A Little Space Can Asunder the Strongest Bond. “Alien Love” reviewed! (Sector 5 Films / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on November 27, 2024

Its Not Strange Love, It’s “Alien Love” now on Blu-ray!

Ryan Van Hill-Song and his wife Sadie are a happily married couple despite their age gap. Ryan’s ardent journey and dream to reach beyond the clouds and into space is on the verge of coming true while Sadie decides to take a break from the vocational rigmaroles of her young life. Ryan’s NASA mission goes without a hitch except for a brief loss in communication with headquarters. Upon his return home, Sadie notices a behavioral difference in her once loving husband who now acts strange in his own surroundings and around her. Despite a few amorous encounters, Ryan becomes strangely obsessed with the extraterrestrial concept through alien themed movies, local artistic murals, and anecdotal accounts that are engrained into their home city’s culture. As Sadie begins to suspect Ryan is no longer her husband after learning about her pregnancy, NASA agents move in to chase down Ryan and capture his true being.

Strap yourself in to blast off into the great unknown of extraterrestrial copulating with Simon Oliver’s 2024, Sci-Fi romance-drama, “Alien Love.” The serial Australian documentary director puts a pause on the confluence of beings from the space frontier, the mysticism of the occult and supernatural, and historical contexts to land terrestrial blending-aliens amongst us, hiding under human skin as our family and as our lovers; in this case with “Alien Love,” as astronaut and husband Ryan Van Hill-Song with a concealed agenda. The script, that presses themes of usual relationships and their potential inertia, is penned by the principal male lead, Nathan Hill, and Simon Salamon, both of whom are coming hot off the script press of their last feature “Lady Terror” from the previous year. Hill dons the producer hat as well under his production company NHProductions with Sector 5 Films’ Warren Croyle footing and distributing the microbudget feature.

Nathan Hill producers, co-writes, and stars in most of his pictures. However, for “Alien Love,” the accomplished filmmaker breaks up the routine monotony by taking a backseat in the director’s chair to enhance focus on Ryan Van Hill-Song, the astronaut who returns to Earth and is not the same man who left his planet. Aside from a few lines in flashbacks and a quick, laconic replies here and there, Hill mostly lounges about or takes a run while in character, leaving the brunt of the dialogue and emotional work in the hands of Ira Chakraborty, a model-actress in her full-length feature debut in the role of Sadie. Ira carries the story that mostly just stagnates with scenes of Ryan’s wandering alien obsession and absence seizure indifference all the while Sadie frustratingly can’t decipher her husband’s acute loafing and lack of any kind of emotion in contrast to the flashback lovey-dovey affections. The craftier part about this devolving dynamic is the theme it represents between fantastical expectations and grim reality, especially between two considerably different people on a collision course of marital decline. Throw a baby in the mix, a more calamitous cocktail ensues. NASA agents, supervised by Colonel John Smith (Edward Mylan), are on the hunt for the close encounter, and if you’re wondering what the hell is NASA is doing in Australia, well, let me school you on that there is a NASA deep space communication center in the land of Oz to allow seamless communications to spacecrafts when the Earth rotates. The more you know… “Alien Love” fills out the cast with Eleanor Powell, Demz Lato, Sam Ready, Chase Kauffman, John Robertson, Robert Rafik Awad, Ben Bramwell, Savita Bungay, Emily Farrell, and Dan Heubel.

Preboarding the “Alien Love” ship saw an audience collective view of similarities toward the Rand Ravich directed, Johnny Depp and Charlize Theron-starring “The Astronaut’s Wife,” and after soaring through “Alien Love’s” story, that general consensus is spot on as the Simon Oliver helmed, Nathan Hill production is a remake of the 1999 New Line theatrical release on a much smaller scale. Going into the film knowing this, there ironically emerges less subjectivity because expectations were set and the cognitive ability to examine “Alien Love” for more than just a remake is formed. The aforementioned theme of wedging differences between two people is characterized by the age gap and ambitions. Ryan’s an older man, this fact is mentioned a few times early on, chasing a space dream and Sadie is somewhere 20-30 years his junior and judging with conversations with friend Abbey, Sadie is or was in university. Love at first is healthy, vibrant, exciting, and hopeful like any first-time marriage but the gap, symbolized by Ryan’s change, becomes alienating, literally, and the once strong bond between the two lovers is now reduced to the occasional sex and just being in proximity of each other as interests change and connections become stale. This unfortunate walk-through of life is told through the sensationalism of an alien inhabiting human form, but the message of marital decay is loud and clear with all the hallmarks of a souring union between two very different people. When the alien does make the screen, the simplistic mask man works here with a decent alien archetype look without it being overly schlocky; however, the need more for more context is sorely missing as Oliver goes for more style than substance as the need for digital lens flares and art compositions unbraid the build of the story.

From Sector 5 Films comes “Alien Love” on an Australian Blu-ray home video. The AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition resolution, BD-R has lossy picture quality simply because it’s a BD-R; however, the bandwidth appears to be adequate to suppress artefact issues and sustain a stable, reliable quality throughout. Details and colors are generally soft, textures lack distinction, in what is more of a hazy aura veneer with muted colors and no dense shadows, over kneaded by warm pink and rich blue gels to heighten the dreamy affect. Delineation works for the cityscapes and some handful of land planted with powerlines and towers coupled with interesting camera angles and work. The only audio option is a lossy English Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo mix that heavy on exposition and Jamie Murgatroyd’s mingling with epic soundtrack. Dialogue layer has dynamic change depending on how cavernous rooms can be or if background ambience levels are higher that suppress vocal projection. Overall design diffuses fine from a stereo output with clean and clear dialogue. Special features include a feature parallel audio commentary with stars Nathan Hill and Ira Chakraborty, an interview with Hill and Chakraborty going over fan questions, interview with esteemed John Hipwell (“Lady, Stay Dead”), deleted scenes with commentary from Nathan Hill, a blooper reel, still gallery, and trailer. With the encoded special features packed with goodies, the Blu-ray design and package leans toward more standard fare with a traditional Amaray case with no inserts or other tangible accompaniments. Primary cover art looks inexpensive, air brushed, and circa science films of the 1950s. Disc is pressed with the same image. The 75-minute feature comes unrated with region free playback.

Last Rites: “Alien Love” will not be the knock-your-socks-off science fiction film of the year nor will it dazzle with awe-inspiring special effects. What Simon Oliver and Nathan Hill specialize with their latest film is storytelling of a disintegrating couple during alienating times, plain and simple, with a heavy emphasis on the plain and simple.

Its Not Strange Love, It’s “Alien Love” now on Blu-ray!

EVIL Preys on the Goodness of the Weak. “Lady Terror” reviewed! (Sector 5 Films / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on July 27, 2023

“Lady Terror” is on the Prowl. Now on DVD!

Jake Large, a shrewd personal injury lawyer, finds himself in a loveless engagement that’s full of contempt, especially with his finance who makes up excuses to not be around or intimate with him. When Jake foils a thief’s grab and dash of Candice’s purse, the lawyer and the exotic dancer quickly fall into a relationship that rekindles Jake’s vivacity of work and life. Breaking off the engagement to his equally two-timing finance, Jake pours every ounce of emotion into the sexually tempest romance that’s rapidly become more than just courtship when Candice suggests the murder of her frequently threatening and abusive stepfather. Witnessing first hand some of his behavior, Jake agrees to take out her stepfather in a fiery explosion during one of his rabbit hunting trips. When the dust settles and all seems to be going well with Candice, a watershed moment reveals Candice’s intentions are not what they seem to be and in the middle of taking the fall for everything is Jake.

An enticingly fervid thriller, “Lady Terror” is the latest directorial from the 30-year industry producer, writer, and director, Nathan Hill. Filmed in Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, “Lady Terror” harks back to the early 90’s erotic suspenser of sex, deceit, and murder where seduction and predatory persuasion are welded tools to accomplish unscrupulous acts. Hill has submersed himself chiefly in low-budget genre films from his first feature, a sewer creature that craves Cartel drug pushers in the SOV shot “The Hidden” released in 1993, to more recent and gamut gorging Australian documentary pictures, such as “Bigfoot Down Under” and “Sex Down Under,” as well as keeping tethered to his horror roots with his short film work contributed to compilated anthologies in “Clownsploitation,” “Previews of Coming Attractions,” and “Schlock-O-Rama.” Hill produces his “Lady Terror” under his company NHProductions with the Alien enthusiastic documentarian, executive producer Warren Coyle, and marks the reconnection of Hill and director of photography Dia Taylor following their debut, feature film collaboration on Hill’s “I, Portrait” and the various filmic vignettes from before.

Not only does Hill write, direct, and produce, the filmmaker with a penchant for creating J-named characters is also the lead principal personal injury lawyer Jake Large, owner-proprietor of Large Lawyers. Though successful in his legal craft, Jake’s has developed depression when his once endearing fiancé Celine has turned against him as she sneaks around his back with a mixed martial artist. A loathing Celine is played severely cutting by Tritia DeViSha who has previous chemistry alongside Hill during their time on Hill’s “Revenge of the Gweilo” production and while the chemistry between their characters is palatably thick with contempt, there’s not much backstory in gain traction for sympathy, compassion, or any other emotive expression. Jake has a single flashback of his and Celine’s happiness in simpler times during a moment of what could be regret or longing, but there’s simply not enough breadcrumbs for their history to take shape of any form. Instead, their turmoil feeds into Jake’s unquestionable willingness to concede to a beautiful exotic dancer and damsel in distress named Candice (Phillyda Murphy). The attention is good, the sex is good, why not just give a little back by murdering her crooked stepfather (Anton Kormoczi – who also goes by Anton Trejo because he mildly looks like Danny Trejo)? Well, Jake’s lovestruck blindness obscures the real intent but, luckily for Jake, he has what he describes as a lucky rabbit’s foot in his secretary who aspires to be a private investigator and when she’s not punching keys, she’s clandestinely tailing Candice in a spying and snapping pictures behind trashcans and around corners caricature kind of way. The platinum blonde and distant relative of horror maestro, Dario Argento, Simay Argento is the peripheral probing dick Ayla Harp that initially doesn’t have this close-knit relationship with her boss until the third act when she happens to take it upon herself, after examining Jake’s behavior and reading his desk notes, to snoop into his private life on his behalf. It’s not entirely clear how she unearthed who exactly Jake became intimate with but she managed track down Candice’s exact location to snap a few black and whites. “Lady Terror’s” remaining cast feels very much like Ayla Harp in the disconnection of each other’s narratives, ridden along in choppy succession that leaves too many plot holes to fill. The cast rounds out with Leslie Lawrence, Anthony Cincotta, Robert Rafik Awad, Challise Free, and Adam Ramzi – the 40-year-old Melbourne actor, not the gay porn star.

Perhaps that character disconnection stems from the distracting filler from in between dialogue scenes. A slew of these filler scenes are of Jake Large driving around town, pulling up into driveways, and entering his home, Candice’s home, or his office, eating into a runtime that could be better suited for character exploration or assembling the fragments of a deceptive thriller involving the key players. The current design dulls the run-of-the-mill and insubstantial story with nothing new to offer audiences to facelift the core element, a rope-a-dope of relationship pretense in order to con a fall guy into another’s dirty work. Though I know the answer in the back of my mind, a considerable amount of struggling happens in the deductive logic and complex problem solving regions of my brain for the missteps of what’s supposed to happen after Jake commits to the hit. Ultimately, the worst outcome to happen to Jake is not what I suspected; in fact, we should be expecting a more disastrous, run-for-your-life fall from grace, but, instead, there’s no sense of urgency or consequence in the unravelling of Jake’s newfound and glorious prospects with Candice. In fact, police presence is reduced to informing Candice her stepfather had died and that’s the extent of it, not mentioning the gunshot, a gasoline fueled explosion, or any other kind of suspicious death pursuits. The awkwardness continues to bleed into the narrative continuity. “Lady Terror” has a time span of at least a week or two, or longer as it’s not entirely clear, but Jake’s outfit rarely differs from the white pants, blue button-up shirt, tan sport jacket, and fedora. The same goes with his lacy see-through topped assistant Ayla, suggesting that many of the scenes were shot on the same day or two without a wardrobe change. When Jake does have a different outfit on, the subsequent scenes revert right back to that then by now stale getup.

“Lady Terror” arrives onto DVD courtesy of Sector 5 Films, long overdue revisit of the distributor’s line of product since our last review from 2016. Presented on a DVD-R, with DVD5 capacity, in a widescreen 1:78:1 aspect ratio, “Lady Terror” retains an unhewn image that appears soft, smooth, and with slight aliasing. Overexposure wipes a fair amount of background sky, such as with approx. ten minutes into the story a plane just flies off into a bright void, but the overcast grading leaves this modern noir consistently dreary to where the only thing that stimulatingly pops is Phillyda Murphy in her skimpy intimates. Again, there’s not a ton of landscape range, especially being set around Melbourne and not taking advantage of the city skyline or it’s Port Phillip harbor with the drone to gain urban rookery. Sector 5 DVD’s back cover states the film has a 5.1 surround sound mix, but what my player tells me, “Lady Terror” actually comes supplied with an English Dolby Digital 2.0 mix. The dual channel output would have been a sufficiently adequate mix albeit unpolished, echoey dialogue but for the entire length of the film, a harsh gargle undercuts the sharpness in the dialogue and the Jamie Murgatroyd (“No Such Things as Monsters”) soundtrack. This also creates faint whispery-hissing. There are no optional subtitles included. Bonus features include doomsday, extraterrestrial, and anthropology hypothetical or alternative fact-doc trailers for “Occult of the Secret Universe,” “Nostradamus: Future Revelations and Prophecy,” “Ancient Origins: Extraordinary Evidence,” “Alien Paradox: Legacy of the UFO,” “Demonic Aliens,” “Breaking Free of the Matrix,” “Ancient Origins: Mankind’s Mysterious Past,” and “Elusive Bigfoot Abroad.” The Sector 5 DVD is housed in standard black snapper with trashy romance novel resembling front cover of two who are not Nathan Hill and Phillyda Murphy in throes of passion. The cropped top portion of the cover art that includes Murphy’s face in composited in 3 hues is also pressed onto the disc art. The release comes not rated with an 80-minute runtime and a region 1 encoded playback. Though performances are solid, “Lady Terror” ultimately feels underwhelming and unable to live up to the attractive title with an unadventurous noir thriller hamstrung stake to the heart from the DVD-R’s anemic technical and fidelity issues.

“Lady Terror” is on the Prowl. Now on DVD!

An EVIL Beast’s Carnivorous Addiction! “The Hidden” reviewed!

Posted by Steven Lewis on October 14, 2019

A sewer dwelling beast attacks and kills a cocaine fueled junkie. Now hooked on the drug and pained with addiction, the beast needs more cocaine. Every exchange meet up by the sewer entrances become a deadly encounter and as dealers and customers start to disappear, winding up dead, a drug cartel kingpin mourns the loss of his business. On the opposite side of the spectrum, the junkie’s older brother is also suffering a loss. Spiraling down a path of grief, he must find his brother’s killer at any cost, even if that means breaking up with the love of his life. A vindictive brother and a savvy drug dealer must team up to hunt the beast that stalks the sewers, looking for it’s next high, and put an end to a reign of terror.

Australia. Early 1990’s. Nathan Hill wrote and directed a crime thriller SOV, shot on a Video8 handheld, that just happened to have a bloodthirsty beast roaming the sewer system who unwittingly becomes addicted to cocaine after munching on a junkie. The 1993 film was entitled, “The Hidden,” which is not to be confused with the late 1980’s science fiction-horror, “The Hidden,” with “Twin Peaks'” Kyle MacLachlan. Hill’s film, also considered a sci-fi venture, had a minuscule, barely functioning budget and in a sense of unawareness, the filmmaker didn’t quite realize that a film, already popularizing the title, had the exact same moniker. In any case, Hill’s “The Hidden” has a premise far from the already established indulging in a vindictive creature feature with an internal turmoiled drug cartel subplot.

“The Hidden” comes to no surprise that the cast is constructed of no-named actors and actresses. Simon Mosley debuts as Michael Wilcott, a grief stricken brother looking for vigilantism vengeance. Mosley doesn’t have an acting bone in his body as he punches doors and pushes pushers around as if on command and carries a monotone, automaton performance throughout. He’s only rivaled by Daniel Rankin from another Nathan Hill directorial, 2011’s “Seance” (aka “6:66: Seance Hour: if that makes any more sense). Rankin’s a tall, muscular drink of water in comparison to Mosley and has a bit more acting chops that not only contemplates the hits he’s taking on his drug gig as dealer Guy Taylor, but also pulls a little more weight as a compassionate individual who takes a homeless boy as his surrogate father. As Mosley and Taylor team to battle the beast, the unlikely duo also have another foe to hurdle in the obstinate Steve, a junkie with a hard on for being bad, a role fit for the blonde haired and severely acned Chris Robbie. Paul Mosley, Chris Goodman, John Goodman, and Narelle Sinclair, as Michael Wilcott’s girlfriend, co-star.

Now while “The Hidden” has rough SOV quality, that’s is nowhere near the issue with Nathan Hill’s debut feature. Nick Goodman’s script spits out varying story tracks that never really shape subplots into being an unquenchable and flaccid tangent. For example, Guy Taylor’s adopted son, Carl. With the exception of a brief flashback of Guy and Steve working out together and coming across the boy. The scene’s brief but affective substance lies with setting up Guy to be a big softy on the inside and making Steve a complete jerk, yet keeps the relationship between Guy and Carl disjointed and ingenuous. There’s also the little (as in little of) mentioning of the special effects. No special effects technician is credited and it shows as the beast is absent in nearly the entire 77 minute runtime with the exception of the Predator first person infrared vision and it’s not until the climatic finale does “The Hidden” come visible and it’s a big whomp-whomp.

Nathan Hill Productions, under his NHProduction company, presents “The Hidden” distributed by SRS Home Video and MVDVisual onto DVD home video that’s encased in nostalgic, VHS cover art with a “Please Be Kind and Rewind” cherry sticker on top. The Video8 SOV image is quite washed and unstable in the 4:3 aspect ratio as if the color has been zapped right out, even after being re-animated, reduxed, and remastered. The limitations of the Video8 camcorder hinder the single channel audio, leaving the range and depth something to wonder rather than experience. Along with the anemic audio and video presentations, the bonus features doesn’t stray far as only the trailer and bonus trailers are included. “The Hidden” is unglamorous under the eye-catching cover art and more attuned to being an investigative thriller than a creature feature and a recommendation wouldn’t be hard-pressed for anything stellar.