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From the EVIL Clowns to the EVIL Scarecrow. “Die’ced: Reloaded” reviewed! (Dread / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Go Beyond the Short Film with “Die’ced: Reloaded” on Blu-ray!

As child, Benjamin ripped his parents to shreds with his bare hands after long stints of abuse, including cutting out his tongue to forever silence him.  Now as a mute man, Benjamin remains incarcerated in a psychiatric prison, quiet behind a homemade mask, and under the care of a psychiatric doctor with good intentions.  After a violent, aided escape, leaving the doctor and a nurse mutilated and dismembered, Benjamin finds himself roaming the streets on Halloween night, coming across and killing a young man for his elaborately exaggerated scarecrow costume.  The imposing killer now has his sights set on a teenage girl, Cassandra, stalking her from inside the crowded venue of a friend’s costume party to invading her family home where her father is home alone.  Benjamin becomes a relentless force obsessed with Cassandra and he will stop at nothing and rack up the bodies in unrestricted violence just to have her.

Back in 2023, the co-director of “The Dark Side,” Jeremy Rudd, created a 50-minute slasher short “Die’ced” that took its villainous maniac, a scarecrow mute with a penchant for maiming and slaughtering, and made him into a viral internet hit, snagging the attention of the creative producing team over at Dread.  Along with some meager crowdfunded capital, roughly $3,500 out of a $75,000 goal, Rudd was able to extend his written-and-directed short film into a feature length release in 2025 and rebranded the film with the slightly tweaked title of “Die’ced:  Reloaded.”  Rudd, who has a 20-year career acting in front of the camera, brings his most eyed feature to his home of Seattle, Washington, set on Halloween as the backdrop for the slasher’s body pool, and utilizes Seattle surrounding specific businesses for some of his scenes, such as The Lott Coffee shop and the A&W Bottling Company in Snohomish county as key sets.  Taylor Jones produces with Louis Gallegos and Jeremy’s identical twin brother, Nathan, serving as executive producers.

Acting as “Die’ced’s” frontman without a single line of dialogue, Jason Brooks stalks without being stealth as the deranged psych-prison escape Benjamin.  As a character actor of many faces, having donned the mask of the iconic Jason Voorhees character in a handful of short tributes, strapped on the gloves and fedora for a quick Fred Krueger, and has played the monster countless times over and over again, Brooks follows the footsteps of the likes of Kane Hodder, a part time stuntman keen on being the on-screen villain and making the role is own.  As Benjamin, there’s no qualms about the character’s imposing height and careful movements, some being gently infantile while most have an aggressive cruelty like a wild dog shaking a mouse in its jaws to literal pieces in a fit of blood spatter.   In the other corner, the final girl, Cassandra is just a seemingly normal teenage girl trying to live her adolescent life by going to parties and being a sister to brother Tommy.  However, there’s no way you could convince me Eden Campbell and Collin Fischer are playing teenagers.  Typically, a slasher high school cast would be near the edge or just over the threshold of adulthood, but Cassandra and Tommy are way too old to be high school students with an age range of mid-to-late 20s having a noticeable, natural filled out physique of maturity.  Campbell career stretch has her as a micro-scream queen of sorts from a few horror-related roles from her haunted theater debut performance in “Ghostlight” to having a significant role in the two-part Netflix series “Fear Street:  1978” based off the R.L. Stine scholastic book and with “Die’ced,” Campbell is no Lauren LaVera or Jamie Lee Curtis with her final girl character that’s pitted against a scarecrow garbed killer who’s able to take down without much to-do.  The cast rounds out with Christine Rose Allen as Benjamin’s nurse and escape benefactor, John Karyus (“Lo,” “The Gruesome Death of Tommy Pistol”) as an unfortunately psychiatric doctor being utterly taken apart piece-by-piece, and Nigal Vonas (“Coyote Cage”) as the Cassandra and Tommy’s father.

If analyzing “Die’ced: Reload” in the grand scheme of the slasher iconography, Benjamin, the scarecrow, boils down to being an unauthorized spinoff of Art the Clown, a completely unmistakable byproduct of the widely popular, ultra-violent “Terrifer” film and subsequent franchise about a devilish smiling clown immensely enjoying eviscerating victims in all different kind of ways.  With the same traditional traits of a brawny butcher running on vocal silence, Benjamin is compared to the fan favorites of Michael Myers and Jason Voorhees by its filmmakers, but as far as costume and behavior style goes, along with the intense desire to craft art out of the entrails of his victims, the “Die’ced: Reload” antagonist has more qualitative measure toward Art the Clown with the Aguste face makeup that accentuates the odd shape of a distinct facial bone structure, the harlequin jester who revels in the pursued dismemberment and savagery of innocent parties, and the fact a girl/woman becomes the singled out and obsessed target that rivals the Art the Clown versus Sienna inextricable link.  To further the film pretentiousness, the narrative is held together by elementary school graded glue and Scotch tape with an inexplicable twist that fails elucidation and logic and a familiar narrative that also relies too heavily on the gratuitous gore elements to carry it from beginning to end, reducing the once 2023 viral short into nothing more than a too soon hackneyed concept for 2025.  The “Reload” subtitle gimmick extends the original 2023 short by 30-minutes’ worth of additional gore footage and slipping in some of Benjamin’s backstory while the narrative trunk remains unchanged, but the overall outcome bares a slapdash impression as the story isn’t as terrifying or is whole enough for the Benjamin scarecrow to scare off even a murder of cowardly crows.

”Reload” scares its way onto Blu-ray from Dread’s home video label, Epic Pictures Group, with an AVC encoded, 1080p high definition, BD25 that’s has definitively no issues with the compression integrity seeing pitch black negative space, delineated outlining, and a stable digital image quality but isn’t quite as sharp.  “Die’ced” and director Jeremy Rudd pride themselves on their retro homage to the slasher genre of yesteryear where “Halloween” and “Friday the13th” reigned supreme and Rudd tries to emulate the effect with hazy fog, low and key lighting, and plenty of corner shadowing that impairs surface details and textual outputs.  Coloring is fine but the dark tone grading hampers the hue explosion that leaves the Scarecrow, or maybe Clownish, makeup moderately subdued under the straw mop and burlap hat. “Die’ced” is presented in a widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio and without a grain filter to exact a throwback 80’s slasher.  The English Dolby Digital 5.1 audio mix offers a tampered fidelity through the multi-channel system with a weaker side and back channels to focus more on the front.  Dialogue doesn’t deny clarity and provides enough prominence to be the singled finest element of the audio design that really lacks the range for broader Halloween costumed killer on the loose in Seattle that winds up at a drinking party and a bottling factory without making a bigger splash in the audio pool.  Special features include the original “Die’ced” short film and trailer, plus additional Dread produced film trailers.  Physical packaging is a standard Blu-ray Amaray case with Benjamin’s clown-scarecrow mug menacing smiling through the arch of a bloodstained sickle garnished with one single retro VHS “Horror” sticker which perfectly denotes the extent of “Die’ced’s” throwback slashery.  Epic Picture Group’s Blu-ray is region free and presents the film not rated with an 81-inute runtime.

Last Rites: I’m not seeing the viral sensation the internet saw with a hackneyed antagonist doing much of the same as those who came before, but “Die’ced: Reload” has an extreme slasher violence appeal that can temporarily quench bloodthirst and the open ending leaves more to be explored for character redemption.

Go Beyond the Short Film with “Die’ced: Reloaded” on Blu-ray!

EVIL’s the Bacon, the Pork Roll, and the Scrapple All Mixed and Slashed together! “Butcher’s Bluff” reviewed! (Breaking Glass Pictures / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Butcher’s Bluff” on DVD from Breaking Glass Pictures!

Film students Rodger, Nicole, and Derrick decide to head to the rural Texas town of Emerald Falls and make their class project documentary around the 28 missing persons over the years and the Hogman, an urban legend of an escaped killer now roaming the woods of Butcher’s Bluff.  Bringing along their friends to make it concurring party getaway at Rodger’s family vacation cabin, the trio conduct interviews with the eccentric town locals to build a story around the Hogman myth, even ascertaining the original location for the mask Hogman wore during his first kills before escaping psychiatric prison.  The more they investigate into the Hogman, the more the locals warn them to stay away from Butcher’s Bluff but in a case of curiosity killed the cat, the documentary film students and their drug-fueled, sexed-up friends find themselves being hunted with no cell service, no help within miles, and no way out of the Hogman’s kill radius. 

Co-directors William Instone and Matt Rifley helm their first collaborative feature “Butcher’s Bluff,” a 2023 small town slasher reminiscent of the renaissance slasher movement of the 1980s, packed with practical gore effects, odd backwoods characters, a campy party of vice-riddled youth, and, moist importantly – excuse me – most importantly, T&A.  Instone, whose all-in director, writer, and producer debut horror “Jon” from 2012 brings one man’s delusions into horrifying reality, cowrites his latest grim story with writer, painter, and overall liberal arts connoisseur Renfield Rasputin.  Filmed in Texas with principal locations taking place in Bastrop, New Braunfels, and San Marcos to composition a story set in the fictional town of Emerald Falls and its rural woodland of Butcher’s Bluff.  The film is a crowdfunded venture that raised an approximate $60K to cover principal shooting and post-production costs with Instone and Rifley serving as primary producers amongst an amalgamation of crowdfunded producing backers   Instone’s Thunder Mountain Films, in association with Dull Knife Productions and Spicey Ramen Productions, go hog wild with their slasher horror. 

As if he doesn’t have enough on his plate writer, directing, and producing “Butcher’s Bluff,” Instone also portrays the main antagonist Hogman, masked with a stitched together pig head complete with cockeyed tusks and garbed with a dingy mechanic jumpsuit and tan jacket.  The Hogman is a walk-and-run chaser with a duel-sided axe and rusty, broad curved knife as main melee weapons though he’ll get his bare hands dirty from time-to-time.  Instone’s not flashy with the villain and doesn’t key-light any iconic poses, stances, or stares to incite a nerve coursing fear.  Hogman’s victims are anyone and everyone who enters the Butcher’s Bluff forest, from necking lovers (Jacqueline Hays and “Mallrats’s” Jeremy London), to lost pot farm thieves (“You’re Next’s” L.C. Holt, “Scare Package’s’” Christopher Winbush, “Girls Gone Dead’s” Shawn C. Phillips), to finally, but not limited to, the Rodger’s friends and classmates on their excursion investigation and party.  Fortunately, the group displays different caricature tropes without going full-blown cliché.  Between them you have the exuding sexy yet overly bitchy duo of Sam and Tina (a cut pixie cut but broodingly built Samantha Holland and a slender yet high-end platinum blonde Kayla Anderson), Rodger’s sex-driven, dweeb cousin Bobby (Dakota Millett) who Sam and Tina torment, the polar opposite to Bobby stud with Jake (Santiago Sky) and of course the three documentarians:  Rodger (Michael Fischer), Derrick (Johnny Huang), and Nicole (Paige Steakley), each reside in their own attribute world consistently, dying the way they live, that’s very telling of their moral fiber.  In additional to Jeremy London and Shawn C. Phillips, who have worked themselves into being staples of the indie genre films, other notable names to mention for their brief but key roles are Brinke Stevens (“Nightmare Sisters”), Paul T. Taylor (“Hellraiser:  Judgement”), Bill Oberst Jr. (“3 From Hell”), and Bill Johnson (“The Texas Chainsaw Massacre II”) peppered into the rest of the supporting cast to draw in fandom.

“Butcher’s Bluff” has the necessary bone structure to be a digestible slasher, checking all the elemental boxes, and Instone and Rifley manage to technically pull off a nearly 2-hour film on a crowdfunded budget.   The problem is “Butcher’s Bluff” has a hackneyed routine about it.  Instead of creating something new and wonderfully, gory and diabolical, under a distinct flag of novelly progressive storytelling, every scene feels all too familiar, a telltale sign to horror fans that we’ve seen this kind of story before.  From Hogman’s stony silence and indiscriminate aggression bores him as a Michael Myers carbon copy, a family in cahoots with a s flesh-stitched maniac plays the tune of “Texas Chainsaw Massacre,” and there’s even a character moment of yelling What Are You Waiting For? aimlessly into the dark forest while spinning around with arms wide apart that oozes Jennifer Love Hewitt vibes.  Add in some rather uninspiring frame, shot design, and editing and “Butcher’s Bluff” very much embodies the crowdfunded costs rather than the intended crowdfunded spirit.  Now while all of this portion of the review sounds grossly negative, don’t just run for the hills to the next slasher film in line just yet as Instone and Rifley still manage to keep an engagement lock on what makes the slasher film enjoyable to behold with some decently inlaid practical gore effects, including a pleading head being sliced horizontally through from mouth to hair or a posthumous, lawn chair display of one fine girl’s nipples and eyes plucked from her body and posed on her eye-gouged out person as if giving a blood offering to the audience Gods.  There’s also the inviting gratuitous T&A from Samantha Holland, Kayla Anderson, and Jacqueline Hays that keeps the old theme motif alive within the campy slasher genre as well as keeping young boys’ dreams from becoming dry.

Breaking Glass Pictures distributes the archetypical slasher “Butcher’s Bluff” onto DVD home video.  The MPEG2 encoded, 720p upscaled standard definition, DVD9 really has a tough go with the compression capabilities as there’s quite a bit of data to encode/decode within a near full-time night shoot picture and color accompaniments that blend right into the darkness, melding out of a clean definition.  Presented in a widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio, banding and splotching render a difficult deciphering of data in inkier fields.  When colors do contrast or arise into lighter hues, there’s a pop of demarcation with its full potential held back by an ungraded layer.  Textures are extremely fluid throughout with the prominent skin scenes offering a decent, natural look but most scenes are fuzzy as if the upscale fights the downscaling for supremacy.  The English Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound offers an adequate compression for a routine slasher with mid-level range with clear and clean dialogue overtop eerie forest soundscape of breaking branches, tree knocks, and leave crunching footsteps.  The mix doesn’t convey much depth with dialogue and ambience hanging around the front channels while medium shots and some tree knocking flirt with the side channels.  A mainstay slasher should have a memorable, tense-riddles soundtrack for the chase or create omnipresence fear but “Scream, Queen!  My Nightmare on Elm Street” and “Dinner with Leatherface” composer’s Alexander Taylor’s insipid inspiration can’t be held in the memorable bank and fails to elevate the Hogman’s imposing sheer terror.  English closed captioning is available.  Special features include a proof on concept trailer for the crowdfunding campaign that stars a handful of the actors from the feature film, such as Michael Fischer and Paige Steakley, and a behind-the-scenes music video that contains behind-the-scenes footage.   The DVD presence is standard fair for Breaking Glass Pictures with a DVD Amaray and a one-sided front cover art, which subjectively pleasing in its retrograde mockup of an illustrated Hogman looming over a scared, running Steakley (supposedly) in her white tank top and high cut shorts.  There is at least one noticeable error on the back cover that spells Paige Steakley’s name incorrectly in the credits, listing her last name as Steakely.  The Not Rated release is hard encoded with region 1 and has a two-hour runtime which can appear quite long, but the pacing was not terrible and the long runtime for an indie slasher didn’t feel overly immeasurable. 

Last Rites: “Butcher’s Bluff’s” has little to offer as far as the next novel and generational slasher but scratches the genre itch with a large body count, solid kills, and campy campers looking to buy, sell, and trade their vices for being violated.

“Butcher’s Bluff” on DVD from Breaking Glass Pictures!

Protect Yourself from EVIL Because “Tonight She Comes!” reviewed! (Jinga Films – Danse Macabre – MVDVisual / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Tonight She Comes” is Now Available on DVD! Purchase Here!

Two women looking to spend quality debauchery time with their friend at her family’s rural cabin arrive find their friend is nowhere to be seen or heard from but they do discover a lost mailman asleep on the cabin porch on his first day.   As the trio yuck it up with plenty of booze and flirtation around the campfire, locked out of the cabin with still no sign of their girlfriend, the day turns to night and they’re eager to get into each other’s pants for an alcohol fueled fling.  Unfortunately for them, their lost friend just showed up naked out from the adjacent lake.  What usually would be an invitation for an extended good time, the naked friend is stained head to toe in blood and determined to kill anyone in her path.  In their escape, they run into a backwoods family of black magic occultists trying to fix their titanic satanic mistake before everyone dies.

If a campy, gory, backwaters horror engulfed in occult get your filmic scary movie juices flowing, then “Tonight She Comes” should be at the top of your must-watch list.  The 2016, American-made feature from writer-director Matt Stuertz takes the cabin-in-the-woods trope to the extreme to the likes of a farcical feat many have tried but only a few achieve.  “Tonight She Comes” is Stuertz’s sophomore picture behind the cleverly titled found footage horror “RWD,” or “<<RWD,” as in the rewind symbol you’d typically see on VHS players, and has since his bloodthirst for horror with the practical effects-driven and supernatural terrorizing of a young woman in this year’s “Human” and is currently in production with a gory vampire flick, “Wake Not the Dead.”  Gory is Stuertz niche tinged with a repulsive tone that’s not just splatter nor intestinal evisceration.  Cinematographer Chris Benson and sound designer Jamison Sweet, of the St. Louis-based production company Lamplight Films, and Twenty Eighteen Seventy-Six’s Stuertz produce the film.

What’s neat about the progressing script, acutely angling 90 degrees to keep the story fresh and unsuspecting, is the principal leads constantly change hands.   By conventional standards, the young, good looking, white male mail with a pleasant disposition in James (Nathan Eswine) places audiences on that path with a post title opening of the inexperienced, first-day-on-the-job James doing his route diligently despite difficulties locating an address.  Also, in comparison to his dimwitted and degenerate best friend Pete (Adam Hartley, “The Slender Man”), James is a pedestalled prince.  As the day turns to night, James begins to show cracks in his gallantry and the baton is roughly passed to the rough around the edges but tough as they come Ashley (Larissa White, “Charlatan”).  In another dynamic duo curiosity, her best friend in Lyndsey (Cameisha Cotton) drunkenly sluts her way to the end of the whiskey bottle and toward the inside of James’ pants, demarcating the horror tropes between the two pairings by sticking up and out the perverted goofball and the alcoholic promiscuous while keeping in protagonist good graces and staid James and Ashely up until the baton is passed along again inside the trio of an occult practicing backwoods family who messed up a reincarnation spell and inadvertently resurrected a powerful, murderous demon.  Between the family-first Pa, Frances (Frankie Ray, “Bad Haircut”), the near silent big brother, Philip (Brock Russell) and the rational sister, Felicity (Jenna McDonald), the protagonist shift lands in the lap of the younger sister who takes charge in a show of no nonsense command and force that deserves respect for a role that’s usually diluted or wasted in isolated cabin horror.  Each actor performs exactly on Stuertz given script with the cast rounding out with former model Dal Nicole in her full birthday suit for most of her screentime as the Kristy inhabited demon plodding to kill in a nonstop wrath.  

Most audiences and critics will pan “Tonight She Comes” as nonsensical drivel touting a gauntlet of gore and a fixed nudity to carry it into a favorable edge with fans.  All I have to say about Matt Stuertz script and vision is it breaks the conventional stereotypes into shattered shards and uses those shards as gouging, bloodletting weapons.  On it’s face, “Tonight She Comes” appears to be another run-of-the-mill cabin-in-the-woods horror with throwaway characters and many vague plot points that don’t have an encircling reference.  Stuertz purposefully throws cation to the wind and makes the movie he wants to see, a no-holds barred blood fest geared to obliterate the tropes and only provide slivers of important information, just enough to pass the bar to the next round of ironfisted thrashings.  The story never allows the sediment to settle between the character action and dialogue debauchery, the eclectic and interesting POV shots, the diabolical practical effects, the sparingly used but effective visual effects, the continuously guess where this story is heading and, of course, the unabashed eye candy that is Dal Nicole fully nude in full time.  The other thing that can bog down viewers, and rightfully so, is the time check title cards that are supposed to tick down to the moment the demon emerges into the fold, turning the events of youth fun into a grind of survival. Randomized and spelled out, literally, the interjected times don’t seemingly match the span of time passed on screen.  What should take a few minutes between scenes, the title card states hours had passed; I’m not positive if this is part of Stuertz’s trope lampooning or not but this portion excels as more distracting from its theme-bombing track.

Another great and gory to the extreme release from the collaborating collective of Danse Macabre, Jinga Films, and MVDVisual.  “Tonight She Comes” comes to a new DVD release that’s MPEG2 encoded, 720p standard resolution, on a DVD5 and presented in a widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio.  Not peak image quality by any means of available formats out today, solidifying this DVD release a roll back to a lesser picture quality, but digital capturing goes without saying that DVD can still be a formidable format in regard to picture quality.  Likely, you will not see too much different between standard and high-definition but there are subtle areas of contrast, such as the black areas does contain faint banding and the details don’t inlay a zing of crispness like they should.  A film that starts off with a title card reading, THIS FILM SHOULD BE PLAYED LOUD… AS HELL, the DVD does the statement and Stuertz’s film justice with an uncompressed English 5.1 surround sound mix that highlights on and hits upon the important sound effects, screams, and building discordance, tumbling minor tone, and spiny synth-rock and 80’s horror-inspired score of Wojciech Golczewski (“We Are Still Here”).  Dialogue lands with prominence amongst the clatter and chaos layers that gives a real sense and elevation to the dialect of Jenna MacDonald’s tough backwoods occultist.  Not much in the way of depth as mostly everything is taken to the extreme volume, actions far and near, but range is aplenty by spanning the innocent swashing of alcohol in a bottle to the splatter of brains on the wall, from the crackling of fire to the gnarly rip of flesh being torn apart, and the robust force of bullets being fired to the deluge of menstrual blood filling a cup.  Yes, it’s one of those movies!  English subtitles are available for selection.  Special features include a Matt Stuertz commentary track, deleted scenes, a behind-the-scenes and raw footage look with cast and crew interviews with some still in character wardrobe, the Stuertz’s short film “Slashers,” and the teaser and theatrical trailer.  The DVD packing is about as generic as they come with the naked silhouette of the titular villainess standing in front of not the cabin the film in not the forest this movie takes place.  The arrangement is reminiscent of an “Evil Dead” knockoff.  The tall DVD Amaray case has nothing more to note in terms of physical prowess.  Aforementioned, this DVD is a rollback release in a few ways, and one is, unfortunately, the rating with a Rated R cut with a runtime of 84 minutes whereas previous releases were not rated clocking in at 90 minutes.  However, as far as I can tell, the Jinga Films, Danse Macabre, and MVDVisual does offer region free playback unlike early editions locked in at region 1.

Last Rites: If looking for something not too serious, checks all the gory and gross boxes, has decent practical and visual effects, and bares skin, “Tonight She Comes” is a fierce, ferocious, and fight-to-the-death option worth the viewing calories!

“Tonight She Comes” is Now Available on DVD! Purchase Here!

EVIL Wants the Industry Hot and Desired Jana Bates to be in His Movie! “The Last Horror Film” reviewed! (Troma / Tromatic Special Edition Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“The Last Horror Film” is Now Available on Blu-ray to Obsess Over!

Obsessed with horror scream queen Jana Bates, New York City cabby Vinny Durand heads to France’s Cannes Film Festival to cast her in his own horror movie, “The Love of Dracula.”  Halted at every entry point of the private, star-studded events that include Jana Bates and being intercepted and rejected by Bates’s producer ex-husband, a rival producer, current boyfriend-manager, her agent, and a director, all of whom are in an intergroup conflict concerning the starlet, Jana, nothing will deter Durand from his perfect star.  When Jana walks in on the decapitated corpse of her ex-husband, a series of murders and missing persons involving her close friends and colleagues ensues in the days after and in all the while, Durand tries every attempt to meet the actress, stalking her with a video camera to film the perfect leading lady in his secret horror movie, invasively stepping into her life in the same instance the murders began to occur. 

A deranged NYC taxi driver flying to Europe for an aggressive meet, greet, and casting of a totally unaware horror actress to be in his own B-picture is the plotline everyone could, should, enjoy!  What’s not the love?  “The Last Horror Film” takes us from the grimy streets of the Big Apple to the exquisite sights and sounds of the seashore Cannes along the scenic French Riviera.  Helmed by London-born David Winters (“Thrashin’”) and penned by Winters, Tom Klassen, and Judd Hamilton (“Maniac”), “The Last Horror Film,” also known as “Fanatic,” is one of the best obsessed fan thrillers out there, such as containing the same context of the Clint Eastwood picture “Play Misty for Me,” but is lesser known to mainstream audiences because it features genre icons Joe Spinell and Caroline Munroe and has been primarily distributed under the unconventional indie picture and filmmaking risk taker, Troma Films, who at times isn’t everyone’s cup of tea distributor.  David Winters’s Winters Hollywood Entertainment and Shere Productions with Judd Hamilton and David Winters producing the 1982 American feature. 

Fans of Joe Spinell (“Maniac,” “Rocky,”) already know this but those who haven’t experienced the New York City-born and bred actor, “The Last Horror Film” role of Vinny Durand is one of his best.  Spinell obviously suits psychosis well, but Vinny Durand takes it down a different path and, believe me or not, Spinell finesse with the character is beyond magnificent in all his mannerisms, expressions, and intonations, in addition to his egg-shaped physical, slick greasy hair, and thin black mustache, that make Vinny Durand a likeable and infatuated with obsessed crazy.  “The Last Horror Film” is the third costar collaboration with female lead, and genre icon in her own right, Caroline Munroe behind “Starcrash” and “Maniac.”  The “Dracula A.D. 1972” and “Captain Kronos:  Vampire Hunter” Munroe essentially plays herself in the role of Jana Bates but with a role that comes with more glamour and prestige as horror actresses rarely received such recognition in the major industry circuits.  Munroe equals Spinell in performance but in her own right as more of normie actress with accolades living it up at Cannes and eventually landing in the final girl trope, exceled into terror within the radius of her killer.  Being embroiled in a different kind of love triangle, one that includes her silver fox husband ex-husband Bret Bates (Glenn Jacobson, “Wild Gypsies”), current boyfriend Alan Cunningham (Judd Hamilton, “Starcrash”), and rival producer Marty Bernstein (Devin Goldenberg, “Savage Weekend”).  As the potential body count rises, so does the continued cast list with David Winters himself in a reflected cameo role as a horror director named Stanley Kline, Susanne Benton (“That Cold Day in the Park”) playing an orthographic variant of her namesake in Susan Archer, and Sean Casey as a rockstar lending his castle to Alan and Jana for retreating safety.  The cast rounds out with Spinell’s mother, Flilomena Spagnuolo, playing Durand’s mother in a convincingly nagging and comedic way that makes me it’s not terrible too far from the truth of their off-screen relationship. 

For a Spinell, Munroe, and David Winters production, “The Last Horror Film” is surprisingly vaulting with ambition for an unpermitted guerilla shot feature through the streets of Cannes.  Large parapet roof signs, gothic castles, the ritzy and beachy French Riviera, a score of happenstance and scripted extras,  and lots of topless women on the beach shots, Winters musters moneyed shots to coincide the well-dressed interiors of Durand’s apartment and hotel room and a slew of exteriors to play into the stalking fold.  Couple these manifested scenes of grandeur with the shocking moments of precision and effective gore and Spinell’s theatrically pleasing, creepy behavior performance and you got yourself a halfway decent meta slasher full of red herrings and a high body count, circling and overlapping itself within Duran’s directorial vision, the fake films within the critic panel and festival screenings and, as well as, the gotcha moment ending that gives one pause to think if what was just witnessed was actually the story, but while you’re scratching your head, perhaps feeling like a cinematic dummy of storytelling comprehension, there’s no doubt that David Winters successfully produced one hell of a horror picture starring Joe Spinell.

The new Tromatic Special Edition of “The Last Horror Film” is seemingly a repeat in some ways to the Blu-ray release from a decade earlier down to the exact cover art without the Tromatic Special Edition banner.  The AVC encoded, 1080p resolution and 1.78:1 widescreen aspect ratio, is compressed onto a BD50, an uptick in format storage from the 2015 to warrant it a Tromatic Special Edition.  However, image refinement is not in this re-release’s repertoire with a mirrored result of a lightly anemic look that still fails to color pop the feature in its eclectic set designs.  Darker scenes are in and out based of contrast, losing definition, and are inclined to be grainer negatively in the negative spaces.  In the brilliance of light, details can rooted out, especially in skin textures as Spinell’s pot marked face is exhibited in great detail amongst the other casts’ individual facial features.  Winter’s diverse and organized framing, plus with a little editing garnish, elevates whatever kitschy content there might have been into a grade-A B-picture; yet that doesn’t go without saying that there weren’t any editing flaws in the print that was subsequently transposed to the Troma transfer as horizontal cut lines and breaks in recurrent cells kink the chain ever so slightly.  The release also features the same English Dolby Digital 2.0 mix, a fidelity lackluster that doesn’t reflect the power the action medley and the score, the latter from composers Jesse Frederick, the vocalist of the “Full House” theme, and musical instrument compliment, Jeff Koz.  Dialogue renders above the layers but is on the softer side of volume, diluting the more intense moments of chase and murder without that impact punchiness.  Troma, like in my instances, flaunt a noteworthy tidbit in their releases, if there is one to flaunt, and in “The Last Horror Film’s” case, Depeche Mode’s track Photographic is the quoted feature music, says in big white and yellow font on the front cover.  What primarily separates the 2015 and the 2025 releases are the special features.  Archived commentary with Joe Spinell’s assistant and associate producer Luke Walter commentary moderated by Evan Husney from 2009, “The Return of Dolphin Man” short film by director John Patrick Brennan, a segment entitled “Kabukiman’s Cocktail Party,” the feature scrapped “Maniac II:  Mister Robbie’s” promotional trailer, the theatrical trailer, and a Lloyd Kaufman intro that dresses him in drag in the streets of an uninterested NYC are included on the special edition that features additional supplements with two more, 2023 produced, re-used commentaries from 1) Caroline Munro moderated by FrightFest’s Alan Jones and 2) again with Luke Walter by moderated by Severin Films’ David Gregory for the label’s own 2023 release.  Also from the Severin vault is the Like a Father Figure:  Sal Sirchia Remembers Joe Spinell interview with Sirchia’s memories and phoned tape recordings of Spinel’s voice messages, My Last horror Film Ever audio interview with producer Judd Hamilton, and “The Last Horror Film” location revisit featurette from New York City to Cannes, plus additional trailers under the title “Fanatic” (2) and the main title (1).  There are additional Troma materials with trailers from “Return to Nuke ‘Em High Vol. 1” and “Vol. 2,” The Toxic Avenger,” “Class of Nuke ‘Em High,” and “#Shakespeare Shitstorm.”  Aforementioned, the physical properties of the release nearly identical aside from the special edition banner across the top and the additional bonus content.  The 2015 Troma release is region locked A but a decade later Troma realized region free is the smarter move with the single 87-minute cut defining the release that comes not rated.

Last Rites: Take “Maniac” out of the equation, “The Last Horror Film” is Joe Spinell’s finest performance not taken lightly and though the story’s lurching flashes the check engine light, David Winters is able to still cruise along in his fanatic slasher.

“The Last Horror Film” is Now Available on Blu-ray to Obsess Over!

There’s Growth in the Darkest of EVIL Pacts. “Vulcanizadora” reviewed! (Oscilloscope Laboratories / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Catch “Vulcanizadora” on Blu-ray from Oscilloscope Laboratories!

Friends Derek and Marty trek through the Michigan forest to get away from their life’s problems, stopping occasionally to dig up previously stowed away porn magazines, camp around a fire and in tents out in the open air, enjoy swimming in the fresh waters of nearby lake, and videotape themselves setting off small fireworks.  As Derek enjoys life’s little moments out in the wild with his best friend, Marty’s intentions are more focused on their unspoken pact, the whole reason for their journey through isolated wilderness.  The closer they walked toward to their journey’s terminus, Marty’s determination to finish what they started becomes more rabid whereas Derek has second thoughts with fear projecting out of his nervous habits.  When one of them doesn’t return home, tremendous guilt submerses the other into self-liability as he tries to make right and to make amends for what happened between the two friends alone in the wilderness.

Vulcanizadora.  A Spanish dictionary word for tire shop or also the heat-treating process of crude rubber to improve durability.  It’s also the title of Michigan native Joel Potrykus’s written-and-directed, 2024 dark comedy drama that relates, in a way, to both English definitions of the word.  Potrykus began his directing career in comedy back in 2012 with “Ape,” a black comedy about a struggling comedian-turned-pyromaniac, and from there the residing Grand Rapids filmmaker has hovered in the bleak and comedic mingle continuing with the ill-fitted paranoia of “Buzzard,” fortune obsessed mysteries of “The Alchemist Cookbook,” and “Relaxer” that takes audiences, or at least those who lived through the experience, back to the Y2K apocalypse scare for one man’s quest to conquer the Pac-Man videogame.  “Vulcanizadora” is a produced by Hannah Dweck and Theodore Schaefer of Dweck Productions, Matt Grady of Factory 25, and Ashley and Joel Potrykus under Sob Noise Productions. 

Joel Potrykus co-stars in his own feature story alongside Potrykus film regular Joshua Burge in their first collaboration since 2018’s “Relaxer,” marking their fourth project together.  Potrykus plays the incessantly hyperactive Derek, a babbling, balding, and large goatee rocking fun seeker eager to show Marty a good time on their walk through the woods despite the grim preconceived end game.  Marty’s a direct opposite of Derek with solemn character and intensive tinkerer putting up with Derek’s nervous ways but also impatiently awaiting their determined fate.  Potrykus constructs a fascinating and fantastic preluding invisible wall with the intention of blocking both Derek and Marty’s past and chiseling out piece-by-piece under casually cryptic conversation, we can begin to learn what motivates their pact with hints of property destructive transgressions and life disaffirming unhappiness.  There’s never clearcut cause upfront or even into the second act and that naturally leaves the last act to unravel the unfortunate circumstances around what makes Joel and Marty tick, and their friendship acutely grows stronger with compassion and genuine regard despite the other’s permanent absence.  The story primarily and innately focuses on the buddy duo, that appears under the guise of the arbitrary mundane with one-sided indulgence in Derek’s childlike Incessancy and quiet Marty’s tongue-biting abiding of his friend’s then unknown stall tactics, but the narrative opens up and expands upon “Vulcanizadora’s” world as one of them reinstates themselves back into their personal misery, a smalltown society of unscrupulous lawyers, browbeating and demented fathers, challenging ex-wives, and intimidating authoritative figures casted with Bill Vincent, Sherryl Despress, Scott Ayotte, Dennis Grants, G. Foster II, Jaz Edwards, Melissa Blanchard, and introducing Solo Potrykus. 

A slow burn of melancholy, “Vulcanizadora” is masked depression at its worst with voiceless victims that work out an ill-fated end on their own.  “Vulcanizadora” is also about friendship despite the seemingly lopsided larking and crestfallen relationship between Derek and Marty, who often feel more like diamagnetism than having a connection while on their passage through the woods.  Potrykus’s story, and subsequent exhibition of the tale, depicts an all but true tragedy of feeling the impact of loss, especially in the context of underappreciated and compassionate feelings for someone else.  While the other friend is around, complacency is the devil’s active ingredient in dividing our human connection as the thought is both being alive together or dead together would be constant, and even more so when that connection is with a person who might be the best person in the world to them but just can’t see underneath the film of one’s own miscontent.  When not around, being separated makes the heart grow founder and the reality of loss sets in.  Potrykus highlights those forlorn facets in the third act surrounded by nothing of life’s hardships and unusual bombardments, which to be fair was brought upon by past transgressions of invincibility, which involve a process similar to vulcanizing, hence the title, and the knowledge that it’ll all over soon.  Yet, there’s also a sort of vulcanizing of the friendship elasticity and durability even in post-“breakup” of the friendship to create an everlasting peace with all the bad that’s happened.

Oscilloscope Laboratories, an indie label curating the filmic curiosities, releases “Vulcanizadora” to Blu-ray home video with an AVC encoded, 1080p Hi-Def resolution, BD25, presented curiously in an European widescreen 1.66:1aspect ratio, a standard proportion display you usually would primarily see in 1960s-1980s Europe with a slightly boxed and bordered matte.  A satisfiable picture for a character-driven slow burn aimed to build and destruct to build again a relationship between two friends during a time of individualized darkness is not a picture of perfection where certain areas inside the forest are out of focus and indistinct, such as the blending of orange and brown leaves on the ground in very long shots while capturing the principals traversing through.  Likely more of an issue with the cinematography than in compression because Potrykus uses 16mm to evoke a richer texture, “Vulcanizadora” is not a high-powered, action-packed thriller or sensational visual drama to be affected by it’s off-and-on focus.  Details are generally better around close-to-medium shot textures, skin tones appear organically accurate, and there’s decent depth of field inside a naturally limited color range.  There are some good close ups that do deviate, such as in a gorier graphic shot that impales more intrusive grain into the cell, in what is perhaps a limitation of 16mm zoomed in.  There are often indiscernible blips in the film stock because of its newer production but the grain, when not extended, is organic with an enriching natural aesthetic.  The English DTS-HD 5.1 surround sound is more than enough to cover all audio aspects from a precisely clear and clean dialogue to a Sasa Slogar’s sound design of comping operatic harmonies of soprano Maria Callas with the rough heavy metal soundscape of the Brazillian band Sepultura.  Dialogue retains in the forefront even in long shots when characters are at far points in the scene denoting an omission of depth in what is mostly a medium-to-close shot narrative.  English subtitles are optionally available.  Joel Potrykus, Joshua Burge, and cinematographer Adam J. Minnick provide an audio commentary track parallel to the feature with a making-of “Vulcanizadora,” deleted scenes, the theatrical trailer, and Potrykus’s short film, “Pets” to fill out the special features.  Oscilloscope Laboratories release comes in a clear Viva case with an unsettling yet telling death and video image in its cyborg-esque edge cover art and a reverse cover honed-in on a still image of the two protagonists.  Disc comes company typical pressed with the company logo large and in charge at the center and film title hovering over top.  The not rated release has a runtime of 85 minutes and is suitable for all region playback.

Last Rites: Few will relish in Potrykus’s “Vulcanizadora’s” slow-and-steady tragedy of deep depression and the crawling out of the fiasco unfolded, self-dug hole to find some sliver of peace and comfort in doing one right thing for a friend.

Catch “Vulcanizadora” on Blu-ray from Oscilloscope Laboratories!