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Beckerland Fosters Deranged EVIL Upon POWs! “Opposing Force” reviewed! (Scorpion Releasing / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Opposing Foce” now in Control of Blu-ray Home Video!  

Air Force Lieutenant Casey has initiative, determination, and something to prove being the first woman to be approved for a special and notorious evasion and escape course on a remote U.S. base Philippine island.  The course simulates downed Air Force pilots behind enemy lines where they either have to evade capture or escape as POWs without divulging U.S. secrets.  The simulating is meant to break down the individual physically and mentally through psychological and physical torture that nearly blurs the regulation guidelines of the United States military, but has been proven to be an effective training to withstand the most brutal of POW conditions despite the course’s infamous reputation.  Casey joins the ranks of participants, a young group of eager male officers and one experienced Major Logan looking to requalifying for action, and are dropped into the simulated enemy combat zone controlled by General Becker, a calculating commanding officer who has succumb to his opposing force role.  Becker’s unconventional and illegal tactics exploit Casey’s gender in the name of training her, but his knowingly criminal activity puts the rest of the trainees in danger and it’s up to the Logan and Casey to stop him and his opposing force in an all hell breaks loose war.

POW exploitation has been missing in modern day cinema.  A subgenre that is a dark, degrading note of unscrupulous and vengeful action has been exclusive to the 1980s for far too long, barely being reprised throughout the proceeding decades.  Not to be restricted to the popularization films of Chuck Norris of the “Missing in Action” franchise or of Sylvester Stallone’s Rambo II and III, these camp from Hell films run the money and production gamut, pulling inspiration on conflict wars before the decade, such as Korea, Cambodia, and even as far as World War II.  For mainstream, the jungle entices with harrowing heroism that glorifies determined, strong-arming patriotism while showcasing America’s enemies as Geneva Convention ignoring villains who deserve every ounce of blow’em up, shoot’em up at the hands of escaped captees or an elite team, or a one-man, rescue mission.  Nazis saw more action in the low-budget Eurotrash market with sexploitative women-in-prison camps ran by the sleazy, inhumane, and experimenting Gestapo mostly.  American filmmaker Eric Karson, director of Jean-Claude Van Damme actioners “Black Eagle” and Lionheart,” moves away from the Muscles from Brussels and into Tom Skerritt’s mustache behind bamboo bars in the 1986, American-versus-America military-thriller “Opposing Force.”  Penned by Linda J. Cowgill, under the pen name of Gil Cowan in what’s likely a name change spurred by sexism in the industry, originally titled the script as “Hell Camp” but took the name “Opposing Force” based off the antagonistic enemy labeled as OPFOR right on their chest.  “Opposing Force” is coproduced by “Skinner” and “Final Mission” producer Tamar E. Glaser and “Sometimes They Come Back… for More” producer Daniel Zelik Bert under the theatrical distributors of Orion Pictures. 

We already know Tom Skerritt’s world-renowned mustache is in the movie and is the star of the show, but Tom Skerritt is in there as well as the man behind the stache as the seasoned boot Major Logan.  The “Alien” and “Contact” actor become the patriarchal figure to a bunch of figurative sons in younger course participants and overprotective of one figurative daughter in Lt. Casey in a wildly uncharacteristic situation brazenly exploited in unconventional mainstream means in the uncomfortable skin of Lisa Eichhorn (“Deus”).  What Lt. Casey goes through is more on familiar ground with the low-budget sleaze of women-in-prison grindhouse and while it’s certainly jarring and unexpected, It’s a welcoming chance for an upper tiered independent film with big names attached.  A couple of the other big names attached are Anthony Zerbe (“The Omega Man”) and Richard Roundtree (“Shaft”) as Commander Becker and his staff sergeant Stafford.  Becker and Logan mirror each other as veterans that have graded into either being corrupted by power or to be righteous in doing what’s right.  Yet, but Zerbe and Skerritt play into what the experienced actors know best, their trademark stoicism.  Tack on Eichhorn’s equally endurable fortitude and a three way standoff erects a monumental solemn stalemate of relatively the same attitudes until the last straw breaks the proverbial camel’s back and war erupts.  Roundtree at least develops Stafford’s internal conflict when the job bites at his conscious, becoming the connection needing convincing of Becker’s crossing over to the darker side of power like a Sithlord in public face disguise.  The narrative physicality aspects piece together a grueling atmosphere that each actor undertakes appropriately by their determined military rank, but as eloquently as Lt. Casey puts it to the aging Major Logan, “You got a limp and I got tits; these aren’t great things ot have in the military,” sets up themselves as misfits-to-heroes that were being crapped on all their careers for their antithetical military image.  “Opposing Force” rounds out the cast with a bunch of moaning male air force participants in the middle of it all with performances from Paul Joynt (“Echos”), Robert Wightman (“Impulse”), George Cheung (“Rambo:  First Blood Part II”), and John Considine (“Circle of Power”).

Influenced by the U.S. Military’s real life training program known as S.E.R.E. (Survival, Evasion, Resistance, and Escape.), Cowgill uses the program to formulate “Opposing Force’s” principle groundwork in setting up the jungle POW scenario on a remote island that goes through the motions of no chance of a rescue and aid of any kind.  Participants are throw into a survivalist gauntlet that turns surprisingly rough aggressive when physical and mental tortures are instilled upon those thinking the training would be a walk in the park.  This particular training simulation is unique to the OPFOR team with an aging officer looking to requalify for combat and the first woman to ever be accepted into the course due to a loophole, throwing new challenges to an embedded far too long commander who can easily break a man’s spirit but tiptoes around the possibilities of what to do with a woman until his insidious power and authority blurs right from wrong and takes the torturous tactics and enhanced interrogation techniques too far, beyond the limits of what’s necessary and beyond the limits of human decency all in the name of reinforce training.  The grueling torture and bush action is palpable enough to contrast the naked, sweaty, and battered bodies with the M1A1 bursts and munition explosions galore.  Only one aspect adds an out of place measure in the narrative and that is of the rest of the POW contingent and their seemingly wishy-washy decision on whether to escape, stay put, or join in the fight against Becker and his live-round shooting island battalion; the group disperses into the jungle only to fade from the climatic third act Major Logan, Lt. Casey, and Botts defending their lives against a treacherous throng and their wicked commanding warden.  Their disappearance doesn’t allow for closure for the acts against them during the entire ordeal and becomes a fizzling distraction.  Another distraction is the severely cut ending that freeze frames on Eichhorn’s final act with her voiceover exposition post-battle in what feels sorely rushed to complete.  The Blu-ray bonus features has an extended ending that’s more completist approach in wrapping up the story sutibly.  For a POW film, “Opposing Force” is an archetype of its originating decade that sates the subgenre’s need to pit an overreaching and ruthless camp head against the resiliency and determinate of the America fighting spirit. 

A re-release from the 2019 Scorpion Releasing Blu-ray comes “Opposing Force” reprising a presence on online retail shelves.  The AVC encoded, high-definition, BD25 is presented in 1080p resolution with a widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio.  Identical to the earlier Blu-ray 4 years prior, the image quality is freshened up quite a bit from the likely 35 mm print source into a detail-laden HD transfer that offers a lush jungle-scape to be in juxtaposition against the camp from within its center, a large guerilla compound bathed in browns and greens make for good POW-themed pageantry.  Skin tones and individual features flesh out nicely, adding detailed levels of salubrious status over the course of the day-to-day detainment. The English language DTS-HD master audio 2.0 leans toward a softer dialogue mix that, for the majority, is discernible despite favoring “Opposing Force’s” selling points: large explosions, pepper potshots, and militant vehicles running rampant around and above the island terrain. Dialogue’s clear enough to emerge without much hinderance with enough depth to provide a sense of position and the audio layer is remarkably clean with no hissing, popping, or static. English subtitles are an available option. Special features include an audio commentary with director Eric Karson, the trailer, and that extended ending I mentioned, and noted preferred, earlier in the review. The traditional Blu-ray snapper casing includes a rendition of the alternate titled “Hell Camp” poster with a more titillating illustrative lookalike of Lt. Casey in shredded rags and ride-up shorts with hands tied above her head and looking over her shoulder. The warm yellow with a hint of white stirs in an element of jungle heat ramped up by also providing the cage accommodations in the background to let it be known you’re about to watch an exploitation POW film. Locked on a region A playback, “Opposing Force” has a runtime of 98 minutes and is rated R. Eric Karson manages to find a place amongst a serrating subgenre that takes an ostentatious, yet not entirely fictious look, at prisoners of war with his “Opposing Force” actioner that goes to convey that not every unethical and malintent camp leader is a foreigner; evil can also be domestically grown.

“Opposing Foce” now in Control of Blu-ray Home Video!  

Heart and Body Reunited Forges Immortal EVIL! “Witchtrap” reviewed! (MVD Visual / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Get Caught in the “Witchtrap” on Blu-ray!

A motley crew of parapsychologists and private security are hired to investigate the haunted house of powerful warlock and accused serial killer Avery Lauter.  Before the graveyard side home can be turned into a themed Bed & Breakfast by Lauter’s inheriting next of kin, the team is brought in to eradicate the infamous house of any kind of malevolent spirits after the mysterious and gruesome death of a magician who agreed to stay at the house as a test run of the level of malignance.  When the investigators make contact with a confident and evil Lauter, the warlock tricks them by using the team’s physical medium to murder a far-too-inquisitive investigator one-by-one in order to finish a satanic ritual he started before his death that will make him immortal.  It’s up to non-believer, and wise-cracking, private detective Tony Vincente to make sense of the murders and put an end of Lauter’s reign of terror from beyond the grave before it’s too late.

A necromantically-charged slaughterhouse of a film, “Witchtrap” is the 1989 phantasmal thriller of the omnipresent, omni-powerful dead versus a group of clueless living always one-step behind in attempting to make sense of everything.  Also known as “The Haunted” or “The Presence,” the Kevin S. Tenney written-and-directed film succeeds the director’s cult classic “Night of the Demons” and Tenney’s debut film “Witchboard,” which is not a sequel to “Witchtrap” despite a similar title and the hiring of some of the same actors.  Shot in Fairfield, California on a 400K budget, the independence production showcases topnotch gore and pyro effects from makeup artist Judy Yonemoto (“Dance or Die,” “The Newlydeads”) and special effects supervisor Tassilo Baur (“House,” “DeepStar Six”) and is produced by Tenney alongside Daniel Duncan under Mentone Pictures; Duncan also produced Tenney’s “Brain Dead” later in the filmmaker’s career.  Cinema Plus, represented by executive producer Ryan Carroll, serves as the presenting company.

Tenney has been noted saying “Witchtrap” was a gift for the actors who have stuck with him over the years, playing pivotal parts in his student films that pole-vaulted his career into being a cult horror director.  “Witchtrap’s” leading man, James W. Quinn, has worked with Tenny since grade school and was cast in a principal role in “Witchboard” as well as in a minor role in “Night of the Demons.”  Quinn’s Tony Vincente is by far the best dialogue deliverer of the principal ensemble with a smartass ex-cop script that highlights Quinn to be the good guy but while being a complete jerk.  The rest of the cast is painfully flat, with little-to-no inflections, and a severe lack of dynamism or gesticulation that, despite how interesting their character backgrounds are, are just too dull with monotone script-reading.  “Night Visitor’s” Kathleen Bailey is likely the second best to liven up her character of Whitney O’Shea, the religious and reluctant physical medium with shark thrashing spams every time Avery Lauter channels her for to violently wipe out a parapsychologist team member, spearheaded by an eager ghost trapper Dr. Agnes Goldberg (Judy Tatum, “Witchboard”) and her mental medium husband Felix (Rob Zapple), and the accompanying private security forces that also include Vincente’s partner Levi Jackson (Clyde Talley II) and boss man Murphy (Jack W. Thompson).  Dangerous ambitions and irrational greed stir the pot between each of these groupings that side with personal stake over the safety of their existence that make for better character building underneath the rickety performance framing.  And, of course, we can’t neglect mentioning Linnea Quigley bringing up the rear with her rear as the bleached blonde, cropped seater topped A/V technician that can capture ghosts with her ectoplasm detecting gear.  Quigley, and also Judy Tatum, provide a bit of T&A, especially Quigley with an eye-popping full frontal in the prime of her career.  The remaining cast includes Hal Havins (“Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama”) as the creepy groundskeeper and J.P. Luebsen (“Witchboard”) as the cap-wearing and wild-eyed bearded warlock Avery Lauter. 

Oddly enough, what makes “Witchrap” entertainingly great, is Tenney’s attractive and amusing dialogue.  Between the quips, banters, diatribes, and the depth conversations, Tenney formulates a dialogue that can match or even surpass the outstanding special effects that course through the narrative.  Without Vincente’s brutal mockery of the entire paranormal research and investigation scheme as well as an unmercifully, nonstop degrading position toward his contentious boss, left with only the tedious prosaic to hear, “Witchtrap” would be one of those great-gore, dull-dialogue features that force your hand to fast-forward to the good parts in order to not pass out asleep from the in between drag.  Instead, “Witchtrap” is 80’s cult-horror treasure, comfortably embedded somewhere between the cinematic Earth’s lithosphere and asthenosphere layers just waiting for someone to unearth and dust off its sheening crimson colored cabochon.  Definitely not elevated horror that makes one think about the auteur intended message, the feature remains true to Tenney’s previous like-mad credits with an outlandish and mortally fair game theurgy that’s surface-level eye candy and audibly dulcet, despite the audio recording snafu that sent the entire dialogue track to the post-production recording studio.  Though producers and marketing attempted to cash-in on “Witchboard’s” moderate success with a similar, familiar title, “The Haunted” and “The Presence” are no more than generic designation fodder that lacked tremendous flavor; “Witchtrap’s” a kitschy and blunt title that works and literally estimates what audiences should and will expect although Avery Lauter is a Warlock and not necessarily a witch per se. 

A part of the Eric Wilkinson’s throwback video club and Rewind Collection series from MVD Visual, “Witchtrap” arrives a fully restored, high-definition Blu-ray, presented on an AVE encoded, 1080p, BD50 and in a widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio.  This transfer essentially mirrors the Vinegar Syndrome release a few years back that had reinstated many of the MPAA cuts the general public hasn’t laid eyes for nearly 30 years until 2016.  Picture quality retains a fresh, renewed look without compromising the natural characteristics, such as grain, of the 35 mm celluloid.  There are sporadic scenes that slip due to generational loss but, for the most part, a solid 2K scan restoration of the interpositive. The English LPCM 2.0 mono track is post-production concomitant due to an inexperienced sound mixer that resulted overbearing hum throughout the dialogue. ADR was introduced in post subsequently diminishing depth and creating an artificial sounding mix with a silver lining being a near perfect match for actor emotionality, inflections, and synchronization. Optional English subtitles are available. Bonus material includes a commentary track with director Kevin Tenney, producer Dan Duncan, Cinematographer Tom Jewett, and actor Hal Havins. Also included are interviews with Kevin Tenney, Linnea Quigley, Tom Jewett, and Tassilo Baur who more-or-less say a lot of the same retrospective accounts regarding “Witchtrap’s” sound issues, pranks on Kevin Tenny, cheap film hints outside of L.A., and how constrained the budget was. This release also comes with the edited VHS version at 92-minutes, same as the Blu-ray, a photo gallery, and the original trailer. Physical features include a sweet throwback cardboard O-Slipcover of the original poster compressed inside a 1-inch, matte red border that’s back and front. The O-slip covers a clear Blu-ray case that holds a reversible Rewind Collection cover art that’s roughly the same as slipcover poster art with cropped out credits for a vivid red filled, white-lined title. On the other side of the cover is alternative European cover art of a puffy white cloud merged with a demonic face hovering over a white picket fenced house, reminiscent of the MGM “Return of the Living Dead” or the original Columbia “Fright Night” DVD covers. Inside the case is a folded mini-poster of the factory-wrapped front cover. MVD’s release is rated R and comes region free. “Witchtrap” epitomizes restless ghost syndrome with a head coup de grace motif and is a seance that conjures potent witty dialogue to hoist Kevin Tenney’s third feature up to another plane of existence.

Get Caught in the “Witchtrap” on Blu-ray!

EVIL is Ready to Administer Your Physikill! “Puppet Master: Doktor Death” reviewed! (Full Moon Features / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

The Doktor Will See You Now. See You in Hell!  Blu-ray Available on Amazon.com!

The sudden death of a World War II veteran leaves the employees and residents of Shady Oak retirement home to mourn his loss to their humble community.  April, new to the Shady Oak employee family and starting her very first day in the wake of resident’s death, is tasked to assist clean out the family-less resident’s leftover belongings.  Along with a couple of other orderlies, April discovers a trunk bound with a chain lock and breaking into it proves to be a creeper endeavor when the contents of the battered chest is a single doll, dressed in a blood-stained doctor’s gown with a hideously grinning skull upon it’s shoulders.  Soon after, the handful of residents and orderlies of Shady Oak are being hunted down and the maniac-looking doll with a scalpel is suspected to be cause of the grim reaper knocking early on the retirement home attendees’ doors.

One-by-one, and slowly and surely over the decades, Full Moon continues its campaign in broadening the “Puppet Master” universe.  For 34 years and an over three dozen films, including same universe and spinoffs, “Puppet Master” has been the porcelain, wood carved, and rubber-molded face of Charles Band’s Full Moon empire.  “Puppet Master’s” legacy continues to live on animating inanimate dolls into malevolent marionettes with their strings cut.  2020 saw the release of the company’s first character standalone with the more popular, if not the poster doll, Blade in “Blade:  The Iron Cross.”  Next, the span of a year between 2021 and 2022, Baby Oopsie from the “Demonic Toys” universe became the subject of a television series compiled until a three-part TV movie released by Full Moon on Blu-ray and DVD in the last six months.  Presently, Full Moon has ventured back to the “Puppet Master” universe with their release of “Doktor Death,” officially titled “Puppet Master:  Doktor Death,” that resurrects the miniature medical murderer last seen from “Retro Puppet Master” in 1999.  Helmed by the director of “The Dead Hate the Living!” and “The Hills Run Red,” Dave Parker chapters in a darker, gorier edge to the “Puppet Master” series that makes Dr. Kevorkian look like Florence Nightengale.  “Puppet Master:  Doktor Death” is a production of William Butler’s Candy Bar Productions, produced by Butler, who directed the “Baby Oopsie” television series/movies, Charles Band, representing Full Moon distributing powers, and alongside Josh Apple, Greg Lightner, and Mikey Stice.

The non-anthropomorphic cast is about as fresh faced as they come with young actors and actresses who likely weren’t even twinkle in their parents’ eyes yet when “Puppet Master” was released.  A new generation, integrated as victims and conspirators, are folded into this new line of a “Puppet Master” offshoot, beginning with Jenny Boswell in her sophomore feature film role as Shady Oaks’ new employee, April.  Having traversed from California to a small town in the middle of nowhere to work a retirement home, April mentions her strange choice of life-changing circumstances was due in part of searching for a lost relative.  This morsel of mystery puts an enigmatic taste swirling around in our mouths, but Boswell plays the statement casually enough to not throw up warning flags in a natural delivery of her character’s new girl innocence and candor with the rest of her Shady Oak counterparts, which include a perverse man-child Flynn (Zach Zebrowski), a pay for promiscuity Jennifer (Emily Sue Bengston, “Smiley Origins”), and all-around nice guy Ryan (Chad Patterson).  Intertwined by their occupational relation are the patients, clients, or residents, if you will, of Shady Oaks that are more of an interesting, eclectic bunch than the genre trope orderlies that become run of the mill victim fodder for Doktor Death.  Rick Montgomery Hr. (“Gore Orphanage”) plays the wealthy old perv with uncontrollable pinch fingers for the female bottom, John Capocci (“Praetorian”) is an unfiltered opinionate and avid golfer, Melissa Moore (“Sorority House Massacre II”) as a painter who whips up portraits embedded in her clairvoyant visions, and Tary Lyn Bergoine as a mute kleptomaniac living in fear off an oxygen tank.  See – much more interesting and with concrete performances to express who they are precisely as individuals.  “Puppet Master:  Doktor Death” fills the cast void with Erin Eva Butcher, Asthon Wolf, wrestler Jesse Guilmette, and Bill D. Russell.

Between “Demonic Toy’s” “Baby Oopsie” and “Puppet Master’s” “Doktor Death” spinoff projects, “Doktor Death” has a tighter story and more effective gore.  Granted, “Doktor Death” only has single under-an-hour film to its name but with completed and out in the world today, “Baby Oopsie” came off the rails as the series progressed with Oopsie’s look appearing different between the opening drive and the two latter parts, the story unhinges itself with the arbitrary introduction of a fembot, and doll kills that dwindled into dullness.  So, if you’re like me and was irked and turned off by “Baby Oopsie” when it was all said and done, you are likely hesitant to jump right into Full Moon’s next departure from the foremost franchise.  Don’t.  “Puppet Master: Doktor Death” may have the same aesthetic veneer but the guts of story are better compacted to keep audiences on track and the “Doktor Death’s” malevolent malpractice renders a far better disturbing slasher.  On the flip side of that coin, most of the deaths happen offscreen.  Out of “Doktor Death’s” personal 8-kill body count, only one is visually graphic within the scene.  I would say two but the character is later found not dead but just severely injured and we’re left unresolved with their life status.  The other deaths are done offscreen and are implied, denoting signs of demise with blood splatter against the wall or glass, a bloodied club repetitively bashing into a victim just out of the frame, or bodies are misappropriated post-mortem, posed in different discoveries of death, one in a very neat, very marionette, way.  The short runtime falls in sync with the nowadays Full Moon line of quick, cheap, and dirty modern movie, but what it also does is provide quick pacing into “Doktor Death’s” acrid atrocities against the elderly and their clueless caregivers and also opens up the potential for a sequel with a revelation, open ended finale that’ll surely see the return of psychotic puppet. 

Dave Parker brings his knowledge of blood-soaked carnage and maniacal macabre to a resurrected retro puppet for “Puppet Master:  Doktor Death!”  The Doktor is in and has arrived on Blu-ray home video from Full Moon Features with an AVC encoded BD25 presented in high-definition 1080p and a widescreen aspect ratio of 1.78:1.  From my last few previous views of Full Moon productions, there hasn’t been a whole lot of effort into creating an atmosphere but this latest entry levels out what’s been missing from contemporary Full Moon Features for some time, a dark and gloomy, evocatively tropey canvas that looks past the mundane sheen of digital recorded image and into another world of terror. In regard to storage format and compression, there was anything to note that stood out with artefact reproach. The Blu-ray comes with two audio options, an English Dolby Digital stereo 2.0 mix and an English Dolby Digital 5.1. Toggling between the two audio format, not a ton of variance between them, if any at all, that has to make you wonder about the credibility of the multi-channel mix. In any case, both formats offer a well-balanced diet of dialogue, ambience, and soundtrack with dialogue in front and prominent. Range is diverse with all the squishiness of Doktor Death’s puppeteering his golems inside an internal organ orchestra. The Full Moon release offers no subtitles for SDH. Bonus features only include a Full Moon Video Zone featurette of Retro Puppet Master with Charles Band, the original trailer, and other Full Moon trailers, including “Retro Puppet Master,” “Puppet Master 3,” “Don’t Let Her In,” “Piranha Women,” “Blade: The Iron Cross,” “Weedies: Halloweed Night,” and “The Resonator.” case physicality includes a traditional Blu-ray snapper with Doktor Death predominantly taking up the entire front cover with trademark maniacal grin, glowing eyes, and double fisting hypodermic instruments – a scalpel and syringe. The Disc art is pressed with the same front image. The film comes region free, uot rated, and has a runtime of 59 minutes, confirmed against IMDB.com’s listing of 75 minutes. So, either IMDB is incorrect, or the film is heavily edited down. “Puppet Master: Doktor Death” not only expands upon the legacy of the franchise but beefs up the ancillary side puppets that didn’t receive enough screen time and with a constructed filmic narrative worthy of Full Moon’s early canon of films, going back to the Doktor is a necessary follow up.

The Doktor Will See You Now. See You in Hell!  Blu-ray Available on Amazon.com!

Being Bored at Home Turns into an EVIL Enterprise! “Moonlighting Wives” reviewed! (Dark Force / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

They’re Housewives.  They’re bored.  They’re…”Moonlighting Wives.”  Now Available at Amazon.com!

Unsatisfied with her distressed husband’s meager wage as a third shift switchboard operator, Joan Rand strikes up a new Stenography business to bring in a little extra cash for the household.  When her new boss makes salacious advances toward her, she explores the opportunity of making more money than just on a stenographer’s wage.  Roping in her only contracted typist, Joan begins to bring in beautiful, bored housewives seeking to earn dough no matter how sexually scandalous and instead of perfecting their short hand skills or their ability to read back letters aloud without error, the determined entrepreneur revamps her stenographic business as a front for perfecting prostitution.  Infiltrating her way into every bar, hotel, and country club, even partnering with the country club’s golf pro, Joan’s call girl ring rides a profitable high and expands into new men-oriented territories but how long can the lucrative venture last when two vice cops are inching to bring down the elusive ring and one of her girls become scorned by the affectional eyes of love. 

Sexploitation has come a long way since 1966 when director Joe Sarno helmed the scene-efficient and bored housewife subversion “Moonlighting Wives.”  Before embarking full-fledged into the adult industry, Sarno blazed the trail for the economically friendly dicey skin flicks of the 1960s through the 1970s, retrospectively finding a cult base amongst observers and academics of subversive cinema and underground exploitation. “Bad Girls for Boys” producer Robert M. Moscow serves as associate producer on the Morgan Picture Corporation production, founded by George J. Morgan, producer of “The Thrill Killers” and “The Lemon Grove Kids Meet the Monster.”

Credited as Diane Vivienne, Tammy Latour (“The Naked Fog”) plays the business savvy Mrs. Joan Rand turning her dictation craft as a storefront for a more provocative and promiscuous profession to keep men happy and her pockets plush.   Latour’s a cool and calculating in her performance that makes Mrs. Rand a pragmatic kingpin of her quick-to-success prostitution ring but in doing so with her performance, that is much like everyone else’s in the film denoting a sign of the time period in which the story is constructed, Latour comes off extremely monotone like her large 60’s hairdo houses a little green man at the control of her cerebral center, calling out commands flatly, coldly, and without a slink of emotion behind her absent inflections or thousand yard stares.  Instead, much of the emotion, if any, is produced by her ashamed-driven to alcohol abusing husband and emotionally exploited bored housewife (Gretchen Rudolph, “The Dicktator”) brought to shambles after cheating on her husband and losing her paramour at the same time due to Rand’s scheming into the operational fold to rake in more rakes and cash.  We’re treated to Mr. Rand’s bottoming out as he’s no longer the bread winner and he’s suspicions overwhelm him to drink himself into a stupor.  The emotional pull that the Rand swindled housewife goes through is callously cut deep when her country club lover, Al Jordan (John Aristedes, “My Body Hungers”), becomes in cahoots with Mrs. Rand, taking her own as not only a business partner but a side-by-side lover, and coaxes his former mistress’s desire for him into doing naughty things with other men to keep him out of a deceived lie of debt.  A rollercoaster of fear, doubt, acceptance, and emotional evolution goes to full arc spectrum with the one cog in the machine that ends up breaking down the whole organization into a crumbling heap.  Aforesaid, the other performances don’t stray too far from Tammy Latour’s matter of fact and is more just a sign of the times in which “Moonlighting Wives” is produced, especially on a microbudget as early sexploitation couldn’t break into mainstream or even with welcoming arms in a more accepting niche public as a more right-wing, puritanical society was starting to be on the brink of uninhibited free love model.  “Moonlighting Wives” has a sexploitation friendly cast with June Roberts (“The Pink Pussy:  Where Sin Lives”), Marla Ellis (“Sin in the Suburbs”), Joe Santos (“Flesh and Lace”), and George Winship (“Teenage Gang Debs”).

How does a racy U.S. cinematic story beat the odds of staying out from the sleazy cinemas, like the sheltered exterior and tacky carpeted 42nd Street of the 1980s, and from being blackballed from the blue balled public looking for a little titillating release?  Innuendo in film became a thing of the past once the film boards ruled film nudity was no longer to be considered obscene a few years before 1960 and this opened up an opportunity for filmmakers to tap into the salacious half of the American population, experimenting with primal carnalities depictions that burrowed into the deepest of desires.  Since financing was scarce as the newly appointed sexploitation genre was too much of a risk for return, movies like “Moonlighting Wives” were made for next to nothing and director Joe Sarno quickly became quickly an expert in churning out licentious cinema commodities on a dime at the turn of the decade.  Having completed moderately successful films of this nature with “Warm Nights and Hot Pleasures” and “Pandora and the Magic Box,” Sarno built a rapport with actors and actresses who would return film-after-film.  John Aristedes, Joe Santos, June Roberts, and Tammy Latour, to name drop a few, regularly frequented Sarno’s casting call – and, hopefully, not his casting couch. Much like the rest of the lot, “Moonlighting Wives” serves as a lesson learned, a steep cost if you will, when morals mingle with perversity and blur the lines of right and wrong.  However, these types of films didn’t come tense action either, or rather much of any type of action because of it’s hand-to-mouth (or in related terms – any orifice to mouth) leanness in funds.  Sarno masters the exposition scene with what I like to label as high school sexual education discourse in where talking heads explain in detail every single action and do it in a tone that’s somewhere between mundane and deadpan.  Objectively, “Moonlighting Wives” is a cold-hard look at cause-and-effect with the loosening of standards jeopardizing what’s most dear to you after the deed is done. 

As a 2k restoration from the uncensored 35mm original negative, “Moonlighting Waves” has been paradoxically upgraded by adding back in original content that initially hit by censors with the lost nude scenes, a summation of 5 minutes’ worth of film, has be reclaimed for the Dark Force Entertainment Blu-ray release.  Yet, Dark Force’s release also competes with a Sarno double feature in “The Naked Fog” from Film Movement that was coincides with a similar market date.  Unfortunately, we’ve yet to land our hands on the Film Movement version to compare.  The Dark Force Blu-ray is AVC encoded with high definition 1080p resolution and presented in the letterboxed 1.33:1 aspect ratio. Back cover lists the ratio at 1.33:1 but also list an anamorphic widescreen and while I concur with the anamorphic lens, the presentation is firmly in a square box of 1.33:1.  Prefaced with a black title card warning regarding the additional image quality, more than just the additional footage has weathered under the test time to sometimes appearing more yellowish and with vertical scratch lines and speckled dust. For the most part, the overall image presentation makes the grade with an unimposing, yet steady color grading and most of the frames free from visual blights. If there were any digital enhancements done during the restoration, DNR appears to be the present culprit as facial features often appear too smooth for 35mm stock that should be developed with a fine layer of grain. The English 1.0 audio mix furnishes the appropriate single channel output for an exposition heavy feature. Distinct sound relativity is shot and the Stan Free score is lounge music 101 with rhythmic snare and hi-hat raps but the dialogue fairs rather strongly with forefront, clean, and clear conversing. Film historian Michael Bowen bookends a pair of included special features with an audio commentary track and an on-webcam interview discussing Sarno’s life coursing the newfound sexploitation genre pre his adult industry tenure. Also included is a deleted nude scene that involves no familiar actors from the trunk narrative in a seemingly out of place couple swap of the topless kind. I’m a little taken aback by the loss of some of the special features that were a part of the Alternative Cinema DVD release that are not present here on the Blu-ray, such as the Joe Sarno interview before his death. What’s neat about the physical features of the Dark Force release, aside from the clear Blu-ray snapper, is the retrograded, stark yellow and black, low-key cover art that builds up the hype with exclamational points about how obscene “Moonlighting Wives” is and not recommended it for the modestly shy and most prude moviegoers. The bold marketing attempt really perks up interesting in checking out the title that ultimately finishes with antiquated impressions, but the idea is neat, and the word heavy front cover is very representational of the exposition drenched dialogue in the narrative. Disc art is pressed with a wanted ad for young attractive women, which is also a nice touch. the region free release comes not rated and has a runtime of 86 minutes. Without a doubt scandalous in any decade, “Moonlighting Wives” encapsulates the seedlings of sexploitation with Joe Sarno at the helm of cultivating ripe, round melons out of barely any dirt and succeeding with a lust-heavy pursuit under a profession that now, ironically enough, only exists mainly in law-abiding courtrooms.

They’re Housewives.  They’re bored.  They’re…”Moonlighting Wives.”  Now Available at Amazon.com!

To Do EVIL, You Must Pay EVIL a Ton of Euro. “La Petit Mort 2: Nasty Tapes” reviewed! (Unearthed Films / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Step Back into La Maison de “La Petit Mort” for a Sequel that’s Hard to Stomach!  

La Maison de la Petit Mort’s doors remain open under new management, continuing to serve the dark web public interest with a wide variety of snuff services.  For the right price, a fantasy-driven in-person torture show can be arranged for your liking, and one can be an commanding observer or one can get their hands dirty in participatory play where anything goes and pleasures are on-demand.  The German snuff house expands their reach to a global level with live webcam shows that can be directed by the high price paying patron and the leather-cladded vixen staff carry out their illicit instructions exactly.  A robust menu of dark pleasures, displayed on a new showreel of select gruesome services, are available at the simple transfer of a money wire or cash in hand for the depraved to make their fantasies a reality.

In 2009, German born director Marcel Walz helmed a linear, three-act narrative of tourists laid over in the big city winding up at patronizing a dark and dingy dive bar, La Maison de la Petit Mort, only to be abducted as inventoried stock for the rich to exploit in a slew of murder perversions.  Five years later in 2014, Walz returns for a sequel, “La Petit Mort 2:  Nasty Tapes,” with reprising principal actress Annika Strauss co-writing the film alongside Walz as well as stepping back into the sadistic black platform shoes of Dominique, one of the two lovely ladies with a lecherous and violent vocation.  The direct sequel that follows a day-in-a-life of the snuff house’s employees making an advert showreel does not follow suit in the way the first film was structured.  Instead of a linear, chronological narrative, “Nasty Tapes” evolves into an anthology of different kill archetypes for the marketing video. Walz’s Matador Films serves the production oversight with Harald Schmalz (“Collar”) coproducing the anthological torture porn feature.

“La Petit Mort 2: Nasty Tapes” doesn’t seen a whole lot of return on the original cast.  The tourists were all mangled, mutilated, and murdered, the original Monique bit the dust in an escape attempt, and the first Maman rode off into the sunset rich with blood money.  Instead, and among other things, “Nasty Tapes” folds a new treatment of terror with the same old eggs and flour by reinventing itself into an anthology type, introducing a new, blonde Monique (Yvonne Wölke, “Bad End”) into the batter, and disclosing the new owner of the freaky, fetish club, a feminine man by the name Monsieur Matheo Maxime (Mika Metz, “The Curse of Doctor Wolffenstein”).  Annika Strauss is the only original cast member to reprise her original role of Dominique, the brunette to Monique’s blonde and who showed slight inkling of hesitation before being summoned to torture and murder.  Strauss doesn’t buck the character trend as Dominque still displays disgust on her face when slicing a man’s facial features in a Picasso style portrait.  Yet, Dominique remains loyal to the Monsieur and to the La Maison de la Petit Mort by committing the atrocities without question, unlike the regular administrative bookkeeping and housecleaning she regularly remains vocal in opposition in what’s a slither of dark humor contrast between her gruesome work compared to mundane work.  Unlike Cyanide Savior singer Manoush, who was a very convincing merciless club owner Maman, Mike Metz plays a very different, more layered proprietor portrayed as someone who sees the work as a paycheck to fund his deepest desire – to be a beautiful woman just like his wife Jade Maxime (Micaela Schäfer, “Sky Sharks”).  That’s about the gist of complexity the sequel has to offer with much of the thinly laid foundation is bricked up by a compilation of back-to-back kill scenarios that involve some extreme genre directors as special guests, such as Uwe Boll (“House of the Dead”), Dustin Mills (“Bath Salt Zombies”), Mike Mendez (“Big Ass Spider!”), and the late Ryan Nicholson (“Gutterballs”), taking part in the clandestine, underground activities in-person or on the web.  The film fills out the cast with victims and victimizers in Armin Barwich (“The Terror Stalkers”), Bea La Bea, Babriela Wirbel (“Plastic”), Nichol Neukirch, Marc Rohnstock (“Necronos”), Thomas Pill (“Moor-Monster!”), Kai Plaumann, Markus Hettich (“No Reason”) and the twins, Barbara and Patrizia Zuchowski.

When going into a German gore film, such as “La Petit Mort 2:  Nasty Tapes,” you have to go into It having an affinity for, or at least an understanding of, complete shameless representation of torture and killing of another human being for the simple and pure joy of the act.  In other words, you have to be somewhat sick in the head.  For me, personally, the sickness is rooted out of admiration for special effects and how the F/X artist(s) can create a realistic depiction of an unofficial autopsied anatomy. Filmmaker Ryan Nicholson, who passed away in 2019 of brain cancer, not only had a role in the Marcel Walz sequel, but was also the special effects artist, following in the footsteps of one of the notable German underground special effects artists, Olaf Ittenbach (“Premutos:  The Fallen Angel”) who had done the graphic gags on the first film with head turning results.  Nicholson, with a credit list that has a foot in independent productions and more mainstream, Hollywood productions, such as “Final Destination” and the remake of “Blair Witch” from 2016, doesn’t disappoint and keeps the blood, guts, and stringy sinew seamless in a gruesome pageantry of death that rivals and continues Olaf’s original stamp.  Beyond the glossy surface of a blood glaze, “Nasty Tapes” is nothing more than a kill-after-kill anthology with no concrete premise for either of the individual slaughter vignettes.  Title cards setup the kill moments with basic victim descriptors, such as married status, age, and how much their life has been paid for, but doesn’t humanize them in the least, creating zero compassion for the unsuspecting abductee fated for something far worse than death.  Instead, Walz flips the script with more background on the clients with ipre-and-post interviews of their most intimate time at La Petit Mort.  This structure can be monotonous as there’s nothing else to look forward to or to absorb empathetically as a viewer in an anthology that simply glorifies the leisure time of an undisturbed murder.  

As a nail-pulling, nose-cutting, drill-holing, lip-stitching, dick-scissoring, gut-stabbing anthology, “La Petit Mort 2: Nasty Tapes” is a gory, good time and is even better now in high-definition with a 1080p Blu-ray release from Unearthed Films The AVC encoded BD25 looks as good as can expected for a shaky cam, hectically edited, and filthy dark German gore film presented in a 2.35:1 widescreen aspect ratio.  Details are oleaginous wet with blood and tissue that incongruently with the Roland Freitag’s gloomy yet suppressed cinematography and Kai E. Bogatzki discordance and chaotic editing technique that is supposed to elicit extreme shock but consequently results in a loss of the intended grisliness.  Unearthed Films‘ release exhibits no issues with compression, but the hues and tones appear to fuse in the near eliminate of some contours where there should be some.  The German-English DTS-HD 5.1 mix can be score heavy, especially a hard and energized Tekkno title credits from composer Klaus Pfreundner that’s distinctive German, but “Nasty Tapes” has profound focus on its core selling point – torture.  The very few scenes of intercut dialogue shots spliced into the client’s sociopathic session are well understood and do have prominence over the score, as well as the ambient milieu of screams and the integrated flesh destroying Foley, despite the cam-esque quality of the pseudo-testimonials.  The burned-in English subtitles under the German Language only are synced well without error and with consistently good pacing.  Disc extras include a behind-the-scenes making of cut out from the main camera, an alternate torture scene, a behind-the-scenes still gallery, a short advert of a naked woman strung up by her arms and being stapled with signs, and Unearthed Films trailers.  The Blu-ray physical features don’t stray to far from normal Unearthed Films releases with a standard Blu-ray snapper case with grisly cover art of a marred victim’s plucked out eye and a Jade Maxime holding a bone saw and wearing ripped fishnet stockings and black lingerie.  The pressed disc art has the rehashes the back cover image of Monsieur Maxime wearing a venetian mask.  The Blu-ray comes unrated, region A locked, and has a manageably sufficing runtime of 83 minutes to not overkill the overkilling.  Transparent in its surreptitious atrocities, “La Petit Mort II: Nasty Tapes” subsists as Marcel Walz charnel house of horrors with a new revamped anthology approach to razzmatazz special effects wetwork without any due remorse. 

Step Back into La Maison de “La Petit Mort” for a Sequel that’s Hard to Stomach!