Tag Archives: Russian

EVIL’s Counterfeit Products are the Bomb! “Knock Off” reviewed! (MVD Rewind Collection / 4K UHD and Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

When confronted with product forgeries by Hong Kong police and company representative, Ray, a longtime Hong Kong counterfeiter trying to go legit by partnering up with Tommy to be a distributing fashion designer of V-Six Jeans, becomes embroiled in a Russian smuggling operation of hiding powerful micro explosives in counterfeit goods being sent around the globe.  With their ability to be activated by satellite waves, the devices can be hidden in all types of products.  The CIA, using Ray to track down another notorious counterfeiter, becomes involved and exploit Rays connection to Hong Kong’s criminal underbelly but double-crossing twist and turns has Ray struggling to trust an ally in his mission to not only find out who is counterfeiting his denim goods but also save the world from infiltrating Russia explosives.  He’ll have to rely on his fighting skills as well as hesitantly trust those who’ve deceived him to unearth the person responsible to clear his name and stop the deadly outbound shipments. 

To start this review with a personal anecdote, I recently sold Air Jordans to an eBay customer and come to my surprise and dismay, eBay’s authentication process determines the shoes a forgery.  I’ve sold many Air Jordan and Nike shoes in the past, successfully through the authentication process, and pride myself on knowing what to for when determining fake product.  This one had me fooled.  An exact lookalike of the Air Jordans that passed my authenticity examination with the company tag that has all the production information including the product identity number, had the correct Air Jordan logo, and the material passed the visual and feel test with substantial promise to confidently market.  Now, what eBay found is completely without reason as I don’t know what they saw or found but what I found in the 1998 campy-action-thriller “Knock Off” surely reminded me that there is always more than what meets the eye.  “Once Upon a Time in China” and “Twin Dragons” action film director Hark Tsui works with western actors to achieve a nonstop, impractical, and fun to watch film that doesn’t letup or provide any downtime.  The script is penned by Philadelphia born screenwriter Steven E. de Souza, the same de Souza behind “Commando,” “Die Hard,” and “Street Fighter,” orders another supersized helping of action on a Hong Kong reality-defying scale and is produced into an extremely 90’s-laden existence by Raymond Fung, Kamel Krifa (“Universal Soldier”), Moshe Diamant (“I, Madman”), and Nonsun Shi (“Double Team”).  “Knock Off” is a production of Film Workshop and MDP Worldwide. 

At the tail end height of his career, the Muscles from Brussels, Jean-Claude Van Damme (“Bloodsport,” “Universal Soldier”), finds himself in a self-deprecating lead role that’s campy toward showcasing his own physique but in a slapstick way.  His character Ray is a likeable, affable, cool type with a tragic past, only touched upon ever so briefly and delicately in conversation, who has resorted to selling counterfeit items to make a living.  Yet, Ray’s trying to pull himself into a straightened arrow by jumping at the opportunity to partner with Tommy (Rob Schneider, “Deuce Bigalow:  Male Jiggalo”) for legit business.  Van Damme and Schneider become a buddy action duo with Van Damme knocking around bad guys with jump kicks and parkour while Schneider provides the comic relief with very few, and pale in comparison, combative fighting moments in what is also the same kind of role from Sylvester Stallone’s “Judge Dredd.”  To Van Damme’s credit, the usually unintentionally funny action star arises some comedic chops in a devil-may-care persona that eventually hammers down to a determined save lives ambition, but not before Van Damme egregiously has to thematically remove his shirt for nearly every action scene or strip down to his boxer-briefs so all can good a good view of his athletic, muscular physique.  The whole course is an objectifying tragicomic, especially when he starts to rip through Tommy’s Hawaiian shirts simply by turning his body or being whipped in the rear by Tommy during a rickshaw race with Schneider commenting about his big, beautiful ass.  Yes, men do get objectified as well.  Van Damme and Schneider are eventually joined early on by Lela Rochon (“The Meteor Man”) as a V-Six Jeans Representative from North America with a covert agenda and the iconic Paul Sorvino (“Dick Tracey”) as a CIA operations supervisor taking on counterfeiting, both Rochon and Sorvino subdue their performances initially for twisted knots in the storylines later on that makes his evolving ensemble that much more entertaining.  Moses Chan, Wyman Wong, and Glen Chin, Carmen Lee costar.

“Knock Off” isn’t your typical Jean-Claude Van Damme beat’em up action-thriller though it follows the same principles as one.  Hark Tsui puts forth a kinetic ball of continuous energy, ever evolving and dynamic to keep scenes from getting stale.  From the opening illegal rickshaw race through the streets of Hong Kong city to the massive Budha temple explosion to the cargo ship container toppling scenes, there’s plenty to behold in Tsui stunt and special effects juggernaut.  A less serious Van Damme with Rob Schneider joined at the hip is the peculiar buddy action-comedy we never knew we wanted, brush stroked with late 1990’s superimposed fireballs and the legendary pushed to the limit Hong Kong stunt effects that look quite expensive and detailed beyond belief.  Some of Van Damme’s swift movements are aided by a stunt wire that’s briefly visible in hi-def and a few of Tsui’s stylistic edits, ones that zoom in, try to seamless transition, and give an interior view of a sniper’s scope or a barrel of a gun is heavy handed in it’s editing.  While Tsui gets his filmic credit as the one-and-only director, it’s stunt supervisor Sammo Kam-Bo Hung (“Ip Man”) who should receive recognition for helming the camera for the stunt scenes.  You can see the different styles being pushed together between Tsui’s unconventional down shot angles and Hung’s more straightforward impact in an action shot, creating an eclectic design that adds to the intrigue, especially in Tsui’s downtime moments of conversation that’s not only witty and fast but at an off centered framing that’s more vertically skewed while keeping the concentration on the actors in a wider anamorphic lens in an environment that seemingly wraps around them. 

They say imitation is a form of flattery but this legit MVD Rewind Collection release of “Knock Off” fawns clear adulation with a 2-Disc, 4K UHD and Standard Blu-ray release.  Coming in as the 6th title on the company’s 4K LaserVision Collection, cojoined with the Rewind Collection label, the HEVC encoded, BD66 4K UHD, presented in 2160p in a widescreen 2.35:1 aspect ratio, is noted having a hi-def restoration with a 16-bit scan of the original camera negative that provides more a dynamic color range and saturated depth.  There’s definitely an improvement and a difference in contrast to the standard Blu-ray with a vivid offering of a multihued Hong Kong cityscape from the HDR10 that’s not offered in 8-bit or even 10-bit color depth.  Interiors are subjected concreated warehouses of the colorless and dark variety but no banding to note and no block distortions.  Textures are surprising not there at the level we’d expect but likely due to Tsui’s heavy use of superimposition effects with green fireballs and other types of overlayed explosions, and the action scenes often retract a good amount of detail too.  The 1080p Blu-ray is an AVC encoded BD50 with the same aspect ratio as the 4K.  It too offers a solid presentation but not to the extent of the 4K and still suffers from the same wishy-washy texturing, but the overall presentation is solid and worth the value.  The English language tracks available on both formats are a DTS-HD 5.1 Surround Sound Mix and an uncompressed LPCM 2.0 Stereo.  For any action film with lots of range, depth, and conversation, you certainly want to go with the surround sound option that harnesses every direction and that’s the clear choice with “Knock Off” as it opens the lines of directional communication with the back and side channels, leaving all the dialogue and heavy LFE lifting with explosions primary in the front and clear immersive resonation.  Dialogue has no issues with the original audio track albeit being ADR but used with the original cast’s voices.  English subtitles are available for selection.  The 4K special features include only an archival commentary from action film experts Mike Leeder and Arne Venema.  The Blu-ray contains te same in tandem audio commentary plus a new interview with producer Moshe Diamant, an archived interview with screenwriter Steve E. de Souza, the original making-of featurette, and the original theatrical trailer.  MVD’s Rewind and LaserVision Collection set comes with a thin, cardboard O-ring slipcover that has faux crinkled front image, the original cover art of the highly original Van Damme with a gun (my hint at sarcasm) like a laserdisc paper sleeve would have.  Inside is the black Amaray with the same primary image for the sleeve art sans crinkling but if you reverse the sleep, you’ll see the classic Rewind Classic design with the same Van Damme image.  The Amaray has snaplocks on each side of the case on the inside – 4K UHD on the right and Standard Blu-ray on the left – with an insert containing a mini-folded poster of the LaserVision Collection artwork.  “Knock Off” is rated R, has a runtime of 94 minutes, and is A region locked.

Last Rites: “Knock Off” is no cheap…knockoff. The Hong Kong production is action-packed, outrageous, and campy fun with Van Damme in taking a step back from being the stoic hero and charismatic hero to be the anti-hero caught in the middle who just knows how to roundhouse his way out of an nefarious Russian plot involving nano-explosives.

You Better Damme Believe It! “Knock Off” on 4K UHD and Blu-ray from MVD Rewind Collection!

EVIL Chews Through Its Own Loved Ones as “The Vourdalak” reviewed! (Oscilloscope Laboratories / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“The Vourdalak” Available Now at Amazon.com!

The special emissary of the King of France is ambushed by Turks in an isolated Slovic countryside.  With his carriage and clothes stolen and his driver-servant dead, Monseigneur Marquis Jacques Antoine Saturnin d’Urfé has nothing more than the clothes on his back.  He finds himself in the home of Gorcha, an enemy of the Turks, who resides with his three adult children, a daughter in law, and a grandson, but Gorcha was not presently there to greet his hapless visitor until his returns later that day from fighting the Turkish raiders.  Yet, aside from the oldest son Jegor, the family’s superstitious beliefs lead them to doubt Gorcha returning home human and instead has returned as vourdalak, or a blood hungry vampiric creature who feeds on his own loving family to turn them all into the same unnatural ilk.  From an outsider’s point of view, what Marquis d’Urfé witnesses initially is a strange peasant family’s irritational fear turn into a harrowing horror as one-by-one the family members reach an unfortunate end after the return of Gorcha.

Based off the gothic novella “La Famille du Vourdalak. Fragment inedit des Memoires d’un inconnu” from Russian author Aleksey Konstantinovic Tolstoy, a story that plays on the etymology of the Slavic folklore word Wurdulac, or a vampire-like creature, that exacts a similar transpiring fate as described in the above plotline of Adrien Beau’s “The Vourdalak.”   The writer-director fleshes out the 1839 Tolstoy story, one that’s predates Bram Stoker’s “Dracula” by nearly 60 years, for his own period set rendition created for modern times almost two centuries later in 2023 as his debut feature-length film.  The French film is cowritten alongside Hadrien Bouvier who doesn’t depict the vampiric creature as a nobleman, or even a man of wealth, but rather as a likely lowly serf of the countryside under a noble or lord.  Yet, the script, very much like Tolstoy’s novella, is contained within the family and their home rather than expanding across continents and seas, as in Stoker’s “Dracula.”  “The Vourdalak” is produced by “Alone in Berlin’s” Marco and Lola Pacchnioni and Judith Lou Lévy (“Zombie Child”) under the production banners of Les Films du Ball, Master Movies and, in association with, Cinemage 17 and Amazon. 

A period piece with an intimate cast brings closer together the targeted era of late 18th century to early 19th century costuming, articles, and, to extent, performances that sell the monarchial times of French aristocracy and Slavic provincials living humbly on the fringes of an everlasting Russo-Turkish war that spanned decades.  Leading the charge is the only French aristocrat portrayed character in the story played by Kacey Mottet Klein (“The Suicide Shop”).  Dressed in traditional Empiric style high collar shirt, petty coat, and a white wig and garishly garnished with white pale-looking makeup with mouche, an adhesive mole, to reflect their wealth and status, Klein’s prim-and-proper, yet prudish and prissy, Marquis Jacques Antoine Saturnin d’Urfé is finely out of his element with a satisfiable character arc that has the Monseigneur go from a squeamish snob to finding compassion, sympathy, and courage amongst darkness aimed to swallow a family whole as d’Urfé’s high society and fantastical life clashes with the real world with war, necessity, death, natural beauty, unconventionalities, and consideration through another type of fantasy lens, a troubling, insidious darkness that plagues and feeds on the blood from within a domestic design that’s ruthless as it is unfathomable.  Jegor (Grégoire Colin, “Bastards”) is the loyal eldest son, Piotr (Vassili Schneider, “The Demons”) is the sexual orient ambiguous second son with external emotions unlike his other brother, Sdenka (Ariane Labed, “The Brutalist”) is the free-spirited but melancholic beauty, Anja (Claire Duburcq, “She is Conann”) as Jegor’s more than practical and realistic wife and young Vlad (Gabriel Pavie) is Jegor and Anje’s preadolescent boy.  The aforenoted characters are all embodied by a physical, living person to play the role but Gorcha is a horse of another color.  In fact, Gorcha’s not a living thing at all and is actually a puppet personified by two puppeteers and voiced by director Adrien Beau.  The puppet has an emaciated appearance, resembling closely to those used in “Return of the Living Dead, and with the power of green screen, the animating arms and bodies are overlayed out and Gorcha lives and breathes with an animatism spirit that’s creepy as all Hell with an underscoring tow of vampirism. 

In its essence, “The Vourdalak” embraces the simplicity with a less-is-more atmosphere, a self-assured reliance in the palpable and practical, and a confidence in its cast to extract the drama and horror of a longstanding folklore and deliver its poignant potency with eccentric diversity and steady anxiety.  Beau drenches dread into every crevice that sticks like humidity to its subdued black comedy attire.  Yes, “The Vourdalak,” though grim and dark, has a sliver of comedy course through its bloodlet and lapped up veins from the main character’s perspective who, at first, is quite out of his comfortable, aristocracy element being wiggled into a lower-class family’s unusual dysfunctionality.  There’s also the puppet aspect integrated into living, breathing actors as if one of their own and that certainly as a basic layer of absurd surrealism, the French know a thing or two about liberal arts absurdism.  Beau’s shooting style resembles a blend between the fixed camera and low-key lit silent films, also implementing throwback spyglass shots that were widely used in the early cinematic period, and the Euro-horror movement of the 1960s to early 1980s with an ominous romanticism, a dark and creepy-fog environment, and tinged to cooler shades of soft blues and greens all the while lightly touching upon themes of sexuality, homosexuality, and family structures that often collide with one another to stir the pot and overshadows the imminent danger in front of them. 

“The Vourdalak” is unpredictably grotesque in the most amusingly macabre way and is now on a region free Blu-ray release from our friends at Oscilloscope Laboratories.  AVC encoded onto the BD50, the high definition, 1080p resolution, might throw audiences and purveyors of physical media for a loop when the picture isn’t as fine as expected for a modern released picture.  That’s because Adrien Beau shot “The Dourdalak” in Super 16mm that enlivens a grainy and soft toned picture that can appear slightly blurry, resembling the ilk of European horror from the 1960s-1980s  Presented in an anamorphic widescreen 2.35:1 aspect ratio, Beau is very committed the coldness of bleak grays, blues, reds and the variant fused shades of purple, pink, and teals that sparingly envelope the entire frame with a lens tint in surreal moments, such as fever dreams or emulated night shots.  Though unfocused at times, plenty of distinction can still be rendered, such as the very stooge features and qualities of the Gorcha puppet.  The French DTS-HD Master Audio stereo track is an audio sensory mini-triumph.  In its modest sound design, minor qualitative sounds instill creepy atmospherics, especially the sound prominence of a raw chewing theme associated with the vourdalak creature’s folklore.  Adrien Beau also better animates and personifies his Gorcha puppet with a wheezy and struggling voice over for who is supposed to be a very elderly father-grandfather in an undernourished and skeletal appearance with sunken, bulging eyes and a near fully exposed teeth. The special features include two of Adrien Beau’s short films “Les Condiments Irreguliers” and “La Petite Sirene” as well as a behind-the-scenes featurette that’s more of the raw footage of animating and acting the Gorcha puppet without the visual effects removing the puppeteers. The Oscilloscope Laboratories Blu-ray comes in a clear Amaray case with soft, airbrushed quality composition artwork of a calm Marquis Jacques Antoine Saturnin d’Urfé being feasted upon around his neck by the vourdalak. The reverse side contains a still image of a medium-far shot of one of the more powerful images in the film of a graveyard d’Urfé passes through as if it was a revolving doorway in and out of death. A simple yellow title and label name are splayed across the disc, consistent and normal per the company’s design, and the film is not rated with a runtime of 90 minutes.

Last Rites: Rarely do I give a five-star review for a film but Adrien Beau’s “The Vourdalak” is a fascinating and frightening visualization of Aleksey Konstantinovic Tolstoy story that trades visceral images for palpable ones in a folkloric entrancement of unnatural beings disrupting the natural world, a concept worth chewing on the nape of the neck for.

“The Vourdalak” Available Now at Amazon.com!

That Chill from Within is the EVIL that Plagues the Mind. “Bone Cold” reviewed! (Well Go USA Entertainment / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Bone Cold” is available on Blu-ray Home Video at Amazon.com!

After a failed mission attempt by their counterparts, a pair of highly trained U.S. Black Op solders are called back from a leave, less than 24-hours on a previous mission, to drop into a snow-covered forest in Northern Ukraine.  The mission is to eliminate a Russian separatist amassing a paramilitary for insurgency strikes.  The skilled sniper and his longtime spotter assassinate the wrong target on bad intel and find themselves running for their lives when separatist soldiers begin tracking them.  Unable to evac until the mission is a success and they lose their hostile pursuers, the soldiers are hard-pressed by their handler to continue to locate and eliminate the intended target, but something else is following them.  A dark figure against the snowy white landscape hunts them.  With no other friendly assets in the area or air support, they must battle to survive the two-fronts alone, relying on their years of trust and training to get them through alive.

“Bone Cold” is the chilling 2022 psychological thriller from first time feature length film director Billy Hanson.  The Main-born, Florida State Film School alum also pens the story that tackles traumatic stress and delusions brought upon military war and operation fatigue mixed with suspenseful arms engagement, displaying phenomenal sniper back-and-forth volleys, and mixes in a sinister and ominous presence in tow.  Shot in the dual locations of Los Angeles, California, for the not-so-frigid-looking scenes, and in the director’s home state in Saco, Maine during the winter months where most of the action takes place, “Bone Cold” plays into that penetrating freeze that sends shivers down your spine as well as getting the blood pumping for the clashes of special and supernatural forces.  Hanson, along with Elise Green, Ness Wilson, Jonathan Stoddard, and music video maker Jaclyn Amor produced the film under Hanson’s own Dirigo Entertainment production company with Mind the Gap Productions and Well Go USA Entertainment handling distribution.

The story opens with a man using a metal detector on a semi-arid land until the strengthening beeps denote his bounty, a cache full of semi-automatic weapons.  Before he can enjoy the cold grip of a powerful rifle in his hand, his temple explodes with a quick blood splatter from the scoped rifle of United States Black Ops solder Jon Bryant at the confirmed behest of his spotter partner, Marco Miller.  The operatives are played by “Away the Dawn’s” Jonathan Stoddard and “Discarnate’s” Matt Munroe respectively who muster and mimic well the jarhead jargon and procedural positioning with their own brand of super soldier camaraderie, building a believable bond based on distinct posturing alone.  Narratively, we’re exclusively in synch with Jon Bryant, the expert sniper whose likely spent more hours killing marks than at home with wife Mel (Jennifer Khoe, “Fear Frequency”) and daughter Wendy (Trinity Jo-Li Bliss, “Avatar:  The Way of Water”) and slowly Jon’s reality begins to fissure under the pile of bodies that he’s claimed over his military career that translates right into the next mission before he can even decompress from the last assignment.  During their clandestine campaign, Jonathan Stoddard can sell stoic reactions with ease unlike the opposite side of the spectrum where crazy isn’t in the actor’s natural repertoire and while the unknown factor nudges a way in between the two soldiers, where their lives depend on the very stability and duty of the other, in what is a fervent wedging that puts them in a tough spot, Hanson throws in an unnecessary monkey wrench that departs from the obvious in a confounding way and trails Stoddard away from his character leading himself out of his own mental maze.  Hanson does attempt to re-ground the solders with combat and the negative affect that life-and-death struggle has on them in a hot zone and at home.  “Bone Cold” rounds out the cast with Elise Greene (“Incantation”), Jeremy Iversen (“Mantus’), and Danielle Poblarp.

Choice domestic locations give “Bone Cold” a broader, international feel, creating a bigger narrative than in actuality, and those illusionary elements provide invaluable production value on a smaller scale production.  Throw in a few Russian speakers and Billy Hanson has transported you into Eastern Europe without having to leave the filmmaker’s backyard.  A decent charge of combat and special forces verbiage tack on a competent conflict between Americans and Russians that’s kept intimate and selective to not overflow beyond the budget’s capacity to be deemed overreaching to a fault.  We’re also treated to a fair amount of fear that’s set isolated in the quiet, snowy woods where tricks played on the eyes are common and every sound resonates from every angle.  The dark figure stalking and glaring from a distance is ever menacingly taut with suspense, especially with the flawless first-time feature editing work by Hanson and co-editor Art O’Leary.  From the distance, the unknown black figure’s piercing eyes and a wide, sharp-toothed grin is undoubtedly creepy obscured behind trees, bushes, and shadows, but up close and well-lit, the creature characteristics are more a cartoon caricature in its rubbery posterior.  The connection between the paranormality of the creature and sanity-breaking guilt trauma is evidently clear as that ugliness and cold-bloodiness is from within clawing to break out, it becomes an object of neglect until it takes a ride home with you to destroy loved ones, physically and emotionally.  Ultimately, Hanson’s able to piece together an allegorical tale in a roundabout charter that encircles a moment of mass belief of what’s really out there stalking them and the unsuspected device feels like a speed bump being hit at 80 MPH so the story goes off the rails a bit to engage tactual fear with viewers that reminisces a “Predator”-esque faceoff that’s quite out of context and not as thrilling.

“Bone Cold” is a low-budget psychological thriller with a large snowbank production value brought to the Blu-ray retail shelves courtesy of Well Go USA Entertainment.  The AVC encoded BD25 is presented in 1080p, high-definition, with a 1.78:1 aspect ratio.  Since much of the duration has a bright, white snow backdrop, compressions issues are limited to only when the sun falls and night engulfs the solders, displaying some high compression low quality issues that blur the delineated trim which is fairly consistent over many Well Go USA releases as I believe their standard single layer format storage is too little for feature plus bonus material.  Shot on a Panasonic EVA 1, the picture is well balanced in contrast as we’re able to see and distinguish the background and foreground images with relative ease despite the blinding white and the lightly opaque blue lens tint provides an extra chill for the wintery setting.  An English DTS-HD 5.1 audio mix offers ample coverage across all tracks, providing an absolute dialogue package and a full-bodied milieu ambience that has capacious range and depth.  Available English subtitles are a menu option. Bonus features include a making of that’s a total package in running down cast and crew interviews discussing precisely and, in every detail, how “Bone Cold” came to fruition, a montage blooper reel, and the original trailer. Physical aspects of the release include a rigid cardboard o-slipcover with embossed title and back cover stills. Inside the slipcover is your traditional Blu-ray snapper case with latch opening with a cover art the same as the slipcover, that of the dark figure standing in silhouette in the background with a foreground, hunkered over, facing it with a rifle, soldier in the snow. Unimpressive is the disc art of a hazy snow covered Ukranian forest. “Bone Cold” has a 109-minute runtime, comes not rated, and is region A locked. “Bone Cold” has a few choice on ice moments that make the third act inconclusive as the story struggles to decide what it wants to be but Billy Hanson’s grasp on the psychological grip is crafted with an arresting visual paradigm on a paranormal level to convey the life-and-death struggles of combat fatigue and psychosomatics.

“Bone Cold” is available on Blu-ray Home Video at Amazon.com!

A Mushroom Cloud of DNA Altering EVIL Proportions! “Mutant Blast” reviewed! (Troma / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Mutant Blast” is a BLAST!  Now available at Amazon.com

A top-secret military unit conducts human experiments to create the perfect super-soldier. Their illegal and amoral work has proven more difficult than desired with only one subject, TS-347, being deemed functional and fit for dutiful purpose. Maria, operating incognito with an adversarial paramilitary group, infiltrates the cell section where TS-347 is being held to either purloin the property or destroy it in order to not have the DNA be replicated. There’s only one problem – the failed superhuman experimental trials that transformed people into flesh-eating zombies have escaped confinement to begin the apocalypse. Barely escaping with their lives, Maria and TS-347 run into Pedro, a simple, low ambitious man with no clue to what is happening after awaking from a party-induced hangover. Together, they trek to the ocean for safety, but multiple nuclear bombs send their journey into a tailspin of mutant hostiles along their path.

A nuclear orgasm within every minute, the Portugal-made post-apocalyptic comedy-adventure-horror “Mutant Blast” is crazy fun and certifiably crazy. Produced in 2014 but not released until 2018, the Fernando Alle written-and-directed debut radioactive-to-rendezvous through a zombie infested and freakshow continent leaves no stone unturned with an unbridled and practical effects-laden story that’s reminiscent of early 90’s splatter-comedies. Being one of the select more recent films to be actually produced instead of distributed by Troma Films (“The Toxic Avenger,” “The Class of Nuk’Em High”), “Mutant Blast” doesn’t have to work too hard to be granted passage into Tromaville’s sophisticated affinity catalogue. Troma’s masterminds Michael Herz and Lloyd Kaufman, who has a zombified bit part in the film, coproduce “Mutant Blast” alongside Alle and Matt Manjouridas, executive producer of Shudder’s “The Last Drive-In with Joe Bob Briggs, also financially supports Alle’s film that should one day, hopefully, be on the docket for Joe Bob Briggs to introduce its rat-fu, seafood-fu, and titty-shot-fu to the rest of the horror fanbase.

Living her best imitation of Ellen Ripley with a shaved dome from “Alien 3” is Maria Leite as the infiltrating noble cause soldier aiming to stop the experimental creation of human super soldiers by any means necessary.  Leite makes looking like a badass action hero pretty convincing and her comedic timing is wonderfully contrasted with Pedro, “Blarghaaahrgarg’s” Pedro Barão Dias in his introductory role into feature films, as a lighthearted and bewildered man strikingly outside his element and out classed what’s about to face him.  If you haven’t noticed, the characters names don’t stray far from the actor’s and that makes the chemistry a little easier, especially on “Mutant Blast’s” ambitious post-apocalypse and kooky freakshow façade.  Dias has the charming qualities of a gleefully lost puppy in a world that has everything trying to kill his character Pedro where previously the carefree partying fool was left alone, if not also insignificantly thought of, to his own devices.  If hitting the notes on the “Alien” franchise notes a part of the Fernando Alle’s must-have adulation check list then “The Terminator” is another box the filmmaker sought to check off as well with the TS-347 cyborg-ish super solider played by the then nearly 50-year-old professional bodybuilder Joaquim Guerreiro doing double duty as also the evil counterpart TS-504, splitting his obvious presence except with a prosthetic mask, makeup, and way more clothing overtop his shirtless glistening pectorals and deltas.  Their odyssey to the ocean has them cross paths with other survivors, sprouting various fission bomb mutated genes as if seeds were sowed in their skin.  Mário Oliveira, Hugo Cássimo, Andreia Brito, Joao Gualdino, Pedro Caseiro, Mauro Herminio, Francisco Alfonso Lopes, Basco Ferreira, Paulo Alexandre Firmino, and João Vilas fill the colorful shoes playing one, or sometimes multiple, mutants.

If you like gooey and explosive foot-to-head smashes, then “Mutant Blast” is for you.  If you like single punch decapitations, then “Mutant Blast” is for you.  If you like baby rat hands, third ear growths, melted faces, horn protrusions, zombie head backpacks, giant rats squirting highly acidic teat milk, Dolphinman versus a French speaking Lobster man, then “Mutant Blast” is definitively in your very best interest. Past all that juvenile jazz that, if done right like Alle did it, transforms a lobotomizing spectacle into a complete cherry of cinema, underneath the liberating layers of free, self-made movies, lies a subtle message weaved into the very fabric of “Mutant Blast’s” nuclear core story. Alle’s undoubted wants audiences to take away from his film not only riotous laughter and an appreciation for tangible gore effects but also to take away a sense of how we, people of Earth, seek to self-destruct. Life is precious yet experiments turn into crazed maniacs, we nuke ourselves in an ironic act of fighting fire with fire in cleaning up our messes, and with the lobster who turned into man names Jean-Pierre, wears a suit, speaks French, and hates “motherfucking” dolphins delivers a monologue served up on a platter of overfishing, environmental indifference and destruction, and a general apathy overview for life in general conceptualizes as the vertex of the Alle’s entire theme before the one-on-one with the James Gunn created Dolphinman who makes a very special appearance.

Troma’s newly upgraded, upscaled, and likely high on uppers release of “Mutant Blast” is not available on a director’s cut Blu-ray that wouldn’t be complete or official with a Lloyd Kaufman introduction from the COVID bunker. Released in high definition 1080p, the region free, 2-disc, AVC encoded Blu-ray is presented in a widescreen 2.35:1 aspect ratio with an 83-minute runtime. I’m genuinely impressed by the compression of this Troma release as the image quality looks quite good with little-to-no compression afflictions in the digital video, displaying an above par codec in the ballpark of 24-26 megabytes. Granted, “Mutant Blast” isn’t perfect with signal aliasing infractions, but the overall image stands out amongst the catalogue as one of the best from Tromaville. Offering two dual audio options – a Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound and a LPCM 2.0 stereo track – you’ll get to enjoy every squish, squash, and squirt on the effects track to compliment to head bashing assaults. The Portuguese and French language dialogue tracks render no issues with clarity and the English subtitles keep things smooth and easy with ample timing and errorfree. There are a slew of dubbed languages including English, Russian, Spanish, Italian, Polish, and, if you want to be precise, Brazilian Portuguese. Troma also offers up some fantoxically futuristic extras with a making of featurette Lobsterman Caws, the giant rat pre-production test, a doc about “Mutant Blast” heading to Korea over a three-day coverage span, Portugual audiences’ reactions to “Mutant Blast,” the film’s special effects, blooper reel, bottlecap challenge, the original theatrical trailer, international trailer, 30 second trailer, and see how Lloyd Kaufman transformed into a flesh-eating Portuguese zombie. In the gloriously objectionable essence of all that makes Troma Troma, “Mutant Blast” is textbook Troma, a modern new face for the company, and is radiantly glowing from the same toxic waste that gave birth to the beloved Toxie.

“Mutant Blast” is a BLAST!  Now available at Amazon.com

A Grand Tour of EVIL Only Costs Your Life. “The Curse of Dracula” reviewed! (MVDVisual / DVD)

Posted by Steven Lewis on



Own the Curse….The Curse of Dracula on DVD at Amazon.com

Con-artist brothers Bojan and Marjan whip up a quick-cash scheme by price gouging tourists to roam the Slovenian grounds of the infamous Valburga castle, a restricted and vacant manor estate that was once owned by a ruthless inhabited, known by the people as the Baron of Blood, believed to be a cousin of the vampiric legend Count Dracula.  The lore itself would bring in lucrative customers and lucrative cash would be easily raked in or at least the brothers thought so until the types of tourists attracted to visiting Valburga castle are anything but easy targets with a pair of German alcoholic partiers looking for a good time, a sleazy Russian porn director scouting locations to shoot his two beautiful starlets, than demonists, goths in search to become vampires themselves, and Swedish demonists on the hunt for ultimate power.  Biting off more than they can chew with their new venture, Bojan and Marjan must also contend being trapped with an industrial-sized circular saw wielding maniac roaming the mazelike passageways of the castle. 

Let us preface this review with the “The Curse of Dracula” almost entirely has little to do with Count Dracula.  The original film title, “The Curse of Valburga” was altered to “The Curse of Dracula” in an appeal to a broader, Western audience who may not have a clue what or where Valburga is on a map and for those who do not know, Valburga is a quaint little settlement area in Slovenia, the birthplace of the 2019 film and the birth home of “Killbillies” writer-director Tomaz Gorkic.  Gorkic plays the Americanized game of Seven Degrees of Kevin Bacon with a story that links Count Dracula to a mysterious Baron of Blood who once resided and laid down massacring roots in Valburga, but instead of a grave tone surrounding one aristocrat’s austere penchant for sadism, “The Curse of Dracula” plays out a dark horror-comedy with a cynical sense of humor and a punk-attired killer.  Gorkic coproduces the film with fellow “Killbillies” producer Nejc Saje for 666 Productions in association with Strup Production, MB Grip, NuFrame, Supermarket Production, and Sonolab.

The opening driver of the story is setup like a buddy comedy revolving around two brothers Marjan and Brojan (Jurij Drevensek and Mark Mandic) joined by business associate Ferdo (Ziga Fodransperg) who has the keys to their castle con and when I say keys the toe castle, I mean it literally as the owner of the security company that services over the grounds.  Sifting through their snarky teasing, you get the senses the three are close despite their tough guy act and jabs at one another who leveling onto Marjan price gouging unrestricted tourism plan.  While Marjan and Brojan are seemingly being carved out as principal characters, that feeling quickly diminishes upon the arrival of the tourist group that includes Sven (Niklas Kvarforth), a Swedish neo-necromancer clandestinely on the scour for the eye of the baron – yet, we’re never told what the eye of the baron is or specifically why Sven is searching for it other than it can summon demons, connecting back to the prologue scenes of staticky, post-industrial score with him conducting satanic-like ritualistic hand movements and unheard chanting verbiage. Then, you have the Russian porn director Vasily (Luka Cimpric) with his two floozies, Dasha (Zala Djuric) and Anastasya (Sasa Pavlin Stosic) trying to make sexy-time promo happen on the Baron’s rundown manor. However, a favorite out of the bunch are the German man (Jonas Znidarsic) and wife (Tanja Ribic) who just keep pulling beer from the wife’s tiny purse – a good gag by the way – and treat the whole contention and violence as one big party. Despite all their idiosyncrasies and motives, not a single one of them are redeemable from out of their petty and conceited intentions. “The Curse of Dracula” rounds out with Katarina Stegnar, Gregor Skocir, Odina Kerec, Matevz Loboda, Neza Blazic, and Anton Antolek as a one-of-a-kind subjugator of souls with his wild circular saw blade slingshot and Nazi helmet.

Now, the title already irks me. Insinuating or, better yet, incepting an idea that hapless tourists will be become victims of Dracula’s curse was a terribly misleading campaign strategy to get the Dracula, or just simply the vampiric, fanbase to hop aboard a quick cash in on the Lord of Darkness. However, “The Curse of Valburga” is an apt title for a slasher-survival tale around the sawblade killer who hunts trespassers for his crypt-dwelling clan in the cellar. Gorkic never fleshes out the enjoyable turn of events with the mysterious group that causes all of the tourists’ troubles in full disquisition and tries to sneakily skimp by with just a rudimentary, flyby explanation that doesn’t clearly paint the picture or really denote a reason. One thing Gorkic didn’t convey confidently was the appearance of the chief who wore a MM35 or MM40 style German helmet on top of a metal and chainmail masked face and sported a cutoff sleeve shirt while flinging giant-saws from a handheld slingshot rifle. I wanted to know that guy’s backstory! Yet, each character is cut short and never massaged with arc to care about and, frankly, wanted them all to feel the serration of the saw from how terribly poor they’re written. It’s as if the characters were farmed to be massacred, having no sense of purpose to live or garner audience sympathy to overcome the struggle, and just like the characters, the story is also equally deprived of a proper concluding finale that leaves us hanging, waiting for that satisfying high-five. The script written by Gorkic might be poor in arc development, but I will say the Slovenian filmmaker does have a small taste for comedy as there are moments that will have you chuckling, especially the phone call between Sven and Gregor Skocir in what’s llike a classic Abbott and Costello dialogue gag.

If you’ve never seen Slovenian horror, then I suggest checking out the bloody chuckles of Tomas Gorkic’s “The Curse of Dracula” now available on DVD distributed by MVDVisaul in collaboration with Jinga and Danse Macabre. The poorly designed DVD cover of a wide-eyed, gaping mouth vampire with fangs drawn superimposed behind a cracked open upright coffin with dirty/bloody hands stretched straight out overtop and bats positioned adjacent to the coffin on both sides doesn’t do this story an ounce of actual justice, but the DVD is presented in a widescreen 16X9 aspect ratio with a solid 5 to 6 Mbps of data transmission, rendering the picture fair for DVD image quality. Some of the details in the background and even on the characters are not as finely crisp but the picture maintains an above adequate quality. The English, Slovenian, Swedish, Russian, and German Dolby Digital 5.1 surround sound is nicely robust but offers the same quality as there Stereo 2.0 when toggling back and forth between the two audio options and never distinguishing the difference between the two. Dialogue is clear albeit the broken English and thick accents when characters are speaking English. There are option English subtitles; however, they do contain a handful of errors and are text size is a bit small so if you have a 42″ or smaller TV, you may need to squint. The release is region free, has a runtime of 82 minutes, is unrated, and does not contain any special features or bonus scenes during or after credits. “The Curse of Dracula” is a slaughter-horse of a different color with a fascinating villain and a blindsiding coven of flesh-craving basement dwellers that pivot the narrative in a wild direction but the story lacks comprehension that results dissatisfaction.

Own the Curse….The Curse of Dracula on DVD at Amazon.com