Tag Archives: home invasion

X-rated Adult EVIL Without Any Calling Cards. “Man at the Door” reviewed! (Impulse Pictures / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

X-rated and Exploitational “Man at the Door” on DVD!

Virtuous Anne arrives home after a stretch of day shopping and answers the ringing phone.  On the other line is her more uninhibited sister Jill telling Anne she’ll be working late, undeclaring her naked reverse cowgirl position on top of her equally naked boss’s lap.  Immediately after, Anne receives a phone call asking if Jill or if Anne’s roommate is home.  The stranger quickly hangs up soon after Anne admits their absence.  A following knock at the front door opens to Anne meeting a tall man claiming to be her roommate’s date.  Skeptical, Anne is at first hesitant about letting him inside until he forces his way in, ties her up, and molests her half-naked body before stealing her virginity with one thrust before the opening of the front door and an Anne’s unsuspecting roommate encounters the brute, but she takes his aggressive perversion in stride, eager to partake into his sexual tyranny, and finally able to bed the sweet and innocent Anne after long-lusting after her.  When promiscuous sister Jill arrives, more-the-merry for the horny home invader.

As far as time encapsulated sleaze goes, the 1976 sin-street stag film and home invasion obscener “Man at the Door” is about as obscure and odd as it’s chaste title.  Yet, there’s not a lick of chaste about the beyond-the-canoodle content of X-rated exploitation and the only licking happening here is with the scores of cunnilingus with every new starlet entering from stage left.  The lower-rung adult film has plenty of action in the simplistic of narratives but much of this a film by John Ruyter production is left unknown to the universe with no identifying credits to properly give recognition for the cast’s improper behaviors, with the crew’s dedication to stagnancy yet consistent and staid presentation, and with the sordid studio behind what was likely an obvious low-budgeted blue movie featured only in the darkest, dankest, and stickiest cornered cinemas on the infamous 42nd Street for a measly buck-fifty to get your rocks off.

Where to start with the cast?  I couldn’t even tell you.  The three satisfying starlets, unpretentious with their set dress but heady in their roles, come under the thrusting hips of a two pedestrian, stud-less joes lucky enough to engage coitally with the fairer sex.  Out of the two male performers, the titular “Man at the Door” character could pass for a less-intimidating and skeezier Edmund Kemper in a wet-blanket flesh suit looking like a former military analyst fired for his inability to hack it and tried his luck at philistine porn.  Perhaps my attitude to the casted intruder is a bit harsh, unfair, and hypercritical of some historical schlub with average measurements and downgraded fanfare – I don’t even know the guy or even his name – but my sixth sense knows the type and his type fits the bill to a T, a balding, mid-to-late 30s, man whose onscreen personality is about as dry as an overtoasted piece of stale day-old bread.  However, with much of the triple-X industry, men don’t sell product, women do.  The three ladies gracing the screen outperform above expectations after scanning the undervalue pinning synopsis with their distinct, amongst themselves beauty, able to individualize their roles, and entice with their own energies to make a synergy-coupling during the girl-on-girl scenes.  One blonde and two brunettes even liven up the boy-girl scenes against dull male talent who’s supposed to be knife-wielding sex fiend, but the women wear that personality down, grinding it to a halt as they grind on against each other.  I apologize in the lack of cast detail for this mysterious sleaze, but the DVD also mentions the lack of credits and there’s nothing on the web to match against it, not even doing image search on the actors’ faces and so we’re left with nameless sensualists of the mid-70’s sex scene.

When reviewing porn, especially from the New Hollywood era of the 70s, I always have to remind myself substance and story are going to take a backseat to skin and sex.  That is what’s laid out in “Man at the Door,” a rudimentary home intruder gimmick to extract the ethical-swathed deviancy deep inside us with sexual assault, uninhibited perversions, and even a humiliation peeing scene for those urophilia fanatics who get off on distressed whizzing.  Humdrum performances from a rather unflattering and uncharismatic male lead fashions little enthusiasm and in atypical swanky retro-porn flair, expositional statements, such as Now I’m going to fuck you both, said in perfunctory banality that it takes the story’s wind out of the sails.  Though production studio is unidentified, “Man at the Door” has blueprint echoes of an Avon assembly that prominently reeled in profit by paraphilia with fetishisms and rough-sexual-play shot on 16mm that feels very similar to this John Rutyer film.  Perhaps, John Rutyer was another of Phil Prince’s pseudonyms and “Man at the door” was his trial-by-fire initiation into the Avon Dynasty.  We can’t prove but we do love to speculate!  Avon’s skeletal productions undress the glam of fantasy for more feral roughies and “Man at the Door” has, more-or-less, the same façade with a handful of natural, sparse sets, carelessly visited by the boom mic and a few wandering heads into frame, and so this mysterious adult roughie is about as unspectacular as the next, only finding its way into our physical media devices by the pure unadulterated grindhouse gravitational pull and our extreme curiosity for its archaic and, once considered, sub-rosa period compared to what is today an easily accessible porn industry.

If curious like me or have a knack for any and all types of film, “Man at the Door” can be an interesting minor blast from the past and Impulse Pictures, a subsidiary label of Synapse Films, has secured the relatively unknown and unheard of title for DVD distribution.  Presented in a pillar boxed full screen presentation, 1.33:1 aspect ratio,” size of the storage capacity won’t affect your viewing pleasure with every typification of a dog-eared 16mm print to please the grindhouse appreciators.  To be honest, the print is in relatively good shape with faint vertical scratches pretty much from start to finish, plenty of good grain, dust, dirt, and a pinch of blink-and-you’ll-miss-it frame damage.  Grading is on what I believe to a high-key color saturation because of the heavy fill lighting casting clear shadows onto the backwalls and so skin tones can look more orange than natural but for older celluloid, I’m quite pleased with the finished product look.  The audio is an English Dolby Digital 2.0 mono track.  The collapsed audio channeled through more than one speaker doesn’t amplify the weak dialogue track, likely root issued by inferior commercial equipment or bad boom placement.   The track also has plenty of crackle and pop amongst the constant shushing interference that essentially muffles and muddles the already feeble dialogue so you may not understand half of what is being said on what is more than likely barely a script or half a script for a hour-long porn feature.  Forget about depth and range with the limited setting and confined to the actors’ close vicinity.  There’s some hint of swank laced in the soundtrack that’s feels more like looped bossa nova than like rock or funky bubblegum pop.  There are no subtitles available.  Also not extensively available are special features in this barebones disc that has been set with chapters and a sneak peek at Impulse Pictures’ “42nd Street Forever: The Peep Show Collection” preview; however, I do adore Impulse’s new types of crude color-pencil illustrations on the front cover that roughly represents the narrative concept in what is a blend of childish drawn nightmares and erotic art.  Inside the common DVD amaray case is a Synapse Films product catalogue insert and a disc pressed with the same front cover image.  The region 1 locked playback disc is not rated, obviously, and has feature runtime of 60 minutes.  Impulse Pictures has paraded “Man at the Door” more than the film deserves but it’s a fine, old obscure romp film from the porn of yore now on a contemporary format and with odd-neat packaging.

X-rated and Exploitational “Man at the Door” on DVD!

EVIL Has an Eye On You! “The Goldsmith” reveiwed! (Cinephobia Releasing / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“The Goldsmith” on DVD From Cinephobia Releasing!

Childhood friends and career criminals Stefano, Arianna, and Roberto plan their next heist of an elderly couple.  Suspecting the older husband to be a jeweler with a hidden lab stashed with product, the trio work off a plan based off a third party’s overheard intel that the house is well worth the score.  Successfully penetrating the home’s security system, securing the elderly couple, and discovering the jeweler’s hidden cache of priceless jewelries, the felonious friends believe they hit big in their home invasion scheme until the lab door suddenly closes behind them and they find themselves at the mercy of the old man, free from his confines and divulging intimate knowledge about each one of them over a videocam feed peering inside the lab.  Trapped, relationship destroying secrets are revealed by their seasoned captor who has something more odiously consequential in store for them than just letting their skeletons out of the closet.

The age-old idiom of to have a heart of gold, used to describe person’s generous nature, does not apply to Italian director Vincenzo Ricchiuto’s 2022 home invasion and survival thriller “The Goldsmith” where the absence of generosity gives way to greed, treachery, and one jeweler’s search to see inner beauty.  Known in Italy as L’orafo in the production’s native tongue, the writer-director’s debut feature tackling both sides of the creative spectrum in writing and helming is co-written alongside Germano Tarricone, co-writer of Italian horror thrillers “Eaters “and “In The Box.”  Together, “The Goldsmith” does play on the idiom more than meets the eye with the immeasurable principal characters that twist to knife harder in their gutting revelation or deceitful explanation.  From production companies Almost Famous Productions, Minerva Films, DEA Films (“The Perfect Husband”), and in association with Hurricane Studios, “The Goldsmith” is executively produced by Tarricone and the Ted Nicolauo directed “The Etruscan Mask” producer, Antonio Guadalopi.

The intimate casting provides a tight story primarily set at the older couple’s home with brief secondary story parallel and flashback sets confined to a mechanic shop, outside a bowling alley, and inside a nightclub.  The three thick as thieves are the nervously confident Stefano (Mike Cimini), his oversexed girlfriend Arianna (Tania Bambaci, “The Perfect Husband”), and the careless drug addict Roberto (Gianluca Vannuci, “Lui non esiste”) who become ensnared by an enigmatic goldsmith (Giuseppe Pambieri, “Yellow Emanuelle”) and his wife (Stefania Casini, “Suspira” ’77).  Cimini, Bambaci, and Vannuci favor ruffian routine but their performances are undercut by the script’s lack of development between Stefano and Arianna’s reclined relationship and the significance of why Stefano did a heist job on his own without his crew that seemingly had some unclear intensity in the backdrop on why he had to go at it alone.  The confusion of the first fib explanation from Stefano is quickly swept under the rug by the second bombshell that involves Arianna and Roberto, one that clearly overshadows Stefano’s deceit tenfold with its more transparent and personal complexion, and Arianna’s fib is more he-said, she-said that throws more shade toward the triangle-friendship as lie-after-lie quickly devolves an already brittle relationship into a flatlining hate to where they turn on each other, or at least two of them do.  The more interesting characters of the bunch are definitely the older couple with ulterior motives, luring bad people into their home just to trick them into being a part something far more sinister for their health.  Pambieri and Casini show their veteranized chops, delivering distinct lines within their distinct character voices and mannerisms but working together as a unit in a deranged, but endearing dispositioned husband and wife, especially Casini with her semi-handicapped character’s lady of the house demeanor that wears a crooked smile underneath.  “The Goldsmith” rounds out with Andrea Porti, Matteo Silvestri, and Antonio Cortese.

“The Goldsmith” might be inherently wealthy with its immeasurable karat of everyone is a villain in the story but the story itself isn’t as rich with its struggling with poor development to connect the pieces together in a coherent way.   In the overall picture from a high-level perspective, the basics of the acts are evident to where we’re setup with these three criminals looting a home, they find themselves in a pickle with a couple not as enfeebled as described, and with the second and most rising threat plot point being the goldsmith’s eye on the prize for his captives.  Yet, the ancillary scenes muddle up the support.  Point in case, the opening scene of the three hoodlums running from a dressed down priest, and the only reason we know it’s a priest is because the actor is listed as such in the credits.  The scene doesn’t explain much other than the troubled youngsters have presumably stolen a cross and have murdered the priest after a length chase on foot, setting up Stefano, Arianna, and Roberto as the antihero principals but the scene impresses more importance, like a moment to refer back to yet that moment never resurfaces into the grand scheme of the narrative.  Other similar instances rear-up throughout, questioning the motivations and the associations often left unsatisfactory by absence of valuable fill-gap material.  “The Goldsmith’s” themes of honor among thieves and attempting to see the good within come over clearly through a blanket of dark iniquities on both ends, leaving no good feelings for any of the antiheroic roles that flipflop for higher ground in this Italian-made home invasion thriller. 

Coming in as release number six on the spine for Cinephobia Releasing, “The Goldsmith” comes to DVD for the first time in North America. The MPEG-2 compression encoded DVD is presented in a widescreen 2.39:1 aspect ratio. Unfortunately, the Cinephobia release has a substantial artefact issue with the higher information rate on format’s compression encoder, resulting in a contouring blob during the first act’s darker scenes. The front and center macro-blocking ring produces a lighter shadow that becomes more of a visual obstacle to see past. Once the compression levels out, we do see some seesawing delineation details in a rather hard-lit, noir-lite cinematography from Francesco Collinelli (“Demon’s Twilight”), but the majority of details come through nicely, especially on skin textures and tones. The Italian Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound offers forefront dialogue with cleanness and clearness. No apparent issues with the digital recording as the sound design forks up good depth between medium and closeup scenes and through the video-com as well as a selective range with some of the gorier moments with squishy-scoops and hammer-bashes. English subtitles are available with good pacing and a flawless, accurate translation from what I can tell as I don’t understand or speak Italian but understand the roots of Latin-based language. Bonus features a feature-length behind-the-scenes raw footage of the principal photography and trailers for Cinephobia Releasing films, such as “Brightwood,” “Emanuelle’s Revenge,” “The Human Trap,” and “Amor Bandido.” Physical features include a standard DVD amaray case with the titular character in a dark black and gold yellow closeup one-sided front cover, peering into the metaphorical windows of your soul with the jeweler’s head mounted magnifying specs in an eerie image of individuality prospecting. Inside there is no insert included and the disc art is a downscaled version of the front cover image with title underneath on top of a black background. The 89-minute film is not rated and though not listed on the back cover, playback is suspected to be region 1 locked. “The Goldsmith” aims to pull the wool over one’s eyes, or more accurately, replace the eyes altogether, with the deluding lustrousness of a home invasion thriller turned into an eyeful scoop of insanity.

“The Goldsmith” on DVD From Cinephobia Releasing!

The Doctor’s Out. EVIL Will Make this “House Call!” reviewed! (Wild Eye Releasing / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“House Call” on DVD home video and Available to Purchase at Amazon!  Click the Cover Art to Buy.

Eager to prove to her parents she is responsible and old enough to undertake the babysitting duties of her little brother all by herself, 16-year-old Miriam is reluctant to phone her parents when little brother Vince becomes highly feverish in fear that they will take away future responsibility opportunities.  Instead, Miriam makes a late-night call to the family’s primary physician and begs for a discreet house call.  Hours go by and Miriam becomes increasingly concerned about Vince, but when the doctor is found dead on her doorstep, her brother’s welfare acutely alters from his feverish illness to the maniacs outside looking to score big on the family home.  The night turns into a fight for survival as the home alone siblings must outwit two murderous thieves who have their lustful eye on the teenage Miriam as well. 

Based off the novella of the same title from horror writer Ty Schwamberger, “House Call” is the first Schwarmberger piece to be adapted and completed into a full-length feature film.  The 2013 production’s script is adapted by Shannon Casto and while the credits list accompanying partner Michelle Henderson as the director, IMDB lists Casto as co-director the film. Both have worked alongside each other between 2005-2013 under their House, Texas-based independent film production company, Little Oak Film Group, which has churned out modest range of low-budget horror with “Sinner,” “Gut Instincts,” and “Protégé” to note as a select few.  Their joined by Parrish Randall as the third wheel in the director’s chair, – again, a credit that IMDB list but the film doesn’t but wouldn’t surprise me knowing a little more history between the trio.  “The Quick and the Undead”-starring and “Slaughter House”-directing Randall essentially helped segue Casto and Henderson into their own production company having the aspiring filmmaking duo under his wing in various crew and cast capacities as the owner of PRP Motion Pictures.  The Little Oak Film Group cofounders serve as executive producers on this self-made, little-known home invasion, survival thriller. 

Parrish Randall not only serves as co-director and provides the foundational support Casto and Henderson used to jumpstart their careers as filmmakers, but the platinum blond actor with dark facial hair from Groesbeck, Texas is also one of the lead principal characters, playing the nefariously nurtured John who has ambitions to live up to his mentor’s unfettered insanity and depravity.  Randall evokes his lite version of Bill Mosely’s Otis Driftwood without the full support of the deranged family.  There are inarguably many issues with how John is portrayed with an overflowing amount of dialogue despite Randall stealing the story with a magnetic presence on screen.  John’s expositional to a fault and is continuously repeating the same dialogue over-and-over, such as pointing out and elucidating again-and-again that Rock is his mentor.  Rock, played by Bill Dubois (“His Will Be Done”), features in a flashback of a cowardly John aiding and abetting Rock in the murder-robbery of a young couple and Rock is supposedly grooming pupil the way of psychopathy, but there really is not clear instruction from Rock other than provoke gun-drawn offices while your partner flees for his feared life. Now, after that character defining moment, John has become Rock incarnate and has also taken a student under his wing to invade, rob, rape, and murder in the family home of Miriam, played by Rachel Paul in her debut lead role, and Vince, played by Vincent Galyean. “House Call” deploys not only neighborhood disturbances but also disturbing undertones of the rape and murder of children as Miriam is 16 years old and Vince is ballpark 6-9 years of age. As kids under distress, tonal precision might not be Paul and Galyean strong suit, but their cues of delivery are on point where often times child actors tend to be forced or uncertain in conviction to sell the act. “House Call” rounds out the cast with James McCreight (“The Caretaker”), Troy Reynolds, Paul Moomey, Alison Esparza, Roger Dunn, Kristopher Smith, Chelsea Turcheck, Chi and the most experience and credited actor on set, Joe Grisaffi (“Doll Factory,” “Axe Murdering with Hackley”), as the creepy-glaring neighbor, Mr. Henderson, with the receding hair line and large hair.

While many issues come to the front of the mind regarding “House Call’s” poor longevity status, to be retained as a solid source of entertainment, and to be a total thrill at the edge of your seat home invasion horror film, the one major issue that egregiously needs mentioning is the lack stimulus surrounding John’s gut-stirring need to be as brutal as possible at this specific spot. Unlike Bryan Bertino’s “The Strangers” where the masked intruders mark their presence as simply just because, “House Call” drops the ball on even the most basic of unscrupulous principles amongst the villains. In fact, the flash back with mentor Rock puts John into a completely different, greatly sympathetic, and concerned light without ever exhibiting that epiphany of realization into becoming the crime’s worst-of-the-worst. John also mentions on multiple occasions how the scoped-out house is full of the nicer things, but once we’re inside, it’s all upper-middle class, mediocre monied valuables that don’t justify the cause. An implied reason for John’s obsession for pillaging is to solely have his way with teenage Miriam who, in another over explained bit of exposition, saw her outside washing down the family roadster. What’s baffling about his Miriam anecdote is that we the scene played out live as in a flashback sans the moment John set eyes on Miriam. Instead, we’re treated to the introduction of creepy neighbor Mr. Hendersen who gives Miriam an up-and-down once over and the scene is definitely more piquant than John’s drive by but misses a crucial plot point that drives the story to the moment of John’s and his accomplice’s introduction. Perhaps, the flashback serves to misdirect Mr. Henderson’s sleaze toward a pre-judgy determination that flips the script later in the last act. “House Call” doesn’t quite nail where it wants to be emotionally with lightly peppered comedy, oversalted exposition, and a sepulchral tone of child rape and murder that yearns to break the surface of its under seasoned bake.

In what’s likely interchangeable functions between Michelle Henderson, Shannon Casto, and Parrish Randall to oversee this adapted film to completion, as aspect that can be easily assessed when seeing their names credited multiple times under various roles, one thing is for certain – “House Call” is the epitome of independent horror moviemaking spirit. It all culminates to this point, an at home DVD release that can now stretch across the global in a region free decoding format. Wild Eye Releasing, in association with TomCat Films, presents “House Call” onto an unrated DVD with a widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio. A modern day, handheld SOV film, “House Call” crusts over with numerous blocks of noise interference, details are lost in the inferior resolution, the contrast between blacks and adjacent hues mesh together without firm delineation of objects, and the color palette, which is really the only thing good about the presentation’s lossy source material, has a handful of moments of vibrancy but for the most part is flat. The English language Stereo 2.0 audio mix has better integrity in reproduction. Slightly boxy through the two-channel output but dialogue remains clear and clean without crackling, popping, or hissing and has a meager but manageable, successful depth with no real range to note. Wild Eye’s standard releases normally go big on the bonus features and “House Call” is no exception to the route with only a handful of Wild Eye preview trailers of other films and I still applaud the distributor’s trailer creator because that craftsman (or craftswoman) can splice-to-sell a D-grade movie in under a minute. Release’s physical appearance comes in a standard black DVD snapper with a tenebrous cover art of a man silhouette front facing an every-room-lit stately manor and holding an axe by the side. A bit misleading but the gist of the story is there. Repeatability on the Ty Schwamberger adapted novella is time better served reading, or re-reading, the author’s original story as “House Call” is a 70-minute busy signal that will fail to connect with audiences.

“House Call” on DVD home video and Available to Purchase at Amazon!  Click the Cover Art to Buy.

Reap the EVILS You Sow. “Wired Shut” reviewed! (101 Films / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

The failings of a once famed novelist, Reed Rodney, have come calling after a horrific car accident leaves Reed with reconstructive surgery and his mouth wired shut.  Stuck in remote mountain home, sipping pain meds through a straw and hitting terrible writer’s block after the critically trashed last novel, fortune and distinction never seemed so lonely until his estranged daughter, Emmy, shows up at his front door, looking to spend some time with him before going to school abroad.  Their hoary embattled relationship, built on alcoholism, lies, and abuse, urges Reed for a change of heart, willing to reconnect with Emmy by any way necessary, even if that means being a punching bag for her bottled up emotional outpourings.  When an unexpected intruder exposes a callous secret and lives are at stake, Reed and Emmy must rely on each other to survive a twisted prowler’s sadistic games. 

“Wired Shut” is the teeth-clenching, family quarrelling, sociopathic surviving inaugural full-length feature from Vancouver born director Alexander Sharp.  The home-invasion thriller too hails from Vancouver, Canada with an old-fashion tale of an inside job story co-written by Sharp and the director’s steady collaborator Peter Malone Elliott in which the project is also the first full-length script for the two writers.  “Wired Shut” houses a single location with a small cast but indulges varying levels of crazy and a good amount of bloodshed initially pie-eyed by the immense build up of downtrodden characters.  Singed family relations, the ebb and flow of trust, and the untangling of an ugly knot to retether a stronger bond becomes the parallel of reconnecting in this GoFundMe crowdfunded film under Lakehouse Productions and Alexander Sharp’s Sharpy Films presented by Motion Picture Exchange or MPX.

In a role where you have to keep your trap shut at all times because you’re playing a former self-centered rake who crashed his Lamborghini and had to have your mouth wired shut, Blake Stadel (“Rise of the Damned”) has one of the easiest parts in all of move making history.  Thank about it.  Zero lines of dialogue, you’re feigning an ego that is as shattered as your character’s jaw, and you write or type if you have to communicate.  Now, I’m not belittling Stadel’s once famous novelist, Reed Rodney, as the actor has to absorb the pity, the verbal abuse, and the overall confinement resulted by his injury as a sort of surrender to unfortunate happenstance.  Reed’s moment of life-altering clarity came pre-introduction when crashing the Lambo that left him vulnerable and alone, two bad, pre-depression dispositions of mind and being.  Across the table stews the stark opposite with Reed’s daughter Emmy, played by Alexander Sharp’s sister, Natalie Sharp (“Baby Monitor Murders”).  Pent up with anger and seething with intent, Emmy is executed with these qualities with perfection by Sharp.  However, Emmy extinguishes her fiery eyed hate too quickly in the fate upturning twist that creates a dubious bubble around her and not in a good way.  Emmy’s defining moment of clarity is weakly pawned off just for her and her dad to have a slither of reconnection in a breakneck transition without any struggle or sacrifice to change her mind.  Her blurry change of heart quickly becomes moot by Behtash Fazlaili’s (“The Evil In Us”) unhinged performance as Emmy’s delinquent boyfriend, Preston.  Preston eclipses the entire father and daughter dynamic with a clichéd villain by monologuing and squandering wasted opportunities to end it all and getaway scot-free.  Fazlaili’s performance also doesn’t inspire terror or much of anything at all except for frustration with the cavalier, walk-on act that’s supposedly a mentally broken man fallen to and reshaped by life’s hard knocks.  What’s on screen is Joker-esque mush relating little backstory that drives him to scheme and to be completely off his rocker whereas, in contrast, we know what motivates Emmy and we know what motivates Reed.

The slow burn of “Wired Shut’s” first two acts attempts to humanize Reed as a dejected and alone with Emmy sparking life into an object he can now be fixated on to mend his meaningless, post-accident existence, but Emmy, herself, lugs her own daddy-issue baggage giving way for the two to buttheads in exacting their feelings upon one another.  Sharp fishes for sympathy but keeps loose with expressing Reed and Emmy’s contentious relationship; a relationship that truly never existed with an alcoholic Reed’s persona no grata behavior around Emmy’s mother and her that extends his jet setting lifestyle with the next mistress.  Though loose, you can see both stand and the foreseeable twist coming because of it in an unsurprising turn of events.  What is surprising is Preston’s sudden Jekyll and Hyde as if Reed’s salivated score is Sharp’s theme that for the love of money is the root of all evil.  The theme is peddled and not exactly discerned in Fazlaili’s character who’s more concerned with the cat and mouse game of unbelievable hilarity.  Part of the absurdity has to do with Reed’s three story house with a built-in elevator and if you’ve ever ridden an in-home elevator, the cramped, smaller versions of a regular Otis are slow as Hell dripping with molasses.  Yet, somehow, Reed and Emmy happen to beat Preston down a meager two stories with the push of a button while Preston stops to take an injury breather at the third story landing.  Getting in the elevator should have been easy pickings when exiting, but in entertainment for some, keeping the audience attentive is pinnacle even if that means sacrificing the story for cheap thrills by stretching the realism just a little bit.

“Wired Shut” will leave you speechless with a pedestrian anticlimax after watching the DVD. Distributed by the United Kingdom’s 101 Films, the region 2, PAL encoded, 91 minute thriller is presented in an anamorphic widescreen, 2.39:1 aspect ratio on a DVD5 and thoroughly soaked in a sea of tenebrous blue tint as the first, many firsts for these filmmakers, feature length cinematography for Martin Taube. Crystalized sleek and fresh with a modern, straight-edge finish, Taube main objective centers around personal space and to detox comfort with the strain and psychopathy, using close ups and up or down angling to exact an uneasy position during strenuous moments. The continuous tinting from start to finish could have been done without as it chokes the story in nearly an unviewable consumption. The English language Dolby Digital Stereo AC3, 5.1 surround sound mix, is a LFE sound cannon with a bass-heavy rattling industrial soundtrack by Oswald Dehnert and Rayshaun Thompson. The soundtrack’s sonorous tone crackles at the format’s compression, leaving granulated pops when the volume levels peak, which is really surprising for today’s digital and format spec cautious handling. Dialogue levels render nice and clear and the sound design’s not bad either with a complex range of soundbites inside a single setting, especially when Reed pops the wires when forcing open his mouth. The DVD is bare bones with special feature and the DVD cover itself is poorly misleading with a hooded figuring, standing backlit in the woods, with a large blade in hand. There is no such slasher figure in the movie. “Wired Shut” is not a slasher. I repeat. Not a slasher. “Wired Shut” is rated 15 for strong threat (gun pointing, knife to the throat), injury detail (stabbing, slicing, and surgical fastening coming undone), and language (Yes, foul language is present). As far as home invasion films go, “Wired Shut” says nothing new about the subgenre, but offers an intriguing ingredient of incapability and the strength to push through to the other side with the if there’s a will, there’s a way mentality underneath intruder chaos.

In EVIL’s Chair and Ready for a Cut. “The Stylist” reviewed! (Arrow Films / Digital Screener)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Excellent at styling hair, but not so much at making friends, Claire lives a solitary life as she’s unable to personally spark connections, even with those who she interacts with on a daily basis.  As a hairstylist, she absorbs a plethora of private information provided willingly by her clients who see her as someone not significant enough to be troublesome or detrimental to hurt them, but, little do her clients know, Claire has a dark secret with obsessively overstepping into their lives and, sometimes, directly into their shoes as murder becomes a conduit for Claire to experience a slither of momentary solidarity and belonging happiness.   Brief in its euphoria, the elated feeling doesn’t last and Claire finds herself back into a vicious cycle beginning with being defeated, but when a regular client, Olivia, begs for wedding hair help, Olivia befriends the stylist who begins to sink deeper into a misinterpreted friendship with Olivia fabricated inside Claire’s disturbed mind. 

Whenever stepping onto the hair clippings of a barbershop, sit on the padded, pump-hydraulic chair, and be asked by a for certain fallible person how I want would like my haircut, my hands nervously clutch each other, the space between my eyebrows fold in and crunch, microscopic beads of sweat go down my hair raised back and the agitation in my mind grows louder than a blow dyer on a high setting.  Why do all these externally stemmed irritants happen to me at the seemingly communal and smile gracing barbershop?  Think about my situation, one driven by introverted behaviors and pessimism for the human race, this way:  your neck is choked tight with a hairdresser body-bag resembling cape, sharp, haircutting sheers clipping swiftly overhead, and the loud buzzing of a motor purring around your ears’ edge before they detailing the side of your face with tiny razors moving hundreds of miles per hour.  Let’s not also forget about the straight-razor across your neck to attack the five o’clock shadow!  No, thank you!  So, there was already an abundance of established anxiety heading into Jill Gevargizian’s written-and-directed hairdresser horror, “The Stylist,” that takes just a little bit more off than just what’s on top.  The “Dark Web” filmmaker reteams with co-writer Eric Havens to extend the profile of the quiet and quaint, Victorian chic hairdresser, Claire and her lonely killer inclinations based off their 2016 short film of the same title and add Los Angeles based copywriter and “Night of the Wolf’s” Eric Stolze into the salon of psychological horrors mix. “The Stylist” is a production of Gevargizian’s Sixx Tape Productions, that also includes Eric Havens and lead star Najarra Townsend, alongside co-productions Claw Productions, Method Media, and The Line Film Company.

Najarra Townsend reprises her role as Claire, the lonely hairstylist bedeviled by a lack of belonging and rapport with no family or friends. Claire spirals into internalized madness that unveils when trying to step inside the lives of others as her own. The “Wolf Mother” star becomes a granular speck of torment plagued severely by social awkwardness to the point of her need for perfecting the imaginary bond between her and Brea Grant’s character, Olivia, goes into destruction level transgressions that’s normal, living rent free, in Claire’s headspace. Grant, writer and director of one of our favorite films of 2020, “12 Hour Shift,” and in the recently released, critically acclaimed, Natasha Kermani thriller, “Lucky,” has to be a larger than life persona whose the center of attention, as soon-to-be-bride going through the throes of wedding planning, that can draw in the wide-eyed and impressionable Claire like a moth to a flame. Townsend’s a specific kind of talent to get inside Claire’s ennui state not once, but twice. The latter precisely nails down Claire’s outlying, exterior behavior, but also smooths out a mustard nuance veneer of vintage chic that becomes a part of the building blocks peculiarly exclusive to her quietly disruptive cause. Starkly contrasted against Claire, Grant relates to who we all see on the outside as Olivia, a shining glow of smiles and worries that most people can digest with ease on a daily bases and while her life, as chaotic as may seem with a wedding near on the horizon and questioning a deep down decision about marriage, is juxtaposed with such distinction that Gervargizian literally puts Claire and Olivia side-by-side in a split screen early in the film to expose one hiding her secrets and the other letting them all hang out. Sarah McGuire (“The House of Forbidden Secrets”), Millie Milan (“Clownado”), Davis DeRock and Laura Kirk round out the supporting cast.

Take a moment and breathe the very essence of women-driven horror that’s as stylish as it is deliciously deranged.  “The Stylist” echoes similar psychopathic traits of William Lustig’s “Manic” and displays self-careening elements soaked in barbicide and Gothicism.  The junior film of Jill Gevargizian narrates through the eyes of Claire’s unraveling humanity from the stylist’s quick fix of bloody hair removal to the potential for climbing out of that deep, dark hole of loneliness only to be suddenly sideswiped by the falters of manufactured delusions. “The Stylist” is wrapped in a sullen hairnet that never shows the jovial side of Claire’s pleasures as she’s embodying someone under their locks after calculatingly cutting more than just their hair; a perspective exclusively held within Claire’s head, leaving viewers entangled in her in seemingly normal beauty shell and her inner demented chaos. You feel sorry for her forlorn life, but creeped out by that same life’s byproduct. One aspect that “The Stylist” lacks, that can be off-putting for some, is the mold that made Claire. Miniscule slips of her upbringing becomes not enough to paint an exact portrait of Claire as a malevolent monster with sociable dysphoria and as the story builds to a climax and Claire tries to imitate her mother, who died in her mid 30’s when Claire was 17, the mimicry fairs to say that her mother also had similar problems that has innately passed and has coped a different way of dealing with mental illness by way of alcoholism, mentioned by Claire in a moment of courting a friendship with an eager bridezilla, Olivia.

What a fitting film to be discussed and celebrated on International Women’s Day 2021 in the Jill Gevargizian directed and Najarra Townsend lead “The Stylist” now released exclusively on Arrow Film’s UK VOD platform ahead of the physical Blu-ray package and digital HD releases come June 2021. Film film clocks in at a 105 minute runtime and is presented in a widescreen 2.39:1 aspect ratio. Behind the camera is Robert Patrick Stern whose composition of imagery is based mainly in natural lighting while dabbling in warm coloring such as reds, the occasional vibrant magenta, and a consistent yellow mustard, a favorite not only in Claire’s wardrobe but also tinged on the lens whenever a part of Claire’s localized disturbia. Stern’s clean and sleek picture palpably elevated John Pata’s editing of montages that were superimposed with transitions and the soul searing music of Nicholas Elert’s melancholic inducing piano-industrial score. There were no bonus features included nor were there any bonus scenes during or after the credits. “The Stylist” honors the past by reinventing the wheel in Jill Gevargizian’s clipping thriller with a hair-raising performance by Najarra Townsend as the maniacal hairdresser lonely next door.