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“The Kindred” on Blu-ray at Amazon.com!

Before the passing of his brilliant molecular scientist mother, scientist John Hollins fulfills his mother’s adamant dying wish to destroy her life’s long work at their old seashore home. She also spills out that he must put a stop to his unbeknownst to him brother named Anthony. John, who followed his mother’s footsteps by becoming a lead geneticist, devotes the efforts of his team to assist in the removal and destruction of the data but the extent of her work was severely underestimated. Digging through journals upon journals and computer data to find any mention of a long-lost brother, John delays the rescinding proceeding. That is until a member of his team is attacked by an unknown creature and that his brother might not be actually human. On top of it all, John’s lab supervisor, Dr. Phillip Lloyd, is hellbent on obtaining his mother’s covert creation and embeds a spy on John’s team to locate it by whatever means necessary. The simple deathbed request has become a monstrously frightening ordeal that will pit brother versus brother and place everyone’s lives in mortal danger with a tentacled creature set loose.

As Vin Diesel once said in 9 “Fast and the Furious” movies, family is everything. “The Kindred,” however, is not a Vin Diesel movie, does not have supercharged, illegal street race cars or even any high-octane action, and definitely pinpoints family to be more of a burden-riddled, hazard to your health kind of deal when the little brother you never knew existed turns out to be a hybrid surf-and-turf creature with a thirst for blood. That’s the barebone synopsis of “The Kindred”, a U.S. bred sci-fiction-horror from the directors of “The Dorm That Dripped Blood” and “The Power” Stephen Carpenter and Jeffrey Obrow. The 1987 creature feature is penned by the two filmmakers alongside John Penney (“Return of the Living Dead III”), Earl Ghaffari, and “The Exorcist” screenwriter, Joseph Stefano to give the script a little extra supernaturally special to make it stand out. The indie film is a production under the limited partnership of producers Jeffrey Obrow, Stacey Giachino, and executive producer Joel Freeman (“Love at First Bite”) and was theatrically distributed by the now defunct F/M Entertainment.

As a geneticist, “Manhunter’s” David Allen Brooks gives a fairly convincing performance as a strong jawed, blonde haired, and tall statured scientist wearing the now hackneyed glasses to make him appear nerdy and scientific. Honestly, the L.A.- born actor could have gone without the glasses and would have made no difference in the geneticist maven that is John Hollins but on screen, it’s a good look for the part. Yet, all the scientific studies in the world couldn’t prepare what’s to come for the level-headed researcher: a long weekend at the seashore house with direct report whizz-kids and a British acolyte of his mother’s with the blatant hots for him despite his longtime girlfriend (Talia Balsam, “Crawlspace”) tagging along to help with the cleanout. Romantic tensions flare, jealousy ensues, and personalities clash as a house full of emotional cannonballs are being launched in every direction, blinding them to the real threat at hand – a genetically spliced mistake roaming the grounds and full of bloodlust. In its rampaging path are a varied of vaguely hormonal and youthful scientist and administrative blend with a hilarious Peter Frechette (“The Unholy”), the nice guy in Timothy Gibbs (“Witchboard 2”), the Betty Childs from “Revenge of the Nerds'” with Julia Montgomery in a stepdown supporting role, Bunky Jones (“Hide and Go Shriek”), and the dubious dame of Amanda Pays (“Leviathan”) in her best Kelly LeBrock impression. The cast rounds out with a couple of veterans in Kim Hunter (“Dark August”) as mother Hollins and in an almost unrecognizable in appearance but unmistakable in performance from Rod Steiger (“Modern Vampires”) with hair (likely a wig).

“The Kindred’s” promising 80’s creature feature showstopper is marvelously slimy, grotesquely anthropomorphic, and stunningly conceived and manipulated creature effects by a team under Michael John McCracken’s supervision. The palpable, practical special effects works for “The Kindred’s” era that offers technology limited f/x options, but for this type of subgenre to be constructed in the late 80s, “The Kindred” takes advantage of the wide birth of possibilities from makeup to creature mechanics to pyrotechnics, and to be made would have less memorable as just been another bargain-basement botch job of trying to skirt around the cost at the monster’s expense. Plenty of love is poured into showcasing the monster movie madness that includes a watermelon sinking its barbarous tentacles under human skin and an open floorboard cavity into the creature’s watery pit where the hybrid emerges and slinks back into the abyss. While the practical effects menagerie is a gawker’s paradise, I find the story is only a firecracker’s worth of entertainment in comparison to the Yonshakudama-sized starburst that is McCracken’s Kraken-like monster. Rod Steiger plays the obvious mad scientist, experimenting on the recently traumatized who’ve suffered head wounds, with the nefarious creation of mindless, mutants who are held in the basement of his lab because, well, to be a reminder of his failures? How a dying molecular scientist’s genetic splicing-gone-wrong and Rod Steiger’s version of playing God with the “People Under the Stairs” intertwines is either above my intelligence or doesn’t have one ligament of connective tissue to bind them together. Dr. Lloyd often feels like a very separate story, not dovetailed to the slippery and octopus-shaped antagonist John Hollins and his team face. The only smidgen of connection between the two conflicting plot titans is Melissa Leftridge who’s blackmailed by Dr. Lloyd to retrieve a specimen or die from the same exposure that’s mutated the creature under the seashore house. What befalls Leftridge, in itself, is another substory left shamefully abridged given the spectacle transformation of human-to-fish that randomly flares into the fold.

With an all new 4K high-definition remaster of the unrated print, Synapse Films doesn’t hold back their Blu-ray release of “The Kindred” that’s presented in 1080p, open matte 1.78:1 widescreen aspect ratio. The AVC encoded picture quality caters to the upscale class from a nearly mint transfer print. The color is vivid, and details come through nicely with every bit of goo and glop spewed from the creature. Any kind of issues with compression are either minor or non-existent in the 93-minute runtime and this is typical high-level execution as on many of Synapse’s upgraded and first-time ever on HD released products. The English language DTS-HD 5.1 master audio surround sound cuts a vigorous soundtrack with ample range. Depth is not really tested since most of the action is in the foreground but never does the action top the dialogue that remains free from obstruction and imperfections. Optionally, the release offers the original theatrical 2.0 mono soundtrack as well as English SDH subtitles. Ample bonus features on the unrated release include a commentary with directors Jeffrey Obrow and Stephen Carpenter that’s moderated by horror journalist Steve Barton, a near full length making-of featurette with directors and writers John Penney and Early Ghaffair in Inhuman Experiments that digs into genesis and principal photography, never-before-seen on-set compilation footage of Michael McCraken’s creature effects, a still gallery and storyboard concepts, TV and promotional spots/trailers, and the original theatrical trailer. The physical release comes with a blackout Blu-ray snap case with a Synapse catalogue insert. For a middle of the road creature feature, Synapse knocks the release out of the park, elevating by particularizing the details with care that makes the pint-sized “The Kindred” feel monolithically 100 feet tall.

“The Kindred” on Blu-ray at Amazon.com!

A small town is under sieged by a callous killer, ripping victims to bloody pieces and shreds without an ounce of mercy. As the town goes into a lockdown curfew, a paraplegic young boy named Marty decides to enact his own version of rebellious fun with a stroll in his gas-engine powered wheelchair for some nighttime fireworks, despite a killer on the loose and lurking in the moonlight. Marty’s fun turns into a terrifying nightmare when the killer stalks the boy and when Marty comes face to face with the killer and lives to tell the tale, he discovers that the town maniac is no ordinary deranged person but, in fact, a nasty, snarling werewolf whose also living in plain sight amongst them in the small town community. The only two to believe Marty’s harrowing tale is his older sister, Jane, and his drunk Uncle Red, whose still on the fence about Marty’s werewolf encounter. When the moon is high and full, the three devise a plan to lure out the monster to definitively put it down with a single shot from their one and only silver bullet.

A true piece of Americana horror, “Silver Bullet” remains a staple werewolf flick for those who grew up watching genre films in the 1980s. Daniel Attias, his first and only ever feature film, had embraced a larger-than-life monster movie from a script written by the legendary macabre novelist Stephen King, based off his novella “Cycle of the Werewolf.” Attias and King were practically novices when in regards to directing and screenplays; yet, “Silver Bullet” offers much in the way of comedy, drama, and the frightening scares with a practical effects wolf and snippets of gruesome, violent death at the hands of the beast. “Silver Bullet” goes beyond just being a thrilling story of good versus evil by also blurring the lines of the conventional establishment that spark up the old idiom, a wolf in sheep’s clothing, and dives into a satirical outlook of certain religious faiths and their viewpoints.

What makes “Silver Bullet” as one of the most recognizable and rememberable films, regardless of some microscopic sloppy screenwriting and first time directing woes, is the cast. Before his life altering motorcycle accident, Gary Busey (“Predator 2”) as Uncle Red brings flesh and bone, and booze, to akin King’s Uncle Al character from the novella. Busey fabricates a wonderful, heartwarming performance dynamic with Marty, whose played by the late Corey Haim (“Lost Boys”). Haim is fresh to the scene with his chubby cheeks and doughy soft eyes that would eventually make him a heartthrob idol later into his career and at the young age of thirteen, Haim’s paraplegic performance is respectable and empowering. Uncle Red and Marty are pitted against a sleeper antagonist in Revered Lester Lowe, a role who I could see no one else being in aside from Everett McGill (“People Under the Stairs”). McGill has a face for television, or the big screen in this case, as his chiseled, dark features make him a formidable foe that’s hidden behind a clerical collar. Longtime television and TV movie star Megan Follows plays big sister Jane whom factors in as Marty’s only ally despite their dysfunctional relationship which Follows portrays well with verbal jabs of adolescent wickedness toward her disabled little brother. Rounding out the cast is Terry O’Quinn (“The Stepfather”), Bill Smitrovich (“Manhunter”), and “Reservior Dogs” Lawrence Tierney.

Television cooking show host, Giada De Laurentiis’ grandfather, Dino De Laurentiis, produced the film who was no stranger to the horror genre, such as “Orca” and “Amityville II,” nor to films adapted from Stephen King’s work like the “Dead Zone.” Under Luarentiis’ wing, “Silver Bullet” delivered brutal, traumatizing werewolf kills spun from the werewolf suit creating hands of another Italian, Carlo Rambaldi (“The Hand That Feeds the Dead”), and together, the two Italian filmmakers, along with an apt cast and crew, saw their installment flourish amongst an overcrowded werewolf subgenre in the early 1980’s with competition from films such as John Landis’ “An American Werewolf in London,” “The Howling,” and, yes, even “Teen Wolf.” “Silver Bullet” didn’t just arrive on the scene without some challenges to the storyline. For instance, a killing spree has already established with more than five townsfolk dead and a strict curefew has been set in place, but Marty, ignoring his Uncle Red’s solicited advice about staying near the house to set off fireworks, sneaks out in the middle of the night to shoot off fireworks away from the house. Marty’s fairly bright through the entire story and a nice kid, but the initial encounter between him and the werewolf is by far one of the most unintelligent and dim-witted action any character to make in the history of horror films. What makes the scenario even worse is that Marty is handicapped.

Umbrella Entertainment presents Daniel Attias’ “Silver Bullet” on region B Blu-ray home video in a widescreen 2.35.1 aspect ratio. Image quality of the full high-definition 1080p picture has an agreeable color palette, sharpness, and pinpoint details that especially come to light during the memorable church of wolves scene. A very few scenes have transfer instability where, in a blink of an eye, a revert to a faded frame comes into the fold. The English 2.0 DTE-HD master audio poises and harmonizes the elements and the dialogue into a vat of consistency that isn’t flawed by track damage. Jay Chattaway rallying, chilling score is a candor testament to the quality of the soundtrack that follows suit right behind the beyond par quality of the dialogue and ambient levels. Special features include audio commentary with director Daniel Attias, interviews with special effects artists Michael McCracken, Jr (“Deep Blue Sea”) & Matthew Mingle (“A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors”), an interview with actor Everett McGill, an Umbrella exclusive interview with producer Martha De Laurentii’s remembering “Silver Bullet,” isolated score selections and audio interviews with composer James Chattaway, theatrical trailer, TV Spots, radio spot, and still gallery. A complete and definitive set from Umbrella Entertainment! “Silver Bullet” is a howling success story of classic American horror that has timeless practical effects, a riveting narrative, and cast enriched characters that invest into the lycanthropy film paralleling David versus Goliath.