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Psychological and Psychotic EVIL Descend Upon a High School Boy! “Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker” reviewed! (Severin Films / 2-Disc 4K UHD and Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

The 2-Disc UHD and Blu-ray Available for Pre-Order. Due to Release 5/28!

Orphaned Billy Lynch has raised by his Aunt Cheryl after his parents are tragically killed in a motor vehicle accident.  On the verge of his 17th birthday, Billy is ready to move on from his old life living under the overly caring Aunt to building a relationship with girlfriend Julia and possibly moving to Denver on a basketball scholarship, but the threatened Aunt Cheryl will do anything to keep Billy home, even if that means murder.  A brutal, stabbing incident of a local television repair man in their home leads to Detective Joe Carlson to suspect Billy as the main culprit and begins digging into the young man’s life that, coincidently, unearths the dead repair man had a homosexual relationship with Billy’s basketball coach.  Bigotry and intimidate course through Detective Carlson being as he prejudicially hounds and interrogatingly paints Billy as a gay, jealous lover without an ounce of hesitation.  Between his crazy Aunt and an intolerant cop, Billy’s life spirals dangerously out of his control. 

‘Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker,” also known as “Momma’s Boy,” “Night Warning,” or just “Nightmare Maker,” is the 1981 queer awareness and maturing suppression horror-thriller from “Bewitched” TV-series director William Asher.  Trying his hand at an edgier storyline with plenty of graphic violence and subversive themes, Asher helms the picture working off a script by a trio of debuting writers in Steven Breimer, Alan Jay Glueckman (“The Fear Inside”), and Boon Collins (“The Abducted”).  The American-made production brought considered taboo topics to the table when homosexuality was becoming more prominent in American culture in light of the AIDs epidemic and while the sexually transmitted disease has no part in this story, the derogatory fear of same-sex coupling is mercilessly present.  “Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker” is a Royal American Pictures production, distributed theatrically under Comworld Pictures, and is produced by screenwriter Steve Breimer and “Class of 1999” producer Eugene Mazzola.

Hardly does any film ever made have the perfect cast.  “Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker” does not reside in that genus of imperfection.  Every performance is spot on and fitting for this early 80’s video nasty, each actor playing the singular part ingrained into their act that deciphering if their behavior is actually like that in real life can be tremendously difficult and a completely disorienting.  The story focuses on Jimmy McNichol’s 17-year-old high schooler Billy Lynch who, until recently, has been living moderately comfortable under his Aunt Cheryl’s roof.  That is until school sis nearly over and the prospect of college and girls sows the seeds of springing him from his childhood home.  Though the story is supposed to be centrically Billy Lynch, it’s the quirky and unusuality of Susan Tyrrell as the undefined obsessed Aunt Cheryl with a thick undertone of sexual tension toward her nephew that just makes McNichol and Tyrrell’s scenes enormously uncomfortable.  The late actress, who starred in Richard Elfman’s “Forbidden Zone” and would later have roles in “Flesh+Blood” and “From a Whisper to a Scream,” could charm audiences with perky provocativeness and scare into submission with the ability to pivot to a crazed madwoman.  And while we’re slightly turned on and also frightened by Tyrrell, we’re completely in disgust of “The Delta Force’s” Bo Svenson’s one-train-thought, homophobic detective strongarming high school teens, coaches, and even his sergeant (Britt Leach, “Weird Science”) into being cocksure of his own short-sighted homicide theory driven by hate for homosexuality.  Marcia Lewis (“The Ice Pirates”), Steve Eastin (“Killers of the Flower Moon”), Julia Duffy (“Camp X-Ray”), and before he was a big superstar, a young Bill Paxton (“Aliens,” “Predator 2”) bring up the supporting cast rear.

For an early 80s video nasty, “Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker” is without a doubt intense and provocative with timeless themes that nearly table the trenchant violence for corrosive mental issues, systematic homophobia, and pressures of maturity.  The two prong antagonistic sides bear down on Billy Lynch and the one principal who still technically a child and learning all the facets of adulthood has his own good being thwarted by conventional adult role models of family and law enforcement.  Director William Asher, through the script, inlays a pro-queer avenue where the gay basketball coach displays immensely more wit, sense, and compassion than that of Aunt Cheryl and Detective Carlson, awarding the coach with more likeability and favor to come out of this ugly business unscathed.  Asher’s very intent on defining the personalities and the actors deliver tenfold under a surly environment of not only the brusque characters but also Cheryl’s home that is a tomb for one of Aunt Cheryl’s past lovers and is becoming a tomb for Billy who will either bend to Aunt Cheryl’s sexually-toned obsessiveness or die a terrible a death.  “Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker” also predates the infamous “Final Destination 2” log truck scene with its own that’s equally hard hitting and macabre, the latter also being expressed thoroughly throughout the entire narrative with a morose overhang that’s simmering to explode. 

Arriving onto a 2-disc UHD and Blu-ray set, “Butcher, Bake, Nightmare” is Severin’s latest title to go ultra-high definition, first for the William Asher film, with an HVEC encoded, 2160p 4K resolution, BD100 and an AVC encoded, 1080p high definition, BD50 for the Blu-ray.  Presented in an anamorphic widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio, “Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker” favors a stark and naturally vibrant color scheme with low profile compression issues on a pristine transfer, scanned in 4K from the original camera negative.  I could not detect any compression artefacts with the dark spots retaining their inky cohesion and the details retain superior depth in a slightly more saturated contrast of a healthy-looking, grain-appropriate picture quality, even elevated more definitively with the extra pixels.  The English uncompressed PCM mom track has lossless appeal with some foremostly faint dialogue hissing and crackling that’s more of given with age rather than a flaw in the mix.  The mix also doesn’t establish depth all too well with one channel doing all the heavy lifting, but the layers are well-balanced in proportional volume that make the audio composition effective and scary.  English subtitles are available. Encoded special features include 6 hours of content. On the UHD in lies three audio commentaries: one with star Jimmy McNichol, one with cowriters Steve Breimer and Alan Jay Glueckman, moderated by Mondo Digital’s Nathaniel Thompson, and the last one with co-producer and unit production manager Eugene Mazzola. The theatrical trailer cabooses the UHD special features. All of the above are also on the Blu-ray special features with additional content that includes a new interview with Bo Svenson Extreme Prejudice, a new interview with director of photography Robbie Greenberg Point and Shoot, a new interview with editor Ted Nicolaou (“Don’t Let Her In”) Family Dynamics, archival cast and crew interviews with Susan Tyrrell, Jimmy McNichol, Steve Eastin, make-up artist Allan A. Apone and producer Steve Breimer, and a TV spot as the cherry on top of some sweet special features. However plentiful and well-curated the special features are, my favorite attribute of this Severin release is the exterior with a dual-sided cardboard slipcover that has new illustrated compositional art and tactile features. Underneath, a reversable cover art featuring the film’s one-sheet poster art with a more Severin Film’s retro constructed “Nightmare Maker” arrangement that’s more red-blood heated. Inside does not contain any insert goodies or booklets and a disc on either side of the interior featuring the slipcase and black UHD Amaray case cover art. Both formats are region free, have a runtime of 93 minutes, and are not rated.

Last Rites: Seriously messed up on so many levels, if being a teenage boy isn’t pressurized enough right before manhood, becoming an adult can be arrantly deadly in this superbly packaged shocker “Butcher, Baker, Nightmare Maker” now on 4K UHD for the first time ever on May 28th!

The 2-Disc UHD and Blu-ray Available for Pre-Order. Due to Release 5/28!

Spiraling Vloggers Seal Their Fate When Face-to-Face with the “Woods Witch” reviewed! (SRS Cinema / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Woods Witch” Available on DVD from SRS Cinema!

Vloggers Jonah and Jocelyn struggle to sustain a healthy dose of followers for their internet channel.  To spice things up and increase follow traffic, the two embark on a 48-hour challenge to stay in the nearby haunted woods of Allensville where a number of people have gone missing, even a fellow, more popular, vlogger named Garrett Gasper after he was self- recording and suddenly vanished when stumbling upon the blood tree, a tree that oozes a blood-like substance from the trunk.  Tagging along are vlogging, ambivalent friends Dacia and Eugene to help capture the spooky essence of what should be an easy, follower-increasing stunt for the impulsive influencers.  They’re also joined, reluctantly I might add, by a local cowboy, two bar patrons, and a father looking for his daughter who don’t know what they’re instore for as what ensues the unorganized, slapdash survey of the woods is far from being simple and safe when they stumble into the area of a seemingly hippie commune that’s actually a sex cult devoted to the woods witch Melora.

If you’re a diehard horror fan, or even just a physical media movie aficionado, you might have heard of the name Shawn C. Phillips.  The eccentric, high-energy, social media personality buys, watches, and reviews the latest and greatest on home video weekly on this Youtube channel under the handle Coolduder.  Aside from being also a movie actor with a range of roles in mostly low-budget, independent, B-to-Z grade horror films, such as “Girls Gone Dead,” “Blood Orgy at Beaver Lake,” and “WTF!,” Phillips’s social media presence further extends to an inspirational weight loss journey, shedding over 235 lbs.  Having been a longtime actor and producer, one of the Baltimore, Maryland native’s newest ventures is directing having shot mostly self-recorded videos to be inserted into other filmmakers’ movies.  Phillips’s latest is “Woods Witch,” a found footage comedy-horror that’s one-part “Blair Witch Project,” two-parts ADHD (Attention Deficit, Hyperactivity Disorder).  He codirects the film with costar and “Amityville Karen” actress Lauren Francesca in her debut directorial and cowrites with Julie Anne Prescott, writer of many more recent “Amityville” inspired budget horrors like “Amityville Karen,” “Amityville Shark House,” and “Amityville Bigfoot.”  DRAX Films (“Bae Wolf,” “Acorn”) is the production company behind feature that provided most of the funding in conjunction with crowdfunded portion.

Obviously infatuated about being in front of the camera, taking a backseat to his own co-directed film wouldn’t be enough for the nearly 40-year-old personality who costars alongside Lauren Francesca as social media influencing boyfriend and girlfriend Jonah and Jocelyn.  Loud and opinionated, the couple struggle with maintaining viewership but, before that, they also they also struggle with the foulmouthed, death-threatening volley between Jonah and Jocelyn’s robbing-the-cradle by robbing-Jonah’s-cameraman mother, played by Sally Kirkland (“Fatal Games,” “Two Evil Eyes”).  And that sort of leads into a couple of themes “Woods Witch” harps on.  One theme is the constant bickering, shouting, and squabbling between anyone and everyone in a free-for-all of one-upping each other or to not take humility very well in front of others.  None of the characters side with one another, steadying a position of satellite attitudes and courses that lead the story into all different types of unhinged and unfocused directions.  The second theme connects with Sally Kirkland and the other in-and-outs of overripe star power for what crowdfunded money could afford and while there are some likeable and decent names in the cast, such as the late Tom Sizemore (“Relic,” “Saving Private Ryan”) in his last role before his death, James Duvall (“May,” “Donnie Darko”), Robert LaSardo (“Strangeland,” “Death Race”), and Lisa Wilcox (“A Nightmare on Elm Street 4:  The Dream Master”), they used to headline the attraction with only minutes to shine in their respective scenes.  The cast fills in with Kelly Lynn Reiter, David Perry, Carl Soloman, Bill Dawes, Lorelei Linklater, Nicole Butler, Ken Davitian, Bryant Smith, Eva Hamilton, G. Larry Butler, Mary Jones, Tom Harold Batchelder, Jake Pearlman, Brian Metcalf and Sadie Katz. 

“Woods Witch” uses multi-media found footage to tell the story where a bunch of egregiously entitled vloggers trek into infamously mysterious woods for hits, likes, subscribers, and e-revenue.  Not an original bone in its narrative body by any means, Antoine Le’s “Followed” comes to mind, but “Woods Witch” doesn’t hit where it should as a heavily improv comedy-horror that lampoons found footage horror in the woods and, instead, has undeniably become massively cacophonous of in all areas.  Going into the feature familiar with some of the cast and the distributing banner, expectations of a Shawn C. Phillips directed film were all fastened at the lower screwball level with horror elements tacked in here and there, aptly fitting the mold the social media influencer has established for himself with the eccentric personality of a physical media farceur who adores horror, but nothing can prepare audiences for how much confused noise is strewn about with the constant yelling, backbiting, and randomizing introduction of characters that turns what should have been an entertainingly crass and witchy film into just being a completely crass and witchy yawner.  Being completely flat and unfunny wouldn’t be a totally fair statement as “Woods Witch” does have its moments, such as the tree blood being rubbed all over Phillips’s naked torso and him, as Jonah, proclaiming naively Dascia’s kinkiness can be found humorous, but these funny bit moments are far and few in between and there’s just not enough new, fresh, or actor-driven comically-inclined wit and materially to feast on to support the lack of horror despite a few morsels of gore that are left in the dust, overshadowed by an immense pre-trip setup of interviews and infighting that ruins the rest of the reel. 

Enter the world wide web and wacky world of Shawn C. Phillips with his co-directed film with Lauren Francesca in “Woods Witch” on an SRS Cinema DVD. The MPEG2 encoded, 480i upscaled to 720p, DVD9 pulls the differing, clashing video qualities together, mostly earlier on and near the finale, for a coherent beginning, middle, and end narrative telling. If only I could say the same about the story, themes, and character roles. Anyway, not a lot of banding as there’s not a lot of dark scenes in what mostly is fill lighting that brightens up what’s in the scene. Details are okay enough when not implementing shaky cam’s in-and-out focusing found footage and lighting doesn’t completely washout the miniscule bits of texture. The coloring also has a naturally graded look as well as the objects’ organic color palette as budget doesn’t allow for too much fancy cinematography to also evoke a sense of realism. The English language PCM 2.0 stereo mix is consistent as it is coherent with the clarity and the dialogue. Even with pandemonium breaks out, which is often with the screaming and snappy conversations between each other, dialogue remains unscathed without audible squashing feedback or other interferences. English closed captioning is optionally available in the extras. Special features include a behind-the-scenes raw footage from fellow Youtuber Kenneth Ramone who has a small part in the film, a handful of cut scenes, theatrical trailer, funny trailer, an audio commentary by director/star Shawn C. Phillips going deep into the casting, locations, backstories, script and improv moments, etc., and there’s a Lisa Wilcox stinger in the post-credits as the mayor for an additional or extended scene with some improv. The SRS Cinema package comes in a standard DVD Amaray case with eye-catching illustrated artwork, disc pressed with the same artwork, and is an unrated, region free release with a 96-minute runtime.

Last Rites: Humor and horror underperform in the film “Woods Witch” that’s sole purpose is to be a comedy-horror. What the film does do is parody other found footage features and their filmmakers under a misguided sense that in-the-woods horror, from a camera lens point of view, is past its prime when in reality, the long-in-the-tooth subgenre is better than this parody by far.

“Woods Witch” Available on DVD from SRS Cinema!

Return Home to Discover Dad’s An EVIL SOB! “The Abandoned” reviewed! (Unearthed Films / Limited-Edition Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Don’t Be Left Behind. Get Your LE Blu-ray Copy of “The Abandoned” from Unearthed Films

Marie Jones never knew her parents.  Born in Russian, raised in the London, and now lives in the U.S., the low-budget movie producer receives news from a Russian estate notary providing her details on her murdered mother back in 1966 and her existence entitles her to the isolated family farm.  Unable to resist the urge to find out about her mysterious past, Marie travels to her parents’ dilapidated farm settled on an island encircled by a river.  There she meets Nicolai claiming to be her twin brother and that he also, after a similar call from the notary, felt pulled to their family home on the verge of their upcoming birthday, but they’re not totally alone.  Trapped on land that won’t allow them to leave, Marie and Nicolai run into their undead doppelgangers that impel them to dig into their family history and uncover the gruesome truth to what happened to their mother.  All the while, the house around them rewinds back in time before age and weather have taken a toll and the souls living in what was once a home return to bring the family back together again.

A past drawing near story stretching from 1966 and 2008, “The Abandoned” is a haunted house, supernatural, and circular tale that bears down a forlorn ancestry nightmare onto ensnared curious lineage wanderers, bringing them back into a vicious cycle of a family history that should have been left alone.  “Aftermath” and “Genesis” short film director Nacho Cerdá tries his hand at less necrophilia and gore for more daring, open-to-interpretation horror with the Karim Hussain (“Subconscious Cruelty”) original script with some rewrites and sprucing done by “Dust Devil” and “Hardware’s” Richard Stanley.  Filmed in Bulgaria to double as the scenic landscapes and to use the country’s looming, enveloping trees as another margining aspect of being trapped, “The Abandoned,” initially title as “The Bleeding Compass” on Hussain’s original script, is produced by Julio and Carlols Fernández, Kwesi Dickson, Stephen Margolis, and Alexander Metodiev under Castelao Producciones, Filmax International, and Filmstudio Bojana with Future Films’ Carola Ash and Albert Martinez Martin serving as associate producers.

“The Abandoned’s” modest budget regulates casting to, at that time, relative unknowns for the U.S. market but certainly not an experienced lot between English actress Anastasia Hille (“Snow White and the Huntsman,” “Martyrs Lane”) and Karel Roden (“Orphan,” “Hellboy’) playing reunited brother and sister Marie and Nicolai who have not been together since infancy.  Separated at the demise of their mother, Marie and Nicolai have undoubted hesitation to their relation, especially both are met by grisly versions of themselves in the old family homestead.  The double versions of themselves represent a dual life, one connected to their current path, and one connected to their past, and Hille and Roden play into that theme with fortitude and fear in how the past haunts their characters connected to a shadow world in a very “Silent Hill” way.   Hille brings complexity to Marie’s own troubled relation with her daughter, a character we don’t necessarily see physically on screen, but we understand through phone conversations and brief interactions with Uncle Nicolai that the foundation the mother-daughter relationship stands on is shaky and that pushes Marie to pursue the truth about her own mother to avoid that disconnection with her daughter.  For Nicolai, Roden instills a more tragically inclined façade without overcompensating with tremendous evidence in the loss of a woman he loved, aside from their matching tattoos, and his melancholic state is staid by the newfound opportunity to discover his past until unless it also becomes his downfall.  Again, we’re back to the past should stay dead, or in the past.  Hille and Roden underpin “The Abandoned” and its ghostly enigma with brief interjections of supporting ancillaries in Valentin Ganev, Carlos Reig-Plaza, Paraskeva Djukelova, and Marta Yaneva. 

“The Abandoned” is one of those circular narrative stories working toward a revelational end, one that likely won’t be pleasant.  An endless loop of trying to leave Marie and Nicolai’s childhood home only for them to be brought right back into the same room from which they started lend into a couple of preconceived notions of their ringlet wretchedness, both in circumstance and in life, and that being either they’re already dead and in a purgatory or their grieved existence has warped them into a psychological break when returning to a decaying land left in the memories of the heinous death of their mother.  Both theories incorporate a supernatural element where time reverses and, coinciding with the twins’ upcoming birthday, a clock ticks down that will bring the family whole again, this time in the afterlife if the unnatural powers to be have anything to say about it.  That’s the definitive beauty of “The Abandoned’s” open air forbidding allegories with the more than one interpretational rivulets spreading in different directions, shaped idiosyncratically by Marie or Nicolai’s life.  What helps the impervious fate outcome of the principals is that “The Abandoned” also has strong, poignant visuals as a foothold into keeping audiences intrigued on what could be a slippery slope of symbolism.  A mix of practical and composite effects, done amazingly through the editing process, sell duality on every layer as if we’re experiencing two worlds during a collision and waiting with anticipation for one to engulf the other. 

Unearthed Films brings “The Abandoned” home on a limited-edition Blu-ray home video. The AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition, BD50 capacity houses plenty of breathing room for the claustrophobia details to writhe within. Middle-to-higher contrast levels that throw out good shadows without being extremely inky, there’s spectrum discoloration from blotchy-banding, suggesting a good encoded transfer that deciphers more details rather than squeezing everything in under a lossy codec. Range of the darker graded feature does favor a generous bluish green for the interiors while natural light swarms and illuminates into the exteriors, brighten up Anatasia Hille’s already blonde enough hair to almost pure yellow. Fine details pervade over much of the duration, only relinquishing details for dark, cavernous moments to scare up apprehension levels. The English DTS-HD 5.1 and the PCM 2.0 give viewers lossless fidelity and flexibility with audio setups. I preferred the stereo with robust dual channel dialogue; however, the 5.1 showed signs of directional awareness – rustling of leaves, ghostly voices, etc. – through the back and side channels. Dialogue is prominent and clear on both audio options and free of intrusion and interference. English and Spanish subtitles are optionally available. Special features include an abundant of new material exclusively produced by and curated from Unearthed Films, including new, individual interviews with director Nacho Cerdá, screenwriter Karim Hussain, and screenwriter Richard Stanley; there are also new furnished for this release alternate endings that more so involve Marie’s daughter, deleted and extended scenes cut for timing and flow, and outtakes. Archived bonus content has a Making of featurette, location vision in “The Abandoned’s” den, a featurette of Nacho Cerdá: The Trail of Death that looks at the director’s earlier horror inspirations of his trilogy of death shorts, The Little Secrets of Nacho Cerdá goes further into the director’s insights for his varied take on “The Abandoned” story, Nacho Cerdá has a conversational horror discussion with friend Douglas Buck, director of 2006’s “Sisters,” promotional and storyboards gallery, trailers, and a BD-ROM storyboard collection. The limited-edition release has a lissome cardboard slipcover with original poster art of the blood-crying doll from “The Abandoned” on the front. Inside, a standard Blu-ray Amary case has the same cover art image that’s also pressed on the disc. There are no inserts included. The rated-R release has region A playback only and a runtime of 99 minutes.

Last Rites: A step back from the gore and revulsion, Nacho Cerdá is able to scare stiff with “The Abandoned,” a dead and buried family abstrusity squaring the score for lost time by reversing time to welcome back those left living, and Unearthed Films’ limited-edition release is the best version to date that deserves a warm homecoming for its icy, taciturn atmosphere.

Don’t Be Left Behind. Get Your LE Blu-ray Copy of “The Abandoned” from Unearthed Films

Blind, EVIL, Undead Templar Knights Hunt for a Bite to Eat! “Tombs of the Blind Dead” reviewed! (Synapse / Special Edition 2-DiscBlu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Tombs of the Blind Dead” 2-Disc Blu-ray Available for Purchase Here!

Maria, Betty and Roger take a train across the Spanish countryside to see the landscape sights.  When Maria feels like a third wheel stuck in between Betty and Roger’s flirtations, she jumps off the moving train, leaving her friends aboard, and camping out under the ruins of an old countryside Church.  There’s only one problem, the Church was home to the ancient order of the Knights of Templar who took a blood oath for Satan by sacrificing young virgins by drinking their blood and lynched by the Church for their crimes against man and God.  The Cursed Knights, reduced to rags, bones, and without eyes, rise from underneath their graves every night and roam the countryside on the hunt for anybody in proximity they can feast upon.  Betty and Roger learn of Maria’s strange demise without knowing the details and form a four-person search party only to step into the same dangerous den of the Knights of Templar. 

“Tombs of the Blind Dead,” or as known as the U.S. as just “The Blind Dead,” is the first in a series of four undead Templar Knights films that would come to be known as The Blind Dead collection by Spanish filmmaker Amando de Ossorio.  Natively titled “La noche del terror ciego” was released in 1971 and penned by Ossorio who laid a new path of Spanish horror that didn’t involve Paul Naschy or Jess Franco with undoubtedly slow dread of the undead that resembled more of the Italian-bred beyond the grave films where ghouls and ghosts return to life and wreak bloody havoc on the living, a guise for social context and for political dictatorship.  Themes of rebellions, rape, and bisexuality course through the feature’s necrotic veins as the film receives Spanish and Portugal co-production support from Plata Films and Interfilme with executive producer Salvadore Romero (“The Werewolf Versus the Vampire Woman”) spearheading pre-production and behind the scenes.   

Following of a newly formed trio of friends traveling the countryside to take in the sights, an underlying green-eyed trouble brews right from the moment when an enchanted Roger, the debut film and character of 1973’s “Green Inferno’s” César Burner, meets gorgeous red head Betty, “It Happened at Nightmare Inn’s” Lone Fleming,” and Roger’s travel companion and Betty’s Catholic boarding school roommate/best friend, Virginia, “The House that Screamed’s Maria Elena Arpón, feels the twinges of jealousy as her amorous covets for Roger never materializes and she sees her future with relationship with roger forever in the friend zone.  Virginia becomes so intolerant of Roger and Betty’s innocent flirtations that she’s willing to hop off a not-so-speeding train and camp inside the creepy, ruined structures at centerstage of a burial ground.  Arpón’s passive aggressive behavior is quite convincing, even the part where she tucks and rolls off a moving train in what stupid things do when people are frustrated, especially in the gray territory of love.  The love triangle is so simplistically arranged, each behavioral component goes without being farfetched.  From Virginia’s first sexual experience at the caressive, soft hands of her roommate/best friend Betty while at boarding school to Roger and Betty’s blameless attraction to one another that spurs Virginia’s irrational, self-serving behavior, Ossorio’s characters are written very well when homogeneously compared to other outside of cinema love triangles.  José Thelman (“Night of the Sorcerers”) indulges as the smuggler swine Pedro who’s roped into the reconning of the Templar tomb to clear his name with authorities by proving someone else had murdered Roger and Betty’s friend.  Joined by his floosy sidepiece María, played by another María in the iconic Spanish B-horror actress.  María Silva (“The Awful Dr. Orlof”), Pedro brutishly flaunts arrogance and confidence, taking what he wants, especially with the women uncharmed by the male sex, and that’s curious, fluid attribute when he attacks Betty but in the wake of the moment, the two of them are silently surfeited as they share the scene and that’s severely different from what anyone other filmmaker was doing at that time.  Andrés Isbert (“The Kovak Box”), Antonio Orengo (“Love Letters of a Nun”), Francisco Sanz (“Django Kill… If You Live, Shoot!”), Rufino Inglés, and Verónica Llimerá (“Hatchet for the Honeymoon”) round out the cast.

Performances give “Tombs of the Blind Dead” credibility in anxiety-riddled survival and turbulent human interactions but where those performances start to give way coincides with Ossorio’s building of dread.  No doubt the use of slow-motion sets the ghoulish, harrowing tone of the depraved, unabating, skeletally-cursed Templar Knights giving chase on horseback as they track down their flailing fresh meat, but in the process of that spinetingling, in between the Knights self-unearthing and the eventual snare and snack of their human victims, Ossorio doesn’t quite know how to flesh out formidable trepidation.  Pursued, screaming characters stand in the face of danger as if their feet are hardened in cement, stopping at every brief moment when out of sight of the hooded decaying bones and rags with dusty swords, and absentmindedly run right into the exposed radius and ulnas of the slow-moving and blind medieval damned maniacs in sequences that run out too long to be wholly gratifying.  Ossorio better pedestals the ingrained Spanish themes of never escaping your gruesome, haunting past, as seen with the circular narrative of always return back to the Knight’s ruins, and the sexual taboos of bisexuality and rape that lead to destruction.  These course through a more classically presented gothic horror. Perhaps explaining the fervent melodramatics of flamboyant fear, under the dictatorship regime of Francisco Franco and his cult-like ritualization in fascism oversight of Spain.

The sightless, flesh-feasting Templar Knights have found a new home in the Synapse Films’ tomb of terror with a new restoration transfer on a 2-Disc Blu-ray. Refurbished from the uncut original camera negative, the AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition, BD50 capacity suppresses any compression issues to display polychromatic decadence in front of a backdrop of steely graded blues. Plenty of a darker scenes to be affected by artefact corruption but the blacks are greatly dyed-in-the-wood saturated and not delineated or in spectrum of lesser decoding. Scenes never approach being flat, in color tone and in field depth, as beads of glistening sweat can be visually elaborated on and the distinction between color, shadow, and scale discern wonderfully. Two audio option tracks are available: a lossless Spanish PCM 2.0 mono track and a lossless hybrid of Spanish-English (Spanglish?) PCM 2.0 mono track. Both tracks are of a post-production dub with the Spanish option having greater synchrony with the articulating native Spanish actors of this Spanish coproduction. Audibly clean with little-to-no hissing, popping, or crackling, Synapse’s singular restoration is in good company with a high impact, high clarity, and low distortion dialogue track that meets eye-to-eye with the visual components as well as the film’s ambience cluster and Antón García Abril’s breathy and discordant, Gothically canticle score. Option subtitles are available in English on both tracks. Special features on the first disc contains individual audio commentaries by horror film historian Troy Howarth, Betty actress Lone Fleming, and the NaschyCast podcasters Troy Guinn and Rod Barnett. A feature-length documentary Marauders from the Mediterranean go from head-to-toe on not just detail Ossorio’s “Tombs of the Blind Dead” as the Spanish stamp in the juggernauting zombie genre of the times but also going in depth with the Spanish laid in horror from the 1960s to 1980s, featuring interviews with Lone Fleming, John Russo (“Night of the Living Dead”), director Jorge Grau (“The Living Dead at Manchester Morgue”), Sitges Film Festival director Mike Hostench, critics Kim Newman and John Martin, film academics Steve Jones and Calum Waddell, actors Helge Line, Manuel de Blas, Antonio Mayans, and Jack Taylor, and even Paul Naschy’s son, Sergio Molina. An alternate U.S. opening sequence Revenge of Planet Ape gives expositional insight on how the success of “The Plant of the Apes” films influenced the American distribution market to rebrand “Tombs of the Blind Dead” as an ape rebellion piece to ride the coattails of the series’ success on a lower, foreign budget. Rounding out the special features is a featurette Awakening of Spanish Horror Cinema, Salem Pop’s “Templar Tears” music video, the original theatrical trailer, and a still gallery. While Synapse has 3-Disc limited-edition set of only 4000 copies made with all the bells-and-whistles of the visual elements of new artwork, a slipcover, and a 3rd disc audio CD, the 2-Disc standard edition comes with all the same special features and all three versions of the film inside the black Amaray Blu-ray case and classic “Tombs of the Blind Dead” poster for cover art. Inside, you’ll get Synapse’s physical media catalogue and a disc on each side of the Amaray’s interior with disc 1 “Tombs of the Blind Dead” and disc 2 “The Blind Dead,” housing the shortened 83-minute U.S. re-edit on a BD25, that sport their own pressed artworks. The uncut disc 1 has a runtime of 101-minutes and has region free playback.

Last Rites: “Tombs of the Blind Dead” is Spain’s answer to “Night of the Living Dead” with discerning individualities ingrained by director Amando de Ossorio to include his country’s own social and political subtext and while Blue Underground’s The Blind Dead DVD collection is an impressive physical media crown jewel of upscaled 720p, the Blu-ray gods favor Synapse with an impressive hi-def A/V release with stellar bonus features.

“Tombs of the Blind Dead” 2-Disc Blu-ray Available for Purchase Here!

He’s a Beast. He’s Ferocious. He’s EVIL! “Mad Dog Killer” reviewed! (Cheezy Movies / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Mad Dog Killer” Unleashed onto DVD!

A daring hostage-taking breakout of an Italian prison puts four of the most ruthless killers back on the streets.  Sadistic and full of revenge, Nanni Vitali, the leader of the gang, has one thing of his mind before he begins a reign of outlawing terror, to find and exact due mortal punishment on a stool pigeon that cemented his incarcerated fate during the trial.  Hot on his trail is officer Giulio Santini who will stop at nothing to bring Vitali back into custody or even put a bullet between his eyes, that is until a young woman, Giuliana Caroli, girlfriend of the police informant, becomes caught unwillingly in Vitali’s web of sexual obsession and deviant plans as she’s raped and exploited for Vitali’s personal pleasure and robbery schemes.  When the frightened Caroli betrays Vitali’s trust, she becomes a kill target while Santini’s family also falls into the miscreant’s violence coursing crosshairs. 

“Mad Dog Killer,” aka “Beast with a Gun,” aka “Ferocious Beast with a Gun,” aka “La Belva col mitra,” is an Italian action-crime thriller from the late “The Sinful Nuns of Saint Valentine” and “Violence for Kicks” director Sergio Grieco in what would be his last directorial before his death five years later.  The Rome-born filmmaker also writes the 1977 exploitative and violent caper with additional dialogue from fellow Roman screenwriter, and furthermore director, Enzo Milioni who has had a hand in “The Sister of Ursula” and “Escape of Death.”  A part of the larger, multi-faceted Euro Crime subgenre, or better known as Poliziotteschi, “Mad Dog Killer” hits all the trademark elements, squeezing in a packed lot of similar content as well as stretching out for breathing room by elbowing out the era popular Italian subgenre of the phasing-out Spaghetti Western and bracing for impact against the up-and-coming Giallo films which starts get a footing with Dario Argento and Lucio Fulci paving the way.  The Supercine production is produced by Armando Bertuccioli (“The Sister of Ursula”).

In the crazed-eyed, take-no-prisoners, sandy-blonde shoes of a handsome yet hardnosed criminal in Nanni Vitali is the Austrian born Helmut Berger.  The “Salon Kitty” and “The Bloodstained Butterfly” star is another international actor who found modest success in the Italian film industry of the 1960s-1970s as well as the German movie industry afterwards, but as Nanni Vitali, the rugged actor with piercing eyes doesn’t hold back in a defining performance that’s nowhere near a one-time paltry pass over.  Vitali is so animated and over-the-top, the hot-headed character completely overshadows Inspector Giulio Santini as a counterpart, played by American actor Richard Harrison of “Orgasmo Nero” and portraying many Ninja Master Gordon films in Hong Kong in the late 80s.  No Ninja kicks or ostentatious smoke screens with officer Santini in a rather matter of fact, routine chaser of escape convicts.  The personal connection he has with Nanni, where Santini’s Judge father (Claudio Gora, “The Nun and the Devil”) was Nanni’s convicting judge, is greatly underused to extrude the ferocity needed to match Nanni’s, as so he is described in one of the many titles – a ferocious beast.  This beastly criminal takes captive and tries to psychologically manipulate through sex and threat the wrong place, wrong time victim Giuliana Caroli by the chiseled facial features of Marisa Mell (“Violent Blood Bath”), a fellow Austrian actress.  Caroli’s tall and beautiful on screen but lacks that damsel in distress in initially helpless apprehension of a woman who must restructure her bearings to take matters into her own hands.  Mell’s acting is forced throughout her span, and without that frightened bird despondency in her eyes, she looks as if she could handle Nanni Vitali by herself with ease in stature, broad shoulders, and a fierce look, diminishing Richard Harrison’s Santini role almost out of the picture entirely.  “Mad Dog Killer” rounds out the cast with Marina Giordana, Luigi Bonos, Ezio Marano, Albert Squillante, Nello Pazzafini, Antonia Basile, Sergio Smacchi, and Vittorio Duse.

“Mad Dog Killer” lives up to the designation that attentively develops the lengths the titular principal will go to achieve a wrongful debt that must be paid in full with excessive violence to spare.  Sergio Grieco lays Nanni’s nihilistic sleaze and transgressions on thick, coating the character with monolithic and enduring characteristics of a sordid and lawless bandido with Spaghetti Western type intensity, especially inside a compositional scene where he slowly walks back to the car toward a frightened Giuliana Caroli, eyes affixed onto her soul, and the all-pervading, debut score by Umberto Smaila just swallows you into the moment.  Like a true mad dog, the story never lets up on an unpredictable temperament and trajectory; it foams at the mouth with rabid blackguard that is true Euro Crime fashion, but unlike most Euro Crimes, “Mad Dog Killer” ends on an unconventional note, perhaps an unsatisfactory to some, but definitely askew yet fresh compared to the genre’s dominantly preordained doppelgangers. 

A film that goes by many names usually suggests numerous releases from around the world.  “Mad Dog Killer” receives a cheapie DVD release from our friends at Cheezy Movies with a MPEG-2 encoded, standard definition 480i, DVD5.  Not an upscaled presentation, the transfer used retains the lower quality pixel count that bleeds the definition, often better in brighter contrast scenes than in the darker settings. The forced English dub LPCM mono track, though you can clearly lip read that most principals actors are speaking English, has auditory value; the lossless quality removes compression from the table, offering a clean and robust dialogue and Smaila score through just a thin, faint even, layer of interferential static, and pops. The English dub track is the only audio option available with no optional English, or any other language, subtitles. Cheezy Movies primary goal favors a feature only release so there are no special features encoded or tangible supplementary content. Cheezy Movies pulls the stark front cover image, laced intently with suspense, sex, and violence, from one of the marketing one sheets, used by other labels such as foreign companies like 88 Films and Polar. The disc is pressed with the same image. Not rated and region free, “Mad Dog Killer” has a runtime of 91 minutes.

Last Rites: An enjoyable sadist manhunt romp, “Mad Dog Killer” does criminals gone wild Italian style. Without a higher resolution release, quality of life with this Euro Crime actioner is not at peak levels but the film, by itself, lays waste to many counterparts with a fiercer hand and a charismatic leading villain in Helmut Berger that tips the scale in the film’s favor.

“Mad Dog Killer” Unleashed onto DVD!