Shooting Up EVIL May Cause Hellish-Hallucinations! “Ozone” reviewed! (Temp Digital / Blu-ay and DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on July 13, 2020

On a stakeout to meet an informant, Detectives Eddie Boone and Mike Weitz are ambushed by a drug dealer named Richter and become separated in the fierce firefight. While detective Weitz tracks down their traitorous informant into a decrepit druggie den, Boone wrangles with Richter who injects him with a new street drug called Ozone. Unable to locate his missing partner for days, Eddie breaks standard police protocols to find his longtime friend and partner by digging into Ozone’s grimy underworld filled with powerful hallucinogenic manifestations from the drug that turns users into mindless mutated addicts and killing machines. Eddie will have to go through Hell to stop the distribution of Ozone and to rescue his partner from an elevated and fully transformed drug lord with unconventional powers that believes Eddie is key to his world dominance.

First, “The Dead Next Door.” Then, “Robot Ninja.” Now, TempVideo and MakeFlix present the next super-duper, 2-disc collector’s release from the visionary B-movie director, J.R. Bookwalter, with his 1995 horror film, “Ozone.” Co-written with the visual effects artist from “The Talisman” and “Subspecies 4: Bloodstorm, David A. Wagner pens his one and only option in which Bookwalter immediately took a shining to following a string of very taxing and bargain titles for a flyby label. Able to by clairvoyant with how “Ozone” should be constructed, deep inside the creative process of his auteur mind, Bookwalter felt desire to oversee the production, taking the helm on just how he would make an ambitious project come to a life on a microbudget. “Ozone” parallels the subculture of powerful narcotics, like heroin or cocaine, and amplifies the conditions of the euphoria side effects to monstrous, unpredictable heights through a labyrinth of what the hell is going to happen next? Mostly shot in Akron, Ohio, “Ozone” is a production of Bookwatler’s own company, Suburban Tempe Company aka TempeVideo, on an astonishingly low-budget of $3500 and a handpicked cast and crew.

Comprised mainly of Ohio based actors, “Ozone” finds it’s star in James Black who has previously worked with Bookwalter on “Zombie Cop” and “Chickboxer.” Black went on to stardom, making a living off of the Hollywood limelight by having roles in such films as “Soldier” alongside Kurt Russell and “Out of Sight” with George Clooney among many other television and movie roles, but Black’s humble beginnings shouldn’t be overlooked. His performance as the lead character, Eddie Boone, highlights his attributes as a leading man. The physicality of the former professional football player with good looks catches the corners of eyes that the man from Lima, Ohio can act as well as do action scenes professionally and effectively despite budget limitations. However, “Ozone’s” talent doesn’t end there with Black’s co-stars who wear multiple hats in other roles or behind the camera. Case in point is Bill Morrison and James L. Edwards as the two makeup a total of five characters in the film as well as serving to be critical components as crew. Morrison dons two roles plus crafting the special makeup effects and miniatures. Edwards supports three roles, including the main antagonist in what looks like a hefty body suit. Morrison and Edwards going through the rigors of makeup to pull off various characters with polar personalities provide “Ozone’s” well-rounded, always interesting, idiosyncratic individuals Eddie encounters through his misadventures of drug-fueled nightscapes. Tom Hoover, Michael Cagnoli, Michael Beatty, Jerry Camp, Mark S. Bosko, Wayne Alan Harold, Neil Graf, Leo Anastasio, Parris Washington, and Lori Scarlett in an unforgettable birth of a mutant baby scene rounds out this cast of colorful characters.

“Ozone” is a gooey, gory, gumshoe of a horror film baked on narcotics laced with nightmares and for the budget price of a dime bag, J.R. Bookwalter injects a full-fledged, black tar, down the rabbit hole thriller that’s akin to a Clive Barker Faustian concept. “Ozone” draws similarities from “Hellraiser” as well as could find strong congruence with “Lords of Illusions,” a film which was released the same year as “Ozone” in 1995. Instead of magicians of the occult, the use of a more salt of the Earth drug is a powerful, tangible substance that reflects relevance more so than of fantasy. Audiences can relate more to the idea of the twisted wrenching of habitual use of not only illegal drugs, but with perhaps medications, alcohol, or any number of other addictions that seemingly take over one’s life and replaces it with the worst part of themselves. The mysterious encounters Eddie Boone is subjected to during his tour of the drug enlightens the hardnose detective to an out of body horror experience wretched with disfigured humanoid shells and countless mutants determined on cornering the market on living not sober not on their own volition. The use of the new morph special effects merged with the respectable practice effects by Bill Morrison and his team gorge on body modification and overpowering death as synonymous to being high.

Just like “The Dead Next Door” and “Robot Ninja,” “Ozone” receives the king’s treatment into a duel format, 2-disc Blu-ray and DVD Signature edition release. Shot on Super-VHS C videotape in 1995 and then transferred to DVCAM in 2002 for the DVD remastering, the 2020 upgrade used the DVDCAM masters were captured as ProRes 442 HQ QuickTime video files for a new and comprehensive color upgrade, additional deinterlacing, and amend any other Super-VHS C tape imperfections. What resulted for the Blu-ray release is a super clean and enhanced look presented in the original 4:3 (1.33:1) aspect ratio of perfectly color corrected hues, brilliantly effusing various colors to coincide with the artistic storytelling of Eddie Boone’s trippy trek through “Ozone’s” chthonic evil. Seldom do minor blemishes pop up; in fact, you won’t even really notice when godsmacked on “Ozone’s” uncanny use of budgetary limitations. The English language DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 surround sound mix is equally as impressive. Pulled from the DA-8 tape achieve of the original audio masters on an eight-track cassettes, all of the dialogue and some original sound effects were used as the basis for the new restoration in which Maui Holcomb and director, J.R. Bookwalter enhanced over the course of 18 years. Dialogue cuts to the front of the line, mixed and balanced well with the explosions, gunfire, and other skirmishes, delivering a flawless and discernable product. Depth and range render nicely throughout. The DVD specs are the original 1994 VHS version also in the original aspect ratio with an English language Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo mix. Jens C. Moller grand score elevates “Ozone” to the “next stage,” as the street mutates would coin it, offering up a bountiful, robust score that simultaneous blends action and horror seamlessly. If you’re looking for every nook and cranny bonus material on “Ozone,” you got it with an extensive bonus package on the Blu-ray disc that include a 2020 audio commentaries from J.R. Bookwalter, a 2003 commentary with the director and star, James Black, 2003 commentary, entitled “Street Zombies” from Bookwalter, bloopers and outtakes, production art and stills, news’ topic reels from 1993, promotional gallery, “Ozone’s origins explained through “Paying for Your Past Sins” with J.R. Bookwalter, “Into the Black” with star James Black and how he became involved, a 2003 location tour with actor James L. Edwards, behind the scenes footage with the only audio available is a commentary by J.R. Bookwalter, early test footage, and Tempe trailers. The DVD has additional material, such as awesomely isolating the musical score, 2020 audio commentary with Doug Tilley and Moe Porne of the No-Budget Nightmares Podcast, scenes from the Spanish dubbed version, the 1992 B’s Nest Video Magazine Intro, the original trailer, the Japanese trailer, the “Street Zombies” trailer, and more Tempe DVD trailers. The not rated, 81 minute, region free release also has optional English and Spanish subtitles. Inside the casing, which has a reversible wrap cover with the original VHS cover, housed inside a cardboard slipcover of revamped artwork by graphic designer Timothy Rooker includes an eight-page color booklet with liner notes by Tempe historian Ross Synder; it’s a good read up on “Ozone’s” conceiving and a little history on SOV of the 1990’s. Exquisitely enhanced and lush with material, the Signature Edition of “Ozone” just might be the definitive one of the wildly insane and bloodied occult cop fiction of independent horror ingenuity.

Available for pre-order. Hit shelves August 11th!

One Wish Sparks a Lifetime of Evil. “A Wish for the Dead” reviewed!

Posted by Steven Lewis on August 12, 2019

Ever since his wife’s life has staggered on the near brink of death, John’s mental state has been thrust into constant turmoil. Unable to get straight answers from doctors and stuck inside the vapid white walls of a hospital, John remains by his unconscious wife’s hospital bed. When a mysterious man with a severely disfigured face wrapped in bandages offers him a locket that will grant him a single wish, John’s desperation to try anything to save her soul stretches beyond logic and reality, overpowering his rational principles. Despite coming with an ambiguous warning on how to detail his wish, John heedlessly requests that death cease to exist. The locket grants endless life not only for John’s wife, but for everyone as the dead rise from their eternal slumber in perpetual anguish that sends them into a frenzy of violence without a means to an end.

“A Wish for the Dead” is the first venture into a Renegade Art production and a Shami Media Group, or SMG, release for Its Bloggin’ Evil and, to be frank, the viewing re-establishes a couple of important things: 1) “A Wish for the Dead” has tremendous bite for an under the radar flick and 2) never rule out modestly financed films based on their technical appearances. The 2014 micro-budget indie horror from the short film director of “The Confession of Fred Kruger,” Nathan Thomas Milliner, along with the editing, photography, and co-writing assistance from “Girl Number Three” writer Herschel Zahnd, takes the cautionary tale themed with a careful what you wish for approach when despondency has one backed against the wall that leads to direly lethal negligence. Milliner’s film that’s based off a comic book of the same title might not be “Wishmaster,” starring Andrew Divoff, but can certainly be grouped into that similar genre realm where the ugliness of mysticism mischief can be personally devastating instead of gratifying. The film can also be lassoed into the over saturated zombie category because, well, you know, the whole arise of the undead thing.

“A Wish for the Dead” has a fairly large cast, but doesn’t have definitive leads. Instead, Milliner and Zahnd scribe a tale with miniature, personal scenarios for characters with John being a considerable catalyst or, an interpretation, of a centralized character. John’s played by Chris Petty, who had a bit part in the Zac Efron Ted Bundy biopic “Extremely Wicked, Shockingly Evil and Vile,” and despite the character being fairly one dimension, Petty sells the performance of a grieving, greedy husband. John encounters the mysterious, disfigured stranger in a trench coat, head wrapped like a mummy, and nodding John over like a he’s going to sell him a knockoff Rolex from the inside lining of his coat, in Robert Hatfield that tempts him with the wish granting locket. Hatfield version of a biblical villain has charismatic and devilish value, but nothing new to note the rendition from previous performances of shallow humor and sly mischief upon an cutting grin. Branch off stories that indulge into supporting characters un-charmed, demised lives fill in the gaps and provide fuel for the undead fire and these supporting characters include Lori Cooke (“Girl Number Three”), Kristine Renee Farley (Hi-8 – Horror Independent 8), Adam Pepper (“The Zombie Movie”), Julie Strebl (“Volumes of Blood: Horror Stories”) and Ashley Anderson.

The beginning of this film starts off oddly as soon as the title credits roll for the feature film and coming to the realization that the viewer is actually not submersed into the actual story yet. First slither portion of the film is a short thriller, noted at the conclusion as being directed also by Milliner, that becomes clearly distinct from the rest of the plot line. The abnormal sequence snaps the story’s fluidity as a seamed segue that then constructs the multiple-tiered building blocks for the heart of the feature. Once the short has past, much to our chagrin that we believed to be the actual film, “A Wish for the Dead” goes into a precision mode with coordinating individually wrapped death backstories and while Milliner attempts to get us to care about these characters, all is washed away and lost when death revokes all their previous, present, and future terminations. The backstories become null and void when not circled back to for the exception of John and his wife that find’s a sweet ironic malevolency making “A Wish for the Dead” satisfying in the end.

MVDVisual and Shami Media Group courteously releases Nathan Thomas Milliner’s “A Wish for the Dead” onto a not rated DVD home video. Presented in a stretched 16:9 aspect ration, the lossy video quality and the lack of color, mostly in a squashy greenish-yellow, chap into sore spots along the 80 minute runtime to the almost the point of SOV quality. Darks are plagued with digital noise that remove the sharp quality from the image, leaving the story to fend for itself and make up for the lack of presentation. The English 2.0 stereo sound mix pops during the higher pitches of dialogue and of some action points, but the dialogue is in the forefront and nicely balanced amongst depth and range considering. There are no bonus features on this release, but as an interesting note, Milliner illustrated much of Scream! Factory’s home video artwork (releases such as “Halloween II and III”) and for HorrorHound Magazine. The artist and filmmaker’s graphically detailed and perfectly suited talents grace the SMG cover as well. A wish granted for the major win with “A Wish for the Dead” as a macabre success story for independent filmmaking for aspiring artists despite the post-production engineering for a cleaner release, but death isn’t pretty, is it?

Watch “A WISH FOR THE DEAD” on PRIME VIDEO!

Evil Doesn’t Care for pH Levels! “Hot Tub Party Massacre” Review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on March 8, 2018

In the midst of a deranged serial killer’s escape from prison, Four Delta Omega sisters enter a school raffle to represent their sorority and end up winning an all expenses paid hotel suite complete with a luxurious hot tub. As student bodies fall in the maniac’s wake, the sisters flight toward fun times before taking notice how many of their friends and fellow students become unfortunate slashed-up victims and just when things are getting wet and carnal, the killer checks in, crashing good times, and making mince meat out of the lucky winners and their boyfriends.

Budget horror filmmaker Chris Greenaway gets his hands into the sisterhood horror genre with his 2016 written and directed tongue-and-cheek horror-comedy “Hot Tub Party Massacre.” Campy. gratuitous. Schlocky. Greenaway has covered all the bases of a satirical slasher sporting a killer wielding a small garden cultivator – “cultivator” is a good title or moniker for another campy slasher as long as you put the proverbial “the” in front of it. Instead, we get the Canadian cult no-so-classic “Hot Tub Party Massacre” because nothing says killer party than an actual killer at your party and here the party is wet and wild with an escaped maniac on the loose, ready to randomly slice and dice the unscrupulous and individualistic sisters of Delta Omega sorority.

While there’s not a sole headliner to Greenaway’s film, like a Jamie Lee Curtis to Laurie Strobe or a Neve Campbell to Scream, the sorority girls attending the bubbly hot tub affair function as a collective headlining mass of alternative women. In alphabetical order, Amanda Nickels, Erin Hyndman, Jynx Vandersteen (“Father’s Day”), and Sarah Foster each represent Delta Omega’s finest in their respective personas as popular, bookworm, party (or slut?), and goth. The quintessential tropes to any routine slasher star as surprisingly benevolent with their upbeat attitudes and gracious acceptance of all kinds of people. When Hyndman’s nerdy Bethany states she probably shouldn’t attend trip, party girl Brandi, aka Vandersteen, counteracts with you’re one of us, a Delta Omega, and only the best become Delta Omegas. Their stalker, the elusive serial killer, is played by Mark Kiazyk trying to do his best Michael Myers impersonation from the chest down, as he’s frequently screened. Kiazyk’s has the look, a face of pure hatred, and I wish that was more prevalent as it’s a face for television. Rounding out the cast are Delta Omega boyfriends Danny Warren and Ken Wright, “Rust’s” Corey Taylor as a school spirited University newscaster, “you’re all doomed” guy Nicholas MacDonald, and the indie scream queen Brinke Stevens making her bit cameo.

“Hot Tub Party Massacre” is essentially one big homage to the enshrined horror flicks and pays it’s respects to, as aforementioned, Halloween with the killer. Also gives a head nod to Friday the 13th Part II in which a couple are jointly impaled in a very similar frame-by-frame sequence. Even one of the official poster concepts is a direct take from “Slumber Party Massacre” and perhaps the Delta Omega is a sign of respect to another Brinke Stevens’ classic, “Die Delta Die!” Greenaway’s “Hot Tub Party Massacre,” by title alone, is not a serious horror film looking to ripoff the foundational slashers, but relishes in a lighthearted satire that begins in a realm of Zuckeresque that loses the visual gag steam at the tail end. The montage of gratuitous nudity of Amanda Nickela, Jynx Vandersteen, and Sarah Foster notch up the “Hot Tub’s” antics in fleshing out the skin craving viewers who can’t get enough of blood and boobs. Awarding this feature as a good film, as a pivotal staple in horror, is an extreme over exaggeration and a poor case of judgement, but consider only chocking “Hot Tub Party Massacre” up to being Chris Greenaway’s ode to the archetype slasher genre.

Ron Bonk and his Sub Rosa Studios, along with MVDVisual, proudly present “Hot Tub Party Massacre” onto DVD that absolutely belongs right in SRS’s arsenal of cheap and outrageous horror. The Full Screen 1.33:1 presentation is what it is, an unmatted sign of low resolution and blotchy, patchy image quality. The 2.0 audio track is a seesaw of fidelity where some aspects of the dialogue are barely audible and then the high pitched shrieks, and their are many shrieks, could pierce ear drums through popping static noise. There wasn’t an expectation of par level video-audio quality, but the due diligence is to publicize, not necessarily criticize, that of the DVD technical contents. The DVD cover is straight out of a photo shoot with a round, thong-cladded booty and long legs very shapely in front of an in ground hot tub. FYI – the hot tub in the movie is above ground and in a hotel. Bonus features include commentary tracks, behind-the-scenes footage (that contains more nudity, by the way), and trailers. Chris Greenaway’s “Hot Tub Party Massacre” has a premise of a short-lived concept that has been run through the kitty-grinder more than once over, but unquestionably is a honoring low-rent tributing spoof of cult classic works that obviously inspired the Canadian horror filmmaker.

Get wet with “Hot Tub Party Massacre!”

There’s Astronomical Evil in Them Mountains of Mars! “First Man on Mars” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on November 8, 2016

The Cologne Space Labs launch their project billionaire sponsor and gold-greedy astronaut Eli Cologne into a two-year journey in hopes for a beneficial Mars expedition. Cologne, being the first man on the red planet, encounters a shiny gold-like object that infects him with a foreign organism. As mission control rashly make the decisive decision to abort the expedition and leave Cologne stranded on the wasteland that is Mars, the brazen astronaut plans not to die on the alien planet, fleeting back to the return module, and blasting off back into space where he becomes lost for one year until his return module crash lands on Earth under the massive cloak of Hurricane Katrina. His human form ceases to exists, transformed into a flesh feasting, hideous extraterrestrial in a space suit who wreaks havoc and terror for years in a podunk Louisiana bayou where the nearby local Sheriff, Dick Ruffman, attempts to save from ultimate destruction.

When Tempe Video and TomCat Releasing dropped the news of “First Man on Mars” feature on my e-doorstep in a Tempe Video press release, something very deep in the cavernous, unholy part of me wanted to screen the film’s trailer. After witnessing a primo homage of super-8 b-horror schlock, I immediately brought my finger tips to my laptop’s keys and typed ferociously, requesting a press coverage copy for a film that had me instantly reminisce of “Lobster Man of Mars,” a 1989 sci-fi comedy directed by Stanley Sheff. As weeks passed, no response of my request was returned from the distributor. However, when the film’s director Mike T. Lyddon, an experienced independent filmmaker with more than two decades worth of low-budget films under his belt, e-mails Its Bloggin’ Evil and wonders if the site could review his latest project, a satirical sci-fi comedy, by forwarding over a screener link, I gladly jumped at the opportunity and, low and behold, I wasn’t disappointed when the end credits started to roll!

Under a massive umbrella of pop cultural science fiction references, “First Man on Mars” oversteps many plot conventions, exaggerating to the fullest extent a simple story of one man’s plight of an unquenchable desire for shiny gold that literally consumes him and, consequently, consumes others surrounding him in a cauldron of cannibalistic campiness. Even though the lesser part of Benjamin Wood’s dual role shows his mug as a friendly bar patron, his Eli Cologne performance never shows character face beyond the golden shield of his space helmet or before his pre-gruesome transformation into a hideous, razor-teethed, otherworldly beast, providing anonymity to an important character much similar to that of the character V in “V for Vendetta,” if you don’t consider the stock footage prior to the film’s title. Okay, so I might be comparing caviar to spam, but nonetheless, Lyddon uses comedy and a jerry-built space suit to create an ambiguity villainous character.

Trust me, “First Man on Mars” is not at all serious as the feature is comprised of zany rednecks, birdbrain scientists, and gratuitous violent hilarity garnished with suitably colorful dialogue that can be funny while being extremely crude, can be smart in it’s admiration, and can be juvenile with bathroom-riddled humor where appropriately scened. Every actor executes the swallowing of pride process to extend verbal and physical indirect comedy that purely goes hand-in-hand with this sort of satirical storyline constructed from the certifiable portions of Mike Lyddon’s brain that might or might not be sizzling on an illegal and dangerous narcotic. Gavin Ferrara, Kirk Jordan, Marcelle Shaneyfelt, Roy “Rusty” Jackson, Jr., Kelly Murtagh, Joey Harmon, Sam Cobean, and Tresslar Burton round out the comically darling cast.

“First Man on Mars” is an absurd blast from low-budget director Mike Lyddon and his team of willing actor and crew participants, putting everything on the proverbial line to make this ambitious project first and put their seemingly absent shame second. The TomCat Releasing was presented to me as a screener link, therefore I can’t officially review the audio and video quality nor any bonus features that might have accompanied the release, but as a soft judgment, the 16mm stock that “First Man on Mars” is shot on revels in the hokey dialogue, the substantial monster violence, and the utter gore as a remembrance of the once larger than life creature feature movies from the drive-in theater era.

BUY “FIRST MAN ON MARS” ON DVD! AMAZON.COM

Mexico’s Stomach-Turning Evil is Here! “Atroz” review!

Posted by Steven Lewis on September 17, 2016

In a wake of fatally striking down a young woman with their vehicle, two errant and drunk men, Goyo and Gordo, are arrested for the gruesome crime at the scene of the accident While handcuffed in the back of a squad car, an unorthodox police chief named Juarez discovers a video tape recorder in the front of their mangled car with a tape revealing the violent torture and killing of a young transvestite hooker. One tape leads to another, and then another, individually exhibiting a trail of cascading blood and merciless torture in the deaths caused by Goyo and his unstable and dysfunctional life. Juarez digs further into Goyo’s ghastly cases going through each horrific tape setting up Goyo for a shocking conclusion from his past he long thought was dead.

“Atroz” will make you never want to tour Mexico! I can fully understand why “Cannibal Holocaust” director Ruggero Deadato fully backs Lex Ortega’s graphic horror film an associate producer and presenter as the two films, separated by decades, are much alike with the majority of their likeness in found footage techniques, frighteningly realistic imitations of murder, and their artistic and austere grandeur of filmmaking narration. Ortega also sustains an effective horror feature through the confines of a problematic ultra micro-budget. Along with aid from a talented roster of actors and crew, no way was Ortega’s film was not being made. “Atroz,” translated to “Atrocious,” opens with the unsavory side of Mexico’s impoverishment that contributes to much of the Central American nation’s disturbing amount of unsolved murders. The montage opening is so powerful and moving that what precedes shocks as a gritty insight of what everyday Mexican residents might experience one way or another in their lifetime and though Ortega goes that extra mile to be obscene and disgusting in every way possible, the director supports his work with seeding a traditionally patriarchal society with gender identity afflictions that evolves organically and is purposefully displayed in reverse order to add more, if it wasn’t possible already, to the shock value of “Atroz.”

The outer story involving Goyo’s interrogation about his stash of tapes is only the tip of the iceberg, sheltering three background influencing stories about Goyo that set up more familiarly in an anthology manner. Inked with intricate arm sleeve tattoos and perforated with metal facial piercings, Goyo and his larger friend Gordo, which means large man in Spanish fittingly enough, seem nothing more than your typical lowlife gangbangers. However, Goyo and Gordo are more disturbed than any Mexican cholos from the first torture tape of a transvestite prostitute, a punished, bit-part role awarded to actress/singer Dana Karvelas. The next two tapes are just as hard to swallow and stomach from the assorted fluid being consumed, to the explicit varying degrees of rape, to the vivd genitalia multination, and to just the sheer ultra violence depicted makes “Atroz” the gorehound’s holy grail of horror. Never have I’ve witness a film so graphic to come out of Mexico and, by golly, I thought the world needed this Lex Ortega film. In most cases, extreme gore and shock features run a course shortly after hitting the play button on your home entertainment device, but with “Atroz,” a drive to learn more about what motivates Goyo’s unholy acts unravel little-by-little and that quality is usually omitted and uncharacteristic of explicit gore horror.

Performances are firmly established all around with Carlos Valencia and Lex Ortega himself leading the charge as Juarez and Goyo. While Ortega doesn’t necessary have much of dialogue role with Juarez during interrogations, the undiluted carnage he lays down on the tape recordings are a rare and twisted characterization hardly visited by the indie circuit and certainly not given the light of day from Hollywood, being mostly sidelined to an underground context. Rare is it to have one actor who can impersonate malice upon others that when a doppleganger appears in Goyo’s younger years video tape, “Atroz” becomes that much of brighter highlight as a dark film birthed from Mexico. Carlos Padilla truly frightens as the younger version of Goyo staged in an abusive household with an unsympathetic father, an naive mother, and lots of physical and verbal mistreatment. Goyo’s a psychoanalytical unicorn, an epitome of the mind’s deranged wealth, and a testament that his surroundings molded the very fibers of his intentions do commit evil. The sight of blood is all it takes arouse Goyo and “Atroz” provides the character an ocean of sangre ready for lapping.

Practical effects wizards Jamie Lopez and Alfredo Olguín produced unrivaled effects on a budget that didn’t provide a second chance if the effect didn’t spin right the first round. Absolutely flawless did the duo’s work gleam in the blood it was soaked in and firmly how I held on for dear life my testicles when seeing a set being cleaved graphically severed. Lopez and Olguín have a combined 23-years of experience in the special effects game and that surfaced buoyantly at the top of “Atroz’s” shocking content. In the nature versus nurture debate, “Atroz” sides with nurture putting Goyo in the impoverished and traditional meat grinder that is Mexico and spat him out where wades in a chrysalis until bursting out into a state of lust for an endless stream of revenge and blood. Ortega accomplishes nurture’s wickedness by tenfold and Lopez and Olguín exemplifies it even more.

Unearthed Films and MVDVisual’s limited edition 3-disc Blu-ray and DVD set includes a JH5 & Eggun soundtrack. Presented in a widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio, the 79 minute runtime feature sports no blemishes and falters on any flaws, baring and setting a fitting desolate tone through a number of camera options. There’s also and English and Spanish language Dolby Digital 5.1 with optional English subtitles intent on properly channeling every port of your surround sound system. A pair of issue lie with the subtitles involving quite a few typos in English and some synchronization problems delaying captioning a full second or two after dialogue has proceeded. Bonus material includes the short film of “Atroz,” a crowd funding video, behind the scenes: music and sound design, behind the scenes: practical effects, behind the scenes: production, Unearthed trailers, a behind the scenes image gallery, and, of course, the aforementioned soundtrack. Whatever you do, don’t consume any food before and during experiencing the gore charged “Atroz,” Mexico’s most deranged cinematic delicacy to date!