut of Ken Russell’s “The Girl with the Golden Breasts,” and a 5-part making-of with cast and crew archive interviews, a new visual essay Hollywood Parasite: Hysteria in Trapped Ashes by journalist and physical media expert Ryan Verrill and film professor Dr. Will Dodson. This is the so-called standard release compared to its Deluxe Limited Edition companion release, but this release is also pretty deluxe physically. There’s no limited O-slipcover but the unique, almost 70’s-eseque cover design is appealing yet simple with a reverse side depicting an image of the wrapround characters inside the Hysteria house dining room or commune area. The UHD and Blu-ray overlap each other in their differentiated locking mechanism on the ride of the clear Amaray case while the left insert portion holds a Deaf Crocodile QR code for access of the transcribed bonus content. This release has the rated R cut with a runtime of 104 minutes and is region encoded A playback only.

Last Rites: Anthologies can be the antithesis of horror – building and dropping tension, an innate broken narrative, different stylistic choices that disunify the entire film, etc., but if campy enough, if not taken too seriously, if cast John Saxon, Henry Gibson, and Dick Miller, “Trapped Ashes” can find a home in the genre and in our collections with a new and extra-loaded Deaf Crocodile 4K UHD and Blu-ray set.

4K and Blu-ray “Trapped Ashes” from Deaf Crocodile. Available Here!

Watch Out! EVIL is Coming for Your Dysfunctional Family! “The Bloody Man” reviewed! (Wild Eye Releasing / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on May 1, 2023

Better Behave or “The Bloody Man” Will Get You! On Blu-ray at Amazon.com.

Set in the 1980s, Sam doesn’t cope well with life without his recently deceased beloved mother. Getting along with his new stepmother proves to be challenging at best, his older brother continues to disregard him as an insignificant pest, his little sister gets under his skin in playing with his action figures without consent, and the school bully makes his life that much more difficult. The young boy’s unhappiness spurs him into desperate measures by reciting a spell passage on the back of his favorite comic book, hoping the passage truthful to conjure up his deepest desire – to bring his mother back from the dead and fix a broken family. The passage instead summons a demon, the Bloody Man, who seeks to rip fractured family apart even farther until their eventual dissolve and demise. Able to possess and take shape of his stepmother, Sam must reunite his family in order to save not only his siblings but also his stepmother from fragmenting into nothingness and death at the hands of a demented demon trickster.

An homage to all things 1980s, “The Bloody Man” is a modern-day resemblance of one the more recent golden ages of cinema with a synth-laden soundtrack, all the popular play toy trinkets and new wave styles of the era, and a magazine loaded millimeter film stock shot in attempt to remove as much of the digital aerodynamics as possible in contemporary times. Daniel Benedict, the director of the Halloween-themed slasher “Bunni” involving a sexy, leather-cladded, fishnet stockings wearing costume killer with bunny ears, takes a step back from extreme slashers and hops into more family-oriented terror with the protagonist heroes being kids stepping up against the forces of evil, think of films like “The Gate” or “Ernest Scarred Stupid.” Not as slapstick as the “Ernest” droll-troll paragon of ritualized Halloween movie lineups, this crowdfunded project can be a little more vicious in delivering on the lines of the same heartwarming message that instilled into us from the Jim Varney 30-years-ago, that love is key in overcoming darkness. Benedict pens and helms the 2020 production with wife Casi Clark, aka Casi Benedict, co-writing a script that loosely pulls in and indirectly references Benedicts’ collaborated efforts on a He-Man inspired fan made short “Fall of Grayskull” into their boogieman story. The Benedicts’ production company Red Serial Films confects the film into fruition with Mercedez Varble, Jason L. Watson, Garrett M. Johnson, and Rihannon Crothers producing.

Despite not having top bill on the film, David Daniel leads us through the angsty complications of a new family dynamic as well as being the centric force of rebuilding a crumbling household as the middle child, feeling every bit like the world is against him, Sam Harris. Daniels debut feature and leading role depicts well the internal argumentative aspects of having to go along with a life-forming change no child should ever go through, the death of a mother, and that sends him and his family careening toward dissolution despite his cheerful father’s overly confident optimism. The top bills go to a pair of “A Nightmare on Elm Street” alum who both play mother to Sam. Lisa Wilcox (“A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Master” and “A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Child”) and Tuesday Knight (“A Nightmare on Elm Street: The Dream Master”) switch back-and-forth, between flashback-and-present, Sam’s biological mother and his new, soon to be, stepmother. Surely, it comes to reason that the Wilcox and Knight names not only provide a couple of “The Bloody Man” selling points for die hard Freddy Kruger acolytes but could also be seen as an homage to the Robert Englund franchise with a similar living between two planes of existence nightmare antagonists hunting down a house full of kids, using unhappiness as a vessel rather than dreams. Though not scarred by full body burns, wielding a finger bladed glove, and sporting a dirty striped sweater and fedora, the Bloody Man has his own characteristics being a black magic sorcerer. Dressed traditionally in a snug black Chinese robe and blood running down his wild eyed face, Nicholas Redd enlivens the Bloody Man on a playfully perturbing level but the script doesn’t allow Redd to deliver the Bloody Man’s full potential while also not cutting the villain fully into the fold until the nearly last act. Instead, the Bloody Man is reduced to a few here-and-there appearances, some one-liners, with half of the character’s screen time awarded to Tuesday Knight in a duality role as the Bloody Man uses the caregiver’s looks to draw in the Harris children. Redd has promising lunacy that’s sorely underutilized in more ways than one and in so much so, the film itself shouldn’t be titled after the character. “The Bloody Man” remaining cast includes Sam Hadden, Olivia Sanders, Jeremy Carr (“Calm Before”), Dominick Wilkins (“6 Feet Below Hell”), Dan Eardley (“Retro Freaks”), KateLynn E. Newberry (“O9en Up”), and Ellie Parker (“Bones and All”).

I’m all for a quasi-kid friendly horror of the same antithetical vein as “Monster Squad” or “Gremlins” where the subject matter borders the edge of being too risky, eking above the terror threshold for children who would be roughly the same age as the story’s principal leads battling for the very reconciliation of family before the Bloody Man kills them. “The Bloody Man” lurks under the veil of being lighthearted in contrast to the brushing scenes of severed, sentient arms, blood streaking down various maniacal faces, a mildly gruesome decapitation, and moments of good ‘ole fashion terror that may induce nightmares for anyone under the age of 12. A child’s lack of sleep because they’re waking up with fright-filled sweats will for sure not provide parents any favors, but Benedict skirts a fair amount of gore and does imply the significant damage and death offscreen almost as to shelter general audiences’ eyes for a broader invitation to watch the movie and, as mentioned previously, the titular bad guy doesn’t make an appearance until much later in the story that has been setup comically with a wrestling fanatic principal, Perry’s godawful verbal teasing, and a lot of 80’s inspired shots that nailed the decade’s analog paint job – a silver lining against the night terrors. Honestly, the third act also drags out the culmination of events. For such a small house, the Bloody Man chasing the Harris kids might as well taken place in a labyrinthine mansion, but the ground level with basement rancher slows down the hide-and-seek or maybe the Bloody Man is just really bad at childish game as the kids could stay in rooms for extended periods of time, even playing pretend with toys at one point, and in not once instance, does the Bloody Man bust in to snatch up a tyke to terminate. Where “The Bloody Man” also struggles is buttoning up the summoning of the soulless sorcerer who’s conjured up by a mere passage reading off the back of Sam’s favorite Barbarian Man comic books. The comic, which is introduced as a fairly over-the-counter object, holds this mystical darkness that must be conjoined with a family’s spiraling. Yet, the story contradicts itself as the Bloody Man pursues another broken home that didn’t warrant the reading of the comic’s back cover passage, creating some confusion on how the cruel chaser of disconcerted children operates on a phantasmic plane.

As far as 80’s-inspired films go, “The Bloody Man” can run with the best of them, even with Netflix’s “Stranger Things,” and Wild Eye Releasing sees fit to drop a special edition Blu-ray of the Daniel Benedict comedic chiller. The AVC encoded, high-definition 1080p, BD25 is presented in a widescreen 2.35:1 aspect ratio. What makes the film feel decade authentic and that can suck you into it’s existence is Benedict’s decision to shoot either in 35mm or with a 35mm digital overlay that has characteristic dust speckles and a fine grain. Image quality remain at a consistent color and black levels with a few flare ups of compression artefact issues, such as splotches in darker scenes, in squeezing this long runtime film onto a BD25 along with an atypical accompaniment of Wild Eye Release robust extras. The bitrate does have large swings from lower teens to upwards of high 20s Mbps. Yet, details generally come through with enough depth to create visual spacing between objects. The English language Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo renders adequate for a narrative that doesn’t have a ton of range with an intimately tight story surrounding Sam and his siblings but is complimented greatly by Johnathan Fan Octo Evans retro-synth soundtrack with an oscillating pulse and a crescendo of tension, solidifying even more the 80’s inspiration. English subtitles are optionally available. The special features include a director’s commentary with Daniel Benedict, a gag-blooper reel, a local newscast behind-the-scenes segment, various promotional videos from Kickstarter, Indiegogo, Barbarian Man toys, an emulated One to Grown On based PSA show from the 80s, and a Showbox promo with the original trailer bringing up the tail. One last bonus scene is also at the end of the credits so stay to the very end. The physical features include a clear Blu-ray snapper case with latch that houses glow lit Harris kids geared up to tackle the looming Bloody Man, or that is my assumption of who that is on the front cover as that figure looks nothing like the Bloody Man on screen. A more true-to-form Bloody Man is on the cardboard slipcover in another retro illustrated, compositional mockup with a similar layout as the actual Blu-ray front cover. Inside the snapper case, the reverse front cover has a still image from the movie, typical of many Wild Eye Releases, a folded one-sheet with the additions of Tuesday Knight and Lisa Wilcox amongst the child leads, and a disc art pressed with the unknown version of Bloody Man. The region free release comes not rated and has an excessive runtime of 133 minutes, contributing to the pacing issues of the last act. “The Bloody Man” doesn’t exactly live up to the moniker in this tame throwback but what the film has is a mighty nostalgia that brings back feelings of a superlative horror age that was once, and still is, goosebump arousing.

Better Behave or “The Bloody Man” Will Get You! On Blu-ray at Amazon.com.

EVIL is Only in Your Nightmares. Or is it? “Retribution” reviewed! (Severin / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on November 5, 2021

Severely depressed artist George Miller attempts suicide by jumping off from his apartment building. During the exact same time, a low-end gangster is brutally killed by cruel loan sharks. Being both born on Aril 1^st and dying at the same time, the tortured spirit of the gangster possesses the meek artist’s body right before being resuscitated by EMTs. After a long recovery filled with horrific nightmares, the affable artist returns to his apartment building where he’s welcomed by fellow tenants and an overly warm landlord. Still plagued by nightmares that have seeped into his awake conscious state, George medicates himself to sleep but the nightmares continue as he sees himself using psychokinetic powers to kill random individuals with extreme malice. The nightmares are so real he wakes up in a sweaty panic to find out that that exact person was killed the night before the very way it played in his dreams. When George realizes the gangster has inhabited his body for revenge, he and his friends take measures to put an end to the vindictive carnage.

Santa Maria. Mother of God. Help me!!! That phrase, attached to the very last seconds before a gruesome death and announced blankly from fiery, dagger eyes, has forever been seared into the recessed corners of my eardrums as the death cry that echoes throughout Guy Magar’s 1987 gory and visceral possession identity crisis, “Retribution.” Magar’s ultra-violent and super-chromatic film is the filmmaker’s grand inaugural entrance as a full-length director following up behind a string of director chaired television episodes, including episodes from “The A-Team,” “Blue Thunder,” and “The Powers of Matthew Star” that regularly contained quickly charged, action packed sequences. The Egyptian-born director translates those intense moments of frenzied disturbance into his mean-spirited and unforgiving vindicator of a script cowritten with then first time screenwriter, Lee Wasserman. Shot in Los Angeles, “Retribution” is a virtual tour of the city, using the streets of L.A. and real locations, such as the Don Hotel for George’s residence and the nearby House of Neon Art, as a lively, eclectic, and wallet-saving convenient giftwrap for the film’s Dr. Jekyll and Mr. Hyde complexion that feels totally normal compared to L.A.’s divergent glamour. Magar and Wasserman produce the film with Renegade and Unicorn Motion Pictures serving as the production companies and presented by Taurus Entertainment, formerly connected with United Artists.

There are probably many actors that could been imagined for the role of George Miller, the suicidal artist plagued with visions of him committing murder, but it’s hard to imagine that venomous stare of complete satisfaction in madness spread across the face of anyone else other than Dennis Lipscomb. No disrespect to the “Eyes of Fire” and “Wargames” actor but Lipscomb isn’t a chiseled-jawed and muscular leading man; in fact, Lipscomb is quite the opposite, but his range into mild-manner, all around nice guy George Miller into the lust for hatred and murderous revenge George Miller hangs on with complete chasmic permanence. However, George’s love interest with the street working prostitute and fellow Don Hotel resident, Angel (Suzanne Snyder, “Return of the Living Dead II,” “Killer Klowns from Outer Space”), hardly ever seems natural in not only in the characters’ surreal age-yawning dalliance but also the chemistry looks and feels flat between Lipscomb and Snyder. Magar and Wesserman neglect diving more into that bond between them but their enamored gleamy eyes for one another is apparent and strong without the context to back it up. “The Dungeonmaster’s” Leslie Wing also is placed as a George Miller sympathetic advocate in her role as hospital psychologist Dr. Jennifer Curtis, but Dr. Curtis has more background to contend with in comparison to the suddenly conjured fondness from Angel as Curtis is a mental health professional caring for a suicidal patient from at his rock bottom worst to a complete positive turnaround in his mental transformation. Curtis has more skin in the game with George’s supposed delusions of actually killing people in his nightmares as she defends not only George’s unique supernatural circumstances, but, in a way, herself as a licensed medical profession following HIPAA laws. “Retribution” holds many dear and unforgettable characters that essentially captures the entire 1980’s spectrum of personalities and, even for a brief scene, the cast gives each role their all, including performances from Susan Peretz (“Dog Day Afternoon”), Clare Peck (“Teen Wolf”), Chris Caputo (“Ghost Warrior”), Danny Daniels (“Voodoo Blood Bath”), Ralph Manza (“Godzilla”), George Murdock (“The Sword and the Sorcerer”), Mike Muscat (“Hunter’s Blood”), and Hoyt Axton who doesn’t stray too far from his good intentions, but naïve, father role in “Gremlins” to being a detective tracking down suspect George Miller.

I’m in total awe of Guy Magar’s “Retribution.” That opening scene of the suicide attempt with Alan Howarth’s building tension score drops not a single piece of dialogue yet opens with a gripping life and death situation, musically synced to progress toward a harrowing climax, and every frame is dripping with vintage 80’s appeal. Magar definitely knew what strings to pull to get the blood pumping, to get you excited, and to drop an excellent mystery right in the lap, or the middle of the street in this case with George Miller’s body after it flops off the car it just smashed onto. From that point on, “Retribution” peddles forward following the recovery, recouping, and ruination of George Miller’s life at the unseen hands of an exploiting, malevolent spirit that seeks to track down the top-tiered gangsters that shot and burned him alive and exact his own brand of harsh psychokinetic justice. Does it matter how George and this gangster, both born on the same day and both nearly died at the same time, came to fuse transcendently together? Don’t worry. Magar didn’t think it was important either and he’s right! “Retribution” snags all the attention for the sole purpose of the ride and that ride being a beautiful, color-coded daymare. The one aspect that ultimately retracts the buzzing high, stemmed from most 80’s films, is the sluggish love interest subplot between George and Angel stutter stepping into an awkward phase of interactions that hard stops much of core plot and though the plot is neurotically nonsensical to begin with, George and Angel’s desires for each other are about as cringeworthy as they come. Stick with the gore by honing in on Miller’s subconscious alter ego of a gangster serving his killers their just desserts via Kevin Yagher (“Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge”) and his highly effective special effects on a low end budget that, along with a brilliant showing of cinematography by Gary Thieltges, tips into the categorical likes of “The Evil Dead” or “The Exorcist.”

“Retribution” delivers a fervency unlike ever seen in one of the utmost, must-see, shamefully overlooked horrors films of the 80’s. Now, with a deserved boost and in style, “Retribution” gets the royal restoration treatment with a jammed-packed and sleek 3-disc Blu-ray set from Severin Films and distributed by MVD Visual. Disc one’s theatrical cut, clocking in at 107 minutes, comes from the recently discovered 35mm pre-print elements, shot on an Arriflex 35 BL3 per IMDB, and has been digitally scanned in 2K, presenting the region free film in 1080p Full High Definition inside the original widescreen 1:85:1 aspect ratio. “Retribution’s” image pleasingly pops with fine delineating attention to the details that reach out to the point where they’re nearly tactile textures. Every single setup of Robb Wilson King’s production designs are rich to begin with but are even figuratively injected with a smoother compression growth enhancing hormone, adding more layers of surface level details that personify and personalize the space. Magar’s chromatically fluorescent vision is a literal tilt-a-whirl palette blast of phantasmagoria. Disc tow is the extended Dutch video version that adds back in the extended seconds on the longer, gorier kill scenes. The English language DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 is the sole mix on the release and, honestly, sates the need with the dual channels. You obviously don’t get the surround sound, which considering this release would have been ideal, but the stereo mix, as well as the dialogue track, is still full-bodied, identifiable, and spotless of blemishes. John Carpenter understudy Alan Howarth scores his solo synth-laden story on tenterhooks with a tinge of a Miami Vice theme as well as setting tonal moods that add depth to character layers. If you want the entire OST, you’re in luck! The third disc is a compact disc of the entire soundtrack. Special features includes over two hours of content with Severin exclusive looking back at the experiences with the late director Guy Magar and the ins-and-outs of making “Retribution” interviews with co-writer Les Wasserman Writing Wrongs, actress Leslie Wing Shock Therapy, actress Suzanne Snyder Angel’s Heart, actor Mike Muscat Santa Maria, Mother of God, Help Me!, soundtrack composer Alan Howarth Settling the Score, special effects artist John Eggett Visions of Vengeance, artist Barry Fahr The Art of Getting Even, production designer Robb Wilson King Living in Oblivion. Other special features include Guy Magar’s student film “Bingo,” stills and poster galley, and the theatrical trailer all packaged under a cardboard slipcover and a reversible snap case cover. Severin Film’s “Retribution” release is a triumph, a proper regenerarcy of revenge cinema, with all the gory details being the star of the show.

Own this Amazing 3-Disc set of “Retribution” from Severin Films!

Bite Sized Evil With a Real Bite! “Ghastlies” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on January 3, 2018

Four sorority sisters embark on a isolated cabin vacation for an all girls’ weekend in the quiet woods. Through all the booze and the trips to the lakeside beach, Sloane, Abby, Margot, and Lulu reap the benefits of solitude and sisterhood and just when everything seems to be going delightfully swell, even when Sloane’s perverse boyfriend and his friend show up unexpectedly, trouble brews beneath their feet, under the leaf-riddled surface, when Abby unwittingly unleashes three space originated, pint-sized ghastly ghouls. As the miniature and ferocious creatures rip through unlucky victims, nobody knows how to stop, let alone escape, their woodland carnage, especially when they’re being aided and abetted by human caretakers.

In the filmmaking fashion of Brett Piper (“Queen Crab”) or Mike Lyddon (“First Man on Mars”), Brett Kelly offers his low-rent talents in construction an 80s-esque creature feature on a pygmy scale in more ways than one. The Ontario born director has helmed a vast amount of independent b-horror prior to, including such great titled credits as “The Bonesetter,” “Attack of the Jurassic Shark,” and “Raiders of the Lost Shark.” Now, released for the very first time on any format, anywhere, is “Ghastlies,” a “Gremlines” or “Critters” creature feature that aims to rain down terror when all hell breaks loose with ankle biters running around and while the low budget production or creature value doesn’t par with the more popular Joe Dante or Stephen Herek films, the heartfelt attempt in this modern day feature accomplishes the intended effect of a 1980’s horror comedy, complete with synthesized score and era correlating attired.

“Ghastlies'” lineup consists of Brett Kelly regulars such as Jessica Huether and Kendra Summerfield from “Raiders of the Lost Shark.” Huether’s and Summerfield’s performance as the nerdy, yet overall good girl Abby and the snobby, superficially rich bitch Lulu, instilling the yin and yang personas of the group, and their joined by Julie Mainville and Kim Valentine as the unforgettably clueless Margot and the sisterhood leader in Sloane. Mainville more memorable out of the four sisters as she has spot on timing and delivery with the witless and likable Margot. John Migliore, known more for slabbing on the prosthetics and makeup to be a zombie, has a minor costarring role as a dimwitted bike cop Officer Vinnie and Migliore, whose donned zombie wear in films like “Land of the Dead” and “Ninjas vs Monsters,” filled multi-faceted shoes for the Kelly film by dappling into the spaceship special effects and providing the Ghastlies puppetry. Migliore’s Officer Vinnie is paired with another similar goofy character in Peter Whittaker as Officer Frank as well as Joel Elliott “Countrycide,” Eric Deniverville, Stephanie Moran, and Kyle Martellacci who also co-star in the zany trope-ladened homage. As his first feature credit, Chris Bavota’s script creates no real dynamic between the characters who all pertain to a self-serving purpose under a guise of slapped together dialogue that’s no more substantial than a boulder in outer space.

And there in lies the rub. “Ghastlies” inability to click together to fulfill the allusion of was what-once-was is the film’s weakness. The cartoonish hand puppets, the implausible effects, and the technical inconsistencies can all be overlooked as campy charm, passed aside to enjoy “Ghastlies” for what it’s worth, but what can’t subside is the wonky connection between the cast that doesn’t favor well that’s diluted at the end by the starkly questionable and abrupt editing, resulting in a presumed unfinished film that seeks to either be an open ended invitation for a potential sequel, defined by one of the characters standing up with a makeshift mini-gun and garbed in Rambo-like gear, or a hasty cut that provides a lukewarm, satisfactory, and budget friendly finale that actually invokes more confusion than viewership appeasement. Shortly following the live-action wrap up, a short animated comedy, illustrated by the multitalented John Migliore, in the same vain as the quirky Looney Tunes but with Ghastlies.

The lovely, cuddly, and ghoulish “Ghastlies” is released onto DVD and Blu-ray combo from Camp Motion Pictures. Image quality for the Blu-ray format is by far stunning for a low-budget feature presented in 1080p encoded MPEG-4 AVC BD 25. The coloring naturally displays and even the darks had great depth without distortion or inconsistencies. The English Dolby Digital 2.0 is another story as, unlike the image quality, the presentation is inconsistent with imbalanced levels that make a few scenes difficult to comprehend. Clarity isn’t necessarily an issue with no blights on the tracks, but the technical placements could have been smoother. The electric score score by Tomb Dragomir, the composers first score ever, manages to engross and re-illuminate the decade that inspires “Ghastlies.” Bonus material includes a special effects interview with john Migliore’s helping hand into Ghastlies’ FX, Tomb Dragomir discusses his experience scoring his first feature, “Ghastlies'” music video, the trailer and Camp Motion Pictures’ trailers, and an audio commentary with director Brett Kelly. “Ghastlies” is part “Gremlins,” part Lovecraftian, and all borderline shlock-y fun, but the loose character interactions and out of kilter editing embargo the full bodied experience.

“Ghastlies” available on Blu-ray!

Colleen and Colleen Versus the Evil Bratzis! “Yoga Hosers” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on March 17, 2017

Colleen Collette and Colleen McKenzie are best friends. They’re also two superficial 15-year-old girls who are nose deep into their social media campaigning cell phones, jamming in their girl punk band Glamthrax, and living by the unorthodox, yet namaste driven, yoga practices while exasperatingly working at one of girl’s father’s convenient stores called “Eh-2-Zed.” Set in the Great White North of Canada, the Winnipeg, Manitoba sophomores are surprisingly invited to a senior party, a lure by a popular, good-looking senior boy who has a darker, Satanic side to him. The Colleen girls’ run in with a murderous devil worshipping senior inadvertently opens another hidden danger lurking 37 feet beneath their “Eh-2-Zed” soles. A slumbering Nazi mad scientists has been awoken and aims to finish his Third Reich master plan to take over Canada with a cloned army of Bratzis, living Bratwurst sausages who are pint-sizes Nazis, and seeks to unleash evil upon the Manitoba Earth.

Kevin Smith’s latest pop-cultural flick, a comedy-horror feature, entitled “Yoga Hosers” is the second installment, following 2014’s film “Tusk”, in Smith’s horror-inspired trilogy known as The True North Trilogy. Did you noticed I labeled “Yoga Hosers” as a comedy-horror instead of a horror-comedy? The “Mallrats” and “Clerks” director basks more in the familiarity of witty, profane humor in this second of three films, but Kevin Smith has known to dapple, gradually stepping over to the dark side into horror with his radical religious sect piece “Red State” and, like aforementioned, the body-horror “Tusk.” The Jersey native also has an occasional appearance on AMC’s “The Talking Dead,” a talk show about “The Walking Dead’s” post-premier of each episode, and has meddled in the realm of the fantastic. Not only is Smith a strong advocate and sincerely passionate comic book enthusiast, coinciding with his own AMC show “The Comic Book Men,” but “Dogma,” starring the late Alan Rickman, delivers divine revelations and, now, with “Yoga Hosers,” a villainous Nazi clones miniature Bratwurst soldiers. Smith holds, in my opinion, one of the most extremely diverse bodies of work in our lifetime.

Where as “Tusk” goes gritty and gory with R rated horror-comedy, Smith’s intentions for “Yoga Hosers” has always leaned toward that of PG-13 and, maybe, that’s due in part of the two films’ minoring connection. The connection, presumably set in the same whacked out alternate universe, stem from the two Colleens, one played by Smith’s hysterically funny daughter, Harley Quinn Smith, and the other being Harley’s longtime, kindergarden friend Lily-Rose Depp. Yes, the daughter of mega star Johnny Depp and French singer Vanessa Paradis brings her inherited talent and French dialect to one-half of a buddy comedy. The 15-year old girls, who are also 15-year old in character, transfer their natural offscreen relationship into being an entitled millennial pair with every intent on neglecting responsibility until faced with the moment of truth. Teamed up well with Lily-Rose’s father, Johnny Depp, under the heavy makeup of a fictional French manhunter named Guy Lapointe, also from “Tusk,” with scene-to-scene rotating facial mole, the crime fighting, buddy trio awkwardly moves across the plain in an enjoyable double entendre performance of simple wit. Accompanying Depp, Smith, and Depp are an eclectic roster of Kevin Smith’s usuals such as Justin Long (“Tusk,” “Jeepers Creepers”) as a reality-severed Yoga instructor named Yogi Bayer, Jason Mewes (“Jay and Silent Bob Strike Back”) in a bit part, and, of course, Kevin Smith himself as the devilish Bratzis. New faces also make the scene with an unrecognizable Haley Joel Osment (“Sixth Sense”) as a young Canadian Nazi and “Orange is the New Black” Natasha Lyonne portraying a slutty Eh-2-Zed manager who sleeps her way to the top with Colleen C’s father, “Veep’s” Tony Hale.

“Yoga Hosers” explodes with Canadian farce that’s laced heavily with jokes on ‘aboots,’ hockey jersey-wearing patrons, an alternate version of Lucky Charms called Pucky Charms, and many more stereotypical references that satirically poke a good humored finger at Canadian culture and pop-culture. To top this satire sundae, the smug Colleens define the very title of the film with their dimwitted sludge and white girl yoga written into every storyboard moment. “Yoga Hosers'” buddy film concept gives an opportunity to two young and clueless teen girls who genre pirate the story with a jalopy of unsystematic plot humor, sucking away and discarding like garbage the sole ounce of blended “Gremlins” and “Puppet Master” cavalier subgenre horror that’s comfortably pleasant and inarguable right for a fun film of this triviality. Though I think the Colleens’ have had their story told, I’m intrigued to see what the pair of aloof teens offer in Smith’s third film of the trilogy, “Moose Jaws.”

MVDVisual distributes a dual format Blu-ray, DVD, and Digital HD release of the various production companies’, including main investor, Invincible Pictures, and Kevin Smith’s founded SModcast Pictures, “Yoga Hosers.” The Blu-ray disc is a MPEG-2 encoded 1080p transfer with a 2.38:1 presentation and, rarely, flutters under a mediocre bitrate. Image brightens with a glossy coating that revels in brighter hues of blue, pink, orange, and yellow while starker bolds such as red and purple pop with vividness. Yet, sharp details are thin, less defined to bring high definition to present technological age. The English Dolby Digital 5.1 track slightly elevates the ambient noise, especially during the girls’ punk rock practice that muffles out portions of their vocals, yet still manages to vary and balance. The only bonus feature available is a behind-the-scenes featurette that includes some insightful interviews. “Yoga Hosers” oppresses a melancholy reminder that the old Kevin Smith is no more and dawns a Kevin Smith 2.0 who transforms his satirical trademarks and his witty banter into strange misadventures, involving, in this case, two teenage fools flighting from one sub-narrative to another in a mixed bag of comedy and inferior minion horror.