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Fresh-Water Fatalities of the EVIL Female Kind! “Piranha Women” reviewed! (Full Moon Features / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Awesome Cover for “Piranha Women!”  Check Out the Reversible Cover Art by Purchasing Your Copy Today!  Click Below.

At the seaside dive bar of Antonio Bay, flesh hungry creatures dressed in high heels and lowcut blouses circle around unsuspecting male prey gawking into their female gaze and their female bosoms.  Lured back to the woman’s indoor pool lair, the lured men are nibbled-to-death with tiny, sharp teeth bred by a science gone mad.  The normal, everyday guy Richard understands the dangers of his coining of the Piranha Women all too well as his cancer-stricken girlfriend desperately enrolls in an experiment drug program led by a Dr. Sinclair who binds the magically healing properties of the Piranha chromosome to his patients to build a sexy, sharp-teethed army.  With his colleague dead after being enticed by one of the beautiful and fish-spliced femme fatales and his girlfriend disappearing soon after seeing Dr. Sinclair, Richard must evade the murder suspicions from the police and battle through a pair of sexually aggressive, bikini-cladded chompers to save his endangered girlfriend from becoming one of the Piranha Women!

From the bizarre brain of Charles Band, who delivered devilishly cult pictures like “Puppet Master” and “Trancers” under the Full Moon empire for 40 years (if you’re counting Band’s defunct Empire Pictures) , and from the eccentric and erotica-charged touch of Fred Olen Ray, the writer-director of “Evil Toons” and “Hollywood Chainsaw Hookers”, comes the next freeform and fishy Full Moon feature, “Piranha Women.”  The 2022 film has all the assurances of a contemporary Full Moon production with a slapdash story structure, a handful of willing women to go topless, a hale and hearty use of a familiar carnivalesque score, and, of course, blood and lots of it, discharged by freaks and fiends of mad science.  Charles Band produces the venture, alongside associate producer, the former Playboy model and under-the-radar scream queen, Cody Renee Cameron, with Fred Olen Rey having penned the script treatment and sitting in the director’s chair.

For to recognize any of the “Piranha Women” cast, one would need reach down to the far depts of the fish tank where the bottom feeders roam.  Now, I’m not stating that performances are poor but to call the principals household names at any caliber level in film.  If you’ve established a residing foot on the internet, like me, or maybe have a photogenic keen eye, “Piranha Women’s” slender cast might blip on your brain’s recollection radar.  For instance, Bobby Quinn Rice, the story’s male lead trying to save his girlfriend Lexi (Sof Puchley, “Gatham”) from the clutches of killer fish with hot bods, had swimmingly integrated into the web series Star Trek universe in multiple series.  The “Super Shark” finds a solid lead performance in the adulthood reasonable and morally incorruptible Richard in what is Rice and Olen Ray’s fifth collaboration together as actor and director. If you’re not a Trekkie and have a more salacious sense of knowledge, the two actresses playing the genetically spliced, serrated teeth villainesses are former Playboy models in Keep Chambers and Carrie Overgaard and, yes, they do show plenty of skin if you were wondering.  Chambers debuts herself as an actress with a tight curve on how to hook men to their death with an extremely attractive lure while Overgaard’s off-and-on working relationship with producer Cory Renee Cameron scores the Michigan native a Los Angeles shoot, her first dive into the horror genre.  Chambers and Overgaard do as well as expected in roles where their nipples morph into bite-sized piranha teeth in conjunction with their mouths also modulating into larger razor teeth.  In all honesty, the film could have benefited for more nipple dentata carnage much the same way vagina-dentata did for Mitchell Lichtenstein “Teeth.” “Piranha Women” fills the cast pool with B-movie actors Jon Briddell (“Hot Wax Zombies on Wheels”), Richard Gabai (“Demon Wind”), Michael Gaglio (“College Coeds vs. Zombie Housewives”), Nathaniel Moore, Jonathan Nation (“Mega Piranha”), Houston Rhines (“Angels Fallen”), and Shary Nassimi as the fishy Dr. Sinclair.

Sharks, the apex predators of the ocean, may have their own patented subgenre with Sharksploitation, but Piranha are predominately pack hunters also hungry from meat and deserve their own categorical moniker (perhaps Piranhasploitation?) as these little carnivorous creatures will eat a little of your flesh one morsel at a time until the masticated body looks like chewed bubblegum. Joe Dante knew this with his Roger Corman cult classic “Piranha” and even The Asylum gets into the action with their “Mega Piranha” schlocker. Fred Olen Ray, who once raised his own personal piranha fish, takes a stab at a new angle involving our rather ravenous ankle biters by not making them the main antagonists of the story. In fact, the fish itself is not the villain as “The Attack of the 60 Foot Centerfolds” and “Bikini Jones and the Temple of Eros” filmmaker splices female erotic genome into the fold with body horror elements. The science behind the genetic sequence isn’t necessarily important, as Dr. Sinclar mentions in the film, it’s all little complicated, but there’s a lackadaisical air with the barebones narrative. With a film titled “Piranha Women”, we’re not looking for Academy Award substance or an auteur aiming to reach the depths of our soul with a powerfully visceral, visual tale and there’s a genre fan understanding in what to expect from Film Moon Features and director Fred Olen Ray, but after being pleasantly surprised with Full Moon’s more contemporary projects, like “Don’t Let Her In” and “Baby Oopsie,” I found “Piranha Women” falling apart at the seams. Pivotal scenes of transformation of the desperate, ill-stricken women at the hands of Dr. Sinclair are boiled down to one moment their normal, the next their nips have gnashing nibblers. Plus, and I know I’m asking a stupid question in relation to the director, but why is Dr. Sinclair only genetically modifying beautiful women? And why are the women enacting siren ways by only seducing men? Perhaps men are easy prey when against a hot, female bod but isn’t meat meat? The climatic ending is the weakest link of the entire chain as Richard searches out his beloved Lexi at the “Piranha Womens'” indoor pool lair only to become with the last of the piranha mutants. Richard’s weapon? Ethylene glycol. Yup, antifreeze in the pool water kills piranha and before his showdown with the shifty seductress, he unloads a quart into a fairly large pool, which in my opinion would be diluted to the point of non-affect, but when the piranha woman hits the water, apparently antifreeze electrocutes piranhas and, apparently, for a brief glimpse, the bolts of voltage unveil their monstrous, animalistic side of a humanoid piranha. There’s also another instance of rain melting another creature and, again, the pieces of the puzzle of how this is happening isn’t adding up. A flat, crestfallen ending nearly drowns its interestingly ludicrous premise into forgotten oblivion as the lasting episodic memory continues to battle for legacy between a plunged ending of perplexity and the sharp-teethed piranha women with sharp-teethed areolas.

Piranhasploitation might be an insignificant right now, but the pygmy pack hunters are fiercely swimming upstream to be a household name in terror as Full Moon Features adds their entry “Piranha Women” to the exclusive ranks. Full Moon’s AVC encoded, 1080p, high-definition Blu-ray is presented in a widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio. This particular release has strayed from Full Moon’s indiscriminate use of dark and gloomy lighting gels, tints, and high contrast shadow work that heighten the horror tone for a more natural lit preserve that has become baselessly bland. Compression looks pretty good as I wasn’t catching major instances of banding or artefact blocking but there are softer details around skin textures. However, pixel resolution frequently waves up and down from mid-teens to low-30ss because of the interlaced composite shots with the Antonio Bay dive bar or the floor-to-ceiling piranha tank when layered with characters. The release defaults to an English Dolby Digital 2.0 Stereo but there is an English Dolby Digital 5.0 mix option that’ll you’ll have to toggle to during the feature. Both mixes are clean and clear with the surround sound option providing a slightly plusher but not by much more. No subtitles are available. More so with the post-production itself rather than issues with the Blu-ray is the stock ambient background noise doesn’t overpower the dialogue at all but is unfitting, especially when we only see a small cast in the scene but can hear a bustling office or bar. There is even one moment where the background clamor completely cuts out for an important part of the conversation and then never comes back despite being in the same room. Other ambience including poured drinks, popped corks, and high-heeled footsteps is right up front with the dialogue at times. Bonus features include a behind-the-scenes with one-sided discussions by the principal cast and director Fred Olen Ray as well as other Full Moon trailers that not only included “Piranha Women” but also “The Resonator,” “Baby Oopsie,” “Don’t Let Her In,” Evil Bong 888 – Infinity High,” “Weedjies: Halloweed Night,” and “The Gingerweed Man.” The physical features include a snazzy illustrated cover art of one of the piranha women with teeth bared, ready to bite; however, the release includes reversible cover art that reveals more of same said posed piranha women in a NSFW option which is a far better display cover for the standard Blu-ray snapper. As mentioned before, “Piranha Women’s” ending drops steep like going off over the Mariana Trench shelf and part of that reason might be the film’s 58-minute, under an hour, runtime which some will not consider a full-length feature that comes unrated and region free. Plenty to like about Fred Olen Ray’s “Piranha Women,” but there is equally plenty to dislike too with the absurd take on the raptorial fish’s transgenic titty-twisting body horror.

Awesome Cover for “Piranha Women!”  Check Out the Reversible Cover Art by Purchasing Your Copy Today!  Click Below.

Never Cry EVIL Unless You Mean It! “Night Visitor” reviewed! (Ronin Flix / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Night Visitor” Creeping Onto Your Doorstep!  Now on Blu-ray!

Never-on-time high school senior Billy Colton can’t seem to catch a break in arriving to class on time. To make matters worse, Billy makes up a lame excuse for every tardy to his surly history teacher, Mr. Willard. On thin ice with Mr. Willard with only a few weeks left to graduation, Billy must keep his nose clean in order to not make any more waves that’ll cost him his diploma. When a new, extremely sexy, call girl neighbor moves in next door, Billy becomes entranced by her casual sexual affairs. So much so, Billy sets up a telescope from out his bedroom window to spy on her and convince his naysaying friends of her profession by sneaking a rooftop picture catching her in the middle of a tryst. What Billy sees is his neighbor being stabbed to death and the culprit is none other than his history teacher, Mr. Willard, continuing his conducting of Satanic rituals and sacrifices on local prostitutes. Because of his reputation for making up stories, no one believes Billy, not even the police, and he’s forced to attend Mr. Willard’s class with both parties having the knowledge of what really occurred. Billy’s desperation sends him to seek the help of a retired detective, Ron Devereaux, a close friend of Billy’s late father, and extreme measures must be taken by Billy to prove a killer’s identity and to stop Mr. Willard from coming after him.

“Night Visitor” is the 80’s alteration of the classic Aesop fable, “The Boy Who Cried Wolf.” The 1989 teen-campy cult horror is the first venture into feature length films by Rupert Hitzig, producer of “Wolfen” and “Jaws 3-D.” The twisted, modernized story derived from the fable was penned by Randal Viscovich to sought to provide nods to other films, one film in particular, “Fright Night,” shares a story parallel or likeness of an older teenage boy spying on the carnal rendezvouses of his alluring neighbor and ends up becoming involved in something far more sinister. At one point in time the film was under the working title, “Never Cry Devil,” a spin on the fable idiom cry wolf, Hitzig’s final product eventually landed on “Night Visitor” and the graphic nudity and cannibalism pared down for general audience consumption. Premier Picture Corporation served as the production company with Alain Silver (“Kiss Daddy Goodbye,” “Mortuary Academy”) producing, Randal Viscovich and Richard Abramites associate producing, and Tom Broadbridge (“The 13th Floor”) and Shelley E. Reid (“Nine Deaths of the Ninja”) as executive producers with United Artists serving as film rights distributor.

At the center of the story is a coinciding dual lead. One might be more prominent in the beginning, but the second soon catches up to run alongside in an even dichotomy of good and evil. Derek Rydall (“Popcorn”) plays into the stereotype of a hang loose teenage boy named Billy Colton on the edge of adulthood with a penchant for voyeurism as he spies on the late-night sexual commerce of her blonde bombshell neighbor. Rydall introduces mis makings of an energized, poofy-haired hunk who might be a little bit naive as a closeted peeping tom and looks to score with an older woman despite exhibiting and declaring feelings for his longtime friend Kelly (Teresa Van der Woude, “Killer Workout”). Who can blame Billy when Billy’s new neighbor was a Playboy Playmate? Shannon Tweed (“Cannibal Women in the Avocado Jungle of Death”, “Of Unknown Origins”) seduces, arouses, and paints by the numbers in what she does best – to be the sexiest woman on screen. Having never really dug herself out of being typecasted, Tweed humble horror beginnings is about the extent of her range before being cornered in the sex-thriller market and the Playmate of the Year 1982 is great fun to watch onscreen as her sex-working-kittenishness character, Lisa Grace, causes Billy Colton to steam in his pants. As much as it was a joy to watch Rydall and Tweed chart a possible older woman, younger man fling (fun fact: Tweed was supposedly playing a 26-year-old but was actually 31-32 and very much looks her age in the film), I thought Allen Garfield (“Diabolique”) and Michael J. Pollard (“Scrooged”) as brothers rollicking as Satan acolytes or rather just Garfield’s character Mr. Willard is the Satanist and Pollard as brother Stanley is just insane and fancies mentally manipulating the furniture as he calls the working girls him and his brother abduct and hold in the basement. Pollard is absolutely demented! All of the snarky quirks, plus a slew of scampish facial expressions and remarks, turn the fun-loving eccentric into a total maniac of truly scary proportions. Garfield’s method approach offers a different kind of demented, one that’s calculating and cunning to counter his brother’s outward lunacy. “Night Visitor” rounds out the cast with more gifted, recognizable talent in Elliot Gould (“Dead Men Don’t Die”), Richard Roundtree (“Shaft”), Scott Fults (“Hide and Go Shriek”), Brooke Bundy (“A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors”), Henry Gibson (“The ‘burbs”), and adult film actress Teri Weigel giving Shannon Tweed a run for her money in the skinemax department as the basement-bound prostitute.

If you had told me “Night Visitor” was a strictly a chilling cut thriller, I would have not believed you and would recommend psychiatric help. Aside from the opening scene of a hooker being violently snatched and grabbed into a gothic black car, “Night Visitor” has the hallmarks of a teen comedy amped up on sex-driving hormones, teenage melodramatic antics, and parades light-hearted teen comedy up until throats are slit, chests, are daggered and Michael Pollard wildly wields a chainsaw with an impish grin. The blithe spirit soon turns dark and grim as the carefree attitude of the hero goes toe-to-toe with stern and Satanic teacher, a wonderfully metaphorical relationship to the extreme that’s universally relatable as everyone has had an encounter with a discontented classroom instructor at least once growing up. Surprisingly stark how bleak the film turns, an overwhelming sense of dread lingers after that second prostitute meets her maker in a ghastly way that, as far as kills go, isn’t very radical but the true nature of the subject matter is shaded so well that the moment literally hooks you into the story as you start to connect what just might happen next to the new neighbor. One aspect that felt lacking was that there isn’t much depth to the Willard brothers’ Satanism; a few upside-down pentagrams, a goat’s head, Baphomet’s goat head statue, a topless sacrifice with chant, and Allen Garfield’s robe and elaborate horned masked, which is an excellent design, are all the thin layer of thematic elements but still retains sufficiently the Willards connection to Satanism. Whenever the story moves from Billy Colton’s obsession to expose Mr. Willard, much of the narrative then focuses on the interrelationship of Zachary and Stanley Williard which is mostly a nonaggressive superior and subordinate kinship. Stanley, who caters to Zachary’s every request and even squeezes for him fresh orange juice, plays along with his brother’s inadequate display of being a disciple just to get his own malevolent kicks out of tormenting women of the night. There’s this unexplained fixation with prostitutes that puts forward less a Satan worshipper and puts forward more a pair of mania driven maniacs quenching a thirst for blood by offing the lower class of society that no one will miss. A brief scene backs up this theory of an angry prostitute chewing Captain Crane’s ear off about protecting the girls on the street and he just casually strolls along, waving her off as if to say, yeah whatever.

Ronin Flix, in association with MGM and Scorpion Releasing, urges you to never cry wolf in this tale of terror as “Night Visitor” lands on a Blu-ray home video, distributed by MVD Visual. The 1080p, high-definition release comes with a brand 2019 transfer master that’s clean as Mr. Willard’s rap sheet with no 35mm celluloid impurities, no aged wear or tear, and a healthy amount of unadulterated grain, presented in a widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio. Color grading has excellent appeal and defines the natural color palette greatly amongst the delineated details and appeasing textures. The DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 stereo is on the only audio mix on the release and while it provides clean and clear dialogue track, the depth is often disproportion to the characters on screen. Much of the dialogue is in the forefront channel of the dual outputs, making every sentence feel closer than it should actually be in the stationary location of the character. Other than that, transfer’s hyper free of hiss, pops, and other audio blights. Option SDH subtitles are available. Bonus content has the original theatrical trailer and brand-new interview with director Ruport Hitzig, editor Glenn Erickson, and writer Randal Viscovich who all share a commonality regarding “Night Visitor,” the story was trimmed down of all of Viscovich’s nasty bits and shocking ending and made more upbeat for a better sell. Physically, “Night Visitor” comes in the traditional blue snapper keep case with brilliant red and illustratively glowing cover art of the sacrificial mask. The back cover claims the cover art is reversible, but it is not. The Blu-ray is region A encoded, has a runtime of 93 minutes, and is rated R. The cast alone is worth the price of admission as “Night Visitor” preys on the inculpability of Satan’s most righteous worshipper and on the power position of a role model with a secret life who has it out for the boy who cried wolf too many times.

“Night Visitor” Creeping Onto Your Doorstep!  Now on Blu-ray!

The Absence of EVIL is Found in the Deepest of Cleavages. “Bigfoot or Bust!” reviewed! (MVD Visual / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

The Bustiest of the Busty on the Hunt for Bigfoot.  Check out “Bigfoot or Bust” on Blu-ray!

Bigfoot – the mythical legend of half-man, half-beast roams the quiet, dense, and uninhabited forests of anywhere USA, scarcely spotted by campers, hikers, and mythical creature enthusiasts looking to catch a glimpse of the dirty furry being.  There are those who are even more keen in catching bigfoot as a small group of big chested women set off into the wilderness to capture bigfoot and make their fantasies come true as they have their way with the beast.  However, two other groups are after the big, bad bigfoot – a brother-sister hillbilly duo seek to lay legitimacy to the legend’s blood relationship to their family and a trio of time travelling blonde babes have come to the past to export Bigfoot’s excrement worth trillions in the future.  Factions collide in this chesty-chase to be the first to snag the elusive, big-breast loving Bigfoot.

I’ve aforesaid that my quest for just an okay bigfoot storyline and film would suffice a lifelong dream of the big man getting some big respect in the movie industry.  You can’t count William Dear’s “Harry and the Hendersons” because it’s frankly not a horror movie though one of the best representations of our common and collective perceptive concepts of the creature.  You can’t also count Ryan Schifrin’s gory and intense “Abominable” as the Yeti is more of Bigfoot’s mountainous cousin.   Would Jim Wynorski, the director of “Chopping Mall” and “Return of Swamp Thing,” have the answer to my, and maybe all of our, prayers with his latest entry “Bigfoot or Bust?”  Far from it.  In fact, Wynorski’s Bigfoot entry, although purposefully campy and slathered with sex appeal, has put Bigfoot films many steps back, creating major concern for the subgenre (as well as the future of comedies) that may never see the light of day with a good installment.   Wynorski also penned the film produced by buxom blondes and feature stars Becky LeBeau, Gail Thackray, and director Jim Wynorski under Coldwater Canyon Pictures.

Instead of “Bigfoot or Bust,” the film should have been retitled as “Bigfoot vs. Bust” as the screen time volume is bursting with more breasts than of Bigfoot, but, likely, both selling features are equal in being not the genuine articles.  Becky LeBeau and Gail Thackray lead a very busty, very mature (as in age, not behavior) cast of cult erotica and exploitation of yore.  The former Playboy centerfold and Pay-Per-View starlet LeBeau’s longstanding work history with Wynorski basically gives her the freedom to do whatever her heart desires and if that means chasing down a man in an Sasquatch suit in skimpy clothing, jumping on random trampolines in the middle of nowhere, and being a DJ producing ACME-style noises with expensive audio equipment with her chesty counterparts, then, by God, that’s what she gets.  “Hard to Die” and “Curse of the Komodo’s” Gail Thackray, once again donning a Dawn-role as Dr. Dawn, a doctor of paranormal psychological and internal medicine, is LeBeau’s co-captain in the rundown expedition with former adult actress Christine Nguyen (“Bikini Jones and the Temple of Eros”, “Girls Guns and Blood”), Cindy Lucas (“Bikini Car Wash Massacre,” “Sharkanasas Women’s Prison Massacre”), and Melissa Brasselle (“Sorceress,” “Camel Spiders”) playing an leather-cladded ancestor of the outlaw Jesse James.  A similar titty train chugs along with Tane McClure (“Death Spa, “Commando Squad”), Deborah Dutch (“Caged Women II,” “Dances with Werewolves”), and Antonia Dorian as time-travelers with oversized plastic future guns and a pair of local bumpkins in Lisa London (“Samurai Cop 2:  Deadly Vengeance,” “Xtro 3:  Watch the Skies”) and Lauren Parkinson (“Halloween Pussy Trap Kill! Kill!,”  “CobraGator”).  Nguyen, Lucas, and Parkinson add young hot-bod blood to the cast of mature erotica icons, bringing down the average age to approx. 45-50 years, in an unofficial way of shepherding in the new while giving the past a grand finale. 

Even though a blatant, unbridled farce, I found “Bigfoot or Bust” to be skeezy and unsettling.  And I actually own two copies of “A Serbian Film” and “Slaughtered Vomit Dolls” without an emotional apprehension! Maybe it’s because there’s not a basic storyline and even one single decent performance. Maybe it’s because the inundated buffoonery plays to the oldest tunes of comedy. Or, maybe, the thought of those two previous aspects are as diluted as they are because the hyper focus is on Jim Wynorski and his elderly band of crewmates direct and film mature women in mostly their underwear, squirting themselves with water bottles and having pajama dance parties at night. The whole production wreaks of schlocky, slimy porn with no script and bad acting, but progresses entirely without the main sell of goods – porn! I wouldn’t even label “Bigfoot or Bust” softcore or even a panty sniff of erotica with the profound lack of skin and hard, sweaty bodies rubbing up against each other in a form of passion from that cast that has decades of body display under their itty-bitty tiny bikinis. Wynorski has directed graphic sexploitation films complete with snazzy, spoof-titles in “The Bare Wench Project,” “Alabama Jones and the Busty Crusade,” and “The Witches of Breastwick,” but Wynorski seemed determined to be anti-nudity, anti-explicit, and overall anti-film in his latest venture without thematically breaking stride in a genre that has become second hand to the filmmaker. “Bigfoot or Bust” is erotica-lite, a lofty romp that’s self-aware of it’s own brand of comedy and exhibits no shame for it’s peep-less peepshow.

The 90’s has come to call to infiltrate the 22nd century with bygone lust idols in “Bigfoot or Bust” on Blu-ray home video from MVD Visual. The not rated, region free Blu is presented in a widescreen 1.78:1 aspect ratio. Image-wise, the digital picture is unsurprisingly free and clean of spoils, has discernible details, and retains the natural lighting to reflect the natural skin tones on the unnatural cosmetic enhancements which reflects Wynorski’s long-time, director of photography collaborator Chuck Cirino usual plain as the air in front of you style. Fred Olen Ray’s Retromedia, along with Cirino, handle the visual effects which is nothing more than a convex visual effect around the actress’ chest areas and the speaker system cones for the cheap effect of bursting at the seams. There are also ostentatious, future-gun, energy beams that add that tickle of excitement much needed against the long-winded triteness and scores of unfulfilled teasing. The Blu comes with one audio track, an English 5.1 surround sound that perhaps the most genuine part of this release. Since most of the film is shot exteriorly, the dialogue is an echt harvest of tones and captures the surrounding natural elements within the same track with leveled volumes. English subtitles are available. Special features include Becky LeBeau’s hit single for the film, “Animal,” which is just a still photo gallery with an overlay of LeBeau’s single, audio commentary with director Jim Wynorski, a deleted scene of LeBeau changing outfits, a behind-the-scenes featurette worth seeing how Wynorski’s snappy, commanding directorial style and to see the love-or-hate-or-flirtatious dynamics between him and the actresses, and the original theatrical trailer. Runtime is a decelerated 75 minutes. “Bigfoot or Bust” is intentionally whimsy and garners sexploitation royalty for a self-deprecating good time, but the end result is unfunny, unattractive, and kitschy for a director and cast wandering outside their normal niches.

The Bustiest of the Busty on the Hunt for Bigfoot.  Check out “Bigfoot or Bust” on Blu-ray!


When Music Videos Go EVIL! “The Backlot Murders” reviewed! (Dark Force Entertainment and Code Red / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on


After a night of drinking that ends in breaking a bottle over the bar owner’s head, a struggling and internally conflicted rock band kicks out the cancerously unhinged and troublesome member before their rise to stardom. Unfortunately, all the talent went out door along with the excommunicated band member, forcing the band to impress with an extravagant music video shot on Universal’s iconic backlot, sponsored by their agent and the lead singer’s girlfriend’s music mogul father. Instead of intense pyrotechnics and scantily cladded female groupies dancing on their crotch, the band, their girlfriends, and the crew find themselves caught in the gloomy, labyrinth-like movie lot, housing spooky interior and exterior sets, unaware the lurking murderous manic taking them out one-by-one.

By far a polar opposite polished genre film than the sadistically raw brutal rape and murder extravaganza that was “Chaos,” writer and director David “The Demon” DeFalco dabbles in the early 2000’s revival of the slasher genre with his 2002 released feature “The Backlot Murders” in the wake of the widespread success of the “Scream” franchise. In much of the same way “Chaos” came to fruition derived from “Last House on the Left,” DeFalco, once again, finds inspiration in the form of cult horror director Wes Craven. However, DeFalco strays away from the meta-horror and trope-reversal techniques and replaces it with a satirical façade of the music industry where glam is more important than meaningful substance. The slasher-comedy carves up nods to Van Halen, Pearl Jam, Aerosmith, and even Elvis Presley with a horrendously skewed mask version the killer wears. “The Backlot Murders” were co-written by Paul Arensburg and Steven Jay Bernheim with the latter writer serving also as co-producer with DeFalco in association with Dominion Entertainment.

A contributing factor to “Scream’s” success was the diverse in career cast that clicked together as well as twisting archetypical roles into atypical whammy that veered audiences to the edge of their seats. “Scream” shocked audiences with the immediate death of a well-known actress right out of the gate, nabbed “Friends’” star Courteney Cox, “SLC Punk” and “Hackers” actor Matthew Lilliard, teen heartthrob Skeet Urlich, one of the Arquettes with David Arquette, and, perhaps, would have guaranteed Neve Campbell a slab of concrete for the Hollywood Walk of Fame along with an already cemented label as a scream queen and a final girl. The same eclecticism could be transfixed by “The Backlot Murders’” acquisitions but on a more obscure scale with a cast from all walks of life that includes the Roger Rabbit voice actor himself, Charles Fleischer, “Three’s Company” star Priscilla Barnes, 1997’s Playboy Playmate Carrie Stevens, and the late Corey Haim (“The Lost Boys”) as the band’s guitarist in a role that seemed below his fame stature. Most gaps are plugged with interesting characters treated with some backstory buildup that becomes more stagnant than footfall companions in order to get to know them better before their demise, but their persona conductors include Brian Gaskill (“The Bloody Indulgent”), Tom Hallick, Jaime Anstead, Dayton Knoll, Lisa Brucker, Ken Sagoes (“A Nightmare on Elm Street 3: Dream Warriors”), LoriDawn Messuri, Angela Little, and Tracy Dali.

“The Backlot Murders” didn’t set out to revolutionize the slasher genre, but only relished in the after success and donned a more satire effort that purposefully retreated back into the conventional tropes to form an entertaining run of sex, drugs, and rock’n’roll gags, but the one thing missing, and it’s a doozy, is the actual killer presence in the film who is treated as an afterthought of slim importance and chucked into a insignificant plot twist that forces DeFalco’s hand to become a routine hack’n’slash lemming. One positive aspect of “The Backlot Murders” is the extremely high body count that produces a continuous stream of nixing off a slew of characters with their own death scenes inside the renowned confines of a Universal backlot backdrop that’s not only good-humored irony but also a sizeable effort by the Bernheim/DeFalco producing team. Yet, despite the high body count, the kills and gore felt sorely uninspired and underwhelming, rehashing into homage death scenes from “Friday the 13th” and “Scream” with a few forgettable approaches to call its own, until DeFalco breaks the damning goreless streak with a gruesome Columbian necktie effect that goes for the throat. I make “The Backlot Murders” seem unenjoyable and heartless when, in fact, the early 2000 slasher-comedy is immensely funny with a Charles Fleisher gold recorded, laugh track amongst the relentless mocking of the music industry from a far in this true to form slasher accessorized with a high body count kill dozer of a villain.

When things are quiet on set, “The Backlot Murders” evoke the slasher spirit on a new-to-Blu Blu-ray release in the U.S. from Dark Force Entertainment and Code Red with MVDVisual handling distribution. The 1080p, hi-def release is presented in an anamorphic widescreen from a brand new 4K scan of the original 35mm negative. The cool contextual colors render nicely amongst the shadowy gloom and foggy backdrop that’s reminiscent of a softly lit late 90’s and early 2000s slasher. The textures are sharper than the Razor Digital DVD release; the tactile feeling of asphalt when a bluish white glow hits the pavement or the gritty backlot sets vibrant with an ominous glow strike powerful chords of a lively presence from the transfer. There doesn’t seem to be any cropping, edge enhancing, or any other manipulation to the transfer present. The English mono track, which leans away from the LFE, has the opposite, lackluster appeal with a single channel blockade that doesn’t project the bands pyrotechnics, the screams of being chased, and settling for limitations on other wide range of girthy resounding audio. However, the dialogue is clear, unobstructed, and in the forefront. Bonus material includes a new audio commentary with director David DeFalco and Code Red’s Banana Man plus three new and very bizarre interviews with Carrie Stevens lingering from effects of the #MeToo movement to making home fudge, with Charles Fleisher and dissociative disorder or madman genius insight, and ending with a fairly regular interview with Brian Gaskill recollecting the film and his career through a tough industry standard. The Fleisher and Gaskill interviews end with a video op with The Demon himself, David DeFalco. “The Backlot Murders” had forefront potential of systemic slasher films of the time period, but pitter-patters for levity and a sweeping kill count that reconstructs the dread into death and comedy.

“The Backlot Murders” on Prime Video!

Spies, Lies, Thighs, and EVIL Guys! “The Dallas Connection” reviewed! (Mill Creek Entertainment / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on


Chris Cannon and Mark Austin are back to save the world from a devious organization once again as the two bureau agents are assigned to protect the last world-renowned scientist that developed an International World Arms Removal (I/War) satellite project that could detect terrorists’ weaponry no matter how concealed, but when the other three scientists from around the globe are brutally assassinated, the odds are stacked up against them and the bad guys are always one step ahead of them. Given four computer chips to guard at all times, I/War assigns their best agents to the task of securing hope for the project, called The Dallas Connection, for three days until a specifically timed launch to coordinator with a passing asteroid field that’ll power the satellite for years decades to come, but the well-armed and well-organized crime uses all assets and their power of seduction to gain control over the satellite at all cost.

The L.E.T.H.A.L. ladies series continues with the second buddy-cop picture, “The Dallas Connection,” helmed by Christian Drew Sidaris, son of the erotically charged-action producer and filmmaker, Andy Sidaris that follows up on the first Drew Sidaris prospecting fracas, Enemy Gold. “The Dallas Connection” is the tenth installment of the series, known also as the Triple B series (that’s Boobs, Bombs, and Bullets) that has little-to-nothing linking the entire series cache together aside from being exclusively explosive wrapped with a sensual rouleau of Playmate and Penthouse centerfolds, tightly coiled around the tight and firm half-naked bodies of it’s leading stars. The Sidaris team, under the Malibu Bay Films and Skyhawks Films banners, one again economically ignite a successful B movie that promises 90’s attired, flamboyant action on set at a few familiarly recycled locations in Shreveport, Louisiana and Los Angeles, California, redressed for a not-so different genre or distant premise.

As aforementioned, centerfolds are a staple in any Sidaris, father or son, girls and guns feature and “The Dallas Connection” is no exception, starting off with their main squeeze, good friend, and cult movie icon, Julie Strain, as one of the chief co-antagonist under the nom de guerre, “Black Widow.” Strain is tall, sexy, and a wild villain capable of restraining the violent kick of an AK-47 in thigh high boots and a low-cut open jacket that embodies gun nuts most delectable dreams. The once Penthouse Pet of the Year stays quite reserved compared to her tantamount villainous role in “Enemy Gold” by going topless only in a couple of instances in a death grip roll that involves a lap dance before her prey’s demise, a specified attribute to the beautiful and deadly small spider she spins her call sign from. Black Widow is joined the just as deadly Cobra, fellow Penthouse Pet of the Month February 1993, Julie K. Smith, and Scorpion, the equally as Julie Strain tall, Playboy Playmate of the Month December 1991, Wendy Hamilton. Smith and Hamilton offer up polar features that doesn’t make “The Dallas Connection” a one-type of woman show, but both are voluptuous in their own rite, adding sizzling hot tub sex scenes and long-legged strip shows to accentuate “The Dallas Connection” amongst the B movie fray. “Phantasm II’s” Samantha Phillips becomes the whip cream on top, rounding out Sidaris’ centerfold assembly, as another the third Penthouse Pet of the Month, June 1993. There’s also Bruce Penhall and Mark Barriere, but who cares about these shirtless studs who drag race old Plymouths and jet ski when you four gorgeous women to ogle over? Penhall and Barriere mark their return as Chris Cannon and Mark Austin from Enemy Gold in a buddy-cop adventure loaded with a Dirty Harry Magnum .357 and a M1 Grenade launcher assault rifle. Kaboom! Rounding out the cast is Gerald Okamura (“Big Trouble in Little China”), Roland Marcus, Cassidy Phillips, Ron Browning, Tom Abbott, and Rodrigo Obregon as a satellite scientist.

After finishing “The Dallas Connection,” I wanted to say that I’ve seen this movie before and not because of some misplaced form of déjà vu, but, rather, that I, in fact, HAVE seen this movie before in the precursor film of the L.E.T.H.A.L. ladies series, “Enemy Gold.” The story’s been tweaked slightly to a story with the same framework. Hell, like also mentioned, when you throw in some of the same locations as in “Enemy Gold,” Sidaris’s home with the hot tub and the cabin the woods, and redress the same actors, Julie Strain, Bruce Penhall, Mark Barrier, Rodrigo Obregon, Tom Abbott, and Ron Browning all in the essentially the same roles, “The Dallas Connection” just feels like an extension or a mirror image of that former film, making the story a weary one with nothing really new to spectacle except for three pairs of new, large-and-in charge, breasts in Smith, Hamilton, and Phillips. One difference noticed is that the bureau agents this time around are a lot dafter with skulls thick as a brick and unable to use common logic in the most practical situations. There have been many a time when producer Andy Sidaris commented his films to James Bond, but at least Bond had the smarts to always be on guard; Chris Cannon and Mark Austin do indeed think with their other head that do, in benefit, leave the door open for some saucy hot tub sex that’s perhaps the best simulation from Sidaris reel I’ve seen to date.

Available for the first time on Blu-ray, “The Dallas Connection” will get your rocket launchers off with ton of gunplay and is loaded with beautiful women. The region A, 1080p high definition presentation from a 4K scan restoration has an aspect ratio of 1.78:1 widescreen. The image’s simply gorgeous from the 35mm negative baring a few minor faint scratches that linger only for seconds at a time. There’s quite a bit of noise during the night scenes that almost make the scene look daylit, but skin tones, especially gleaming with water, are remarkably velvety and the textures on clothes and skin looks great for a low budget action. The English language DTS-HD Master Audio dual channel mix medleys appropriately, dialogue is clear and upfront and ambience has proper depth and range. Explosions are powerful coming through the dual channels with a hefty LFE and gunfire can rip just as good as Dutch blasting away at a trophy hunting alien in Predator. Even the sexy lounge soundtrack from Ron Di Iulio is on point despite being a rehash of “Enemy Gold” once again. Hardly any blemishes or distortions coming from the audio track. English SDH subtitles are optional. The bonus features mirror that of “Enemy Gold” as well with Andy Sidaris and Julie Strain doing this awkwardly coy and sugar daddy bit showing off “The Dallas Connection” merchandise and international posters that lead into Andy’s film school where him and his wife, Arlene, go onto commentary on how to shoot scenes and edit them together, using an action and a sexy scene from “Return to Savage Beach” as reference. In the same behind the scenes, there’s an equally bizarre Joe Bob Briggs interview where the legendary MonsterVision and The Last Drive-in Host seems uncomfortable with Andy and star Julie K. Smith about how he persuades to get these beautiful centerfolds to be in his films. Other bonus material includes a commentary on the film itself and theatrical trailer. “The Dallas Connection” is a Texas-size IED with a busty ornate façade, but acts more like a duplication of something we’ve already experienced, making the sophomore feature from Christian Drew Sidaris just a more of the same.

Only $12.99 at Amazon.com! Plus, you purchase a VHS tape! WHAAA!?!