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The Stillness, the Quiet, and the Darkness evokes EVIL to Home In. “Skinamarink” reviewed! (Acorn Media International / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

The Kids Aren’t All Right in “Skinamarink” on Blu-ray!

A night of silence is disturbed when a young boy, Kevin, falls down the stairs of his two story home.  Rushed to the hospital to return to the same silence-soaked house, the restless boy and his sister Kaylee search for their dad who has suddenly vanished from his bedroom.  Doors, windows, and even the bathroom toilet has strangely disappeared right from sight.  Feeling scarred under the cover of isolated darkness, the siblings head downstairs to sleep on the couch softly lit b0 the fluorescent glow of the television set.  As they watch old cartoons, crayon, and build with large Legos, while catching a few ZZZs in between, strange noises resonate through the home, floor based objects are found stuck onto the walls and ceilings, and a twisted, omnipresent voice slips the siblings commands that exposes them the darkness from within the house.

Schismatically different from any other spine-taut chills ever experienced before, Kyle Edward Ball’s written-and-directed 2022 Shudder exclusive “Skinamarink” is no joyful and innocent children’s song in the filmmaker’s debut feature film.  Based and expanded upon Ball’s 2020 short film entitled “Heck,” viewers will be enveloped and swallowed by the very core of childhood fears that plays like a fever dream, or a distant nightmare, where faces are a blur, spatial direction is nothing more than theoretical concept, and the voices around us are distorted, muffled, and cold.  “Skinamarink” offers little warmth under constant blanket of darkness and leaves no room for hope when parents are removed from the picture.  What’s Ball leaves behind is primordial and innate terror that rarely can be seen straightforward and lucid.  The Canadian picture, which was filmed in Ball’s childhood home in Alberta, is a micro-budget production of ERO Picture Company, distributed by Bayview Entertainment, Shudder, and IFC Midnight, crowdfunded by Seed & Spark contributors and produced by “Texas Road” producer, Dylan Pearce.

Shot over the course of a week’s time, “Skinamarink” works more like CCTV footage recording the static surroundings within the scope of the lens.  The cast is small, rarely visible, and when visible, they are often obscured or never directly focused upon to mint atmospheric dread.  Two parents.  Two children.  A nuclear family becomes the objective of an omnipresent, ominous presence, but there are concerning questions about the integrity of the family that Ball incites with clues of broken household.  Father and mother briefly make an appearance, or with one of them just their voice, throughout the course of the night, restricted their attendance exclusively around the children’s perspective that makes viewers shrink and become engulfed in childish fears – sometimes they are adult fears as well – of the dark and of being separated from parents.  Lucas Paul and Dali Rose Tetreault as kids Kevin and Kaylee kill their seldomly seen performances with the patter of little feet running through the house and up-and-down stairs, their soft, angelic voices whispering to each other and calling out for their father, and when briefly in frame, or at least the back of their heads, they manage to complete the succinct shot just in the way Ball intends to secrete fear from our every pore amongst the quiet and stillness.  “Skinamarink” is not a character-driven film in the least as Ball cherishes a chilling atmospheric horror so father (Ross Paul, Lucas’s real life dad) and mother (Jamie Hill, “Grotesque”) receive what essentially is cameo roles to establish a feeling of lost when they’re gone and are perhaps the easiest roles the two actors have ever taken and turn out to be the most eerily effective on screen and over the audio track.

“Skinamarink” experiments more with surroundings, audio and visual senses, and common inborn anxieties rather than progressed by traditional methods of character dynamics and that is where the film will be conflict-ridden and divisive amongst the niche group of diehard horror fans.  General audiences will find “Skinamarink” to be a bore without much popcorn pageantry to keep short-attention spans entertained and a disembodied villain.  Slow burn horror usually has an elevated element to it and Kyle Edward Ball certainly incorporates an open for interpretation access door for the deep-dive genre conspiratorialists to work overtime on reasoning and explaining “Skinamarink” to the masses still trying to process what they just experienced themselves after watching the film.  Theories will run amok with the most prominent being Kevin’s fall that reduced him to a coma state and what we experience is all in Kevin’s conscious-cracked cerebrum trying attempting interpret, at best guess, the dissolution of mom and dad’s relationship.  Again, this is just a theory as Ball aims for ambiguity to fester fathomable, one-solution explanations.   Perhaps in a type of narrative the world is not ready for, but in my opinion, “Skinamarink” fills in what is void from modern day horror, a uniquely fresh and chance-taking pervasive eidolon scare package to revitalize genre numbness with slow burn phobias.

An original parapsychological paralyzer, “Skinamarink” arrives on a Blu-ray home video courtesy of Acorn Media International, the acquired UK distribution company of RLJ Entertainment.  Presented in a widescreen aspect ratio of 2.39:1, the AVC encoded BD25 sustains a purposefully intended lo-fi A/V feature, set to the date tune of 1995, much like when SOV quality films were abundantly popular because of their cost value and accessibility.  If you’re expecting depth of detail, you won’t get it from “Skinamarink’s” dense static approach that all but eliminates object definition.  Delineation is scarce to an effective scare tactic to which Ball tones the film; yet, the static is not, for lack of a better word, static as the current changes within the blips, increasing and decreasing visibility for desired poltergeist potency, if poltergeist is what we want to call it.  Set entirely in nighttime, sleepy home, the basking glow of tube television is the only semblance of color that emits a faint blue luminous while antiquated cartoons provide flat caricature coloring.  Certain scenes are shot in obvious night vision with the spherical focus that becomes unnatural in the frame, but there’s really nothing natural about Ball’s auteur style.  The lo-fi style choice continues into the English DTS-HD 5.1 surround mix that doesn’t exercise every channel.  Instead, we’re back to canned content with intentional hissing, popping, and distorted tracks.  Aside from a couple of innate audio recordings of a squeaking closet door, all the other ambient audio and dialogue is done after the fact in post-production to be rendered appropriately misshaped and muddled.  There’s also no score, retaining realism of a hushed house sound design to pay heed to soft footsteps and other delicate and mortifying milieu noises.  Depending on your audio setup, subtitles may be your friend here as the whispers are so low, they’re nearly inaudible.  There are a handful of scenes that have burned in English subtitles for that very reason, but full menu English captioning is available too for the minute amount of dialogue.  Special features only include an audio commentary track with the director and director of photography Jamie McRae.  Acorn Media’s release mirrors the U.S.’s RLJ Entertainment’s Blu-ray with the exception of a slightly thicker Blu-ray snapper. The front cover denotes essentially what to expect in the future, a low-resolution and a blue-toned, dark, inverted screenshot image of the young boy; this scene also translates to the disc art.  Encoded with a region B playback, “Skinamarink” comes UK certified 15 for strong horror and sustained threat in its 100-minute runtime.  Take my advice:  there’s nothing quite like “Skinamarink” outside the experimental gallimaufry but it’s sleepy time nature should not be viewed at the late-night weary hours or else it’ll lull you into a nightmare of your own.

The Kids Aren’t All Right in “Skinamarink” on Blu-ray!

EVIL’s Blight is Captured off and on Film. “Cursed Films” reviewed! (Acorn Media International / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Cursed Films” Now Available on Blu-ray in the UK!  Purchase at Amazon.com By Click the Cover Below.

What do “Poltergeist,” “The Omen,” “The Exorcist,” “Twilight Zone: The Movie,” and “The Crow” all have in common? They’re just not successful horror-thrillers with extraordinary actors and directors, they’re also tagged as some of the worst cursed movies of our time. Severe ailments, planes struck by lightning, bombings at previously booked restaurants, egregious injuries, and even death, lots of death, have surmised belief that the otherworldly powers or the omnipotent universe has waged warnings and, if gone ignored, has blown the kiss of the death. For years, these films held power of people because of a string of unfortunate incidences that link back to rumors that possibly incite mystical retribution for using real corpses, telling stories about the birth of the antichrist, and even family lineage curses by ancient Chinese spirits. There’s no shortage of superstition in the world, a country practically built on the idea of a martyred Jesus rising from the grave, and Hollywood is no exception that the bad things that happen in life will always course people to find a reasonable explanation even if that explanation is an untenable supernatural one.

When we think of curses as a whole, we’re generally point and look to the obvious occult brewing with black magic of vindictive witches, ancient incantations to evoke demonic bidding, Gypsy ill-wills that have lycanthropy teeth, or ominous warnings inscribed by long-ago Egyptian priests keep mummified remains from being marauded by intruders.  These hexes and jinxes are storylines popular in movie culture since the beginning of the first movie pictures, used to entertain, excite, and thrill to the furthest extent of the means.  Who would have known there is a reality bound, darker side to the curse mythos that has been insidiously rooted in the illustrious and dream making film industry?  Cursed films have been the talk of Tinsel town, ambulance chasing tabloids, and the short-lived internet fandom for years, decades now even, surrounding the mysterious misfortunes of certain films.  The Shudder 5-episode docuseries, “Cursed Films,” goes into the weeds with retrospective interviews from cast, crew, religious experts and even mavens of black magic and witchery.  Jay Cheel wrote, directed, and edited the series removes the characters from the story and focuses on building the humanity of the affected, dives into possible reasons for the film or individuals involved to be cursed, and the unfortunate outcomes that have resulted in the loss of life surrounding the project.  Muse Entertainment Enterprise, one of the companies behind CBS hit U.S. comedy “Ghosts,” serves as the production company behind the 2020 released Shudder exclusive series.

With any documentary, the cast are plucked right out of history, fast-forward into the present, to tell their firsthand account of events. Directors, producers, special effects and makeup specialists, and those beyond the realm of the film industry recollect and provide their own interpretation of a beleaguered saga with an interviewer, assumed to be “Cursed Films'” writer-director Jay Cheel, posing the questions to get open access to the inner thoughts of the grieved and impressed to give in full detail their wholehearted accounts. Cheel is able to nab different perspectives that play into the divisive nature of the whole cursed narrative, such as with those, mostly cast and crew, who don’t invest into the transcendental nonsense that has sense become either a minor or major stain on their careers. Others see the unexplainable coincidences to be godsent and beneficial to the production. For example, “The Omen’s” star Gregory Peck’s plane and producer Mace Neufeld’s plane were both struck by lightning in route to the London set only a few days apart. Neither plane sustained life-threatening damage and, thus, strokes of good luck and fortune seemed to be attached to the project along with other instances of death and destruction that averted harm from those involved with the film. Still, many still feel “The Omen” is a cursed film, mostly on the internet horror communities where conspiracies, misinformation, and false narratives run rampant like COVID in the early years. Often when Cheel obtains the perspective a black magician or a witch, Cheel’s attempting to gain not only an understanding of that world from real world practitioners but also to embellish a great melodrama into the episodes. Then, there’s the emotionally poignant Richard Sawyer segment. As the production designer on John Landis’s “Twilight Zone: the Movie,” Sawyer saw firsthand the tragedy that befell one of the film’s segment stories. Lead actor Vic Morrow (“Humanoids of the Deep,” “1990: The Bronx Warriors”) was cut down, along with two children, during a scene with a helicopter that went terribly wrong, and Sawyer’s account is powerfully traumatizing and great representation of how this series should be affect and chill viewers to the heart and to the bone.

“Cursed Films” reveals the terrible mishaps and misfortunes of limelight. If a private person is dies due to illness, accident, or foul play, there’s usually not a major production made out of the occurrence and no grand, “Final Destination” design beyond our understanding is erected to give it all meaning. Under the public eye and recorded by every entertainment medium known to mankind at the time of filming presents public scrutiny, public panic, and public speculation that plots points and charts graphs toward a giant, flashing sign that says, in big bold letters, CURSED! To any given horror fan, much of Jay Cheel’s docuseries is already common knowledge for the most part with the fresh and emphatic take from at the scene interviewees who add compassion and empathy as a shield against those who still think the sweet-faced Heather O’Rourke was doomed by some malison brought to fruition by India-removed skeletons. To the non-horror fan, much of Jay Cheel’s docuseries will have that new car smell and can be engrossed by Cheel’s spin of oppositions that never lay claim to either side as truth but only further what Zelda Rubenstein and Richard Sawyer tried to dispel with reason and tangible accounts is that there is some underlying curse reaching up and grabbing the throats of these films to point of choking the very goodness out of the cast and crew’s souls and only provide morbid curiosity to those seeking out the works stuck in a perpetual cycle of occultism.

Become reeled in by the notorious historical compendiums of “Cursed Films” in the first season that aired in 2020 and is now finally on Blu-ray home video in the UK from Acorn Media International. Though listed as a PAL release, the AVC encoded Blu-ray is presented in a 2.39:1 aspect ratio and is in 1080p, high-definition resolution, so a PAL encoding description would be inaccurate for a HD release. Image quality varies between the clean digital recordings with the interviews in interiors and exterior settings, polished transfers snipped from your favorite classic (and “cursed”) movies, and the raw, unpolished frames or clips that were cut from the film or remained as behind-the-scenes supplemental. All-in-all, picture quality is fine and clear in any regard with no issues of compression on the various mediums. The English language DTS-HD 5.1 surround sound stakes prominences on the dialogue for this is a docuseries reliant on firsthand accounts. Some historical footage can be staticky and flat but fits into the documentary design that pulls clip examples from the archives. “Cursed Films” isn’t going to be actioned packed or atmospheric but the composing duo of “Kicking Blood,” Justin Small and Ohad Benchetrit, offer an engaging soundtrack that could tell the story without the interviewee’s tale of sadness, mysticism, etc. English subtitles are available. For each episode a director’s audio commentary is available as a special feature. The physical feature comes in a slightly thicker Blu-ray snapper with the cover art, which is the same as the U.S. RLJE release, of an unspooling film reel displaying iconic tokens from each movie. The 141-minute and region B playback release houses the film’s certified 15 rating for strong horror, strong language, strong injury detail, sex references, domestic abuse, suicide, and bloody images. Whether you believe in curses or not, “Cursed Films” is a peradventure that’s powerful and uncanny to this very day that’ll have you straddling the fence of labeled condemned films.

“Cursed Films” Now Available on Blu-ray in the UK!  Purchase at Amazon.com By Click the Cover Below.

Meir Zarchi Returns With Another Round of EVIL Exploitation! “I Spit On Your Grave Deja Vu” reviewed! (Ronin Flix / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Forty long years have passed since the sexual assaulting atrocities of Johnny Stillman and his gang were committed on the young and beautiful Jennifer Hills.  Empowered by her horrific tale of survival with the release of a new tell all book of how she outwitted and took homicidal revenge on her rapists by luring them in with her sexual persuasions, Hills finds herself back in familiar terrorizing territory being kidnapped by Johnny’s devoutly vindictive widow and three living relatives of the gang that once ganged raped and brutally beat her, but she’s not alone.  Captive with her as collateral damage is her famous supermodel daughter, Christy.  Both are caught up in an eye-for-an-eye revenge plot where being lethal is the only means of survival and with a long history of resentment, rooted deep inside Johnny’s kin, fighting back will take every ounce of resilience and strength against a community of hellbent sociopaths. 

Circa 2005-2006 is around the time I first bared witness to Meir Zarchi’s 1978 controversial exploitation shocker, “I Spit on Your Grave.”  Popping in the DVD popped open my eyes to the world of graphic vengeance and the submission to primal, carnal whims inside the human-on-human violence context.  Before Zarchi’s film, which is also known as “Day of the Woman,” and even Wes Craven’s “The Last House on the Left,” this neophyte’s description and knowledge of horror was limited to the stymies of broadcast television that only aired edited and censored slashers like the “Friday the 13th” and “Halloween” series or supernatural presences of “A Nightmare on Elm Street” and “Poltergeist.”  Never has the likes of “I Spit on Your Grave” been a red pill option into the vast horror matrix for this then college kid who glazed over with the façade of sleeping through studies and worrying over trivial matters involving the opposite sex.  In a way, Zarchi was a kind of Morpheus to me when I started purchasing physical media that opened my eyes and my mind to the rape and revenge facet in horror hidden behind the commercial veil.  In 2010, a Zarchi produced reboot saw more light in the commerciality and spawned two sequels in its wake, but not until 2019 did Zarchi get back to writing and sit back in his director’s chair to helm an official, yet less commercial, sequel entitled “I Spit On Your Grave Déjà Vu” or “Day of the Woman Déjà vu” that was produced by his limited company banner, Déjà Vu LLC with son Terry Zarchi and Jan O’Connell producing.

The long-awaited sequel reteamed Zarchi with original lead actress, and also ex-wife, Camille Keaton, distant relative of the famed comedy and stunt actor, Buster Keaton.  Camille Keaton, who looks phenomenal in her 70s during production, steps back into the infamous Jennifer Mills role that made her a household name amongst grindhouse-horror community.  Though completely nude for most of the 1978 film, that part of her performance takes a step back for a new actress to pave a new path in the saga.  Obscure indie scream queen Jamie Bernadette (“Axeman,” “The Bunnyman Massacre”) is ceremoniously passed the torched as the new riches to ragdoll as the Jennifer Mill’s unhappy supermodel daughter, Christy, who becomes haplessly snagged into her mother’s unforgotten past.  Bernadette offers a variable beauty and a diverse poise that doesn’t make Christy a carbon copy of Jennifer Hills, but the actresses deliver the same apathetic venom of a woman scorn.  More of a carbon copy is the four backwoods bumpkins fuming over Jennifer Mills’ vindictive dissecting of their dead relatives.  The gang is spearheaded by Beck, played by Maria Olsen who, like Bernadette, has made a name for herself in low-budget horror having roles in films such as “To Jennifer,” “Starry Eyes,” and “Gore Orphanage.”  Olsen projects Becky as the gas station attendant from Hell, someone you don’t want to interact too long with as you’re pumping gas in the middle of nowhere, but Becky is not a woman of a few words who constantly has to remind us, to the blistering point of annoying, that she must avenge her late husband’s sinful murderess.  The rest of the gang didn’t impress much after that.  Jonathan Peacy has a chance to shine from out of the extra and bit part shadows as the crazed and hyperactive Kevin, brother of Stanley from the original film, and while Peacy channels his best Al Leong look, Kevin is ultimate a big detrimental goof with small dog syndrome than actual menace.    The last two aren’t any better with a lackluster act by Jeremy Ferdman as Andy’s cousin and “Tales of Frankenstein’s” Jim Tavaré’s rather befuddling downplay of Matthew’s mentally disordered father, Herman, who teeters back and forth between morals with a jumbled underlay of piety.  There are not many sane performances in a rather loose and unbridled Zarchi follow up with a cast that rounds out with Alexandra Kenworthy, Roy Allen III, and Holgie Forrester.

Performances aside, “I Spit on Your Grave Déjà vu” is also a cacophony of yelling as the script, from paper to pronunciation, reaches top of the lung levels with every bit of dialogue from every player in this tussle of who’s right and who’s wrong when it comes down to justifications of killing.  Zarchi’s sequel lacks the tact his first film achieves so delicately with Mills post-assault softer approach to lay waste her assailants.  “Déjà vu” satisfies its own revenge kicks with little subtly in trying to be outrageous, outlandish, and off its rocker as the confrontation between Christy and the gang becomes a rancorous grudge match.  What concerns me most about “Déjà vu” is the year in which this sequel takes place.  Between the 1978 original and the 2019 follow up, 40 years have passed, but the characters don’t fit any of Father Time’s natural aging characteristics on the surface.  Becky looks okay as an early to mid-60s woman despite Maria Olsen’s actual age being early 50s at the time of filming and release.  Herman is another one that sneaks into fathomable constructs as a character living a farmer’s life in the latter half of middle age, but I question whether Kevin and Scotty were even born yet.  The two youngsters barely seem to be out of their 30s and the same can be said for Christy where much more of her life is revealed as the story progresses.   If following the script logic, I would assume the story takes place in the 90s, but certain technologic advances, like modern day touchscreen phones, suggests no earlier than late 2000s.  As a whole, time and space don’t appear to exist on any reasonable plane for the film with characters able to bump into each at random intervals despite being a densely wooded and rural location and, for all you cinematographers out there, if your location is supposed to be rural, don’t shoot in at a cemetery with a massive grave footprint with a stream of cars speeding down a busy suburban street.  You instantly lose the illusion.  Zarchi’s intentions were clear to only echo the original while allowing for individuality with a brasher onslaught of right versus wrong, eye for an eye, and misguided righteousness for injustice, but the execution crumbles with excruciating results, never reaching the same poetic justice the first film accomplishes so graphically grafted. 

As far as rape and revenge exploitation is considered, “I Spit on Your Grave Déjà vu” gets about as down and dirty and ugly as they come.  Cult movie curator, Ronin Flix, delivers the Meir Zarchi sequel onto Blu-ray home video, presented in 1080p, full high definition, with a widescreen 2.39:1 aspect ratio.  A+ for natural lighting, skin tones, and overall appeal, Pedja Radenkovic’s cinematography is about as uninspiring as they come artistically, but, as a personal preference, the shots are more organic, raw, and less distracting from the content that’s much more abrasive and interesting.  A more natural framework also more time for Russell FX’s practical effects to be showcased without enhanced imagery.  As long as the details are there (they are), no damage is concerning (there wasn’t), and the framing made sense (for the most part), “Déjà vu” can be considered a win for Radenkovic.  The English language DTS-HD 5.1 Master Audio soundtrack for “Déjà vu” is a blessing and a curse.  Dialogue clarity is excellent and there’s a wide range to exploit, forgive the punned term, each channel with great balance, but remember what I said about all the character yelling?  Also, with the higher bitrate DTS, the quality is too good for some of the applied ambient effects like the exhaust sputtering of an old Ford pickup that sounds way too fake and way too close despite its positioning in the scene. The region A, not rated Blu-ray is stored on a BD50 due in part to the film’s massive 148 runtime and the inclusion of special features that include a new audio commentary with film critic and “The Last Drive-In” host Joe Bob Briggs, select cast interviews, the making of the film, behind the scenes footage from producer Terry Zarchi, and the theatrical trailer. Is “I Spit on Your Grave Deja Vu” the long-awaited sequel to Meir Zarchi’s first film? I’d say they’re two totally different exploitation entities cut from the same cloth with ties only in names and some flashbacks alone, but both films would make for a great double bill that starts with a harrowing, nothing-to-lose, woebegone toned, revenge thriller complimented with a lukewarm and unfocused follow up to help come down off the original’s gripping ultra-violence high.

Ronin Flix’s “I Spit on Your Grave Deja Vu” Blu-ray available at Amazon.com!

Don’t Mind the Glowing, Ominous Hole in the Wall. That’s Just a Gateway to Evil. “Beyond Darkness” reviewed! (Severin / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

A witch acolyte of Ameth, an underworld demon, is executed on multiple counts of child murder.  The priest who oversaw the witch’s last rites came in with a doubtful heart and upon researching Ameth through an unholy book, disavowed his own religion only to fall into a near drunken stupor of atheism.  Months later, a new priest and his family move into a home arranged by the archdiocese, but soon after settling into the old house, a series of disturbances point to a closed in wall behind a door that’s uncovered to be a gateway to another plane of existence; an existence where the child killing witch is granted access to seek the souls of the priest’s young children.  Fighting with his own struggles of faith, the ex-Jesuit assists the priest and his family in an attempt to cast out evil once and for all. 

Perhaps common knowledge amongst diehard horror fans, but not so much among the casual curiosities of an oblique coursed moviegoer is the fact that “Beyond Darkness” and Sam Raimi’s “The Evil Dead” share a cinematic series connection.  Well, not one in any official capacity one at least.  Drained from the same bloody vain that unofficially corrals Lucio Fulci’s “Zombi 2” as a sequel to George Romero’s “Day of the Dead,” retitled in Italy as “Zombi,” the American-made, Italian-orchestrated “Beyond Darkness” too fell upon the slew of Italian title changes sword with a rechristening into the “La Casa” series.  With the success of “The Evil Dead” in the U.S., Raimi’s video nasty was renamed to “La Case” and “Beyond Darkness” became the fifth “sequel” in the series as “La Casa 5.”  Since Italy has no copywrite laws, a light breeze can easily change any filmic title.  Even the director, Clyde Anderson, dons a false pretense as the Americanized alter ego of Italian director Claudio Fragasso.  The “Scalps” and “Troll 2” Fragasso pens “Beyond Darkness” with longtime script confederate Rossella Drudi, under the Sarah Asproon pseudonym.  “Beyond Darkness” is shot in the deep American South of Louisiana under the Joe D’Amato (aka Aristide Massaccesi) founded Filmirage (“Anthropophagus: The Grim Reaper,” “Deep Blood”), produced by D’Amato, as the Filmirage Production Group.

While behind the camera is mostly an Italian production team, in front of the camera is a cast of American and English actors with an opening Louisiana penitentiary pre-execution theology debate between Bette the witch, played by Mary Coulson, and Father George, a priest having a crisis of faith, played by one of D’Amato’s regulars in English actor David Brandon (“StageFright,” “The Emperor Caligula:  The Untold Story”).  Coulson’s role may be punitively small as the “Beyond Darkness’” lead witch and predominant face of the core evil, but the actress puts all into the Bette character comprised of a maniacal laugh and a lots of very European skin-tag makeup effects whereas the classically trained David Brandon has an array of lively emotions and facial expressions sized to fit Father George’s clerical shirt and white tab collar when he’s not sloshed with doubt.  Both characters interweave into the life of a new-to-the-area priest, his wife, and two kids who move into an old house, built on unholy ground, to start his new chapter in priesthood.  Days later, as the kids become instantly okay with a giant black swam rocking horse in the middle of their bedroom, the family is terrorized by flying kitchenware, flooded with a bayou mist, and frightened by figures in black, tattered shrouds seeking to steal their children’s souls.  Christopher Reeve’s lookalike Gene LeBrock (“Night of the Beast”) fails at double father duty in his poorly lit excuse of a worried father with his children being lured to the realm of the spirit side and as a grounded in faith Father combating the forces of evil without a solid sense of what to do.  Both parents are equally written off as incompetents who continue to stay in the house despite on the continuous threat of Baba Yaga wannabes knocking at every door in the house.  As the mother, Barbara Bingham felt as if she had a little more skin the game.  Perhaps having just come off the legacy success of a “Friday the 13th” sequel (“Jason Takes Manhatten”) she felt the responsibility of maintaining a more diligent approach toward being a mother coursing through occult’s dire straits.   Michael Paul Stephenson (“Trolls 2) and Theresa Walker excel much better in their roles as the two kids, Martin and Carole, who’ve become the centerpiece of Bette’s maliceful desires. 

“Beyond Darkness” will come across as very familiar amongst both horror fans and fans of movies in general with a story pulling inspiration from films like William Friedkin’s “The Exorcist” and Tobe Hooper’s “Poltergeist.”  Fragasso picks and chooses a blanket of trope elements to rework with great malleably in order to not be a total copy.  However, for those who know anything about low-budget Italian horror, Fragasso’s rousing similarities to major and independent hits should come as no surprise.  Notoriously renowned schlock horror directors Joe D’Amato and Bruno Mattei, amongst a sea of others, use to fabricate out of fame at every opportunity by gobbling up successful films, chewing them up, and spitting out their Italian produced counterparts without a second thought just to cash in on just a fraction of the original narrative’s success.  The way I see it, the method was (and still is) an honorable form of flattery. Yet, flattery doesn’t cure sloppiness and “Beyond Darkness” is about as sloppy as sloppy joes. Plot hole after plot hole stack up on Fragasso’s inability to amalgamate elements in an entirely coherent way. There are underwhelming revelations to anticipating character build ups that fizzle; such as a thick-tension mystery behind the local archdiocese and their involvement to place a good Christian family in a house built on evil land or what precisely convinced Father George of Ameth’s power to sink him into an alcoholic pit of despair? I already mentioned Martin and Carole’s inept parents on not fleeing the house at first sign of poltergeist activity or any activity since then so don’t get me started. The story needs some fine tuning but not after is amiss. The acting is not entirely a humdrum of monotony, Carlo M. Cordio’s eclectic synthesizer riff and haunting keynotes score is on another level akin to a composition pulled right out of a survival horror video game, and Larry J. Fraser, another one of Joe D’Amato’s pseudonyms, has an honesty about his scenes unlike we’ve ever seen before in a D’Amato production as the cinematographer captures the fog luminously and effervescently surrounding and chasing the family from out to in.

“Beyond Darkness” is no “The Evil Dead” but is a solid demon and ghost dog and pony show from 1990. Now, the Claudio Fragasso (or is it, Clyde Anderson?) classic is heading straight to your level room television set with a new 2-disc Blu-ray. The hardcoded Region A is presented in widescreen 1.66:1 aspect ratio in a full high definition and 1080p resolution. With only a possible color touch up here or there, I would venture to say the transfer used is the most pristine copy with hardly any damage or any age deterioration. The grain looks amply checked and no cropping or edge enhancing at work in an attempt to correct any issues, if any ever existed. Severin offers two audio options: an English language DTS-HD master audio 2.0 and an Italian dub of the same spec. With dual channels, there retains an always room for growth inkling and with the film’s broad range in sounds, a difficult to swallow lossy audio pill plays the aftertaste tune of, man, this could have been way better. Yet, the track is solid enough, if not more so, with virtually zilch damage. Dialogue comes across clean and clear, but there tails some minor hissing. Like with many Severin releases, new interviews are the star of the special feature show with one-side, talking head interviews with writer-director Claudio Fragrasso Beyond Possession, co-writer Rossella Drudi The Devil in Mrs. Drudi, and actor David Brandon Sign of the Cross. Though the theatrical trailer rounds out the first disc special features, Severin also includes Carlo M. Cordio’s superb soundtrack as disc number two along with a two-page booklet with an introduction to the ingredients of a horror score and to Cordio himself as well as a listing of all 17 tracks. “Beyond Darkness” is Claudio Fragrasso’s unbridled mutt, a motley of motion picture royalties rolled up into an adulating and piggybacking horror beyond comparison.

“Beyond Darkness” 2-disc Special Edition Blu-ray Available on Amazon

Coming Attractions: The Quiet Ones!

Posted by Steven Lewis on

I gotta tell ya – I’m getting very excited about the upcoming supernatural horror film The Quiet Ones! I’m always down for a good demon/poltergeist film especially with Hammer Film Productions behind it and while I was not a total fan of Daniel Radcliffe’s The Woman in Black I thought the film was solid enough for a Hammer comeback. Plus, Let Me In was a decent remake too of the Swedish vampire film Let The Right One In.

The Quiet Ones has an unorthodox professor conducting an off campus experiment with his students. The experiment is to create a poltergeist by use of the human imagination. But when one of their subjects is pushed to edge of her sanity, the experimenters trigger a supernatural being that won’t let them go so quietly.

The film stars Jared Harris from Resident Evil: Apocalypse and The Ward. Check out the trailer and let me know what you think!