Tag Archives: star trek

An EVIL Taxi That Requires Your Baby for Payment! “Black Cab” reviewed! (Acorn Media International / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Anne has lingering reservations about getting back together with cheating boyfriend Patrick but half-heartedly agrees to take him back and even merry him.  The announcement comes as a surprise to dinner friends, including Anne’s best friend Jessica, but before talking out the situation that clearly has the two women upset, Anne is eager to leave and return to her home.  The embattled couple jump into a cab driven by Ian, a gabby cabby prying into the couple’s heated discussions.  When Ian drives down a dark alley and stops to retrieve a map from the trunk, Anne and Patrick realize they’re locked inside the cab.  A returning Ian reveals his true intentions with a purpose still ambiguous why the couple has been abducted but a desperate Ian will do anything, even kill, to get what he loves back from a wistful countryside spirit, and he needs disordered Anne for a trade. 

Should have taken an Uber.  “Black Cab” is the 2024 British abduction and supernatural horror-thriller from serial television and made for TV movie director Bruce Goodison, with a career credits that specializes mostly in tales of international military conflict and British murder mystery, and a screenplay by “Reawakening” writer-director Virginia Gilbert, incorporating into the relationship couple’s discordant flame a sliver of kidnapping, electrical prodding torture, and a desperate act inside the context of an old ghost tale as well as inside the English’s famous hackney carriage of black taxis, using the popular public mode of transportation as a device to market the film’s story for the sordid cab driver.  Filmed in the city of Manchester and the surrounding greater area, the Shudder exclusive presented film is produced by Jan Roldanus of Stolen Pictures and executively produced by Sony International Pictures’s former strategic producer Lucy Robison and current producer Michaela Fereday.

When a moviegoer familiar with actor Nick Frost runs through a mental checklist of the actor’s filmography, comedies like “Hot Fuzz,” “Shaun of the Dead,” “Monster Family,” and “Paul” come to mind with the often lighthearted, sometimes heart wrenching or darkly humorous, storylines in the presence of physicality and fun, done nearly most of the time alongside Frost’s usually entourage and friends, actor Simon Pegg (“Star Trek,” “Run Fatboy Run”) and director Edgar Wright (“Shaun of the Dead,” “Last Night in Soho”), but Frost has been frequently rooted at the base in horror, science fiction, and, well frankly, genre films in general, with the perfect examples being the aforementioned with shoot’em up polizias, zombies, classic monsters, and an Earthbound alien features.  Frost’s comedic genius is all about timing and the way he carries himself jovially and nonchalantly through tough situations, but Frost can also use those same qualities and twist them to enact a man of deeply troubled anguish behind a masked funny face and viperous wit.  That’s his role in Ian, a cab driver with the gift of gab but turns on a dime with forced aggressive intent to take what he needs from Anne, emoting her character’s already internalized troubles with now a threatening abduction conflict from actress Synnove Karlsen (“Last Night in Soho”).  While Anne is poised as can be in the situation, her disagreeing fiancé Patrick has little-to-no merit as a character being a bit of a bully, cheat, and coward.  Luke Norris (Poldark) gives his best unpleasant rendition of a dirtbag white male with misogynistic issues, but the poorly written aspects of Patrick never fully amount to anything but a weighted towline and an extra body to do what what Ian thinks best with.  Tessa Parr and Tilly Woodward make up the rest of the cast. 

“Black Taxi” subsidizes good suspense over the supernatural calling cards that slowly, yet continuously, shows Anne through an emotional struggling, involving a rather vocally rambunctious boyfriend in Patrick, as well as building the tension inside the cab by hinting at its unusual state of tinted windows, child locked doors, and a more than nosy driver, mostly gone unnoticed by Anne and Patrick due to their bickering and heated love life, or lack thereof.  The first two acts slowly feel out where this story is aiming to drive the audience as Ian’s true intentions are well covered and contained and not fully delineated by the baby clues Ian hints at along the way.  There’s an elemental theme of family and protection, loss and heartache, and how that torment is divergently depicted by both the lead principals Ian and Anne, with the latter being more at a crossroads of choices whereas Ian has already made his choice and it’s one he won’t or can’t come back from.  The third act is mostly where the supernatural factors come into play with the infamous haunting of Mabel Hill, a fiction road supposedly paranormal charged with the ghost of a woman who lost her baby fleeing an abusive relationship and continues to search for the child through bypassing passenger vehicles.  The third act is also where things get murky under the black and white essence of Ian’s motivations as the Ian, Anne, and the ghost are nebulously intertwining on Mabel Hill in some sort of supernatural netherworld dimension that plays mind tricks and is foggy with phantom, falling apart at the seams to support a porous ending.

“Black Cab’s” fare is prenatally pricy in this new release from Acorn Media International and presented as a Shudder exclusive. The UK release is AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition, BD25 that renders a softer image quality that, in all fairness, was already foggy and murky being set in the darkness of the English countryside, presented in a widescreen 2.35:1 aspect ratio. Lots of shadows and silhouetted surroundings drowns out the delineated city structures that blend to the spooky forest as the focus is significantly on the interiors, the cab and the abandoned hotel, and not even those highlighted inmost sets solidified specifics. There’s quite a bit of banding from compression and that’s not to be surprising given the format size and the profound amount of tenebrous tone. Textures along Frost’s dressed-in-black casuals or in contrast to Karlsen’s cocktail outfit that’s more nightgown than ritzy, they’re just not there to extensively define Ian and Anne other than being the epitome of differing the dark and light of loss. “Black Cab” has more of a cityscape than a landscape though the story heavily hits upon Mabel Hill as ghost central and yet lacks the elucidation as well as the finer points to flesh out the haunted area. The ghost too is more a cheap visual effects trick than the implementation of palpable practical patience with an overlaid layer of overexposed blues and whites over top the actress to be then augmented into the scene for ethereal effect. The English language DTS-HD 5.1 surround mix is a better outfit, more so in the clean and clear dialogue exchanges between the trio of Nick Frost, Synnove Karlsen, and Luck Norris but does whittle down to the Nick Frost exposition hour when his vague maligned venture is made with more understanding through his broken man diatribes and Anne just sitting and listening as any good abductee would do to avoid saying or doing the wrong thing. Light atmosphere hubbub caters to just that with the night, likely late, shoots inside the city and rural settings but the localized car actions, taser zaps, and character efforts are effective enough to entice a palpable action. English subtitles are optionally available. Acorn’s releases are not chockfull of special features, and “Black Cab” harbors the same slimmed down supplements with a behind-the-scenes gallery. The UK release has a slightly thicker than normal Blu-ray Amaray with an encompassing composition of a rearview mirror peering Frost and a shadowed Karlsen in the fear of the mirrored frame while a ghost hovers above the presumed Mabel Hill Road. UK certified 15 for strong threat, horror violence, domestic abuse, and very strong language, “Black Cab” is hard encoded for region B playback only and has a runtime of 87-minute runtime.

Last Rites: “Black Cab” starts off as an unpredictable ride of mystery and suspense that quickly loses gas to keep up with the swerving supernatural vehicle.

A Little Blow Evokes the Curse! “Cocaine Werewolf” reviewed! (Cleopatra Entertainment / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Snort “Cocaine Werewolf” Up! Purchase Here!

A haughty and unpleasant stock trader taking an Uber to a late-night business meeting stumbles upon a drug deal gone bad.  Monstrously bad.  A werewolf intrudes into the exchange, killing three people and biting the trader on the shoulder.  Stumbling into the nearby woods disoriented and with a pocketful of cocaine, his desire to relieve the pain from his shoulder as well as to escape the nightmare of being lost and confused in the woods lies within the white as snow narcotic housed on his person, but every time he takes a nasal hit, his addiction curses him into becoming like the wolf that attacked him.  Happening across a film crew shooting a microbudget horror film and having no clue what’s happening to him, he partakes with the director’s cocaine habit that fuels his inner beast to come out and hunt them down one-by-one to rip them to shreds high on nose candy. 

Much the same way the farcical “Sharknado” gave birth to a few analogous action-horror spoofs with similar ridiculously punned titles, such as “Clownado” or “Lavantula,” that combines a vilified thing with one of the many wraths of mother nature, 2023’s “Cocaine Bear” too began the same conceptual nonsense that spewed out “Attack of the Meth Gator,” “Cocaine Shark,” and now, we’re treated to the next level of hopped-up creatures with “Cocaine Werewolf.”  Helmed by longtime microbudget horror filmmaker Mark Polonia, under the Polonia Bros. Production banner, and penned by first time screenwriter Tyger Torrez, the 2024 horror-comedy cuts the werewolf’s bane with powdery coke, spiraling the legendary lycanthrope into a stimulated frenzy of blow.  “Camp Blood’s” David S. Sterling of Sterling Entertainment funds the in-and-around Wellsboro, Pennsylvania-shot project with fellow producers Ford Austin (“Dahmer vs. Gacy) and Cleopatra Entertainment’s Tim Yasuni and Brian Perera (“Frost,” “The Black Mass”) serving as producer and executive producer. 

Returning to the schlocky world of penny-made horror is Brice Kennedy who has reconnected with Mark Polonia since “Razorteeth” and “Splatter Beach” from 2007.  Shortly after Mark’s brother, John Polonia, unexpectantly died in 2008, Kennedy returns to the in front of the camera scene in 2024 after a lengthy hiatus of 17 years.  Kenney takes the lead role of the cocaine addicted stock trader bitten to become a rampaging werewolf with a proclivity for nose blow.  The West Virginia native never lost a step in those 24 years of off camera with a smooth slip into an obnoxiously crass stock trader jostled to wander the woods and to be anxious to get to the next snort of his pocket narcotic.  Kenney plays on a fraction of the rubber masked werewolf, with Mark Polonia and others donning the snarling molded and faux hair stitched latex, but we don’t know or can’t tell which portion of the man-wolf Kenney portrays.  Brice carries much of the story until he meets the film crew halfway, through the muck of drug deals gone sour between actors James Carolus and Titus Himmelberger of “Sharkula,” a pair of unlucky drivers behind the wheel of their cars in Michael Korotitsch (“Motorboat”) and Marie DeLorenzo (“Sister Krampus”), and two hunters, from James Kelly (“Sharkula”) and Jeff Kirkendall (“Motorboat”) suspicious of the recent mauling deaths of their neighbors and find themselves way over their head with the animal that’s causing all the carnage.  Principal position shifts from being solo to a shared introduction of the film crew, exploring satire of making a low-budget, independent horror movie about a hackneyed clown slasher (Noyes J. Lawton, “Virus Shark”) chasing two girls through the forest.  Those two females leads, Jamie Morgan (“Motorboat”) and Greta Volkova (“The Last Frankenstein”), get put through the trope wringer with lesbianism tendencies and gratuitous shower nudity, not to also neglect mentioning being damsels in distress from a killer clown, and become centrically the focus toward heroine, aka the final girl, as the cocaine werewolf infiltrates their small band of filmmakers.  Hot on the savage beast’s trail is Ken Van Sant (“Virus Shark”) as the local sheriff baffled by what’s tearing people apart.  If you couldn’t tell already, the cast is comprised of Mark Polonia regulars, those who have worked together on numerous projects, and have a kind of inner circle rapport with each other from the various Mark Polonia Bros. productions and this also includes Cody Losinger, Tim Hatch, Yolie Canales, and Alyssa Paige that rounds out “Cocaine Werewolf.”

I had promised myself after reviewing “Motorboat” dismally, I would stay away from another Mark Polonia production but because of my personal philosophy and prejudge avoidance policy of not researching and previewing films before watching them for critical analysis, I burned myself into Mark Polonia’s world once again.  I was duped in part of Cleopatra Entertainment being partnering producers and the distributing label as they’re becoming well known for release moderately subpar horror product and have their own entourage line of actors, actresses, and filmmakers, such as Devanny Pinn and Brandon Slagle, with notable B-movie guest stars like William Shatner (“Star Trek”), Vernon Wells (“Commando”), and Udo Kier (“Blood for Dracula”) in some of their releases.  Additionally, I absolutely enjoyed “Gun Woman’s” Kurando Mitsutake from print-to-film manga adapted “Lion Girl” that recently saw the physical media light.  Unfortunately, I did not get the same pleasure out of “Cocaine Werewolf” under Polonia’s formulaic filmmaking and while Polonia does apply some effects techniques, mostly off-kilter visual f/x such as the added cold breath, the blood spurts, or the swirling faces that indicate human-to-wolf transition, but there isn’t a consistency to them and doesn’t blend into “Cocaine Werewolf’s” whole tone in what is more of a convenience choice rather than a unifying or connective element.  “Dead Ant” and “Psycho Goreman’s” Josh Wasylink’s werewolf mask design would be any kid’s Halloween wet dream in what has pretty remarkable detail contrasted against the microbudget.  Granted, there are not pneumatic or hydraulic components to the constant mask but a little blood here, a little blood there, and some glowing red eyes and you got yourself a damn good-looking, classic-feeling werewolf. 

From Cleopatra Entertainment, the film division of music label Cleopatra Records, comes “Cocaine Werewolf” onto an AVC encoded, 1080p high-definition, BD25 Blu-ray. Frequently lacquered in a CIG haze, the ungraded image manages to retain a solid definition of sharp detail presented in an anamorphic 1.85:1 aspect rato. This can be good and bad for the image quality that while really creates delineation around textural clothing and the ample foliage it can also really expose to a fault and emphasize the rubbery inanimate mask along with the large cut out eyes, blackened with dark makeup to try and make the mask and the actor seamless. Depth is fine and medlied across multiple locations and the color range has natural, varied pop, diffused into the smokey trope atmospherics and angled up and key lit cinematography by Paul Alan Steele. Blacks are slight washed but not crushed or with significant banding. Like most Cleopatra Entertainment releases, the soundtrack overwhelms enough of the other audio layers in this English language LCPM Stereo 2.0 that it slightly takes of the edge of the impact, but the lossless quality awakens the snarling, growling werewolf noises and the dialogue is amply consistent throughout that even the Gothic rockabilly score from The 69 Cats doesn’t fully immerse viewers solely in the band’s dark melodiousness. Bonus content includes a Mark Polonia commentary, which the director is usually pretty good about supplying and supporting for most of his work, an image slideshow, and the trailer plus trailers for other Cleopatra Entertainment releases. Physical attributes of the conventional encased Blu-ray include an uncredited but insane Red Riding Hood inspired illustration on the front cover. There is no reverse side of the cover nor are there any inserts included in his release and the disc is pressed with the same front cover image. The unrated Blu-ray comes region free and has a runtime of 80 minutes.

Last Rites: “Cocaine Werewolf” is better than most of the contemporary Mark Polonia body of work, but the heart-pounded effects of his laced comedy-horror is not addictive enough to produce the euphoria to warrant another line hit, leaving this derived werewolf indie in withdrawals.

Snort “Cocaine Werewolf” Up! Purchase Here!

Its Punk to Fight Back Against EVIL Neo-Nazis! “Green Room” reviewed! (Second Sight Films / 4K UHD – Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

“Green Room” Now Available on a 4K UHD and Blu-ray Limited Edition Release. Purchase Here!

Hardcore punk band Ain’t Rights struggle to make ends meet as they syphon gas and crash at a pursual journalist’s apartment just to make it across country to the west coast.  When the initial paying gig falls through the cracks, the journalist’s backup plan is his cousin’s spot out in the isolated Pacific Northwest for decent pay.  The only downside to the job is it’s at a neo-Nazi bar.  A successful go-hard set pays off until one fatal witness of a heinous murder confines the band to the bar’s green room and outside, waiting, are plotting neo-Nazi’s concocting a cover up strategy that doesn’t let the Ain’t Rights see another day alive.  Surrounded with nowhere to go, the ruthlessly calculating skinheads use attack dogs, machetes, and other vicious tactics to keep the Ain’t Rights from escaping and learning the truth behind the skinheads’ already sordid and bigoted movement but the tightknit band won’t go quietly down without fighting for their very lives. 

If there is any chance of seeing Captain Jean-Luc Picard himself, the knighted Sir Patrick Stewart, act in a neo-Nazi leadership role, then everyone should share the experience of just how terrifying Stewart can be as a cold-hearted villain.  Jeremy Saulnier’s breakout 2015 film, chockfull of violence and suspense, titled “Green Room” is masterclass grit for survival and to never underestimate the underdog.  Saulnier, the debut filmmaker of 2007’s “Murder Party,” wrote and directed the film shot on site in the densely large forests of Oregon and set the stage for being one of the truest and vehement hardcore punk-laced stories to be told that happens to have a side dish of killer instinct.  Produced by Neil Kopp (“Paranoid Park”), Victor Moyers (“Orphan:  First Kill”), Brian S. Johnston (“Wish Upon”), and actor and longtime Jeremy Saulnier associates, Macon Blair and Anish Savjani, “Green Room” is a production of Broad Green Pictures and Film Science.

Though Sir Patrick Steward is a thespian legend, having been in numerous films and stage plays in the decades of the practice, practically a household name amongst fanatical and the casual moviegoer, the now 83-year-old English actor is not the principal star of “Green Room.”  That falls under the late Anton Yelchin in his late theatrical role.  The established new kid on Hollywood’s block, having seen success in roles from “Alpha Dog,” “Star Trek,” to “Terminator:  Salvation” along with indies such as “Odd Thomas,” and yet was still an up-and-coming young actor who tragically joined the infamous urban legend of the 27 club, where celebrities have died too young at the age of 27, Amy Winehouse and Kurt Cobain are also members of this pop culture phenomena, helmed as lead guitar Pat of the fictional punk band called the Ain’t Rights and Pat becomes intwined as spokesperson to negotiate with Darcy, the manipulatively devious neo-Nazi leader played by Sir Patrick Stewart.  Yelchin’s realistic approach to do the right thing favors the nervously anxious and uncertain body language amongst an already prejudice crowd who are known to be unpredictable and dangerous.  Stewart’s role is emotionless but not taciturn as Darcy who quickly and cleverly decides the fate of witnesses to a brutal murder inside his place of business in what is nearly a duplicated performance from Stewart’s role in “Conspiracy Theory,” as the calm and collected Dr. Jonas eager to get his hands on Mel Gibson’s agitated knowledge of secret dubious schemes.  Pat fights for his life whereas Darcy plans for his death and Yelchin and Stewart apt those two behaviors in a contrast of contention.  Yelchin is backed by his costars, aka Ain’t Right bandmates, Alia Shawkat (“The Final Girls”), Joe Cole (“Pressure”), and Collum Turner (“Victor Frankenstein”) along with a traitor of the fascist cause in Imogen Poots (“28 Weeks Later”) who, in varying degrees, deal with being mice caught inside a shoebox inside a cat factory.  As for the skinheads, a lot is squeezed out from Macon Blair’s Gabe, an uneasy, unsure, bordering fumbling go-along neo-Nazi, as Darcy’s plan unfolds and pivots into more and more of the uncomfortable for the character, but for the rest of the skinheads, such as Clark (Kai Lennox, “Apartment 143”) the dog handler, Big Justin (“Eric Edelstein, “The Hills Have Eyes 2”), and even Darcy don’t fully flesh out once they’re fully engaged in the problem at hand.  David Thompson (“Fear Street:  Part 1”), Brent Werzner, Taylor Tunes (“The Motel ‘6’”), and Mark Webber (“13 Sins”) fill out the cast.

The ”Green Room” narrative is in itself very punk, following an ethos of anti-establishment and a do-it-yourself anarchist pathway in protest for what is right and against greed.  Engrained is the very subculture “Green Room” exposes on the surface level but the essence of the direct action is right there in front of us the whole time soaked into a group of true believers of the punk music and movement, struggling with less than nothing to live on, are trying to do what’s right after witnessing the aftermaths of a gruesome murder and wants to correct the action immediately despite seemingly to look like they would turn the other cheek toward crime.  Instead, they have to go against the xenophobic-authoritarian grain with nothing but grit and whatever is in proximity of arms’ length.  Authenticity is so important to writer-director Jeremy Saulnier and to the film’s success that the Ain’t Right actors actually play the instruments and perform the music themselves with a couple of them learning how to be instrument proficient for the character and the story.  Another truth attributed to the “Green Room” is Saulnier penchant for graphic violence.  From the very first fray, the tone sets in at grim and grue with no one being safe and no one pegged to be the clearcut hero from the get-go. “Green Room” is viscerally charged, uncompromisingly bloody, and embodies all the best characteristics of punk. 

In the 9 years since the film’s release, nearly 8 years since Anton Yelchin’s untimely death, the “Green Room” finally receives the attention and respect it deserves with a new and deluxe limited edition collector’s set from UK distributor Second Sight Films. The 2-Disc, 4K UHD and Blu-ray set, presenting the feature in a widescreen 2.35:1 aspect ratio, offers the ultra-high definition resolution Dolby Vision to brings to the table the best image representation possible and what lands is a delineated and detailed image that’s de facto devoid of any kind of compression artefacts. Blacks saturate without losing contours or bearing the brunt of banding or posterization and distinctly lays out the color palette with an overlay of some dingy-filmed gel lighting in a few scenes inside the neo-Nazi club or low-key lighting in other areas, again in the club or even outside the club, that usually tend to see more problems which is non-existent in this conversion. The transfer fairs well within the smaller UHD range of a HVEC encoded BD66 capacity while still leaving room for bonus content. The 2K scanned Blu-ray is AVC encoded BD50 renders nearly an identical in faultless image quality, decoding at the same rate of 23-24Mbps, yet still an inferior presentation to the 4K with the depth of detail. Both video transfers are clean yet the upgrade to UHD bests all other releases to date. Both formats offer a lossless English language DTS-HD 5.1 master audio mix that are identical technically and to the untrained/trained ear, offering clean, true fidelity with a punk rock soundtrack that’s welcoming hardcore yet can differentiate between the layers with a clean, prominent dialogue and near proximity ambience. Depth and range are good on both accounts but add little to the creation of suspense as much of that area is handled by situational context and depiction of graphic violence. English subtitles are optionally available. The software special features include a new audio commentary by film critics Reyna Cervantes and Prince Jackson, an older, archival commentary by writer-director Jeremy Saulnier, a new interview with the director Going Hardcore, a new interview with actor Callum Turner Punk Rock, a new interview with composes Brooke and Will Blair Rocking Out, and a new interview with production designer Ryan Warren Smith Going Green. Also found on the special features are the Thomas Caldwell on “Green Room” archival featurette Nazi Punks Fuck Off and the making of the film, a behind-the-scenes featurette Into the Pit. Hardware special features, that we all love from Second Sight’s limited-edition sets, come with that rigid box slipcase with new artwork by commercial illustrator Adam Stothard, a 120-page new essay book with contributions by Eugenio Ercolani and Gian Giacomo, Alexandra Heller-Nicholas, Josh Hutardo, Jolene Richardson, Shelagh Rowan-Legg, and Thomas Watson, and six collectors’ art cards to round out the contents in a nice tight and quietly opulent sensational packaging. The region free UHD and region B set is UK certified 18 for strong blood violence and gore with a runtime of 95 minutes.

Last Rites: This new and limited edition “Green Room” release is red hot and the deserving, contemporary thriller, the last for the gone-too-soon Anton Yelchin, couldn’t have been better curated by a more devil-in-the-detail and fan-focused label of Second Sight Films.

“Green Room” Now Available on a 4K UHD and Blu-ray Limited Edition Release. Purchase Here!

Conman Bites Off More EVIL Than He Can Chew. “Impulse” reviewed! (Grindhouse Releasing / Blu-ray)

Posted by Steven Lewis on

Pre-Order “Impulse” Here at Amazon!

As a boy, Matt Stone had an altercation that resulted in the transfixing death of a man at his hands.  As an adult years later after a sanitarium stint, Stone seduces wealthy women as a sophisticated and well-off playboy, using the cultured guise as way to con women out of thousands of dollars, and then murders them when has milked them for all their worth or when their patience for his extravagant and philandering behavior has run it’s course.  When he meets widow Ann Moy, Stone begins his plan of deceit, eyeing not only the single mother for her riches but also Ann’s even more affluent and eccentric best friend Julia.   Stone’s scheme begins to unravel when a strong-arming ex-partner unexpected show up to force into his ploy, his mental instability flares into paranoia and near psychosis, and then there’s rambunctious Tina, Ann’s young daughter who even though doesn’t want Stone to replace her deceased father also witnesses firsthand Stone’s violent transgressions. 

Personally, when William Shatner comes into the conversation about anything, “Star Trek” inevitable pops into the mind first thing.  “Star Trek” and “Captain Kirk” have become not only a household name for Trekkies but also for the non-science fiction laymen who rather get lost in, dare I say, rom-coms.  Shudder.  Diehard horror fans know Shatner is more than just the charismatic space explorer seducing alien women, karate chopping the Gorn, and become inundated with the furry Tribble.  The now 92-year-old Canadian born Shatner has sporadically yet constantly been the star of thrillers for much of his career, such as 1966’s “Incubus,” 1975’s “The Devil’s Rain,” and even the more recent 2019’s “Devil’s Revenge” with fluctuating, polarizing success.  Yet, one of Shatner’s engrossingly more disturbing performances comes from director William Grefé’s (“Mako:  The Jaws of Death”) 1974 schizo-thriller “Impulse.”  Penned by “Blood Mania” and “The Killing Kind’s” Tony Crechales, “Impulse” was filmed in Tampa, Florida under Conquerer Films with Socrates Ballis in his first producing role.

What most don’t realize about William Shatner, from their limited scope of him inside just “Star Trek,” is the man has range and can accomplish more complexity than just being confident space captain.  “Impulse” really drives Shatner to split hairs and be a polygonal persona, one that goes into deep anxiety at the sight of blood or extreme violence, one that can polished and suave in charm and romance, and one that can be ruthless and cunning.  All these traits fit into Shatner’s performance bubble of Matt Stone, chiseling each angle of the traumatized encoded individual into a wolf in sheep’s clothing in constant conflict with himself and those around him.  With the exception of Tina, those around Stone are targets as he swoons Anne Moy (Jennifer Bishop, “Horror of the Blood Monster”) and Julia Marstow (Ruth Roman, “The Baby”) of their money.  Anne and Julie feed into Stone’s false promises and hidden agendas and, as characters, Bishop and Marstow play their diverse friendship with traditional flare that can be easily duped by a stranger from off the street and barely know.  Tina is the only wildcard.  With the look like Heather O’Rourke and a prickly preteen attitude, Kim Nicholas falls in tune with the boy who cried wolf but, in this instance, as the girl who cried wolf as she becomes the aware adolescent privy to a fault to Stone’s dangerous side.  Agitated by the loss of her father and her mother’s effortless slip into a physical relationship, not to forget to mention her impish naughtiness, turns Tina into an incredible source, labeled spiteful, and angry at the world despite her true knowledge of her own world burning down around her with Matt Stone at the wheel.  “Impulse” rounds out the cast with James Dobson (“The Search for the Evil One”), Marcia Knight (“Stanley”), Shatner’s then wife Marcy Lafferty (“Kingdom of the Spiders”), and James Bond’s Odd-Job himself, the former heavy weight wrestler Harold Sakata as the ex-partner Karate Pete crashing Stone’s scam.

William Grefé steers childhood trauma to be the root cause that shapes Matt Stone into a cold and calculating killer.  While not driven to be a rabid dog seeking to kill on sight, the sweet and innocent child only protecting his mother from the potentially rapist hand of a drunken brute had not only been scarred by the incident but also incited his mother to institutionally commit him as if assigning him blameful wrongdoing, extenuating his reality into a woman hating deviant.  And the worst part of it is, and the part that Grefé is able to define and make Stone be sympathetic to audiences, is Stone knows he shouldn’t have been deinstitutionalized, as he more than once referred to his situation as a puppy left out in the middle of the street.  Then, does “Impulse” become more of a tragedy for our principal villain as an unfortunate byproduct of a catastrophic situation, an ill fit mother, and a system that have all let him spiral down to this point in the story?  The only individual to see through his ruse, in fact, is another child, Tina, with a child’s sixth sense in their melting pot of developing emotions.  The social niceties and grown-up cognitive reasoning shield Anne Moy, Julia Marstow, and others, and even to an extent the unscrupulous brute Karate Pete, from Stone’s devious nature and his will to survive at any cost, no matter who he has to kill whether be a lover, former partner, or a little girl. 

The new Grindhouse Releasing, the first through the distribution firm MVD, is a 2-disc Blu-ray release restored from a rare archived, 35mm film elements.  The original negative was unfortunately destroyed and the restored, 4K scanned print comes with a prologue disclaimer that some elements may not be up to quality standards.  However, the print, on the March 12th Blu-ray release now available for pre-order, looks stellar, stored on an AVC encoded, 1080p High-Definition, BD50, and presented in a widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio, with only a few noticeable scratches, faint to the eye, in a few brief frames within the natural grain.  Grading can appear monochromatic gray in some exterior scenes but the overall grading pops and are distinct in natural-looking shading. We can also look at Grefé’s direction and Edmund Gibson’s cinematography as just as striking as the picture quality with brazen, worth-while shots that include an interior car shot aimed toward the windshield heading toward a watery grave. The English language original mono track, for a single channel output, clears the bar with room to spare with intelligible, comprehensive dialogue, capturing every word and sentence distinct and syllabized to great detail without too much interference, technically and from layering. Slight popping and background electronic interference never engulfs or take the reins over the layers. Decent spacing and a good range, supported by the Lewis Perles lingering unhinged musical composition, adds value to Shatner and the casts’ performances. Grindhouse Releasing Blu-ray also comes with the original mono French soundtrack. English subtitles are optionally available. Loaded with special features with a William Grefé audio commentary, Shatner Between the Treks a Ballyhoo produced documentary regarding Shatner’s various projects before, after, and in-between, Kingdom of the Shatner is a William Shatner live interview in Santa Monica in Oct. ’22 after a Shatner triple feature, Shatner promo shorts, William Grefé shorts “Thumbs,” “Iceman,” “The Cask of Amontillado,” and “Underwood,” a making-of “Impulse,” the 40th anniversary screening at the Tampa Theater with William Grefé post-film discussion, the raw footage of Shatner saving Harold Sakata from accidental lynching with two commentaries from Grefé and Shatner, still gallery, two theatrical trailers, and other trailers from Grindhouse Releasing titles. Also included are bonus Grefé features, including “The Devil’s Sisters that has its own special features with an introduction, Grefé audio commentary, radio spot, still gallery, and a revisiting of the film from the director, plus “The Godmothers” with only an intro by Grefé. Grindhouse Releasing’s “Impulse” is truly a lovefest of the two Bills, Grefé and Shatner, and the label really goes the extra mile with a deluxe edition and restored release with a character and title embossed, fully colorized, and rigid cardboard sleeve with a clear, dual disc push lock Amaray Blu-ray case sporting the originally illustrated, composition cover art that’s also reversible with the same sleave cover design that’s utter madness on printed cardboard. Inside, the discs are locked in on the right, one on top of the other with the top disc snuggly in behind the feature disc in a vertical layout, and both disc arts are rendered with pulpy aesthetics and primary colored, yet darkened feature stills for full fear effect. Opposite in the insert section, a 4×6 illustrated liner portrait of Matt Stone painted by artist Dave Lebow, and a 6-page linear note booklet with color pictures, grindhouse posters, and an essay by Jacques Boyreau. The 87-minute Blu-ray comes region free and is not rated.

Last Rites: The tale of two Bills, Shatner and Grefé, is a match made in heaven, or, better yet, a match made in demented evil with “Impulse” and Grindhouse Releasing stuns with a fully loaded, supersized, and Shatner-stuffed 2-Disc release that puts the film rightfully up on a grandstand pedestal.

Pre-Order “Impulse” Here at Amazon!

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.