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Awesome Boy and Bludgeon Man Fight EVIL at “Slaughter Beach” reviewed! (SRS Cinema / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

July 4th Is Here! Time to hit “Slaughter Beach” on DVD!

Ralph and Barry are best buds.  They’re best buds freeloading off Barry’s father’s shore house during the height of Slaughter Beach’s Summer season.  When Barry’s father becomes annoyed by his adult son and friend’s loafing, his ultimatum to them is to get a job or get out, but the touristy destination of Slaughter Beach has nearly become all but a ghost town as businesses and tourism shut down or come to a slow crawl after a string of mysterious disappearances along the beaches and boardwalk.  Barry’s idea to become vigilante crime fighters, under the hero names of Awesome Boy and Bludgeon Man of the duo’s moniker The FenderBenders and hoping to resurrect the once booming vacationing hotspot back to its full former glory, reels in a boatload of trouble when a salty, horseshoe crab fisherman behind the disappearances casts his deadly fishhook line toward the wannabe crime fighters to make chum out of them and anyone else who crosses his path. 

“Slaughter Beach” is the buddy horror-comedy and slasher set on the American Eastern shorelines of not the actual Slaughter Beach of Sussex County Delaware but actually shot 25 miles north in the more populated Rehoboth beach.  The 2022 released, Daniel C. Davis written-and-director feature is “The Scarecrow’s Curse” and “X Knight Escape from Warp Hell” actor’s third film in a decade span.  The Delaware-born, Wilmington University graduate continues his grow his independent filmmaking career in his home state and the surrounding metropolitan, tri-state area.  His latest directorial lands him on the Eastern beaches of Delaware with filming done mostly at night during the tourism offseason, allowing more wiggle room for shooting, less hassle from onlookers, and a better chance at snagging shooting locations that would be, perhaps, heavily trafficked during peak months.  “Slaughter Beach” runs under Davis and Brett Taylor’s production company, Clockout Films, and is produced by the two filmmakers alongside Jim Cannatelli (“Yester-Years”).

“Slaughter Beach” is amazingly well dialogued in the comedy context for a low-budget, independent feature and without the principal leads, the hapless and hero-lite buddies, of Jon McKoy, who I still recall his similar performance in “Easter Sunday,” and Ethan Han, in his debut feature film role, “Slaughter Beach” would have flop hard like a fish out of water, gasping for a watery breath.  Between McKoy and Han, Ralph and Barry’s antics are contrived out of dunce energy with good intentions that slow churns infectious wit to character likeability.  Their crude innocence faces impossible trials when against a foe that tests their trying not-very-hard heroic vigilantism on the shore’s boardwalk.  Jim Cannatelli, yes, producer Jim Cannatelli, dons the Sou’Wester hat and chest waders for the crazed Fish Man Sam’s crusade on hooking Lilith, the mythical and monstrous horseshoe crab, with his special human bait from wielding a weaponized line and lure and fishhook to gut and chum his victims.  In an appearance very similar to The Fisherman in “I Know What You Did Last Summer,” Cannatelli’s twist hits the old seadog stereotype complete with nautical vernacular and is a fine comic book antagonist to the campy, counterpart sideshow that is Ralph and Barry.  However, the standoff between good versus evil is held to the very end with Fish Man Sam angling boardwalk and beach patrons to their deaths, that’s closer to shooting fish in a barrel with support bit parts performances from mostly Davis casting regulars, such as Amy Lynn Patton, Michelle Qenzel, Keith Crosby, Shawn Shillingford, Heather Street, Kiyneeanay Dykes, and Ethan Han’s actual father, Oscar Aguilar, playing Barry’s dad.

There’s no shortage of zaniness, slapstick, or waggishness in Davis’s “Slaughter Beach.”  Same goes with the horror façade that’s well framed around the comedic core.  “Slaughter Beach’s” terror won’t be a trepidant of tension or knock off your tacklebox with fright, but Davis shows obvious signs of paying attention to the what-works in horror motifs with the crafting of looming angles, danger-building and coherent editing and score, and a villain that might be a caricaturable and an exaggeration vocally but appears damn right creepy in the background as the obscured and shadowing lurking fisherman.  A gory practical effects décor by Trauma Queen FX special makeup and effects artist, Isabelle Isel, elevates the feature’s victim pool to an anticipation level amongst the audience to see what Fish Man Sam has in store next for his ice chest full of horrors.  While visually alarming and usually frightening in nature, the villainous veneer and gore-soaked effects are not excluded from the comedy tone with the fishing themed gallows humor that’s about as ridiculously funny as it sounds.  What isn’t as fleshed out as hoped was Fish Man Sam’s obsessive and radical pursuit of bagging the giant horseshoe crab he’s bestowed as Lilith.  Its an important motivation factor that drives the deranged angler left to swim upstream and doesn’t elaborate and relay Ralph and Barry’s foe sympathetically as a man on a mission.

The Clockout Films production has been picked up by the longstanding zero-budget genre label, SRS Cinema, for the at home DVD release.  “Slaughter Beach” is MPEG-2 encoded onto a single-layer DVD5 with a 720p resolution and is ungraded.  With nearly zip on the hue saturation and stick with a lower resolution, “Slaughter Beach” is able to compress adequately, suppressing any major artefact issues to lesser posterization, and keeping a soft, yet relatively clean image that doesn’t focus on stylistic highlights but rather draws all the attention onto the buddy heroes and the gore.  Lighting is retained by the array of brightly lit Boardwalk bulbs, some specialized muted-colored uplighting for a slightly retro feel, and natural lighting, reducing much of the beachy backdrop to a black void that centers the characters without much depth to delineate within the widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio.  The English LPCM 2.0 stereo track musters enough strength from the blemish-free boom recording.  No crackling, hissing, or any other kind of distortions on the dialogue or LFE layers, suggesting that care was put into the audio, and it rightfully shows a coherent and competent mix with alternative-punk-ska tracks from The Jasons, Station, and Skatune Network.  Dialogue clear, clean, and prominent.  There are no optional subtitles available.  Special features include a feature length commentary with a roundtable, ride along discussions with director Daniel C. Davis, stars Ethan Han and Jon McKoy, producer and principal Jim Cannatelli, and director of photography Brett Taylor.  Also included is a raw footage gag reel and SRS trailers, one of which is for “Slaughter Beach.”  The extremely detailed and aesthetically illustrated cover art gives the physical DVD a lucrative eyeful but the release do not credit the artist, nor do I see a signature hidden inside the tonal shades. The region free SRS DVD has a runtime of 80 minutes and is not rated.

Last Rites: “Slaughter Beach” is more than a head in the sand thriller; the Daniel C. Davis horror-comedy paces to deliver timely laughs as well as casting flesh-ripping, barbed lures that easily hooks us for more giggles and gore.

July 4th Is Here! Time to hit “Slaughter Beach” on DVD!

A Gang’s EVIL Ransom Elicits the Wrath of “Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs” reviewed! (Neon Eagle Video / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs” is Number One on Our Must Have Lists!

When undercover officer Rei lets her overwhelming emotions kill a suspect on an assignment, her displeased colleagues lock her into a cell, unable to decide her fate with fear of public outcry of police brutality that would blemish the department and force leadership regsinations.  When a prime minister candidate’s daughter is kidnapped by a ruthless gang of rapists and murderers and brought to a cathouse for sale, the brothel madam believes the young woman is better exploited by issuing a large ransom for her safe return.  Unwilling to face public scandal, the politician and a rigid yet loyal investigator of the clandestine Zero Division rig up a covert plan to eliminate every person involved with the kidnapping by offering a murderous deal to Rei in exchange for her freedom.  Rei’s able to infiltrate the gang’s inner circle only to see the plan devolve into chaos and blood between the gang and corrupt authorities.   

Japan doesn’t make films like “Zero Woman:  Red Handcuffs” anymore!  The violent Toei company pinkusploitation production, released in 1974, played a major role in unifying the sexual appetites of Japan’s pink pornos with the rough-and-tumble violence of exploitation action films.  The rising of Nikkatsu Roman Pornos forced the hand of the Toei Company to expand their portfolio, creating such as combinational conquest over salivating grindhouse cinema patrons that the radical subgenre deserved a new sublet coinage labeled pinky violence.  Toei company man Yukio Noda, a staple yakuza filmmaker for the company, helms the visuals translated from a script penned by “Female Prisoner #701:  Scorpion” writers Fumio Kônami and Hirô Matsuda.  Loosely based off the manga written by Tooru Shinohara (who also penned the manga of “Female Prison Scorpion series”), “Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs” stitches its own blood soaked and sexually provocative clothing that would later continue “Zero Woman’s” adventures throughout the years with more films.

Cladded in a chic long red coat, black boats strapped up just below the knee, and wielding an extra-long connector chain pair of red handcuffs, Rei is the anti-heroine of our manga fantasies.  Miki Sugimoto works deep into that fantasy vision as Rei, Division Zero’s lady cop who will do anything and everything, clothed or undressed, to get the job done, even with extreme prejudice.  A frequent delinquent girl portrayer for Toei Company’s gritty bad girl gang pink pictures (try saying that five times fast), Sugimoto’s filmography include the “Girl Boss” series, “Terrifying Girls’ High School:  Women’s Violent Classroom, and “Criminal Woman:  Killing Melody,” and so Sugimoto already had established this foundational layer for Rei as a fortitude of badassery and now tacking on another layer of a moral high ground, justified only by seeing her word through to the end.  Rei is up against a gang of five – four street thugs led by the recent prison released Nagumo (Eiji Go,” The Executioner”) and one lesbian brothel madam (Yôko Mihara, “Sex & Fury”) – as she agrees to a back-against-the-wall deal and slyly subverts the gang by helping Nagumo during a faux ransom sting operation.  Along with Sugimoto’s stoicism, the Toei porn actress retains her promiscuous allure, one where she doesn’t have to do anything to be seductive but just be herself, working not only toward the favor of her character, who continuously is taken advantage of sexually without shame, but also keeping the integrity of the Toei élan for Japanese sleaze.  “Harakiri’s” Tetsurô “Tiger” Tanba resides to the general’s overlooking hill as the prime minister candidate who sends his battlefield colonel in Hideo Murota (“Rape and Death of a Housewife”) to be the Zero Woman’s handler.  Their scheme quickly devolves as their plan evolve when the operation goes slower than expected and the gang’s leader Nagumo begins feel the pressure of paranoia and starts to unhinge, especially around his ruffian acolytes played by Seiji Endô, Rokkô Toura, Iwao Dan, Kôji Fujiyama, and Ichirô Araki as Saburo the mysteriously quiet, aviator-waring knifeman who in himself is an interesting character.  Cast fills in with the Japanese speaking Westerner Ralph Jesser in a wild opening sequence that results in a gunshot to the groin!  

Like most pinky films, “Zero Woman:  Red Handcuff’s” incorporates an X-rated sexual violence but unlike most pinky films, the pinky violence subgenre omits the softer side of sensuality, creating more of a nihilistic viewpoint toward sex of taking what you want, when you want it, and aggressively at that.  Yukio Noda picture contains hostile lesbianism, gang rape, and pressurized perversions that take control thematically in pinky violence.  The corrosive context that has a guilty pleasure pull in most patriarchal dominated cultures and fleapit cinemagoers goes hand-in-hand with the over-the-top violence conjoined at the hip of cause-and-effect.  Usually, the narrative goes an ugly rape equals hard-fought revenge; in Noda’s film, the cause is the kidnapping, and subsequent deflowering of a power politician’s little girl leas to the Zero Woman effect of silencing with corporal punishment that circumvents the law.  Stylish like a spaghetti western and brutally violent, “Zero Woman:  Red Handcuffs” is a meanspirited, out-for-blood, femme fatale engendered on the verge of the pinkusploitation genesis.

Neon Eagle Video, a collaborative boutique label effort between Cauldron Films and Mondo Macabro’s Jared Auner, releases “Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs” onto a new Blu-ray, restored in 4K from the 35mm print. The transfer is AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition, onto a BD50 and shown in the widescreen aspect ratio of 2.35:1. A relatively clean 50-year-old print hardly displays any age wear, if any at all. Scarcely marred by blue vertical emulsion scratches in only a single scene, the print retains and is stored with care to diffuse the range of color and to effectuate as much detail as possible in textures and skin while without taking away from Noda’s underbelly surrealism. The lower contrast infuses a pulpy layer to create softer shadows, but contouring manages to stick an outline thanks to key Rembrandt lighting precision, akin to Hammer Horror with a splash of Kensington gore. The uncompressed Japanese DTS-HD MA 2.0 mono peaks with the best possible optical audio. While not much in the way of depth creation, there’s plenty of range in the Foley, even if it’s artificially abstract and illogical compared to shotgun microphone captured audio. The ADR synch is one of the best inlaid post-recordings with visuals that renders hardly any feedback or unnatural noises on the audio layer. English subtitles are burned into the only available Japanese language picture on the release. Special features include a feature length audio commentary by author and producer for Vinegar Syndrome Samm Deighan, Sex + Violence = Pink Violence TokyoScope author Patrick Macias analyzes “Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs,” and an image gallery. Graphic designer Justin Coffee produces a new, rich-in-red, and taletelling composite illustration of what kind of film to expect on the front cover art of the clear Amaray Blu-ray. The reverse cover houses another illustration, one pulled from the feature’s original poster line. The BD is pressed with more Coffee fiery and red-laced artwork. This particular copy reviewed is not the limited edition set with accompanying slipcover and neither copy contains insert material. The region A playback release comes unrated and has a runtime of 88 minutes.

Last Rites: “Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs” is a fine introductory film into the world of Pinky Violence, a starting line for those perverse-thirsty for the unification of sex and violence in Japanese cinema. Neon Eagle Video delivers excellences with their restored print, second to none in its picture and audio quality that will provide a sterling experience.

“Zero Woman: Red Handcuffs” is Number One on Our Must Have Lists!

The Bishop and Castle seek to Checkmate EVIL! “Sabotage” reviewed! (MVD Visual: Rewind Collection / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Sabotage” on MVD Visual’s Rewind Collection Blu-ray!

Former Navy Seal Michael Bishop was nearly killed on a gone awry Bosnia mission at the hands of former special forces soldier turned mercenary Jason Sherwood.  Three years and one court martial later, Bishop’s recently hired as a bodyguard for a wealthy businessman and his wife until a successful assassination on the businessman leaves Bishop as the prime suspect in the eyes of Special FBI Agent Louise Castle and his former Bosnia commander Nicholas Tollander now a spook with the CIA.  As Bishop strives to prove his innocence with the help of single mother Castle, looking to impress and rise in the agency to support her daughter, he’s determined to uncover an elaborate conspiracy that involves the FBI, CIA, and the man that put seven holes into him in Bosnia, Jason Sherwood, who enjoys the playful art of mercenary work.  The deep-rooted plot that exploited Bishop as a scapegoat to eliminate gunrunners plays out like a game of chess and each move is deadlier than the next. 

“Sabotage” is the 1996 independent, Canadian cloak-and-dagger thriller from “The Gate” and “I, Madman” director Tibor Takács and cowritten between Rick Filon (“The Redemption: Kickboxer 5”) and Michael Stokes (“Jungleground”).  “Sabotage’s” inspiration pulls from the simple, strategic game of chess where all the pieces, moves, and players are witnessed in plain sight in what is a tactical tornado of interagency spydom and the innocent are only the pawns in the middle, sacrificed to be a part of the puzzle to strike the monarchy behind the shadows on behalf of the across adversaries.  The Andy Emilio (“Shadow Builder”) produced and Ash R. Shan (“Lion Heart”) and Paul Wynn (“Tiger Claws III”) executively produced feature, shot in Toronto Canada (which also doubles for Bosnia in certain brushy areas), is a production of Applecreek Productions and presented by Imperial Entertainment. 

Working off another script from Rick Filon, the previous being “The Redemption : Kickboxer 5,” and hot off his humanoid cheetah role in John Frankenheimer’s “The Island of Dr. Moreau” remake, opposite Marlon Brando and Val Kilmer, the mixed martial artist Mark Dacascos plays the setup and scorned Michael Bishop, disgraced by his own military organizations, and reduced to being a bodyguard for an unscrupulous businessman.  Despite being soft spoken, Dacascos has great charisma on screen that mixes greatly with his eclectic array of martial art fighting styles, such as Muay Thai and Kung Fu.  Dacascos is a shoe in for leading man material, which also includes his swarthy good looks, and does fill the shoes of being a blacklisted former Navy Seal now on the hunt for who burned him in a botched Bosnia mission years earlier.  However, Bishop’s early motivation speaks more toward his character than his need for revenge as Bishop is not aware that it was his former attempted murderer James Sherwood, played by the towering and formidable Tony Todd (“Candyman”), who whacked his client.  Bishop becomes obsessed with the case which speaks to his loyalty and his completist mentality to see something through.  Overshadowing the leading man is Sherwood as Tony Todd instincts with this character is to be a merciless and cutting with his smooth handiwork and jibe remarks, all the while doing the horrible things with a sociopathic smile on his face.  Opposite Dacascos, in a semi-love interest role, is the pre-“Matrix” Carrie Anne Moss as Special Agent Castle who has more complexity of character than Dacascos and Todd combined.  Castle is a struggling single-mother trying to make headway in her governmental career but hits a snag when her morality is checked as she must either stay the course and go along with corruption to obtain security for her daughter or do the righteous thing and unsnarl dishonestly at the highest level with extreme prejudice for her sake of her daughter’s life.  Between the three principal leads, Castle’s arc is the steepest and more stirring with internal conflict, a testament to Moss’s performance.  Graham Greene (“Antlers”), James Purcell (“Bloodwork”), John Neville (“Urban Legend”), Heidi von Palleske (“Dead Ringers”), and Richard Coulter make up the rest of the cast.

“Sabotage” is a down-the-rabbit hole spooktacular 90s thriller, and I don’t mean spooky as in scary.  What I’m referring to is the characters’ covert agencies, such as the spooks of the Counter-Intelligent Agencies, and far-reaching operations that meddle and deconstruct a what should be a tidy organizational design with pot-stirring double-crossing, even triple-crossing, narrative paths that can be a strain to keep straight.  The film’s prelude and core story span 3 years apart and connect while there’s a simultaneous backdrop narrative that’s also connects but only exclusively in exposition.  Audiences will have to hamster wheel their mental gears to connect the dots and keep up with the pacing in this ever-evolving plotline that keeps the action caffeinated with a winding, hard-target center.  Takács also stylizes “Sabotage” with bullet-tracking special effects, high impact shelling, and an indulgence of explosive blood squibs that elevates the independent picture to an upper-class of B movie and gives the feature an edge of fun and entertainment that dichotomizes it from the more slapdash action films of the mid-90s where sex-appeal played more of a role than any other kind of actual action. 

Number 60 on the spine of MVD Visual’s Rewind Collection Blu-ray, Tibor Takács’s “Sabotage” breathes new life into the crisscrossing, projectile-pursuing, scacchic espionage extraordinaire. The AVC encoded BD50 provides a 1080p high-def resolution presented in an anamorphic widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio. A well-suffused and maintained print results in an excellent detailing of pixels and a punchy-noir grading. Details on the 2K scan print are historically omitted here, like with many in the Rewind Collection catalogue, but “Sabotage” doesn’t feign to be a product of enhanced visual replication with an organically pleasing form with minimal grain and only one noted frame containing age or damage wear. The uncompressed English language LPCM 2.0 stereo has abundance of vitality, discerning the layers through the dual channel funnel. Range of melee fire power has individualized zenith occurrences rendered at the right synchronization and depth makes the distinction of foreground and background dialogue, ambience, and the sort. Speaking of dialogue (pun intended), the uncompressed encoding keeps faithful fidelity, an ample and adequate of clearly expressed conversations without ever sounding muddled or lost in the skirmish. Optional English subtitles are included. Special features are little light for a Rewind Collection bannered release but what’s available packs a wallop with two new interviews with stars Tony Todd and Mark Dacascos on Zoom, or whichever face time platform is being used, going through their recollection and thoughts of “Sabotage” from nearly three decades ago. A Mark Dacascos trailer reel rounds out the special feature content. The rigid slipcover contains the reprint of the original “Sabotage” poster in a mockup of a VHS case; however, this particular Rewind Collection cover composition has less flair to sell the VHS facsimile. Inside cover art of the clear Blu-ray Amaray case contains the same poster sheet but is reversible with a less-is-more one sheet. In the insert section is a folded mini-poster of the primary cover art and, opposite, the BD50 is pressed with a plastic-patterned, VHS-tape motif. The region free Blu-ray comes unrated and has a 99-minute runtime.

Last Rites: Overall, a gratifying A/V and physical presentation of a mid-90’s, mid-level action-thriller encompassing a showcase of Mark Dacascos’s leading man chops as well as a different side to Tony Todd that isn’t encapsulated in the supernatural during the height of his career.

“Sabotage” on MVD Visual’s Rewind Collection Blu-ray!

Forest Hike Lands Four Friends Right in the Middle of Drug Smuggling EVIL! “Cascade” reviewed! (Breaking Glass Pictures / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Cascade” Available on DVD! Click Here to Purchase Your Copy!

The small town of Clearview offers little opportunity and for four teenage friends, they’re diverging, life-affirming paths will either cement their relationship stronger or obliterate it completely.  Looking to do something epic before everything changes and most will put Clearview in the rearview mirror, they decide to hike an unrestricted, waterfall area of the locale state park.  What they find at the bottom of the falls is a crashed personal plane, a bag full of drugs, and a dead body.  Half of the group seeing an opportunity to make a small fortune splits ties between them and leave them blindsided by the drug dealers’ sudden appearance and guns drawn interrogation to find the downed plane and their narcotics.  A series of scuffles leaves one friend dead and two others injured, pitting a sole, unconstrained teenage woman against multiple armed and dangerous narcotraffickers hellbent on retrieving their lost goods.  Determined to not go down without a fight and free her friends, she’ll use every advantage, no matter how desperate, to outwit her pursuers.

The adage there’s no such thing as a free lunch applies to the latest film from director Egidio Coccimiglio (“Compulsion”).  Coccimiglio, who puts out one film roughly every decade since the mid-1990s, begins the story of “Cascade” with two, smalltown young couples on the verge of entering adulthood, figuring out their relationships and their lives one indecisive moment at a time, until that decision is made for them when a group no good drug smugglers roadblock their grownup rite of passage.  The debut script of Ed Mason is shot in the scenic Crystal Creek forests trails and waterfalls in Sault Ste. Marie, Canada.  “The Void’s” Rosalia Chilelli and Jennifer Pun produce with Michael Baker (“Depraved Mind”), Bruno Marino (“Tormented”), and Anders Palm (“Trench 11”) executive producing the Edge Entertainment independent production and Blue Fox Entertainment presentation.

“Cascade’s” plot is split between two perspectives, the teens and the traffickers, but we’re mostly aborded into the teens’ backstory and imminent concerns:  Vince (Stephen Kalyn), a carefree, immature cut-up and army prospect aiming to leave Clearview by any means possible,  Em (Sadie Laflamme-Snow), Vince’s girlfriend whose keeping her newfound pregnancy with him a secret because of their uncertain future, Jesse (Joel Oulette), a by choice Clearview lifer who just landed the job of shop mechanic, and Alexis (Sara Waisglass), daughter to an estranged ruthless biker gang leader and who is uncertain a college opportunity is the right choice for her.  What’s admirable about the character list is that none of them are throwaway characters with ample, individual emotional weight for relatability and substance.   Compared to the adversary drug smugglers, there’s little to be known about them as their backstories are purposefully kept in the dark, evoking a dangerous impression upon first meet and scenes.  As the story unfolds, the two groups clash, and things get ugly, true natures emerge within both factions that turn once established sympathies into traitorous duplicity and vice versa.  Amid the switcheroo of moral standards, the fight for friendship and survival becomes a one-woman show with Sara Waisglass at the wheel, showcasing Alex as good as college material by outsmarting cruel yet hesitating foes.  Coccimiglio and Mason put in the trouble of frontloading meanness and calculated brutality only to fizzle into backpedaling renegers on their ill-fated promises toward Alexis’s captured and hurt friends.  We get a pretty good showing of bad guy mentality from a creepy looking Josh Cruddas (“Resident Evil:  Welcome to Raccoon City”) and a no-nonsense leader in Allegra Fulton (“The Shape of Water”), a not good showing from the bearded oldster Matt Connors (“Kicking Blood”), and a modest teetering of morality performance from James Cade (“Antiviral”).  “Cascade” rounds out the cast with Mark Brombacher (“The Kingdom of Var”), Joanna Douglas (“Saw 3D”), Bart Rochon (“Bloodslinger”), and Greg Bryk (“Rabid”) as the leader of the biker gang The Saints and Alexis’s father. 

Under the bank check of a humble budget, serviced with one primary, exterior location, and limited ostentatious stunt work, “Cascade” is forced into a character-driven corner, carried by a pack of toothsome personalities to keep the story wet with insatiability.  For the better part of the narrative, Coccimiglio successfully stacks the blocks of sympathy, disparage, and a rough action scheme and comes out on top for an independent action-thriller.  Contrarily, a few scenes stand out being too big for the film’s skinny jean britches.  Gun shot wound effects work with compelling impact with a fair amount of gruesomeness in the makeup and how the shooter and victim react; however, other stunts, such as the car collision, dampens the believability in which one person dies, one person suffers a compound fracture, and neither vehicle has flipped or sustained substantial wreckage to cause that much damage during a shaky-cam, car-crash simulation sequence.  These moments really announce, and announce very prominently, the weak points of the production which can be looked past considering how solid this indie feature generates the big picture story on a small budget scale.

From Breaking Glass Pictures, a Philadelphian based independent distributor delivering the thrills and the chills as well as LGBQT+ films of the world, brings a Blue Fox Entertainment release, “Cascade,” onto DVD.  The MPEG-2 encoded, upscaled 720p, DVD5 presents the feature in an anamorphic widescreen 2.39:1 that has a slight wrap around lens to capture a wider frame without feeling squeezed.  This works toward the director of photography Diego Guijarro’s advantage to enclose Crystal Creek falls and forest into the optical lens without being limited to medium-to-closeup shots.  The upscaled 720 resolution holds its own to decipher details distinctly between the lush greenery, white water spray of the falls, and the actors skin tones and clothing.  Since “Cascade” has limited stunt work there’s not much room for novel or innovative camera techniques but it’s a solidly organic colored film that looks professional rather than commercially graded.  The English language LPCM 5.1 surround sound, again, doesn’t have the range to really be necessary for an all-channel assault but diffuses well enough to carry a midrange peak tone. Dialogue is clearly and cleanly expressed with adequate prominence and depth is opportune but not key for any scenes except for some radio communication. English closed captioning is optionally available. The Breaking Glass Pictures DVD release is a barebones product with no special features or stingers during or after the credits. Physically, “Cascade” models much of the same splendor to keep in tune with a feature only release in a standard DVD Amaray with a decent gun-toting mockup cover. The disc is pressed with the same image art with no included inserts or other tchotchke material. The not rated release has a runtime of 95 minutes and region 1 encoded playback.

Last Rites: If in a mood for a third-tier thriller from Canada, “Cascade” checks all the necessary car chasing, gun-shooting, double-dealing, and no-frills boxes with the hunted becoming the hunter of do-no-good drug smugglers who’ll stop at nothing until thousands of dollars’ worth of their lost in a plane wreckage nose snow is recovered.

“Cascade” Available on DVD! Click Here to Purchase Your Copy!

If the Tenants Keep on Dying, Better Get Out of that EVIL High-Rise! “The Case of the Bloody Iris” reviewed! (Celluloid Dreams / 2-Disc Blu-ray and 4K UHD Set)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Own Your 4K and Blu-ray copy of “The Case of the Bloody Iris” today!

A pair of beautiful women are heinously murdered in a respectable high-rise apartment building.  As the case remains unsolved, a real estate architect, Andrea Antinon, is looking for models to market his new property, happening upon models Jennifer Langsburgy and Marilyn Ricci during his photographer friend’s photoshoot, and entices them by offering a sublet of the now vacant apartment in the building where one of the girls was murdered.  Jennifer, who finds herself slowly falling for the Andrea, is stalked by her polyamorous sect past and the group’s leader, her ex-husband, Adam who refuses to let her go and while he proves himself dangerous, attempting to kill Andrea after one of his dates with Jennifer, Adam is found dead in her new apartment.  The suspect pool grows as police are continuing to be baffled by an elusive killer remaining at large and set their sights on Andrea with his brief connections in two of the three victims.  Evidence against Andrea swells as those around Jennifer wind up dead and she’s next on the kill list. 

“The Case of the Bloody Iris,” the Iris represented as the delicately beautiful flower that symbolized the bound between Jennifer and her deranged, sex cult ex-husband Adam, is the 1972 giallo thriller from the prolific spaghetti western, Italian director Giuliano Carnimeo (from the previous “Sartana” series and would later helm “The Exterminators of the Year 3000″) and prolific giallo screenwriter Ernesto Gastaldi (“Your Vice is a Locked Room and Only I Have the Key,” “Torso,”) shot in the city of Genoa doubling as Milan.  Full of eccentric suspects, taboo desires, and handsome principals, “The Cast of the Bloody Iris” is a very attractive, violent, and superbly shot whodunit.  Under the original native title of “Perché quelle strane gocce di sangue sul corpo di Jennifer?” aka “What Are Those Strange Drops of Blood on the Body of Jennifer?” Galassia Films serves as the production company with Luciano Martino (“The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh”) having produced the giallo. 

The story floats back-and-forth between a pair of co-headlining stars, one of them being the retrospective cult and sex icon actress Edwige Fenech in one of her earlier performances, and who has starred in “Strip Nude for Your Killer” and “The Strange Vice of Mrs. Wardh.  Co-star George Hamilton also stars in that latter giallo, reteaming the handsome-faced “The Case of the Scorpion’s Tail” actor born in Uruguay, and whose birth name is Jorge Hill Acosta y Lara, with Fenech in their respective roles of model Jennifer and architect Andrea intertwined into what is a romantic tale of love at first sight that becomes mangled by a crazed killer on a murder spree and they’re at the heart of the matter.  If revisiting Giuliano Carnimeo, comedies and watching some of his interviews, you can see why he folds in subtle comedic elements that doesn’t allow “The Case of the Bloody Iris,” or a good chunk of his credits, to be a totally engaged, heart-racing murder mystery; those comedic elements come in the form of bumbling police, a too dead-set on commissioner (Giampiero Albertini, “Commandos”) and his more ungainly assistant (Franco Agostini, “The Sex Machine”), who are always one step behind and in the wrong direction.  The juxtaposition may be too evident yet it’s also welcoming, breaking up the forbidding business with a little levity, and creates a backend sense of assurance knowing police, just like today, can be human and clueless on serious natured instances.  The suspect pool and other salient supporting principals include Paola Quattrini as Jennifer’s roommate Marilyn (no doubt based loosely on Marilyn Monroe), Ben Carra as Jennifer’s sex cultist ex-husband, Jorge Rigaud as the professional violinist neighbor, Annabella Incontrera as the professor’s lesbian daughter, Oreste Lionello as a sleazy photographer, Carla Brait as a nightclub’s dominating femme, and Maria Tedeschi as the unfriendly neighbor.

Even though giallos did not appeal to him nor did they really become a staple of his oeuvre, director Giuliano Carmineo had a different perspective than most and that closely aligns with masterclass filmmakers like Dario Argento.  Carmineo and cinematographer, who’ve collaborated previously on a pair of Sartana westerns, had purpose in their odd and first person camera shots and movements, such as laying the camera down and sideways as characters perform routine events before being attacked or looking up and doing a 360-degree turn as if scanning a stairway, that coincided with the usual first person perspective of the conventionally masked and gloved killer wielding a deadly blade.  The technique engages the viewer, as in a sort of tell that something is about to happen or is amiss in a scene to create breath holding, heightened anxiety, but the multi-faceted narrative itself doesn’t need assistant in keeping viewers glued to the edge of their seats with the eclectic mix of sultry and taboo eroticism, lampooning the authority figures, designed seamless red herrings, unique characters, a variety in murder, and an elaborate, mysterious complexity that’s downright deviant. 

If you’re a distributor looking to shoot your shot on your first release, new boutique physical media label, Celluloid Dreams, hit the bullseye with a 2-disc 4K UHD and Standard Blu-ray release of “The Cast of the Bloody Iris” on a HVEC encoded, 2160p resolution, 100 gigabyte 4K UHD and on an AVC encoded, 1080p, 50 gigabyte Blu-ray, scanned and restored brand new in 4K on a pin-registered Arriscan from the film’s original 2-perf Techniscope camera negative, and presented in the original widescreen aspect ratio of 2.35:1.  Coloring grading and restoration is noted on the interior insert being entirely completed by Celluloid Dreams Studios to remove all the celluloid and age imperfections and stimulate a vivid, vibrant picture quality and, by the giallo-Gods, this has to be one of the more flawless image presentations I’ve seen on 4K and Blu-ray in a very long time, or ever!  Meticulous precision techniques reveal a straight from-farm-to-table quality, organic for its era with a balanced, natural grain and color saturation.   Details have delineated trim and higher contrast leveling where appropriate for darker scenes, such as an unilluminated bedroom or a basement boiler room, that retains the rich inkiness of the negative space.  No signs of compression issues in the negative spaces as well and no signs of unnecessary enhancing.  Two, lossless audio options are available for selection:  an Italian 1.0 DTS-HD and an English 1.0 DTS-HD.  Both remastered tracks from the optical sound negative provided full fidelity through the single channel.  Concise and crisp dialogue renders through in full, robust effect with ample detail in the ambience and depth to create a dynamic space.  No hissing, crackling, or popping in the ADR dialogue or ambient tracks and swanky tuned by Bruno Nicolai’s multi-instrumental base, drum, sintir-like guitar, and more score.  English subtitles are available on the Italian track.  With the larger capacity on the UHD, both formats are able to handle the included three featurettes with star George Hilton, principal actress Paola Quattrini, and director and writer, Guliano Carnimeo and Ernesto Gastaldi in Italian language.  Also included is a new commentary track from film critic and Celluloid Dreams co-founder Guido Henkel, an outtake reel that extend out certain scenes, photo gallery, the original Italian Opening Credits that beginning of the feature, and Italian and English theatrical trailers. Inside a dual-sided cardboard slipcover with both the feature’s baptized titles and illustrated cover art representation of Edwige Fenech, the black 4K UHD Amaray case possesses a second and more fleshy-erotic illustration of Fenech. The same art and arrangement are on the reverse side but with the Italian title. Each disc is housed on either side of the interior snapped firmly on a press-lock on with a release acknowledgements and an advert for their next physical feature, “La Tarantola Dal Ventre Nero” aka “Black Belly of the Tarantula.” The region A playback release has a runtime of 94 and is not rated.

Last Rites: Showing such diligence in the restoration efforts, Celluloid Dreams is the new kid on the block, the promising young boutique label with the Midas touch, with a killer first presentation in “The Case of the Bloody Iris.” We can’t wait to see more!

Own Your 4K and Blu-ray copy of “The Case of the Bloody Iris” today!