A haughty and unpleasant stock trader taking an Uber to a late-night business meeting stumbles upon a drug deal gone bad. Monstrously bad. A werewolf intrudes into the exchange, killing three people and biting the trader on the shoulder. Stumbling into the nearby woods disoriented and with a pocketful of cocaine, his desire to relieve the pain from his shoulder as well as to escape the nightmare of being lost and confused in the woods lies within the white as snow narcotic housed on his person, but every time he takes a nasal hit, his addiction curses him into becoming like the wolf that attacked him. Happening across a film crew shooting a microbudget horror film and having no clue what’s happening to him, he partakes with the director’s cocaine habit that fuels his inner beast to come out and hunt them down one-by-one to rip them to shreds high on nose candy.
Much the same way the farcical “Sharknado” gave birth to a few analogous action-horror spoofs with similar ridiculously punned titles, such as “Clownado” or “Lavantula,” that combines a vilified thing with one of the many wraths of mother nature, 2023’s “Cocaine Bear” too began the same conceptual nonsense that spewed out “Attack of the Meth Gator,” “Cocaine Shark,” and now, we’re treated to the next level of hopped-up creatures with “Cocaine Werewolf.” Helmed by longtime microbudget horror filmmaker Mark Polonia, under the Polonia Bros. Production banner, and penned by first time screenwriter Tyger Torrez, the 2024 horror-comedy cuts the werewolf’s bane with powdery coke, spiraling the legendary lycanthrope into a stimulated frenzy of blow. “Camp Blood’s” David S. Sterling of Sterling Entertainment funds the in-and-around Wellsboro, Pennsylvania-shot project with fellow producers Ford Austin (“Dahmer vs. Gacy) and Cleopatra Entertainment’s Tim Yasuni and Brian Perera (“Frost,” “The Black Mass”) serving as producer and executive producer.
Returning to the schlocky world of penny-made horror is Brice Kennedy who has reconnected with Mark Polonia since “Razorteeth” and “Splatter Beach” from 2007. Shortly after Mark’s brother, John Polonia, unexpectantly died in 2008, Kennedy returns to the in front of the camera scene in 2024 after a lengthy hiatus of 17 years. Kenney takes the lead role of the cocaine addicted stock trader bitten to become a rampaging werewolf with a proclivity for nose blow. The West Virginia native never lost a step in those 24 years of off camera with a smooth slip into an obnoxiously crass stock trader jostled to wander the woods and to be anxious to get to the next snort of his pocket narcotic. Kenney plays on a fraction of the rubber masked werewolf, with Mark Polonia and others donning the snarling molded and faux hair stitched latex, but we don’t know or can’t tell which portion of the man-wolf Kenney portrays. Brice carries much of the story until he meets the film crew halfway, through the muck of drug deals gone sour between actors James Carolus and Titus Himmelberger of “Sharkula,” a pair of unlucky drivers behind the wheel of their cars in Michael Korotitsch (“Motorboat”) and Marie DeLorenzo (“Sister Krampus”), and two hunters, from James Kelly (“Sharkula”) and Jeff Kirkendall (“Motorboat”) suspicious of the recent mauling deaths of their neighbors and find themselves way over their head with the animal that’s causing all the carnage. Principal position shifts from being solo to a shared introduction of the film crew, exploring satire of making a low-budget, independent horror movie about a hackneyed clown slasher (Noyes J. Lawton, “Virus Shark”) chasing two girls through the forest. Those two females leads, Jamie Morgan (“Motorboat”) and Greta Volkova (“The Last Frankenstein”), get put through the trope wringer with lesbianism tendencies and gratuitous shower nudity, not to also neglect mentioning being damsels in distress from a killer clown, and become centrically the focus toward heroine, aka the final girl, as the cocaine werewolf infiltrates their small band of filmmakers. Hot on the savage beast’s trail is Ken Van Sant (“Virus Shark”) as the local sheriff baffled by what’s tearing people apart. If you couldn’t tell already, the cast is comprised of Mark Polonia regulars, those who have worked together on numerous projects, and have a kind of inner circle rapport with each other from the various Mark Polonia Bros. productions and this also includes Cody Losinger, Tim Hatch, Yolie Canales, and Alyssa Paige that rounds out “Cocaine Werewolf.”
I had promised myself after reviewing “Motorboat” dismally, I would stay away from another Mark Polonia production but because of my personal philosophy and prejudge avoidance policy of not researching and previewing films before watching them for critical analysis, I burned myself into Mark Polonia’s world once again. I was duped in part of Cleopatra Entertainment being partnering producers and the distributing label as they’re becoming well known for release moderately subpar horror product and have their own entourage line of actors, actresses, and filmmakers, such as Devanny Pinn and Brandon Slagle, with notable B-movie guest stars like William Shatner (“Star Trek”), Vernon Wells (“Commando”), and Udo Kier (“Blood for Dracula”) in some of their releases. Additionally, I absolutely enjoyed “Gun Woman’s” Kurando Mitsutake from print-to-film manga adapted “Lion Girl” that recently saw the physical media light. Unfortunately, I did not get the same pleasure out of “Cocaine Werewolf” under Polonia’s formulaic filmmaking and while Polonia does apply some effects techniques, mostly off-kilter visual f/x such as the added cold breath, the blood spurts, or the swirling faces that indicate human-to-wolf transition, but there isn’t a consistency to them and doesn’t blend into “Cocaine Werewolf’s” whole tone in what is more of a convenience choice rather than a unifying or connective element. “Dead Ant” and “Psycho Goreman’s” Josh Wasylink’s werewolf mask design would be any kid’s Halloween wet dream in what has pretty remarkable detail contrasted against the microbudget. Granted, there are not pneumatic or hydraulic components to the constant mask but a little blood here, a little blood there, and some glowing red eyes and you got yourself a damn good-looking, classic-feeling werewolf.
From Cleopatra Entertainment, the film division of music label Cleopatra Records, comes “Cocaine Werewolf” onto an AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition, BD25 Blu-ray. Frequently lacquered in a CIG haze, the ungraded image manages to retain a solid definition of sharp detail presented in an anamorphic 1.85:1 aspect rato. This can be good and bad for the image quality that while really creates delineation around textural clothing and the ample foliage it can also really expose to a fault and emphasize the rubbery inanimate mask along with the large cut out eyes, blackened with dark makeup to try and make the mask and the actor seamless. Depth is fine and medlied across multiple locations and the color range has natural, varied pop, diffused into the smokey trope atmospherics and angled up and key lit cinematography by Paul Alan Steele. Blacks are slight washed but not crushed or with significant banding. Like most Cleopatra Entertainment releases, the soundtrack overwhelms enough of the other audio layers in this English language LCPM Stereo 2.0 that it slightly takes of the edge of the impact, but the lossless quality awakens the snarling, growling werewolf noises and the dialogue is amply consistent throughout that even the Gothic rockabilly score from The 69 Cats doesn’t fully immerse viewers solely in the band’s dark melodiousness. Bonus content includes a Mark Polonia commentary, which the director is usually pretty good about supplying and supporting for most of his work, an image slideshow, and the trailer plus trailers for other Cleopatra Entertainment releases. Physical attributes of the conventional encased Blu-ray include an uncredited but insane Red Riding Hood inspired illustration on the front cover. There is no reverse side of the cover nor are there any inserts included in his release and the disc is pressed with the same front cover image. The unrated Blu-ray comes region free and has a runtime of 80 minutes.
Last Rites: “Cocaine Werewolf” is better than most of the contemporary Mark Polonia body of work, but the heart-pounded effects of his laced comedy-horror is not addictive enough to produce the euphoria to warrant another line hit, leaving this derived werewolf indie in withdrawals.
The Stackpooles are a little strange and are usually the talk of the small town of Nob Hollows when the zombified trio of siblings pick up the groceries at Lance’s Stop and Shop general store and diner. Yet, the Stackpoole’s are not Lance’s problem, not yet anyway, when Howard, a no-good shakedown thug, forces his might into Lance’s business as a silent partner. Little does Howard know that Lance has an ongoing affair with his wife, Loretta, and they devise a plan to get rid of Howard using the newly discovered dirt on the Stackpoole family’s bizarre kidnappings to take care of Howard once and for all. Lance figures he’s found his meal ticket after blackmailing Mryon, the fourth, and unseen, sibling who’s the mastermind and head of the family – literally a giant head – using telepathy and mind control to against his brothers and sister to do his bidding, but Myron is no fool to be taken advantage of so easily.
Who just is this Robert Talbot? The director of “Head of the Family,” who hides behind a black mask and speaks through a voice modulator, is none other than Full Moon’s secret identity for Charles Band under a pseudonym persona to exact a different kind of picture outside the context he’s expected to continue as well as an empire built on the image of horror. “Head of the Family” may not be tiny dolls inflicting an affliction based on their evil ways or the resurrection of the formerly dead and abnormal to, once again, inflect damage upon their creators, and possibly, the world we know it. Instead, “Head of the Family” slips out of Full Moon’s comfort zone and into another, different kind of shadowy namkeen to small plate audiences’ bizarre fascination with the weird and fantastical. Also, to exhibit T&A more than like the usual in the Full Moon repertoire. The less horror, more zany cult 1995 feature structures around the titular big headed villain, a band of his freakshow kin, and a constantly copulating couple that’s penned by Neal Marshall Stevens (“Thir13en Ghosts”), also under a pseudonym of Benjamin Carr, based off a “Talbot” story, and produced by, also “Talbot,” and “Hideous!” and “Witchouse” producer, Kirk Edward Hansen.
I couldn’t tell you if J.W. Perra is big-headed or not in real life, but the actor is certainly quite cranial as the family-telepathic, wheelchair bound Myron Stackpoole. The literal pun of the title plays in tune with Full Moon’s madcap maniacal ties while having Perra’s large head shine, or rather sweat gland glisten, under a miniature lame body. Myron’s enfeebled corporeal flesh drives his hunger to join the ranks of normal people as he kidnaps and surgically operates on the minds of unsuspected townsfolk to incorporate a portion of his higher intellect into a stronger body. Myron uses his stupefied siblings’ talents, bestowed upon them through a paternal quadruplet birthing, with Wheeler (James Jones, “Dark Honeymoon”) given superhuman bugeye sight and hearing, Otis (Bob Schott, “Gymkata”) given the twice the strength of a normal man, and Georgina (adult actress Alexandria Quinn, “Taboo VIII”) given, you guessed it, the hot and voluptuous body to attract men like moth to a flame. Speaking of hot bodies, former adult actress and “Femalien” star Jacqueline Lovell, aka porn handle Sara St. James, is absolutely supple as Loretta, a twangy blonde girlfriend to the scheming Lance, played with Cajun confidence by Blake Adams (“Lurking Fear”), and every chance Lance and Loretta get, they’re steaming the scene with erotically charged expo and exposition. I’m fairly certain Lovell has more lines topless than she does with her clothes fully on. In the supporting cast inventory, Vicki Lynn (“Fugitive Rage”) and Gordon Jennison Noice (“Virtuosity’) make up the remaining.
I’ll admit I fell into that hole of expecting “Head of the Family” to play out just like any conventional Full Moon feature, comprised of pint-sized and mischievous devils to a carnivalesque tune of irregular horror. To my surprise but not to my dismay, Band’s incognito oddity has the bones of a blackmailing thriller spiced with eccentric and caricature types and gratuitous sex at every turned corner. “Head of the Family” progresses through interacting conversation to outline exploitation arrangements and to be informed of dangers of crossing a big headed brainiac, interjected with the occasional display of drooling operated rejects, Otis and Wheeler’s utilizing their inborn side effects, and, I keep coming around to this motif and hopefully not in a pervy way, the female toplessness that bares bountiful. The depth perception effect to enlarge J.W. Perra’s head as Myron is executed pretty well with Adolfo Bartoli’s camera work that reflects the actors facing generally at the correct angle, as if they’re eye-to-eye with the Myron, and the edits do the effect justice as well, spliced precisely to account for dimensional space, the effects are reminiscent of Randy Cook’s illusionary work on “The Gate” films using dimensional animation and scale between live actors in the same frame but some distance apart. If you excuse the upcoming intended pun, Band’s film is more of a talking head production than one of grotesque action, a realization you won’t be aware of until well stretched into the runtime and because of this that’s the reason there’s likely a ton of Jacqueline Lovell nudity. Okay, okay, I’ll stop blabbering on about the nudity!
“Head of the Family” arrives onto newly remastered DVD from Full Moon Features. The MPEG2, upscaled 720p, DVD5, presented in a widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio, doesn’t have any detail regarding the remastering on the latest re-release but I suspect it’s the identical image or a slightly touched up 35mm negative used for the original Full Moon release from 1999 scanned in 2K. 15 years later, a reimagined “Head of the Family” retains the softer, radiant picture quality with a highly extensive color palette through the aura glow and a natural, yet reduced, grain. The negative does have a flaw in what looks to be cell damage a little halfway through the runtime with a brief, dark cut line making itself known, if you blink, you’ll miss it. This sort of obvious damage does lean more toward an identical transfer being used for the 2024 release with just a 2k scan without restorative elements. Remastered restoration likely went hot and heavy into the audio elements. The English language LPCM is available in two channel formats, a dual-channeled 2.0 and a surround sound 5.1 mix. Robust with added nuances, “Head of the Family’s” soundtrack breathes new aural acuities that not only clean any distortions, if there was any, but also sharpens the tracks like a knife on a wet stone, cutting and clean. Dialogue is clear and assertive through what is mostly a talking head span. English close caption subtitles are available. Much of the special features are reused from the 2016 Blu-ray release, including an audio commentary track from Actor J.W. Perra (Myron), promo behind-the-scenes video of the long anticipated “Bride of Head,” which has been stagnant for years, the original trailer, and other Full Moon Features’ trailers. The DVD release is an exact mirror image of the physical Blu-ray release from 8 years prior with a disc press image of Myron’s closeup through a murky filter and no inserts included. The region free release has an 82-minute runtime and is rated R without specifying the content but there is language, nudity, strong sexuality, and violence.
Last Rites: “Head of the Family” bucks the lucrative trend of miniature killer imps for the Full Moon empire but keeps moderately in line with eccentric characters, unabashed skin, and a Richard Band jaunty soundtrack, accentuated even more in a brand-new remastered DVD version of the film that was helmed by Charlie Band himself in anonymity.
Daniel Ray Hawkins drives an unsettling, nomadic lifestyle as he travels across different parts of the country. With no money, no place to call home, and little friends, Hawkins lives a life of mostly solitude, odd jobs, and equally as strange as him acquaintances spurred from his childhood, shaped by his promiscuously prostitute mother and a war veteran disabled father who gruesomely took his own life, both of which displaying their iniquities right in front of him. Hawkins also lives a life of torture and murder, being one of the most prolific American serial killers ever of mostly young women. When caught by authorities, Hawkins is willing to confess to everything and help unearth bodies from over decades on the road to ensure families he’s stolen from receive some sliver of solace. His anecdotal accounts of individual disappearances and murders shock authorities to the core, so much so that Hawkins may just be unstable and not telling the truth. That is until he informs them of and leads them to the cached polaroids and decaying corpses.
Based on the American serial killer Henry Lee Lucas, who notoriously claims killing over 200 people has earned him a trio of film adaptations, at least, with “Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer,” directed by John McNaughton and starring Michael Rooker in the titular role, the subsequent lesser part II, and the more obscurely known Mark Blair written and directed production, “Confession of a Serial Killer.” Much like “Armageddon” and “Deep Impact,” or “End of Days” and “Stigmata,” both movies fall into the paradoxical twin film phenomena of sharing the same them and having both been released approx. within a year of each other. While “Henry: Portrait of a Serial Killer” may have taken the top spot with a bigger budget played in more widespread venues, Blair’s rendition was released prior and closer to Lucas’s active killing spree that saw an end in 1983, just didn’t get released in America until a few years later to not duel with McNaughton’s film and thus didn’t succeed as much. The Cedarwood Productions film was produced by Cecyle Osgood Rexrode, distributed by Roger Corman and his company, Concorde Pictures.
While he was not the first choice for the titular character of Daniel Ray Hawkins, production designer, the late Robert A. Burns, filled in the sociopathic shoes with great monotonic conviction. Burns, who has ties as Art Director and makeup effects on some of the most iconic and seminal genre films, such as “The Texas Chain Saw Massacre,” “The Hills Have Eyes,” and “Tourist Trap,” matches the makings of an unempathetic, unsympathetic, natural born killer with a glazed deadpan austere and matter-a-fact knowledge and every evil committed. “Confessions of a Serial Killer” would not be as laced with depravity if Burns didn’t push the demented drugs to keep audiences hooked on overdosed deviancy. Not a tall or broadly muscular stature, curly outstretched and receding hair, scruffily unshaven with a consistent 5 o’clock shadow, and wide rimmed glasses, Daniel Ray Hawkins epitomizes the very essence of a creep and accentuates the behavior even further with his leisurely composure and straight-faced simplicity. Other side characters exist around Hawkins’ maniacal run with the bisexual Moon Lewton (Dennis Hill) and his sister Molly (Sidney Brammer), who marries the pansexual Hawkins out of necessity rather than sexual desire, and while Moon and Molly share Hawkins deranged apathy, they are completely overshadowed by the more controlling and interesting lead principal character due to half the murderous anecdotes are solo ran and all of the perception in the stories is through Hawkins’ recollection, giving him more power in the trio in perceptional self-interest, if Hawkins is capable of such consciousness. The cast fleshes out with lawmen and victims in Berkley Garrett, Ollie Handley, DeeDee Norton, Demp Toney, Eleese Lester, Colom L. Keating, and Lainie Frasier in the opening stranded motorist scene that sets up Hawkins diabolical reach in turning a car into a trap.
Bathed in realism, “Confessions of a Serial Killer” does not embellish with surrealistic temperament. The story never dives into Hawkins’ head to show any indication or any kind of visual mental degradation or reality breakage toward being a coldblooded killer. His violence is spartan, acidic, and raw to the bone, leaving a gritty taste in your mouth, with only a bleak childhood to blame for his adult obsessions to kill that he describes as necessary as breathing. Blair distills the story to a “Mindhunter’” episode in trying to understand the killer and recover skeletons from his past, literally, through rational and respect ways rather than boiler room beatings and power-tripping threats. Blair’s concept humanizes the inhuman and having Hawkins’s reminiscence each account is like recalling childhood memories with a smirk and fond remembrance splayed across his face adds another layer of iciness. Grounded by pedestrian scenarios, “Confessions of a Serial Killer” disrupts the routine, the familiar, and the unscripted ways we live our lives unconsciously to the fiends living among us that look like you or me. It’s a very palpable fear Blair conveys under the semi-biopic film. The director does eventually let loose the reigns in the final third act with a finale account of Hawkins, Moon, and Molly shacking up with an amiable doctor, his suspicious assistant, and his shapely young daughter that boils to a head when one bad decision leas to another.
For the first time on Blu-ray anywhere as a part of Unearthed Films’ Unearthed Classics sub-banner, “Confessions of a Serial Killer” receives a high-definition, 1080p release on an AVC encoded, single ring BD25. Higher contrast and a lesser diffusion to create a harsher, flatter color scheme, the intention is to fully base the story in reality as much as possible, to structure an abrasive look of grain and low lighting that parallels the seediness the tale touts. inspired from the facts of an American serial killer without having to fully give recognition to the actual killer. Shadows are key to Hawkins nightly runs, adding back-alley value to his viciousness, and the more lighter scenes, such as brighter-by-color interiors or day exteriors, are ample with natural grain that cut into the details but don’t necessarily knock them out entirely. With the lesser capacity disc, compression doesn’t appear to be an issue with no sign of macroblocking, banding, or posterization. The English language LCPM 2.0 mono possesses lo-fi aspects kept true to the original audio master. The dual-channel conduit amasses the layers mostly in the forefront without ascendancy in the environment, creating a flat approach, rendering the audio mostly fixed and depthless with the action creeping onto the dialogue, but this also adds the realism of a real world chaos where cacophony reigns. William Penn’s effectively, inlaid soundtrack has hallmarks of Wayne Bell and Tobe Hooper’s “Texas Chain Saw Massacre in the minor key with added notes of an otherworldly tune fork keyboard and lingering bass elements that’s just infests with the sounds of deceit and death, reminding me also a lot of a George A. Romero’s “Night of the Living Dead’s” atmospheric arrangement. English SDH are an available option. The collector’s edition contents include a commentary with director Mark Blair, aka John Dwyer, director of photography Layton Blacklock, and actor Sidney Brammer (Molly), The Henry Lee Lucas Story by author and former TV news reporter James Moore, and a full-lengthy documentary Rondo and Bob examines Robert Burns being the foremost expert on uniquely deformed actor Rondo Hatton as well as examines Burns’ own career, a polaroid gallery, promotional gallery, and the trailer. Displaying the iconic poster, a profit from rip of Hannibal Lector with a devilishly masked killer behind bars, Unearthed Films’ releases the stark image onto a planar cardboard slipcover. Same image is used from the standard Blu-ray Amaray case with no reverse side. Disc is pressed with a memorable and anxiety-filled chase scenes. There are no inserts material included. The region A encoded Blu-ray has a runtime of 107 minutes and is unrated.
Last Rites: One of the better biopics on U.S. serial killers even if a little bit of speculation and sensationalism increases the already verbose notoriety of one Henry Lee Lucas. Scary and bleak, “Confessions of a Serial Killer” continues to remind us that no one is safe from the everyday sociopath.
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.
Devout American nun, Sister Cecilia, has been appointed a position in the Italian countryside, a historical convent where terminally ill nuns live in the sisterly comfort of hospice. Feeling blessed for the opportunity to serve and her faith remaining second to none, the young nun believes she found her true calling and takes her devotional vows in the eyes of God and Jesus Christ, amongst other young nuns in confirmation. During her training of changing out bedpans and beheading chickens for meals, an uneasiness washes over Cecilia ever since the night of her confirmation reception and being granted to behold one of the stakes that was impaled through the hand of Christ. As if by miracle, an explanation suddenly and terrifyingly reveals itself not only to her complete shock but the entire convent when she’s discovered to be pregnant through immaculate conception. As weeks turns to months, Cecilia is forced to focus on baby instead of chores but there’s something dark and malevolent happening behind the convent doors that result in her unable to leave the convent grounds, fellow outspoken nuns disappear, and one sister commits suicide. The once blessed opportunity has turned into unimaginable terror with no way out.
Sydney Sweeney is so hot right now. With her provocative success on HBO’s take of youth and vices in “Euphoria” and a nihilistic teenage daughter in the same premium channel’s series, “The White Lotus, the now 26-year-old Washington state-born actress has also peppered her career with horror films, even at a childish age with her first appearance, a minor role, in a comedy-horror “ZMD: Zombies of Mass Destruction” and continuing her fresh and new vocation with notable parts directed by notable directors, such as John Carpenter’s “The Ward” and Tibor Takács “Spiders,” that would subsequently offshoot into principal leads of less heeded, moderately successful thrillers when in adulthood with “Along Came the Devil,” “Dead Ant,” and “Nocturne.” Her latest venture is one she became personally invested in, a modern-day nunsploitation titled “Immaculate,” reteaming Sweeney with her 2021 “The Voyeurs’” writer-director Michael Mohan at the helm of their latest collaborative effort. Mohan, however, did not write the film with feature film newcomer Andrew Lobel taking the job that would take a decade to fruition once Sweeney, who auditioned for the role when she was 17 years old, made it her passion project to see it come to life Alongside Sweeney producing is Ben Shafer, Riccardo Neri, Michael Heimler, David Bernard, Jonathan Davino, and Teddy Schwarzman with Neon distributing the Black Bear presentation of the Fifty-Fifty Films and Middle Child Films coproduction.
Sweeney exacts the very definition of virginal innocence, a small-town girl with a miraculous backstory that nearly cost her her life. As a sincerely devout Catholic in Sister Cecelia, Sweeney must shape up an intake of naivety that blinds her to the subtle sinisterism amassing around her. To do that, a medley of personalities must dupe her, sway her, disparage her, and comfort her to keep the character balanced before the blindsiding shock that surprises her with a twisted misconception and exploitation of God theme. Heading up the mix of madness is the convent’s resident priest, Father Sal Tedeschi, played by Spanish actor Álvaro Morte, indoctrinating a warm welcome as a guise for advantageous deceptiveness, but for what, we yet don’t yet know. The alarming setup pins Cecelia to the convent grounds, surrounded by equally unconscionable characters in an insistent Cardinal Franco Meroa (Giorgio Colangeli), a benignly sweet Mother Superior (Dora Romano), and a disparaging Sister Isabelle (Giulia Heathfield Di Renzi”), and with little options of escape, or even allies within the walls, Cecelia is truly alone against a rogue Catholic sect that seeks to resurrect Christ in an unconventional and unnatural way against Canon law. Cecelia’s arc fully embraces the change through Sweeney’s rather transfigured understanding of the religious institution Cecelia devotes her life to and, in the same breath, the nun keeps with the organization’s traditional principles of God’s will and not man’s interference and must be the righteous hand of wrath. “Immaculate’s” cast rounds out with Benedetta Porcaroli, Giampiero Judica, Giuseppe Lo Piccolo, and Simona Tabasco, who has a “White Lotus” connection with Sydney Sweeney.
If you’re like me and avoid most trailers, reviews, or spoilers to try and keep an unbiased opinion, you may be taken aback by “Immaculate’s” gargantuan twist that goes against everything you may know and believe about the Catholic Church’s dogma and principles. Granted, several non-Catholics likely believe the Church is corrupt and with recent years’ newsworthy scandals, those Church cynics’ fire has had a continuous stream of fueling fodder. “Immaculate” plays into the fear, pessimism, and beyond reproach suspicion by subverting religion as a false façade and integrates unlikely, go-against-the-grain coupled themes of genetics tampering, bypassing God, murdering in His name, and even exploiting the Catholic hierarchy with slivers of patriarchal governance over a woman’s body. We get the latter from the very first opening sequence of Cecelia having just arrived in Italy and is brought before two custom officials who remark, in Italian in order for her now to understand, that her religious vocation to be obedience, impoverished, and chaste wastes her youthful beauty. Then again, “Immaculate” is not beautiful; it’s grotesque, perverted, and shocking and at the core, a purity that’s being sullied by deranged power and evil enlightenments. Cecelia represents a beacon of hope in a maelstrom of immorality.
Shudderingly intense and sordidly messed up, “Immaculate” arrives onto a Neon Blu-ray home release. Presented in a widescreen, Univisium aspect ratio of 2:00:1, the AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition, feature is housed on a single-layered 25 gigabyte disc. Curious the reason why Neon would choose a lower capacity for such a purposefully soft and dark videographic image that creates a solemn tone inside a harsh appearance of an unpronounced period piece, perhaps set around the 1960s-1970s judging by the wardrobe, suitcases, and other set dressings. Not also to exclude the premature notions of genetic manipulations that have made giant modernized leaps in the contemporary day-and-age. Even with emaciated encoded, “Immaculate” looks pretty good around skin tones and textures and not a tone of compression follies to report. With darker images on lower capacities banding and blocking rear their ugliness but there’s not a tone of that here. Saturation reduction plays into the time period and mood and the specified range of grading is kept to a modestly warm yellow, greens, and reds surfacing above ever so slightly through thick shadows of inkier, key-lit or candle-lit frames and even making a miniscule presence in daylit moments, boarding classical noir on some occasions. The English-Italian DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio has lossless appeal that wriggles out clean atmospheric genre cues through the multiple, surrounding channels. Creaky doors and floors, deep footsteps, cavernous echoing, all play into the ambience track’s gothic timbres. Conversating dialogue mounts a clear fixed positioning that sharp and clean through Sweeney’s character’s slight Midwestern intonation to the heavily and broad Italian accents from native vernacular to second language English speakers. A descriptive English 2.0 audio track is also available as well as optional English and Spanish subtitles for the primary track. One reason “Immaculate” is on a BD25 is because of the only bonus feature available is a feature length commentary track with director Michael Mohan. The physical side of the Neon release includes a slipcover with the same tones mentioned above with a pious looking Sydney Sweeney in habit and also covered stoically in blood from the collar down. The backside of the slipcover scarcely has technical information which is pleasant to see the limited real estate being used for something else other than the nuts and bolts that should remain on the Blu-ray’s Amaray case. Its slightly reminiscent of the way certain boutique labels design their limited slips. However, what’s not reminiscent of boutique design is the same slipcover front and back image is used for the Blu-ray case too. Inside is sparse with only the disc with a simple yet effective black background, red titled pressing. Rated R for Strong and Bloody Violent Content Grisly Images, Nudity, and Some Language, the Neon release has a runtime of 89 minutes and is encoded for region A playback.
Last Rites: “Immaculate” is blessed be the fruit of present-day Nunsploitation themed with power trips that attempt to bypass God and the laws of nature. The finale powerfully depicts and deciphers the principles of one’s firm held faith under God’s will, and perhaps wrath, in its ugliest form.
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