Tag Archives: Kansas City

EVIL Sleeps with Women to Anticipate the Antichrist’s Arrival! “Violent New Breed” reviewed! (Visual Vengeance / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Violent New Breed” is a violent Visual Vengeance video available now!

The city of New York is under siege by a new drug as the narcotic Rapture sticks in the arms of his addicts, leaving them mindless and helpless to the effects.  At the head of the snake, a demon race known as Breeders are responsible for trafficking Rapture across the city.  Jack and Steve are part of a covert government operation well versed with the Breeder’s stimulation scheme of the junkie community. Going undercover at a Breeder establishment front, Jack concealed effort is blown and he falls to the Breeder’s vile ways, leading partner Steve, along with Jack’s teenage daughter Amy, down in the underbelly of the Breeder lair where cyborg servants are constructed and human women are led to breed more demonic spawn, one in particular in plan to be the birth of the antichrist.  In a hellish, NYC basement, amongst viscera and body part leftovers, Steve and Amy must complete the mission and stop the antichrist from reigning hell down on Earth. 

Independent horror filmmaker Todd Sheets has become a master of the microbudget horror scene since the mid-1980’s.  His evolution began with humble shorts, such as “Blood of the Undead” and “Dead Things,” with the latter being re-imagined by Sheets a decade later, and those early years really sowed the seeds of his behind-the-camera love for extreme and outrageous gore and horror as he creates low-budget horror through the years a rapid, breakneck pace, releasing titles such as the lycanthropic “Moonchild,” the anthological horror “Hi-8 (Horror Independent 8) that brings eight of the best indie filmmakers together to tell their tales of terror, and “Clownado.”  Yes, “Clownado” is, you guessed it, a tornado swirling with murderous clowns in it’s vortex.  My personal favorite has always been “Dreaming Purple Neon” for its off-coloring performances and survival-esque storyline with demons and drugs.  “Violent New Breed” is in the middle of his career having been released in 1997 with Sheets gaining traction on multiple filming locations, employing more principal and supporting cast members as well as an abundance of extras, and upping the violent tone and degenerate microcosms that transport viewers to seedier and deadlier worlds.   “Violent New Breed” is written and directed by Sheets under his early production label, Trustinus Productions, securing him a producer credit too.

Sheets has never been the type of filmmaker to follow conventional guidelines when it comes to his characters, often switching them around or executing a red herring to flesh out the real protagonist or anti-hero.  “Violent New Breed” plays into the former with a switcheroo of the principal protagonist, initially beginning with Jack going undercover and infiltrating the Breed’s strip club bar used as a front for their demonic dealings and ending with partner Steve taking the antichrist to the finish line.  The audience will get pretty far and involved with Jack’s life as he struggles with his divorce and custody of daughter Amy (Rebecca Rose).  Mark Glover, who has worked with Sheets on “Bloodthirsty Cannibal Demons” and “Zombie Bloodbath 2,” lands the subconscious weight of personal strife as he inevitably becomes the lone cop sheep in a den of demonic wolves that leave Amy fatherless.  That’s when Nick Stodden (“Clownado”) steps into the fold as Steve.  Steve’s not terribly present in the fist half of the film but is thrust into the Breed labyrinth by duty and by promise to his partner to keep Amy safe.  Strodden plays an average hero with Steve’s bravery in plenty of supply, but the character lacks the hand-to-hand combat skills or weaponry for a government agent trained to deal with supernatural killers.   Embracing entirely Asmodeus, the slick-rick head honcho of the demon hierarchy, is “Moonchild’s” Dave Miller who rather dons the nice suit, cocky attitude, and twisted demon leader suitably despite some reckless decision-making faux-pas moments that ultimately cost the character everything he’s worked toward.  The characters a mostly filled in with little human survivors of the foreboding infernal uprising, such as with Tamara (Jenni Geigel, “The Shivers”) and Trixie (Becky Stodden, “The Shivers”) who find themselves caught in the middle, and with Rod Will (“The Shivers”), Joel Hedge, Jody Rovick (“Prehistoric Bimbos in Armageddon City”), and Andrea Ureno as numerous demons, even one that has a carcinization lower body while still resembling a humanoid at the top-half with protruding mandibles, an absurd radical efforted pulled off successfully by Sheets and his limited budget. 

Sheets’ vision has always been larger than his funds, but the ambitious indie horror filmmaker can’t be contained or constrained by the size of his wallet and the size of his heart for the genre that inspires his creativity.  “Violent New Breed” epitomizes that Todd Sheets ingenuity and the image of a horrifying tomorrow with a large cast, lots of blood, and a striving story set on the streets of New York City while not actually taking one step in the Big Apple.  Yes, “Violent New Breed” is completely filmed in the Midwest, more specifically in Sheets’ hometown and state of Kansas City, Missouri, but the urban jungle is sold through the editing with interjected NYC cityscapes. However, none of the action really happens on the streets but in enclosed bars, basements, and backalleys that could sell to be anywhere, USA. Like many other Todd Sheets productions, there’s not a ton of backstory to chief characters, such as with Jack and Steve’s covert company of infiltrating and obliterating Breeder operations in what is considered an off-the-books undertaking, not recognized officially, yet the pre-apocalypse of the Breeders’ mission isn’t worth the money or resources to warrant the assignment more than two men. Breeders also outweigh hundred-fold, have abilities to invisible-phase, and have an army of Cyborgs all with the influencing poison on the streets to control most of the human population. Sheets sets up a David vs. Goliath narrative without much fight in the heroes and heroines with the Breeders’ shortcomings breed essentially from them tripping over their own shoelaces by not taking advantage when advantage appears opportune. The heroes’ dumbluck constantly and consistently happen through the film and becomes tiresome to watch weak torchbearers fumble to save all of humanity against domineering supernatural terror from Hell!

‘Violent New Breed” gets a violent-illustrated new release from Visual Vengeance. The new Blu-ray glorifies Sheets’ SOV artistic style through an AVC encoded, 1080p high-resolution, BD50. The precursing title card warning of the film’s technical imperfections through commercial or economical equipment, a wonted service by the Wild Eye Releasing’s SOV label, are not egregiously touched up but rather accentuate a cleaner, meaner version for show, presented in its original pillarbox full screen 1.33:1 aspect ratio. The world-wide debut Blu-ray contains the director approved transfer of the SD master tape elements. The faded details incline toward a warmer tone that almost seems ablaze with a glowing heat lamp just out of frame and this also, along with the 720p video, suppresses finer textures with notes of aliasing around character actions. Sheets’ color gels and hazy lighting work to an extent but there’s little pop to the graded coloring. The English Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo offers more bite than expected out form it’s two-channel output but has some difficulty deciphering distinct layers inside the scene. Dialogue echoes and varies in volume sporadically through the picture with it also melding into the diegetic environment in a less-than-refined sound. However, dialogue does push through to an extent and is discernible with a rock soundtrack scoring through more effectively like a hot knife through butter. There are English subtitles available for selection. Packed with 12 hours of bonus content, Todd Sheet fans will receive a comprehensive look on not only a “Violent New Breed” but as the filmmaker as a whole. Those with older format copies of the film with be familiar with one of three commentary tracks on the Visual Vengeance release that includes director Todd Sheets and actors Nick Stodden, Antwoine Steele, and Becky Stodden. There’s a Tony Strauss of Weng’s Chop magazine commentary and a Visual Vengeance produced 2023 remastered commentary with Sheets and Rob Hauschild, founder of Wild Eye Releasing. Other bonus content contains an interview with actor Jerry Angell and director Todd Sheets, Sheets discussing working with the late “Dolemite” actor Rudy Ray Moore who plays the last-standing city cleric, a behind-the-scenes documentary, a 2023 Q&A session at the Nitehawk Cinema / Visual Vengeance screening, a blooper reel, a behind-the-scenes image gallery, the original Kansas City local news spot, an uncut version of the strip club entrance sequence, Todd Sheets’ 2014 short zombie-western “Fistful of the Undead” from the 2016 anthology “Grindsploitation 2: The Lost Reels,” and the original and Visual Vengeance trailers. Also included are two alternate versions of the film: the DVD version and The Movie Channel’s R-rated cut. Three movies from the prince of one! Now that you’ve gone through 12-hours of encoded content, next stop is the hefty physical content beginning with graphic artist Heavy J’s Ghana-inspired artwork on the pink carboard O-slipcover that unveils inside a more traditional-approach to Visual Vengeance’s orange, yellow, and black, character-compiled primary art for the standard, clear Blu-ray Amary. The reverse side has the original poster art of a blue-tinted negative image of an axe-wielding Breeder cultist. The insert section has a single-sided folded mini poster of the Ghana art, a trifold essay from Tony Strauss with a bio on Todd Sheets, his filmography, and on “Violent New Breed” that also includes behind-the-scene and movie stills, a single fold, cardboard birth announcement for the coming of the antichrist, and a retro sicker sheet. The 114-minute feature is not rated and is region free encoded.

Last Rites: Todd Sheets enlarges an evil urban with an insidious poison coursing through the city, taking women when they please, and bring forth the antichrist and there’s only a handful of ill-equipped humans to stand in their way. “Violent New Breed’s” Visual Vengeance release, packed with extra content and a spiffy physical presence, is a victory for Todd Sheets and all independent filmmakers like him.

“Violent New Breed” is a violent Visual Vengeance video available now!

An Experiment Backfiring with EVIL Payback. “Moonchild” reviewed! (Visual Vengeance / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Moonchild” now on Blu-ray from Visual Vengeance!

An Inhuman government body of a dystopian future experiments with genetic splicing to create the ultimate weapon, known as Project Moonchild, against the human rebellion. That weapon, Jacob Stryker, is unaware of his newly encoded abilities when he escapes one of their holding labs to rescue his captive son from the very same apathetic regime. Stryker teams up with a group of human rebels and uncover by mistake Stryker’s hidden super solider talent of turning into an unstoppable beast – a werewolf. Hellbent on taking down his son’s brainwashing captives by any means necessary and to do it before an intestinal bomb explodes within 72 hours, Stryker convinces the rebels to assist him and now they have an ace in the pocket as they traverse in search for Stryker’s boy, encountering android and mutant bounty hunters, cannibalistic human survivors, and a surfeit of governmental soldiers hot on his tail, but when the werewolf comes out, Project Moonchild is out to seek and destroy those son-stealing son-a-of-bitches by ripping them to shreds.

Director Todd Sheets has long been considered one of the kings of SOV. The “Zombie Rampage” and “Clownado” Kansas City filmmaker writes and directs “Moonchild,” the 1994 direct-to-video, post-societal, lycanthropy actioner is Sheets’ attempt in splintering himself away from the gore. The American Prince of Gore and the Master of Splatter accomplishes the lessened bloodletting and liquid innards coming outwards werewolf feature with a dystopian rescuer that pits what remains of a separatist human society on a verge of collapse to go on a quest to cure a dividing mutation affliction and to go up against the malign immortals of killers and assassins constructed with nuts and bolts and sawblades on a super independent budget. The ambitious project comes with car chases, a large cast, and a hairy beast that fights for family! Executive producer Greg Petrak returns to Todd Sheets’ side after “Bloodthirsty Cannibal Demons” and is a production of Sheets’ very own Extreme Entertainment, a now 34-year standing product company based out of Kansas City, Missouri. Feel old yet?

Playing the lab rat, the werewolf, and the integral hero, Jacob Stryker, to the story is Auggi Alvarez (“Zombie Bloodbath”) as a widowed father who will stop at nothing to save his son Caleb (Stefan Hilt) in the hands of iron-hearted inhuman leader, Lothos (Harry Rose). Alvarez, like much of the rest of the cast, fall into a monotonal expositional black hole that can make “Moonchild” a slog between the excitement. While fleeing captivity, Stryker runs into Rocky (Julie King, “Zombie Bloodbath 2”), Talon (Dave Miller, “Violent New Breed”), and Athena (Kathleen McSweeney, “Violent New Breed), a band of underground resistant fighters who are desperate enough to overthrow the authoritarian ruling class that’s comprised of henchmen with duct tape masks and are skippered by a mustache wearing an unadorned samurai kabuto helmet – catching a tad resemblance to Mel Brooks’ Lord Helmet of “Space Balls.” If you have noticed already, the cast is an entourage of Todd Sheets regulars, a small niche of actors and actress with close ties to the Master of Splatter and have reoccurring roles in most the director’s early 90s indie gems. That trend continues with Carol Barta (“Prehistoric Bimbos in Armeggedon City”) as the bounty hunter, Medusa. Looking more like your next-door neighbor grandmother, Medusa is viper-tongued assassin with an unforgettable cackle and a throaty super ability that’ll inject nightmares for nights to come. Barta’s performance is one of those cliched it’s so bad, its good acts that you have to see to believe. Cathy Metz, Kyrie King, Rebecca Rose, Jody Rovick, and Mike Hellman round out the cast.

Character names drenched with Greek mythology inspiration and a contemporary take on the werewolf canon, “Moonchild” is an interesting and unorthodox story to say at least. Todd Sheets had obviously perfected the limited capabilities of S-VHS shooting or was confident enough to build in a lengthy car chase into a project that didn’t rely on disgusting audiences with blood and guts, but rather actionable thrills and singular characters of the post-apocalypse with only a smidgen of horror. You see, the werewolf doesn’t make too many appearances on screen, only surfacing from beneath Jacob Stryker’s human skin twice in total. The wolfish transformation is shoddy but for the budget, there is an appreciation for the amazing looking effect as well as the other practical effects throughout the feature. “Moonchild’s” pacing can be concernedly plodding to make sure the exposition covers aspect of Stryker’s intentions, slowing down the film to the point sluggishness. It doesn’t help that the scripted word-for-word, automaton performances are not tonally textured with droning dialogue that can’t captivate and contributes to the fatigue at times. Though “Moonchild” is an evolving project for Sheets with conviction in his ability to produce, there are still some editing continuity blunders that downgrade the overall result. Upward closeup shots of Julie King as she looks down when supposedly holding a rifle on Auggi Alvarez show her hand mock holding a rifle as it comes into the frame and then the next cut is the actress actually holding a rifle. Another scene involving King has her smash in the head of a traitor on a concrete floor and the next shot is of her running down the hallway away from where the body should be but wasn’t. The corpse had vanished. Howlers, pun intended, like these conspicuous examples are what depreciate an already discounted movie, curbing any kind of recognition for Todd Sheets going outside his blood and guts comfort zone.

As one of Visual Vengeance’s SOV cult-horror titles, we come to expect temperamental image and sound quality from the Wild Eye Releasing banner due to the consumer grade S-VHS equipment and the novicey of the filmmakers as, and mostly related to the former, Visual Vengeance warns of prior to the start of every feature so thus far, but the 50GB, MPEG-4 encoded, 2-disc Blu-ray set, that presents the feature in 1080p of the 1.33:1 aspect ratio, is the best technical-looking SOV to date for the company. Hardly any tracking issues, artefact issues, and any tape distortion of any kind and while still lacking premium quality as we all expect today, nothing is taken away from “Moonchild’s” original SD master transfer that is a director supervised. The single soundtrack audio option is an English analogue 1.0 mono mix and the dialogue as well as the score come over nicely despite a less punchy channel output. There’s a steady, feature length electrical interference from start-to-finish that is no surprise and is not terribly audio intrusive. Depth suffers mostly with the type of equipment that doesn’t filter and level out ambient noise, but the range of sound is pleasant with the added clip tracks. English subtitles are option. The bonus features include two new audio commentaries – director Todd Sheets and star Auggi Alverz and Todd Shoots and Visual Vengeance. Other bonus features include the alternate VHS cut, Wolf Moon Rising documentary, archival behind-the-scenes cast and crew interviews featurette, the original VHS trailer, deleted ending, the Todd Sheets’ directed music video Burn the Church by the now defunct Kansas City-based, goth metal band Descension, short film “Sanguinary Desires,” trailer for Todd Sheets “Bonehill Road,” and other Visual Vengeance trailers.” The phyical release comes with a 2nd disc, a bonus audio CD of the movie soundtrack, reversible cover art featuring original VHS cover on the inside, new art on the clear cased Blu-ray snapper, and original art on the cardboard slipcover by The Dude Designs aka Thomas Hodge. Inside the snapper lining are four-page liner notes by Matt Desiderio, folded mini poster of the snapper front cover, and the standard VHS throwback sticker sheet. “Moonchild” on a Visual Vengeance Blu-ray comes unrated, region free, and with a runtime of 87-minutes. Todd Sheets is a maniacal moviemaking machine with “Moonchild” being released a decade after the gorehound began and there’s plenty of admirable spirit and effects in the Kansas City werewolf in dystopia tale, but one can’t shrug off the oversights and the exasperating exposition that goes way off trail the turbulent path of indie filmmaking.

“Moonchild” now on Blu-ray from Visual Vengeance!